Page 46 of Magical Mayhem

“Honestly, Maeve,” she said as Skonk tripped over a root and sent us all staggering, “you have a knack for collecting strays. Dogs, goblins, cursed wolves, and now this one.”

I bit down on my frustration. “Stella, push. My dad was not a stray, and neither was Twobble, and Keegan just came with the town.”

“And Gideon?” She made a show of sighing before adjusting her shawl, but when she bent to grab Gideon’s other arm from me, her strength startled me.

It should have been funny, all of us tripping and muttering, shoving at branches and apologizing when someone got whacked in the face with a vine. But I couldn’t laugh. Not fully. Not with Keegan’s face in my mind, pale and sweating, shadows creeping into his eyes little by little.

The curse was changing him. I’d seen it in moments so small they almost didn’t matter…flashes of jealousy when he never used to care who spoke to me, worries about things that never would have crossed his mind before. He’d been pulling shadows into his ribs without realizing, cell by cell, and now… now I was sneaking Gideon into his hotel.

Would he understand?

The thought tore through me as surely as any branch I stumbled into. Would Keegan ever forgive me for this? Forneeding Gideon as much as I needed him? For seeing the threads of their lives twined so tightly that if one snapped, the other would follow?

The goblins bickered as they walked backward, hauling Gideon by his boots after we changed up a bit.

“Don’t let his head drag. It’ll knock loose what little sense he has left,” Twobble complained. “And hold onto that boot.”

“Don’t tell me how to drag,” Skonk retorted. “I invented dragging.”

“You invented aggravation,” Twobble muttered.

Bella let out a low growl. “Quiet. Both of you.”

I almost smiled. Almost.

It took what felt like forever to reach the edge of the Wilds. Branches clawed at us, vines tangled around Gideon’s limbs as if the forest itself wanted to keep him. At one point Stella stopped entirely to glare at a patch of mushrooms pulsing faintly red.

“They’re laughing,” she announced.

“Move,” Bella hissed, straining under Gideon’s deadweight.

By the time the trees thinned and the Academy’s towers shimmered in view, we were all sweating and disheveled, and Gideon looked no better than when we started.

That was when Stella disappeared. One moment she was with us, shawl swaying, the next she had turned toward the Academy with a toss of her hair. “I’ll fetch us a way into the inn. Don’t let him collapse in the rhododendrons. I’ll be right back.”

I had no idea how long she had been gone. Long enough that my arms ached from bracing Gideon, long enough that guiltspiraled tighter in my chest. Every step brought me closer to betraying Keegan and closer to the only chance of saving him.

Finally, Stella returned, as immaculate as if she’d been to tea instead of smuggling a key from under Ember’s nose. She dangled the bronze ring between two fingers with a flourish.

“Here we are,” she said. “A room key.”

I stared. “Ember… gave it to you?”

“Gladly,” Stella replied, lips curling into a knowing smirk. “All for the cause, right? That’s what she said. In fact, she excused herself from the Academy to prepare a room for the guest.

“Did you tell her who it was for?” I asked.

“Didn’t really have to,” Stella said, glancing at me.

She knew…

“As fast as Ember works, she will probably be done preparing the room before we get him out of the Wilds. She teased me, even. Which means Keegan’s worse than before, or she’d never hand over something this dangerous without an argument.”

My heart clenched.

“Worse?” Bella echoed, her voice tight.

Stella’s painted smile didn’t falter, but her eyes softened. “Yes. He’s slipping faster. Which means your little plan to use this one,” she gestured to Gideon’s slumped form, “has to work. Because without it, Stonewick has no chance.”