Page 65 of Magical Mayhem

Two figures entwined, one cloaked in light, the other in shadow. Between them burned a flame, fragile but bright.

Nova tilted her head. “Union. Choice. A bond that strengthens or destroys. It is not always about romance, Maeve. Sometimes it is about what pulls the soul, what it cannot turn from. This is not comfort, but a crossroads.”

My breath caught. Keegan. Gideon. Both were bound to me in ways I didn’t understand.

The third card:Death.

Not grim, not skeletal. The artwork depicted a lush garden overtaking crumbled stone, with blossoms pushing through the decay.

Nova’s voice dropped to a hush. “Transformation. Endings that make way for beginnings. It is the card of cycles, of necessary surrender. Something must fall so that something else may grow.”

My heart pounded. Endings. Transformation. Whose ending? Keegan’s? Gideon’s? Or mine? My dad’s?

My heart stuttered as the candles hissed in agreement. The flames stretched long, trembling shadows writhing against the walls as if they wanted out.

I wanted out. I couldn’t bear that kind of loss.

Nova set her palm lightly against the cards. “The Moon, the Lovers, Death. Illusion. Choice. Transformation. Together, they tell us: what you see is not what is. The ties between you and these men…” Her gaze lifted, steady on mine. “Are not what they appear. The choice is real, but so is the trickery.”

Her words tightened the air, the cards glowing faintly as though they pulsed with their own heartbeat.

And then the room itself shifted.

The shadows thickened, peeling away from the corners. They weren’t still anymore. They moved and crawled like smoke up the walls and across the ceiling. One candle snuffed out with a sharp hiss.

And another.

Nova’s staff clattered upright, called by some unseen hand. The crystals on her shelves vibrated with strain.

My breath caught. “Nova…”

“Stay still,” she commanded, her voice calm but taut.

She rose, staff glowing faintly green, pressing the butt into the floor. The runes stirred, with threads of silver lacing across the walls in a dazzling display of artistry and protection.

But the shadows outside writhed harder, testing them.

The shadows were trying to come in.

Nova’s gaze cut to me. Even in the candlelight, her eyes looked brighter, fiercer.

“They want the cards,” she murmured. “They want what was revealed.”

I snatched them up, clutching them to my chest. The Moon, the Lovers, Death…all trembling under my grip like living things.

The shadows recoiled, hissing, as if burned by the touch.

The air rang with silence, and my heart thundered with worry.

Nova struck the floor once with her staff. Light exploded from the crystal at its tip, sweeping outward in a wave.The testing shadows screeched, folding in on themselves, and vanished as though the walls had swallowed them.

The candles flared bright again, every wick blazing.

The silence broke with my own ragged gasp.

Nova lowered her staff, and her chest rose and fell as steadily as if she’d merely climbed a step.

She looked at me, calm but solemn.