Page 36 of Magical Mayhem (Stonewick Magical Midlife Witch Academy #7)

The corridor felt too narrow, as if the walls themselves leaned closer to witness what was about to unfold. Shadows pooled along the stones, twitching like restless dogs. My heart was thundering so loud I wondered if anyone else could hear it.

Grandma Elira stepped quietly from the corridor, her form shimmering with the faint glow of the Academy’s magic.

She came to stand beside Keegan’s mother—silver-haired, proud, and unbearably still. Together, the two women looked like the embodiment of past and present, the roots and the branches of a tree I wasn’t sure could stand the upcoming storm.

Beside me, Twobble scowled as though he’d rather be anywhere else, while Skonk’s grin, sharp as a knife, had lost none of its devilish edge, though he shuffled his feet uncomfortably close to Keegan as if ready to hold him up if he fell.

And Keegan… Keegan’s hazel eyes blazed.

“Don’t.” His voice was low, tight with the fury of years left unspoken. He took a step forward, muscles trembling with restraint. “Don’t you dare try to talk to me like…like nothing happened.”

His mother’s lips parted, but he cut her off with a snarl that vibrated down my bones. His wolf was close, closer than I’d ever seen it, prowling just under his skin. His hands clenched into fists, his whole body trembling with the urge to shift.

But he would not survive.

“You left,” he spat. “You and him. Both of you. You abandoned me. You abandoned Stonewick. You left us to fight Shadowick alone.”

The words echoed through the hall, bouncing back at us like knives.

She flinched slightly but lifted her chin.

“I—” Her voice faltered, and for the first time, I saw something in her that wasn’t power. It was hesitation. Weakness. “I knew I had to stay away. It was the way of the Hunger Path.”

The phrase made my stomach twist. It rang hollow even as it rolled off her tongue.

Keegan’s eyes narrowed, his breath coming sharp and fast.

“Not true,” he growled, every syllable threaded with barely contained rage. “You can say that now because it fits the storyline. You’re telling yourself excuses.”

Her face tightened, but she didn’t deny it.

Keegan shook his head violently, pacing a step as if the ground itself burned under his boots.

“You weren’t there. You don’t know what it was like. I watched Stonewick crumble. I watched families tear themselves apart and magic fall. And you…” His voice cracked, but the fury carried him. “You weren’t there.”

Every word scraped at me, raw and jagged. I wanted to reach for him, to anchor him, but I knew better. This wasn’t mine to soften. This was his wound, and it was bleeding in the open at last.

His mother’s lips pressed together. She looked away for a moment, and when she turned back, her eyes glistened faintly. “Your father believed—”

“Don’t.” Keegan’s snarl cut her like a blade. “Don’t you dare use him as a shield. You were just as guilty.”

His mother’s mouth opened, then closed again. Her throat bobbed, but no words came.

And then Keegan’s voice dropped, quieter, heavier than before. “What about him? Where is he?”

The silence that followed was unbearable.

She looked at him, her mouth trembling open once, then shutting again. The words wouldn’t come. Her eyes darted down, away from his.

That was when my grandma moved.

She reached across the space, her hand finding Keegan’s mother’s.

“Your father,” Elira said, her tone steady but aching, “is no longer with us on this plane.”

The world seemed to tilt.

Keegan froze. His breath hitched so sharply it was a wound all on its own.

“What?” His voice was ragged, broken in a way I’d never heard before.

“Gone,” his mom said gently, though her eyes shimmered with her own sorrow. “He left this world long ago.”

Keegan stumbled back a step, his face twisting between shock and horror. A raw, guttural sound tore from his chest, somewhere between a snarl and a groan. He slammed a fist against the wall, the stone shuddering with the impact.

“You knew,” he whispered, his voice frayed. His hazel eyes snapped to his mother. “You knew, and you left me wondering. For years. For decades. You could have returned. You could have told me.”

Her lips parted, but still, no answer came. Only the shimmer of tears she refused to let fall.

I took a step toward him, my own chest aching with the force of it. “Keegan—”

He shook his head violently, his shoulders rising and falling like a storm barely held in check, but he no longer looked worn down. “No. Don’t. Don’t touch me. Don’t tell me it’s all right. Nothing about this is all right.”

Twobble shuffled, looking wildly between us all, noticing Keegan’s sudden spike in energy and strength.

“Well,” he muttered, “this is awkward.”

Skonk elbowed him sharply, his grin gone.

But none of that touched the moment.

Keegan’s fury filled the corridor, raw and unbridled, and I could feel the shadows pressing closer as if Malore himself wanted to taste it.

His hazel eyes blazed, flickering with the wolf fighting to burst free.

And in that silence, in that unbearable pause, I realized that we were running out of time.

Not just with the curse. Not just with Gideon. But with Keegan.

With the prospect of unity.

Because grief like this doesn’t wait for the right moment. It breaks you open, whether the battle is finished or not.

And if we couldn’t find a way to stitch these wounds before Malore came again, we might not survive the next strike.

The corridor hummed with silence so sharp it might have cut stone.

I didn’t know what to say or do. My heart still thundered in my chest, torn between wanting to reach for Keegan and wanting to shield him from more wounds. Twobble muttered something under his breath about needing pie in moments like these, and Skonk elbowed him into blessed silence.

Then Stella swept in.

Her shawl trailed behind her, bracelets jingling sharp as bells, her lips pressed tight in a way that made the air itself stand straighter.

She stopped dead in the middle of us all, taking in the tableau—the silver-haired woman, Elira’s spectral glow, Keegan barely holding himself upright, and the two goblins skulking like children caught with stolen sweets.

“What in the ever-loving names of tea and tartlets is going on here?” Stella demanded.

“Family drama,” Twobble blurted before I could speak, his crumbs scattering like confetti. “You know, the usual.”

Stella’s eyes snapped to him, sharper than a knife. “Family drama?”

Twobble wilted, tugging his collar. “Uh, yes? Don’t worry, we were just about to braid each other’s hair and sing lullabies.”

“Twobble,” I hissed, mortified.

But Stella ignored me. She scowled at him so fiercely that even Skonk shuffled back half a step, and her gaze cut to me, cool and unflinching.

“Maeve,” she said, her tone stripped of its usual dramatic flourish. “Have you not seen the skies? Have you not looked out the windows?”

I blinked, my stomach dropping like a stone into water. I’d been so consumed with Keegan, with his mother, with the revelations clawing their way through us, that I hadn’t looked outside once.

Twobble, however, threw his arms wide with a flourish. “Uh, we’ve been a bit busy here trying to hammer out some family issues.”

“Twobble!” I warned.

Stella didn’t so much as blink. “Drama is a luxury we don’t have time for right now.”

Something in her tone set my nerves jangling. I turned fully toward her, pressing my palm against the wall to steady myself. “What do you mean?”

Was that why Keegan felt the pull?

Stella’s eyes softened, just slightly, when they met mine. Then she stepped closer, lowering her voice so the words landed squarely between us, though everyone leaned in to hear them anyway.

“Malore is getting restless.”

The name hissed like steam through the corridor, and the air grew colder in its wake.

My stomach clenched, a fist tightening deep inside.

“Restless?” I asked, though the dread already twisted thick in my throat.

Stella nodded, her bracelets clinking with the motion. “The skies are splitting like seams under strain. His face has been flickering in the fog above Stonewick for the last ten minutes. He’s pressing harder, testing the Wards.”

I glanced instinctively toward Keegan. His hazel eyes were still wild, his fists clenched, his jaw locked tight. He hadn’t spoken, but I could see the way the word Malore had landed in him like salt on an open wound.

“And that’s not all,” Stella went on. Her gaze flicked to the end of the hall, toward the inn, toward the secret I’d already confessed to Keegan.

My mouth went dry. “What else?”

She hesitated, and that hesitation terrified me more than her words. Stella never hesitated.

I forced my voice steady. “Stella. What else?”

Her eyes met mine. The usual wry sparkle was gone, replaced by something grim and unyielding.

“Gideon is getting restless, too,” she said.

The words punched the breath right out of me. My stomach clenched so hard I doubled forward slightly, pressing my hand to it as if that could stop the ache.

“Is he…?” My voice faltered. I tried again, swallowing past the lump in my throat. “Is Gideon weakening?”

For half a heartbeat, I prayed she’d say yes. That the curse was simply wearing him down, that whatever Malore had tethered inside him was failing at last. That we had more time.

But Stella shook her head, the sharp movement of it slicing through any hope I had left.

“Worse,” she said.

The corridor seemed to tilt, the air thick with waiting. I heard Skonk swallow loudly, Twobble muttering what sounded suspiciously like a prayer to baked goods.

“Worse?” I whispered.

Stella’s eyes didn’t leave mine. Her voice came steady, but the weight of it hit like thunder.

“He’s awakening.”

I eyed Keegan and realized he was strengthening, too.

The silence that followed was deafening. My skin went cold, my heart hammering as the words rooted into me like thorns.

“Who is with him?” I panicked.

“Ember and Lady Limora.”

I nodded.

Awakening.

Not dying. Not slipping away. Not breaking under the weight of Malore’s curse.

Awakening.

And I knew, with a certainty that made my knees weak, that this was worse than any weakening. Because if Gideon was awakening, it meant the darkness Malore had sewn into him was stirring, stretching, ready to rise again.

Gideon and Keegan were merely the puppets, but I didn’t know what would happen if the string snapped.

I gripped the wall harder, as my thoughts spun like loose threads, fraying at the edges. Keegan’s mother inhaled sharply, my grandma’s gaze steadied on me, and Keegan himself growled low in his throat, the sound sending chills down my spine.

Gideon was awakening.

And whatever that meant, Stonewick wasn’t ready.

Not yet.