Page 11 of Magical Mirage (Stonewick Magical Midlife Witch Academy #6)

Keegan stirred beside me just as the first gray stretch of light crept through the mended drapes. I felt it in the way his breath caught, the subtle shift of muscle under my palm.

His heartbeat still thudded faster than it should have, but the edges of it no longer felt ragged.

He blinked slowly, then gave me a look halfway between awe and fatigue.

“I’m not dead,” he said, voice gravelly.

I smiled and chuckled. “You sound disappointed.”

“I’m not. Just… surprised.”

I laughed harder and shook my head. “You have a way with words.”

He smirked and shrugged. “I’m just shocked, that’s all.”

“You shouldn’t be surprised. You survived worse than last night.”

He rolled onto his back, eyes fixed on the ceiling. “I don’t know if I have, not in this condition.”

That silenced me for a moment. I didn’t want to ask what, exactly, had been worse, what pain had gone unnamed, what memory still lingered in the hollows behind his eyes.

I didn’t have to. I’d felt it. The curse wasn’t just in his body.

It was in his history, wound through his bloodline like a barbed thread.

And now it was tightening.

“We need to get to the Academy,” I said.

He nodded, slowly. “You think your grandma will know what last night meant?”

“I’m hoping she knows how to stop it. He may be my grandfather, but she’s the only one who knows him.”

He sat up, grunting slightly, and ran a hand through his hair. The wound at his shoulder had closed, but left behind a bruise the color of a storm. “And if she doesn’t?”

“Beats me.”

He laughed at that, quiet, but real, and it filled something in me I hadn’t realized had gone hollow.

We didn’t talk much as we gathered what we needed. The cottage still smelled of cracked stone and old magic, but it held.

The air was damp and heavy, even though it was summer. Keegan walked slowly, but steadily, leaning into me when the incline from the garden made his knees threaten rebellion. He didn’t speak, but his jaw was set and determined, not reckless.

“I know the path to the Academy isn’t long,” I said as we stepped into the tree line. “But…”

“But?” he asked, breath catching.

“Let’s not walk it.”

He arched an eyebrow.

I turned toward the shed, and he followed. I gave the door a soft nudge with my palm, and it shifted, revealing the black hole farther in.

“The goblin tunnels,” I said.

He stared at the opening, then at me. “Have you been in them recently?”

“No. Why? Do you know something I don’t?” I teased. “Aren’t you up for a glow-in-the-dark adventure?”

Keegan sighed. “Just a typical Tuesday in your life?”

I grinned. “You know it.”

The tunnel opened easily enough.

The moment we stepped into the cool, dark passageway, I summoned a soft light with the tip of my wand. It hovered above us like a patient firefly.

The air was thick with the scent of damp stone and old stories. Every time I went down here, I noticed something else.

The tunnel curved sharply, and for a moment, the shadows swallowed everything. Then the light shifted with soft, glowing, and strangely beautiful orbs.

I slowed, lifting my wand, but the faint, flickering glow didn’t come from me.

“Look,” I whispered.

The walls ahead shimmered with clusters of moss, luminescent, gold-green, and pulsing gently like breath.

It clung to the stone in thick veins, casting patterns that reminded me of veins in leaves or ripples on water.

Threads of bright pink and electric blue spidered through the moss like veins of magic itself. Goblin gold.

“It’s so much brighter than before.”

“I wonder if that means something.” Keegan moved beside me.

I wanted to reach out and touch, but I knew better.

Tiny sparks danced across the ceiling, neon pinpricks in the dark, like static magic gathering above our heads. I hadn’t seen those before either.

Everything felt newly awake.

The tunnel was still damp, narrow, and twisting, but it no longer felt abandoned. It felt watched.

And I couldn’t help but wonder if the goblin gold blooming now was some kind of omen.

Something in the deep magic shifting.

Something about to change.

Keegan followed close behind, with his hand brushing mine to steady himself. Every hundred feet or so, I’d glance at him. His lips were pale and sweat beaded on his brow, but he kept going.

“Slow down if you need to,” I murmured.

“I’ll make it.”

“I didn’t say you wouldn’t.”

He looked up, met my gaze, and something unspoken passed between us. Not defiance, but pride. Not stubbornness, but trust. He didn’t want to be carried, but he wasn’t pretending he was whole.

We moved through the dark in silence after that. Every step felt heavier the closer we drew to the Academy’s core. I couldn’t tell if it was the magic pressing down or the memory of what we were about to face.

I thought about the library. The long corridors of shelves, the enchanted scrolls that curled and hissed when read too quickly.

Somewhere in there, a book with answers waited.

I needed to know more. Not just about the curse, but about what Grandma Elira hadn’t written in the margins. What she’d left unsaid.

Because if she knew about Malore and the Hedge magic… if she’d known about me all along…

Keegan stumbled.

I caught his arm, steadied him.

“That’s enough,” I said. “We’re not sprinting into battle.”

He leaned against the tunnel wall, panting. “This curse…”

“I know.”

“It’s like my blood is eating itself. ”

I pressed a hand to his chest, feeling the quick beat of his heart. “Then let’s give it something it can’t chew through.”

He huffed. “Hope?”

“No,” I said. “Me.”

He leaned against me for a long moment, as the tunnel walls glimmered with that strange goblin gold, casting soft light over Keegan’s face. He looked too pale under it, though his eyes still held that steady, grounding heat I’d come to crave. He was pushing himself too much.

My hands found his jaw, rough with stubble, warm under my palms. His breath caught, and then mine did, too. When I kissed him, slow and deep, it made the cold and damp of the tunnel vanish entirely.

His lips softened against mine, that guarded strength melting until all I felt was him…

steady, solid, here . I lingered, letting the moment stretch, letting him breathe without pushing forward into the dark.

My fingertips traced the line of his neck, memorizing him like I’d never have another chance.

When I finally pulled back, he looked dazed in the best way, hazel eyes catching the moonlight. A faint smile tugged at his mouth.

“I see your tricks,” he murmured, voice low and rough.

“Then you’ll know I’m not sorry,” I said, and took his hand before we kept going until the stones beneath our feet changed. Smooth marble took the place of rough dirt. The air grew warmer, tinged with candle smoke and parchment.

We were finally on the Academy’s property.

Keegan straightened, jaw tight. “You still think we’ll find the answers?”

“No,” I said honestly. “But I think we’ll find the questions that matter most.”

He nodded with a chuckle. “You're finally getting the hang of how Stonewick works.”

“All riddles and even more hope,” I said, laughing as we climbed.

Even from here, the massive structure loomed like a slumbering cathedral, all ivy-covered towers and enchanted windows blinking slowly back to life after too many quiet decades.

Keegan squinted up at the sun-bleached archway, wiping a sheen of sweat from his brow. “Did it always feel that big?”

“No,” I said, tightening my grip around his waist as I helped him over a low root. “But you’re also just low on blood, bone, and ego.”

He grunted, but I saw the corner of his mouth twitch. He was trying to be steady, but every step took something out of him. The battle had drained him down to something more fragile than I’d seen before, less storm, more ember, but still burning.

There weren’t many students walking about.

Summer session was optional, and only the stubborn, the studious, or the magically cursed had stayed behind.

I spotted a pair of witches seated under the flowering ash trees, heads bent over a glowing puzzle orb.

One waved when she spotted us, but didn’t call out.

Maybe they could feel the exhaustion radiating off us like heat.

We were halfway across the main courtyard when a familiar voice shattered the peace.

“I told you the Ward didn’t want pickle juice poured on it! It’s a protective boundary, not a midnight snack!”

“I was experimenting with flavor-based runes!” came the sharp reply. “It could have worked, Skonk. You don’t know anything about acidic layering in Ward harmony!”

Twobble and Skonk stood in front of the Butterfly Ward, both of them waving their arms around like tiny disgruntled philosophers. The Ward itself shimmered behind them, pink and gold light humming faintly in the air. It looked unharmed.

Twobble noticed us first.

His entire body froze mid-gesture. Then his arms shot up dramatically. “Oh! Look who returns from the ashes of doom! Maeve! Keegan! Are you ghosts? Did you both die in some dramatic sacrifice and forget to tell me?”

Skonk rolled his eyes. “He’s been like this since lunch. Really on a roll.”

Twobble sprinted over, nearly tripping over his own cloak. “Actually…Wait, what happened to you?” he cried, circling Keegan as if looking for missing limbs. “You look like you died ten times last night and someone forgot to resurrect you on the last one!”

Keegan actually laughed. “That’s probably accurate.”

“He fought Malore,” I said, steadying Keegan as he leaned a little heavier into me.

Twobble’s jaw dropped. “ Malore? You had a showdown with the Nightmare Wolf King and didn’t call me?”

Skonk joined us, arms folded. “He would’ve gotten in the way.”

“I would’ve added dramatic weaponry!” Twobble snapped.

“Exactly.”

Keegan smiled faintly. “Appreciate the faith, both of you.”

Twobble placed one hand over his heart. “I could’ve flung enchanted truffles at him. They explode on contact, you know.”

“That sounds deeply unsafe,” I muttered.

“Oh, it is. That’s why I keep them in a sealed lunchbox.”

Skonk snorted. “You mean the one labeled, Not cursed truffles ? Real subtle.”

“Seriously, though, why didn’t you call for help?”

“It happened too fast,” I explained. “But we had help.”

Twobble perked up. “Help?”

“A wolf. Not one of ours. Bigger. Silver coat. Eyes like frostbite.”

Twobble blinked, then leaned forward, almost conspiratorially. “Did it talk?”

“No,” I said. “It fought Malore, then vanished.”

“Vanished how?”

“Into the woods.”

Twobble’s ears drooped slightly. “I really hate it when mysterious strangers appear just in time to save the day and don’t leave a forwarding address. It’s rude.”

Keegan shifted. The change in him was subtle, but I felt it as tension rose like a fresh bruise. He cleared his throat. “We need to get inside.”

I looked up at him. His jaw was clenched again, color draining fast. We’d pushed too far already.

“Right,” I said. “Let’s go.”

Twobble tilted his head. “Are we talking about the mysterious wolf later?”

“Maybe,” I said.

“Is that a ‘maybe yes’ or a ‘maybe I’ll set your boots on fire if you bring it up again’?”

I grinned over my shoulder. “You’ll find out.”

Skonk gave Twobble a smug look. “She said maybe. That’s your cue.”

“I don’t do well with cues. I needed directness.” Twobble huffed.

We left them behind at the Ward, still bickering as they inspected a leaf that may or may not have been hexed. I wasn’t sure I had the heart to tell them it was probably just a leaf.

As we crossed the Academy threshold, the magic stirred.

The stone underfoot warmed. The Academy knew us. It recognized me. It recognized Keegan, too.

The long hallway opened before us, familiar in a way that made my heart ache. The place smelled like ancient magic and hope.

Keegan’s steps slowed, his breathing rougher now.

“We’re close,” I whispered. “And then you can lie down.”

He didn’t speak, just nodded once, steadying himself with a hand on the cool wall.

I guided him down the corridor.

The wolves of last night were behind us.

But the truth?

That still lay ahead.