Page 14 of Magical Mirage (Stonewick Magical Midlife Witch Academy #6)

The echo of our footsteps followed us through the corridor faster than we’d meant to walk, but not fast enough to feel like running. That would’ve made it real. That would’ve made us panic.

And Nova and I weren’t panicking.

Not yet.

The air in the Academy had shifted, though. You could feel it in the chill just beneath your skin, in the way the enchanted torches flickered unevenly along the arched walls. The deeper we walked, the more the light dimmed, not in darkness, but in tension.

I caught her glance as we passed the mural of ancient Stonewick.

“It’s still above us,” I said, not asking.

Nova nodded once. “It’s moving with us.”

It should’ve been absurd. A creature, no, a presence, pacing us on top of the roof? But nothing about Stonewick was ordinary, and after last night, I’d learned to stop arguing with the impossible.

What scared me wasn’t the shadow. It was the way the maple sapling folded . Not like it had seen something new, but like it had recognized something ancient. Something it had survived once before.

The moment we passed into the main corridor, I felt the shift again. Only this time, it wasn’t magical. It was the warmth of bodies. Breath. Voices.

We weren’t alone.

A low murmur pulled us around the bend, where the doors opened to the main grounds. The sky beyond the terrace had dimmed unnaturally. Several kitchen sprites came out to see what was shadowing our world.

It wasn’t a storm or dusk, but an odd flatness, a grayish bruise crawling across the edge of the clouds.

Below, where the hill sloped into the Butterfly Ward, shadows crept. But they weren’t cast by the sun. Rather, against it. Great, slow-moving blots of shape and flicker that moved across roofs and trees with no creature to own them as they sprawled across Stonewick.

And clustered along the overlook’s balustrade, voices hushed, were the women who rarely gathered without cause. Lady Limora, Mara, Vivienne, and Opal stared at the sky.

Stella’s cloak billowed despite the stillness of the air, deep plum velvet shimmering as she gestured sharply to Ardetia, who stood like wind-touched glass, head tilted to the sky.

Bella was perched on the edge of the stone railing, arms crossed tight, her fox tail twitching at the end like a fuse just short of fire. Ember hovered near her, flickering in and out of full form, her glow dimmed like a lantern burning on last night’s oil.

They all turned as Nova and I stepped outside.

“Took you long enough,” Stella said, voice dry as ever. “We were about to send in a flying teacup to retrieve you.”

“You felt it too,” I said, not needing to clarify what it was.

“Oh, it’s hard to miss,” Bella replied. “One of the students felt like she’s being listened to, but she hadn’t said a word.”

“She wasn’t wrong,” Ember murmured. “There’s something near them, listening to their unspoken words and thoughts.”

“Flying?” I asked. “Floating?”

Ardetia shook her head. “Not exactly. Not like wings. Like… a ripple. A veil shifting, but on the wrong side of the world.”

The sky overhead brightened for the briefest second, just enough to outline one of the shadows gliding across a rooftop near the property’s edge.

Its outline was blurred, as if the eye couldn’t quite decide what shape to give it.

“What is it?” Bella asked, turning to Nova.

Nova didn’t answer right away. Instead, she raised her eyes toward the rolling gray sky, her jaw tightening.

“We saw something in the Maple Ward,” I said. “Above the glass, slithering over the dome.”

Ember’s light flickered blue for a heartbeat, the sign of a haunt startled beyond the veil.

“No one can walk the dome,” Stella said. “It’s protected ten times over. Even the gargoyles can’t perch there.”

“Well, someone didn’t get that memo,” I replied, hugging my arms across my chest.

“You saw it,” Ardetia said slowly, voice thin. “Did it look back?”

“Yes,” I whispered, realizing it felt as if it were watching.

It hadn’t had eyes in the traditional sense, not that I could see. But it had seen me. I felt it even now, a quiet burn behind the ribs, like something had tagged me with its gaze.

“And then the sapling curled in on itself like it was hiding,” I added.

That drew silence from all of them.

The sapling never curled. It only grew or held.

Ember’s flicker steadied, and her gaze went to Nova. “You think it’s connected to the curse?”

Nova’s jaw flexed, but she nodded. “Everything is connected now. But this feels older. This feels like something that remembers what we forgot.”

Another shadow passed overhead, casting the overlook into momentary gloom. The town below stirred. Lights came on in homes that didn’t need them. The bell in the far clock tower rang a beat late, as if caught off guard.

“Do you think it’s sent from Shadowick?” I asked.

“Unsure of its origin,” Nova said, fastening her eyes on mine.

Stella huffed. “Well, if it’s going to menace us, it could at least have the decency to come closer so we can hex it properly.”

Ardetia gave a quiet, bitter laugh. “I’m not sure it plays by hexing rules.”

I watched the shadows drift over the trees, slow and soundless, and I felt the same chill I’d felt when Malore showed up.

No noise. No howl. Just knowing something terrible had arrived.

“We need to warn the rest of the magical folk,” I said.

“We will,” Nova replied. “But first, we figure out if it’s watching you , Maeve, or something inside the Academy.”

“Like Keegan?”

The others looked at me. My stomach turned.

Because I wasn’t sure which would be worse.

The shadows moved like thought. There one moment and gone the next.

Below us, Stonewick held its breath. Curtains fluttered where people had peeked out and now pulled away.

Lamps were being lit too early. The birds were silent.

The wind, when it came, didn’t touch your skin so much as pass through you.

That was the part I couldn’t shake. The way the air felt like it belonged to someone else bothered me most.

“Who could do this?” Bella whispered, more to herself than anyone else. “It’s not storm magic. It’s too quiet.”

“But it does feel like clouds…” Ardetia shivered.

Grandma Elira cleared her throat from the threshold. Her blue robes trailed like smoke. Her silver braid, usually pinned in strict coils, had half-loosened around her shoulders. Her pace was urgent, not rushed, but full of purpose. And beside her, was my dad.

Frank.

In his bulldog form.

His eyes found me immediately, and I expected a smile.

Relief. A flicker of comfort. But instead, I saw something tighten behind his gaze.

Recognition. Not shock. Memory.

And something darker beneath it.

“Elira,” Nova said with a nod, stepping forward.

“Nova,” Elira returned. “The Maple Ward?”

“Disturbed.”

“I felt it,” she said grimly. “The land woke me early.”

Frank came to stand just behind her, legs stout, but his attention was not on Nova or the others.

It was in the sky, and he was sniffing in the air.

“I know this,” he said quietly.

My eyes darted to his as shock rolled through me. “You can talk?”

His floppy chops fell into a smirk, and he barked at the sky before turning his gaze back to me.

“What do you mean, you know this ?” My brows lifted as I tried to reconcile that my bulldog dad could speak, and had he always been able to?

He blinked and continued, “I need a moment with you. Alone.”

Stella cracked her knuckles, her rings catching a flash of reflected light.

“I’m headed to town to do a quick walkthrough.

I’m not interested in babysitting an ancient doom on my tea break, but I do want to make sure my tea shop is in order and the tourists just think it’s a typical Midwest thunderstorm in summer. ”

“Bella and I will check the Wards,” Ardetia added. “If anything comes through those trees, we’ll know it.”

Nova looked to me, eyes lingering. “Be cautious.”

“I always am,” I lied.

They moved as one, a practiced rhythm among magical beings who had walked through enough fire to know how to avoid screaming.

Ember drifted into the Academy and up the stairs.

“Have you always been able to talk as a bulldog?” I asked, curiosity nipping at me.

His flat snout wrinkled more. “Yes.”

Shock trickled through me as I stared at the bulldog in front of me.

“Then why didn’t you?”

“The only person I spoke with was Keegan. I didn’t feel…” His voice trailed off.

“Didn’t feel what?”

“Worthy.”

His words dug deep like a dagger. “You’ve always been worthy, Dad.”

“I wish I could say that I always felt that way, but between being disowned by my father, kicked from a clan, and then cursed to remain in my shifter form all these years, it got to me.”

I knelt and nodded. “I understand, Dad. I do. I just hope you know that you’ve been more of a man than any of these imbeciles trying to destroy Stonewick.”

“I understand that now. It’s why I wanted to shift back to my form, show them that I had a choice, and I chose to be a bulldog because I’m not ashamed. I will never be ashamed of who I am and the form I was given.”

I squeezed him so hard and felt tears prick my eyes. “You’re amazing.”

“Not as amazing as you,” he snorted like his bulldog self.

“I have to confess I missed my bulldog companion, but I’m glad you can talk.” I shook my head and stood. “I just can’t believe you hid it from me all these months.”

“Timing is everything.” My dad waited until the last of the witches vanished past the property before bringing the conversation back to what was forming outside.

“You saw it,” he said as we walked deeper into the Academy.

I nodded. “I think we all did.”

“But you saw it.”

“Yes.”

His ears lowered slightly. “And it saw you.”

I didn’t want to admit that part, but I nodded again.

He stepped closer and rested a paw on my foot. “Maeve, I need you to think carefully. Really remember. Before it showed up, did you feel anything?”

I blinked. “Just… unease. The way you feel when someone is watching from behind a mirror.”

He nodded like that confirmed something.

“Dad,” I said softly. “What aren’t you saying?”

He looked toward the sky again, where the shape was now gone, leaving only gray behind the Academy’s threshold.

He turned back to me, and his eyes held a haunted expression. I hadn’t seen it before, even with everything we’d been through. And seeing this expression from his big bulldog eyes hit harder somehow.

I closed the Academy doors, and I let out a heavy sigh.

“There’s something you should’ve been told a long time ago,” he said. “About what happened the night the Academy sealed…”

The floor creaked softly behind us.

We both turned, but the corridor was empty.

The silence stretched between us. My father had never looked at me like this before, not even the day he first turned human again. This look… this was deeper. Older.

It was like a memory was hiding behind his eyes, afraid to speak aloud.

And that terrified me more than whatever shadow still lingered above.

“What do you mean?” I whispered, voice thin with dread.

My dad’s eyes flicked toward the windows again, watching the clouded sky.

“The day it happened,” he said, slowly, “the Wards didn’t just fail to protect. They were turned .”

My blood went cold.

“What?”

He didn’t answer. Not right away. His paw had dropped from my shin, but he hadn’t moved. His eyes had gone distant, staring not at the ceiling now but at something far behind it. Behind years. Behind me.

My heart thudded. “What was it?”

He inhaled sharply, as if the very memory burned going down.

“It didn’t have a name. Or if it did, no one dared say it. But it walked above us, between the spires. And wherever it passed, the magic changed.”

He turned to me, and in that moment, he looked older than I had ever seen him.

“The light dimmed,” he said. “The Wards bent in unnatural directions. The gargoyles couldn’t fly. They… cracked. Some froze mid-air and shattered.”

I clutched my arms. I couldn’t breathe properly. “Why didn’t anyone ever tell me?”

“Because Grandma Elira made me swear not to. She believed the Academy had to forget in order to heal. If we fed the story, the fear would never stop. But then she became trapped in the Academy. And then when I was cursed…” His voice faltered. “It felt like the secret had buried me. ”

“She was protecting Malore,” I whispered.

“Possibly. I think,” he said, quieter now, “I think that thing, whatever you saw through the window, it’s the same thing that walked the roof that night. The one we all agreed never existed.”

The hallway around us seemed to pull inward, narrowing with the weight of what he’d said.

“But it’s back,” I said. “It’s moving again.”

He nodded once. “And it’s watching you. ”

I staggered back a step. “Why me?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But…”

Something flickered.

The corridor lights, glowing softly in their sconces, sputtered and dimmed.

A breeze, sharp and cold, rushed down the hall from nowhere.

“Maeve,” My dad said tightly, his paw going to my foot. “We need to. Then he stopped.

His bulldog legs went rigid.

I followed his gaze and froze.

At the end of the corridor, shadows had thickened through the window, but not in darkness. It felt as if something waited inside the shadow itself.

I couldn’t see it, but something stood there.

Watching.

The figure was tall and thin, with gangly limbs that were too long, as if they’d forgotten how to bend. A flicker of silver along the spine flickered faintly, just enough to make my stomach drop.

“Dad,” I whispered, gripping his wrist.

But he didn’t move.

His breath caught.

And then…

The lights flared once, all at once, and the shape vanished.

The corridor stood empty, with only the rush of blood in my ears telling me I hadn’t imagined it.

“I need to show you something,” he said. “Something I’ve kept hidden since before you were born.”

“Where?”

But he didn’t answer.

He was already moving.

And I knew whatever was coming next… had been waiting for a very long time.