Page 34 of Magical Mirage (Stonewick Magical Midlife Witch Academy #6)

“I saw enough,” Twobble replied, and for once, there wasn’t an ounce of sarcasm in it. “You think he’d be better off trapped in that place? Draining himself dry trying to keep up? You made the right call. Do you think he could have faced off against Gideon?”

I let out a long breath and nodded, more to convince myself than him. “I honestly don’t think either could afford that.”

Twobble tilted his head toward me, a glimmer of something sly sliding back into his gaze.

“You think Gideon is slipping?” he asked.

“Something is going on with him. He lost his edge. He looked weaker.” I shrugged, happily enjoying the effects of the tea. “Do we have to go back through the Pitch? It seemed kind of rough on the insides.”

“You want to go back the long way?” Twobble asked.

My brow furrowed. “So, there is a long way?”

“Yup.” He grinned, all sharp teeth and mischief. “Plus, it will give you more time to think about how to handle Keegan.”

I arched a brow. “There’s a scenic route through goblin tunnels?”

“Yes, I just didn’t think it was time we could afford to waste when searching for Skonk.”

Skonk straightened his shoulders. “And for that, cousin, I’m grateful.”

“Is it easy to navigate?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Twobble said, as if I’d just asked if tea existed. “You just need the right guide. We’ll take the back channels. The ones built before the Academy even existed. Real history down there.”

Against my better judgment, I felt a flicker of curiosity. “How much longer does it add to the trip?”

“That depends on how fast you can follow instructions.”

That was ominous enough to make me hesitate. “What kind of instructions?”

Skonk chuckled and looked a little too wicked for my comfort level as Twobble pulled me back outside of the cottage.

Twobble’s grin widened as he led me toward what looked like an ordinary slab of stone half-buried in moss.

“Like knowing which stone to step on…” He hopped onto it lightly, and it let out a soft grinding noise before sinking half an inch into the earth. “And which patch of moss to tickle.”

“Tickle,” I repeated flatly.

“Mm-hmm.” He crouched and brushed his fingertips over a round cushion of moss just to the left of the stone. At first nothing happened, and then the moss shivered, shivered , and rolled back like a little green sea anemone curling in on itself.

Beneath it was a narrow slot carved into the ground, pulsing faintly with golden light.

I blinked. “Okay, that’s…unnerving.”

“That’s home security,” Skonk said, clearly pleased with my reaction. “You get it wrong, you’ll trip the false floor traps. And trust me, you don’t want to fall through one of those unless you enjoy spending the next six years in the company of cave toads.”

“Years?” I laughed. “Maybe the Pitch isn’t so bad.”

They gestured for me to step onto the stone. “Now, you press the ball of your foot down.

I obeyed.

“No, not your heel, and when you feel it shift, you don’t move until I tell you.”

I balanced carefully as the stone vibrated under my weight. The golden light from the moss slot brightened, and the ground in front of us began to slide away, revealing a tunnel mouth just wide enough for the three of us to walk into.

“See?” Twobble said, already stepping inside. “Scenic.”

They hopped forward, and I did the same.

The air was cool and smelled faintly of damp earth, but with a sweeter note. The tunnel walls glistened, embedded with tiny flecks of mineral that caught the low light from a line of glowing fungi tracing the curve of the ceiling.

“This isn’t like goblin gold.”

“Nope. This is different,” Skonk informed me. “If you touch this stuff, it turns to glue. A real dickens to get off.”

“Good to know.”

I glanced over my shoulder as the entrance sealed shut behind us, and a strange sense of calm settled in. It was quiet here, not the oppressive quiet of Shadowick above, but the hushed kind that made you feel like the earth itself was listening.

“This way,” Twobble said, veering left into a narrower passage. “Careful. Step over that stream unless you want your shoes filled with marsh water.”

“You’ve been keeping all this from me?”

“Of course,” he said without an ounce of apology. “You think we tell humans all our secrets? No offense, but your lot can’t even keep from blabbing about where the best scones are sold in town.”

I smirked despite myself. “And here I thought we were friends.”

“We are friends,” he chirped. “That’s why you’re getting the long way instead of being dumped through the Pitch like a sack of turnips two times in a day.”

I chuckled as we moved in silence for a few minutes, my eyes adjusting to the shifting colors of the tunnel as the fungi dimmed and brightened in irregular pulses.

Every so often, Twobble or Skonk would pause to point out something. A set of claw marks on the wall from an imp of some sort, a tiny carved figure tucked into a nook, and a patch of mud that glittered faintly when you looked at it sideways, all things I probably would have missed.

“You’ve got a whole world down here,” I said softly.

“We’ve got whole worlds down here,” he corrected. “Some overlap with yours. Some don’t.”

I thought about that as we walked, about the way Stonewick and Shadowick mirrored and twisted around each other, and how the goblin tunnels seemed to stitch them together like secret seams. And maybe that was why my head still felt a little strange, not just from the tonic, but from realizing how much I didn’t know.

Twobble stopped suddenly, turning to me with a look that was almost…gentle. “You’ll have to tell him, you know. Keegan. About why you did it.”

“I know,” I said quietly.

“Remember, the long way gives you time to decide how you’ll tell him.” He gave me a short nod and started walking again. “Now, mind the stalactites in the next chamber. They like to drop on tall folk like daggers.”