Page 36 of Magical Mirage (Stonewick Magical Midlife Witch Academy #6)

The knock at the door came like an insult to the peace I’d worked so hard to earn.

I stirred first, caught between warmth and responsibility. Keegan’s arm lay heavy across my waist, his breath warm against the back of my neck. For a blissful half-second, I considered ignoring the world.

The Wards could fend for themselves, goblins could scheme without me, and Stella could lecture the tea leaves about patience. I wanted only this… Keegan’s steady presence, the weight of him anchoring me in the storm that always seemed to chase us.

“Don’t move,” I whispered, but of course he did. His chest rumbled with quiet laughter as he pressed a kiss to my shoulder.

“Do you think if we don’t answer, they’ll go away?” he murmured.

“Unlikely. Knowing our friends, they’ll break in and demand to know why we’re not up at dawn doing responsible magical things. Stella assures me that once a person is a witch, they don’t need as much sleep.”

He chuckled. “That sounds more like vampire lore.”

“Exactly.”

Another knock echoed through the cottage, more insistent this time.

We groaned in unison.

Together, we disentangled from the quilt and each other, though it felt like pulling away from a safe harbor. My toes curled against the steps as I descended from the loft.

Keegan followed behind, with his hair mussed in a way that made him look younger, softer. Dangerous, really, because I wanted to drag him back up the steps.

But duty won, as it always did.

I opened the door with my hand still caught in Keegan’s.

Nova stood there, green eyes sharp and dark brows arched high. Surprise flickered across her face, followed by something dangerously close to smug amusement.

“Well,” she said, voice low. “This explains why Keegan didn’t answer his door.”

Heat shot up my neck. Before I could stammer out anything resembling a dignified reply, Stella bustled in behind her, carrying a box of pastries in one hand and her shawl draped like a flag of victory over her shoulder.

It didn’t seem to matter that it was a sticky eighty degrees outside.

Style outweighed sense in Stella’s world.

“Oh, don’t look so scandalized, Maeve.” Stella swept past us like she owned the place. “Lovebirds nest when the season calls, and frankly, you’ve kept us all waiting long enough.”

“Stella—” I began, but she ignored me, already beelining for the kitchen to set the pastries down and put the kettle on.

Behind her, Bella slipped in with fox-like grace, her copper hair braided down her back. Ardetia followed like a breeze, her presence more shimmer than substance, but her eyes all too knowing.

Keegan muttered under his breath, “Should’ve stayed in the loft.”

“I heard that,” Nova said, striding to the table with two heavy books balanced in her arms. She dropped them onto the wood with a thud that shook the tea set.

I raised a brow. “Light reading?”

“Foundations,” she corrected, sliding one book toward me. The leather cover was cracked and etched with runes that seemed to pulse faintly under the morning light. “I think we’ve been looking at this curse wrong.”

Stella’s voice floated from the kitchen. “If you all break into dramatic revelation before I’ve poured the tea, I’ll hex the lot of you with hiccups.”

Keegan chuckled low, settling into a chair beside me as Nova flipped open the first book. Bella perched gracefully on the bench near the window, while Ardetia remained standing, her attention fixed like a hawk on Nova’s movements.

Nova tapped a page. “I’ve been tracking the strength of the Wards since the night of the Moonbeam. Every chart, every divination points to one thing. The curse broke then. Or at least, most of it did.”

“So, it’s true.”

Nova nodded. “That’s when the Wards surged. That’s when the lightness spread through Stonewick. Didn’t you feel it? The Academy felt busier. Everything felt… easier, like the air wasn’t pressing down for once. And your dad…”

I’d had hunches, ancient scripts, and observations. But this was magic’s version of science.

“Except for now,” I said slowly. “Except for these past few days.”

“Exactly,” Nova repeated, snapping the book shut with a decisive thump. “Which means something else is at play. The curse broke, but not cleanly. Something’s interfering.”

Keegan leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees.

Stella swept back in with a tray of steaming mugs, the pastries now set neatly on plates. She handed me a mug first, pausing to give me a look that said everything she didn’t put into words. Then she clucked her tongue at Keegan.

“You look better, dear. Amazing what a night of rest, and other things, can do for a man’s complexion.”

I nearly choked on my tea.

Keegan shot her a glare, but silence stretched, only filled by Stella’s satisfied sip of her own tea.

“Moving on,” Nova said dryly, though the corner of her mouth twitched.

She opened the second book, this one thinner but marked with dozens of hastily scribbled notes in her hand. “The curse was tied to the Moonbeam. That much is certain. But the reason Keegan is worsening when everything else has improved? That’s the piece I can’t yet fit.”

I turned to Keegan, watching the way the light caught in the hazel of his eyes. He looked steady enough now, but I remembered the strain in his shoulders, the way his shifts had pulled at him harder than before.

And I remembered Gideon’s words in Shadowick. He hadn’t cast anything new on Keegan, because he wasn’t worth the effort.

Dread coiled through me as all fingers pointed at something far worse than something Gideon could manufacture.

I sipped my tea, but it didn’t soothe the chill in my chest.

Nova’s words pressed on. “The night your father shifted back was the moment the tether broke. The curse had been gnawing at Stonewick for decades, and suddenly, it snapped. Of course, the Wards surged. Of course, Stonewick brightened. But something, someone, didn’t let go entirely.”

Her gaze moved toward Keegan.

He met her eyes without flinching. “Say it.”

Nova hesitated, then said, “Maybe you’re carrying the last thread.”

The silence that followed was heavier than any curse, and I knew what I had to say.

“Or the first.”

Keegan’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t look away. And in that moment, staring at him across the worn wooden table, I realized the fire I’d seen in his eyes when I returned from Shadowick wasn’t just relief. It was fear.

Fear of being the first piece to start a new curse or worse, unravel an ancient rite.

And maybe, just maybe, fear of what that would mean for us.

The words slipped out before I realized I’d spoken them.

“Continue,” Nova’s voice went low.

“Actually,” I said, my voice sharper than I intended, “I don’t think it’s that he’s the last tether of the curse.”

The whole table stilled. The steam from the mugs curled upward, as if it, too, was listening.

Keegan’s gaze snapped to mine, a flicker of relief, confusion, and warning all tangled together in his eyes. His hand twitched as though he wanted to reach for mine, to stop me, but he didn’t. It was almost like speaking it aloud made it more real.

My heart drummed against my ribs, a frantic rhythm that made it hard to breathe. Turmoil twisted low in my stomach.

“I believe the curse has been broken,” I continued, the words trembling out of me, too loud in the cozy stillness of the cottage. “But I fear what has replaced it is far worse.”

A silence followed so thick it pressed against my ears.

Nova tilted her head, narrowing her eyes in that way of hers that always made me feel like a child caught hiding something. Her green gaze cut through me, precise as a blade, and yet it wasn’t judgment I saw there. It was calculation.

“So we all agree the curse has been broken, but…” Nova looked at Keegan and then at me.

I nodded, though my throat tightened around the motion.

“Yes. Broken. I envisioned a celebration with party streamers and confetti, a parade through Stonewick, the Wards shimmering brighter than ever. But that’s not what happened.

It was quiet and subtle because something else far darker took its place. ”

The fire in the hearth snapped, sending sparks upward.

Bella shifted on the bench, her fox eyes flicking between us, ears practically pricked though they weren’t visible in her human form. Stella had gone unnaturally quiet, her hand frozen halfway to the sugar bowl. Even Ardetia’s shimmer dimmed as though she had folded herself inward to listen.

And Keegan watched me with an intensity that made it hard to think.

“It didn’t just vanish,” I whispered, curling my fingers around the mug until the heat bit my palms. “It twisted. Shifted. And it took hold of Gideon too.”

Nova’s mouth tightened. She leaned forward, elbows on the table, her eyes never leaving mine. “What are you saying, Maeve? How would you know that?”

I swallowed hard, tasting the weight of the words I hadn’t spoken yet.

Images flickered unbidden: the shadow in Gideon’s eyes, the way his power had felt brittle, uneven. The sense that something larger than him was wearing him, like he was just another cursed tether in a chain he hadn’t forged.

And that warning…about her .

He wouldn’t tell me who.

It wasn’t only Keegan unraveling. Gideon was too.

“I…” My voice caught.

Nova’s stare sharpened, pinning me like a butterfly under glass. Her silence demanded more.

Keegan stood and sat next to me.

I should have told her everything right then. I should have said what I felt in my bones, what the darkness itself had whispered the night in Shadowick when Gideon’s voice curled around me.

But fear clamped down. If I said it, it would be real. If I admitted what I suspected, there’d be no turning back.

And I wasn’t ready.

So instead I sat there, mug in hand, my chest heaving, my pulse thrumming like a warning bell.

Nova leaned closer still, her voice a low thread. “Maeve.”

Her eyes narrowed further, suspicion flickering there, but also a spark of something else. Recognition.

The others shifted, waiting. Keegan’s hand brushed mine under the table, grounding me, steadying me. But even he didn’t push. He let me hold the silence like it was mine to guard.

I pressed my lips together, forcing the words back down. I could feel them, sharp and urgent, crowding at the edges of my tongue. But I kept them there, tucked behind my teeth, trembling in the dark.

Because once they were spoken, nothing would be the same.

What we would face would make Gideon’s curse look like child’s play.

The fire popped again, louder this time, like the hearth itself was impatient. Outside, a wind stirred, rattling the shutters though no storm was due.

I met Nova’s gaze one last time, as my defiance still sparked despite the dread coiled inside me. And that was when I realized, I couldn’t wait until I was certain because that might be too late.

“It’s Malore.”