Page 130 of Magical Mission

Twobble looked unconvinced. “Karvey is a delight, but he also naps like it’s a second job. Gargoyles need toperch, not babysit.”

“They’re more than capable,” I said firmly. “And they’d never let anything past them…not with Celeste there. They’ll guard her like she’s their own.”

“She’s nottheirown,” Twobble said, softer now. “She’syours.”

That quieted me.

“I’m not trying to be cruel,” he continued. “But we’ve faced enough weird already. Gideon is still out there. A shimmer surfaced out of the blue. That box you found still hasn’t fully revealed what it’s holding, and meanwhile, you want to invite your daughter into a place where the curse is still active?”

“It’s not about denial,” I said, barely more than a whisper. “It’s about... living. I don’t want to put my life on pause waitingfor a darkness I can’t predict. And I don’t want her to think I’ve disappeared from hers.”

I thought back to Grandma Elira and how she missed my dad’s childhood and beyond.

The silence that followed was heavier than it had been before.

Even Stella had gone quiet, her teacup halfway to her lips.

Twobble didn’t blink. “You want my support.”

“Yes,” I said honestly. “Because I trust you. Because youseethings the rest of us don’t. And because you’d tell me the truth.”

He stared at me for another long beat.

Then climbed down from the bench with a dramatic sigh, brushing crumbs from his coat.

“You’re not going to like what I have to say,” he muttered.

“Try me.”

He looked up, eyes sharper now. Not angry. Not even stubborn.

Just... steady.

“Would you ever forgive yourself,” he asked quietly, “if something happened to her?”

My breath caught.

The room went still.

Even the fire seemed to soften.

He didn’t say it with judgment.

He said it like a friend.

A guardian.

Someone who knew the weight of grief, not because he carried it, but because he’d seen it in others and vowed never to let it reach me.

I didn’t answer.

I couldn’t.

Because that was the only question that mattered.

And the only one I had an answer for.

Chapter Thirty