Page 179 of Magical Mission

Knows what it means to go where light doesn’t reach.

Knows what it means to let someone you care about walk into it anyway.

I reached out and touched his hand. “I won’t go without a plan.”

“That’s not what I’m afraid of,” he said, voice low.

“I know.”

Twobble broke the silence with a short, sharp cough. “We’re not talking about a stroll through a shadowy meadow here. We’re talking aboutShadowick.”

The word landed like a thunderclap, even whispered.

Shadowick.

A place long buried in myth and half-truths. A realm twisted by betrayal and warped magic. The place where Gideon had once found power or been consumed by it.

“The path led me toward it,” I said. “Not directly. But I saw pieces. Angles in the visions I couldn’t place. They all curved one way. Beneath the Wards. Beneathus, where the shadowsdance.”

Keegan shook his head. “That place isn’t just magic. It’shungry.”

“So am I,” I said quietly. “For truth. For answers. For whatever this pull is toendthe curse.”

Twobble looked like he wanted to argue, but his face softened. “Then we do it the goblin way.”

“What’s the goblin way?”

He held up one finger. “Step one. Don’t go in alone.”

I smiled faintly. “And step two?”

“Leave breadcrumbs. Lots of breadcrumbs. Magic ones. And snacks.”

Keegan gave a snort. “He’s not wrong.”

My smile faded slowly as I turned back to the third floor.

The library door stood quiet now, butsoonhad already begun.

I’d thought the path had changed me, and it had.

But not to give me peace.

It had reshaped me for this.

For the moment that I’d have to face Gideon on his ground, where light thinned and shadows ruled.

I wasn’t ready, but I would be, because if he came to the Academy, no one would be safe.

And if I didn’t meet him in the place where he had made himself, then I would never be able to break him free of it.

Or break myself free of him.

Chapter Forty-One

The courtyard outside the greenhouse was quieter than usual. Classes had been canceled so everyone could regroup and come back together, knowing there would be no more shadows lingering.

The low buzz of bees threaded through blooming vines, and the faint clatter of ceramic pots hinted at nearby life. It was the kind of stillness that felt deliberate, like the world had briefly agreed to hush itself, which we did.