Page 122 of Magical Moonbeam

I tried to breathe.

Tried to ignore the sweat gathering along my spine despite the chill air.

I tried not to look too long at the shifting silhouettes just beyond the streetlamps. They were moving now. Those strange, trailing shadows clung to the buildings and stretched toward the cobbled streets, as if made of smoke, breath, and nightmare.

They weren’t just tricks of the fog anymore.

They danced, not with joy or even menace, but with purpose.

Gideon’s shadows always had purpose.

He hadn’t moved since our last exchange. He just stood there, in the same patch of moonlight, watching me as though we were the only two souls in this fractured mirror of Shadowick. But I could feel the threads pulsing out from him, like a puppeteer with a thousand threads woven through the air.

One of the shadows slid along a wall to my right.

And stopped.

Its head tilted, just a fraction, as if it were listening.

Another crept across the stones near the bakery’s clouded window.

And I realized, with a cold twist in my stomach, that they were searching.

No—scanning.

For movement. For spells. For anything that didn’t belong.

If even one of my friends lost control for a second, if someone shifted wrong, if a charm flickered or an illusion slipped…

We’d be exposed.

I let out a breath through my nose and focused on maintaining a casual posture. One slip-up, and he’d know. My pulse pounded like a war drum in my ears.

“Your spell’s clever,” Gideon said suddenly, voice smooth again, too smooth. “The way you cloaked them. Very Hedge witch. Veryon brand.”

I didn’t answer, but my fingers curled slightly at my sides.

“I can feel them, you know,” he continued, stepping closer.

The fog parted just enough to let me see the gleam in his eyes—bright and silver-edged now, like moonlight caught in a wolf’s snarl.

“Like pins on a map. Each of them tucked away, thinking they’re safe.”

“Theyaresafe,” I said.

His smile returned, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Are they?”

And that’s when I saw it.

Just past his shoulder, near the edge of the square, something moved.

Not a shadow.

Not a villager.

Somethingelse.

At first, I couldn’t make sense of it. It didn’t move like a person, or even a creature. It was too fluid. Too… detached fromform. It was as if someone had carved a hole into reality and filled it with slithering night.