Page 130 of Magical Moonbeam

The sound of footsteps on the stairs next to Celeste made my stomach drop like it had just remembered how to fall. They were light at first, carefree, but something about the cadence twisted in my gut.

Familiar.

Celeste turned at the sound, her smile still tentative, but her fingers were wrapped tightly in mine now, like even she could feel the air change.

And then he appeared.

Her boyfriend.

Charming. Polished. Kind eyes. That same rumpled academic look he’d worn when he first stepped off the train that day and drank at the coffee shop. When he’d shaken my hand with a warmth that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

I couldn’t breathe.

Because now, as the fog of magic and memory parted, Isawhim.

Not just as Celeste’s sweet, supportive boyfriend. Not the one who laughed at her jokes and brought her matcha lattes with oat milk. No, there was something older under that face—something calculated.

Something that had beenplaced.

And everything,everything,fell into place.

The train station. That flicker of pressure at the back of my skull when he arrived. The way Gideon had shown up that very same afternoon, watching from across the road like a storm cloud waiting to burst.

A coincidence, I’d told myself.

Except I didn’t believe in those anymore.

Especially not now.

Then there was the time he came to Stonewick.

He’d been charming then, too. Eager to meet Celeste’s family. Eager to see the town that had shaped her. Too eager to take her away to their lake house.

Because heknew.

Because he wasn’t just some nice boy from campus with a family lake house and an overachieving mom who made Sunday dinners.

He was something else.

And now, standing beside my daughter in the middle of Shadowick, beneath a sky too quiet and a moon too full, he looked straight at me with the calm of someone who’d already won.

"Hi, Ms. Bellemore," he said, all sweetness and manners, like this was just another evening at a college mixer. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

His voice was like silk pulled too tight, and still, Celeste beamed, like everything was fine.

Because in her world, it was.

He stepped down the last stair and wrapped an arm around my daughter’s shoulders, and when she leaned into him without hesitation, something splintered inside my chest.

Gideon stood behind them, smug and silent, letting the scene unfold like a stage play he’d directed.

"Maeve," Gideon murmured, eyes glittering, "I believe you’ve met Darren."

Darren.

I’d never liked the name. It felt too polished. Too slippery. But now it made my skin crawl.

Darren turned his head slightly, just enough to let me see it, with that gleam of something ancient hiding beneath the polite smile. Not shadow, not magic.