Page 149 of Magical Moonbeam

Not toward Gideon.

But toward something else.

Knowledge.

Memory.

Maybe even the truth.

The Moonbeam will reveal the truth.

The shadow dancers screamed overhead.

Not words, just sound as a wail scraped across bone and threaded through teeth. It rolled across the village like a warning.

I didn’t flinch.

I wasn’t listening anymore because I was already turning.

I ran.

Not away buttowardthe mansion. Toward the place where Ithoughthe would be. Where I hoped, if I was wrong, I might still find the real him waiting.

The air inside the gates grew thicker with every step. My breath came faster, but not from fear. Not anymore.

He wanted me afraid. He needed it. That’s why he’d shown me my daughter. That’s why Darren had been planted, why the dancers circled now like vultures.

But the ancient creatures had told me the truth.

The Moonbeam does not create light. It reflects it.

What is anchored in truth will hold. What is anchored in fear will crack.

I wasn’t anchored in fear anymore.

I was anchored in her.

Celeste.

And my truth?

Was that I would burn this place to the ground before I let Gideon take her.

The truth was that I was a Hedge Witch, and my daughter would follow in my footsteps. She needed to see this. That was what tonight’s Moonbeam was about, and Gideon never saw it coming.

His illusion vanished without a sound.

And now the real game had begun.

The silence that followed his vanishing wasn’t silence at all.

It was a scream.

A soundless, soul-deep scream that cracked open somewhere behind my ribs and echoed through the hollow space where my breath should’ve been. The street around me pulsed like a held breath. The stone beneath my boots trembled faintly. Not from magic. Not from Shadowick.

From me.

I stared at the space where the not-Gideon had stood moments before, the echo of his last words still sharp behind my eyes.