Page 165 of Magical Moonbeam

I stepped forward, lifted my hand, and let a spark of light grow from my palm. The filaments recoiled slightly.

“Why would he leave this behind?”

Keegan’s eyes never left the shadows. “A seed of some sort, an escape route if needed.”

“Or a snare.”

Suddenly, a shriek pierced through the hallway. It was muffled but near.

Keegan moved instantly, blade drawn from the sheath at his side.

“South Wing,” he barked.

We ran.

Every corridor we passed seemed to breathe, as if the Academy itself was holding in a lungful of air and guiding us as quickly as possible.

We burst into the central passage where Stella and Lady Limora had gone.

Stella stood in the middle of the corridor, her arms raised, holding back a thick mist of black threads that twisted and writhed against her glowing magic. Lady Limora clung to a statue with wide eyes and a stick in her hand like it was a holy sword.

“I told you!” she shouted. “Itwiggled!”

Stella’s light burned brighter, forcing the shadow back, and I stepped beside her, pouring magic into the air like golden thread, and pushed. The shadows hissed, recoiled.

We held our ground, but the Academy was groaning now.

And I knew, in my gut, that this was only the beginning.

Chapter Forty

The Academy roared around me.

Not with sound, but withfeeling. Its walls shivered with magic. Its windows quivered with unshed light. The shadows pulsed along the edges of the stonework like breath from a sleeping creature about to wake.

Or worse—suffocate.

I planted my feet at the center of the corridor, where Stella’s barrier was thinning. The shadow threads had teeth now, snapping at her light like starving things. And through the rippling blackness, I saw it.

Darts of movement.

A shimmer of somethingwrong.

Gideon.

Not him, not completely. But a fragment. A tether. A venomous sliver of what he left behind, still seeking, still hungry.

He was somewhere in the Academy.

My fingers twitched, aching for familiar tools. My chalk, my spell thread, my comfort talismans, but I didn’t need them.

Not anymore.

I was a Hedge witch now.

Not the kind who waited in corners, brewing potions by candlelight. No,mymagic bled into the earth, fed by instinct, bound to truth.

I dropped to my knees and pressed my palms flat against the cold stone.