Page 167 of Magical Moonbeam

I dropped low, slammed my palm to the floor, andcalledthe Hedge.

Light erupted from the stone, thorned and coiling, wrapping around the smoky tendrils of Gideon’s form. He twisted, shifting into something less man and more shadow-beast, but Iheld fast, pouring truth through the aura.

“Your lies don’t grow here,” I said through clenched teeth. “The Hedge only honors what’s real.”

“Iamreal,” Gideon snarled.

“No,” I said softly. “You’re what’sleft.”

I flung the Moonbeam light in a wide arc, sweeping across the corridor like a blade. It met his form mid-shift andburned. He screamed again, not like a man, but like the echo of something that knew its time was ending.

The corridor shuddered as the dark began to shrink.

And then—

He lunged again.

Too fast.

Too close.

His shadow hand reached through the vines, through the light, and grabbed my wrist.

The chill was immediate and paralyzing. It wasn’t cold like ice. It was anabsenceof being, which was far more chilling thananything I’d ever encountered. He was reaching inside to pull me apart.

“You still don’t know what you are,” he whispered, eyes gleaming. “You think Hedge magic is light, roots, and whispers? You don’t even know whatyoucan break. What it feels like to dance in the in-between.”

“I don’t want to break things,” I gasped. “I want to protect them.”

And that, more than anything, gave me strength.

I twisted in his grip, called up the full force of the Hedge. It wasn’t gentle and certainly not slow. It was wild.

Furious.

Andalive.

The light around usexploded, sprouting thorns as long as daggers, flowers that glowed silver with captured moonlight. They wrapped around Gideon’s arm, then his chest, then his face. Electricity pulled him into the past, into the present, and tore his future apart.

The in-between.

He screamed, trying to shift, to vanish, but I anchored him to truth.

To light.

Tome.

In the now.

With one final cry, I raised both hands and pulled a piece of the Moonbeam down from the air like a falling star.

It crashed through the corridor in a column of searing silver-white light.

And when it faded…

He was gone.

Nothing but ash.