Page 175 of Magical Moonbeam

Purpose.

“You feel it now, don’t you?” the echo said in Gideon’s voice. “The timing. The truth. The Moonbeam wasn’t here to lift the curse. It was here toseewho still stood beneath it.”

I stepped forward, magic pulsing in my fingertips. “And yet you’re still crawling in the dark, aren’t you?”

He smiled without lips. “You’re so certain you’re the answer. But what if the Academy has already chosen its sacrifice?”

Beside me, Keegan let out a low growl.

I didn’t hesitate.

I flung a column of Hedge magic forward, light coiling from beneath the tiles, grabbing at the shadow’s legs before it could retreat. It screamed, not just in sound, but in magic, vibrating through the air like glass ready to splinter.

Keegan surged past me, blade drawn, slicing into the shadow’s side. It staggered, wavered, but didn’t fall.

Instead, it split.

The smoke-body fractured into three again, each thinner than the original, each darting in a different direction.

“No,” I breathed. “He’s trying again. He’s looking for another wayin.”

Keegan caught one as it zipped past him, binding it with a circle of flame etched in runes. The second slid into the stone wall.

But the third?

It went down.

Through the floor.

I dropped to my knees and slammed both hands to the ground. “Hedge,now.”

The light responded sluggishly. Worn. As exhausted as I felt. But they reached through the floor, snagging the fleeing shadow just before it vanished into the deep.

It struggled in the green light, twisting and writhing. But I held.

“Don’t let it slip,” I whispered, pouring more energy into the vines. “Trap it. Bind it. Don’t destroy it, not yet.”

The magic snapped around it like a cage, and the thing screamed again, not in pain, but in fury.

That was when I knew.

Gideon hadn’t just been trying to escape.

He wassearching.

Probing the Academy like a hunter pressing on weak points.

And the curse?

It hadn’t been lifted because we hadn’t cut deep enough. We’d scratched at the edges, lit candles, and whispered spells while the root of it all still pulsed somewhere below.

I looked at Keegan, who was watching me with a mixture of concern and readiness.

“He knows the Moonbeam’s fading,” I said. “He waited for this. Heplannedfor this.”

Keegan looked toward the sealed stairwell at the end of the hall. “Then what do we do?”

I stood, swaying slightly, and pressed a blood-slicked palm to the warded floor. It hissed in response, then cooled.