Page 184 of Magical Moonbeam

“For now,” Nova said from behind me, her voice grim. “But he’s not done. That wasn’t a final act.”

“No,” I said, pressing my palm to Keegan’s chest. “That was just the warning.”

Keegan hissed as the light from my hand began to seal the bleeding, but he didn’t pull away. He just watched me with quiet eyes and steady breath.

“He won’t stop,” I whispered. “Not until the curse breaks. Or until we do.”

He reached up, his fingers curling around mine. “Then we don’t break.”

And something in me clicked into place.

Because if Keegan could stand after that…

If we couldstill be hereafter all of it…

Perhaps, Gideon didn’t understand the one thing that truly made us dangerous.

We had each other.

And we weren’t giving up.

The Moonbeam had faded.

The curse still coiled around the Academy.

And Gideon was now fully corporeal, stronger, smarter, and worse… he knew I was hiding something beneath the surface. Something I couldn’t let him near.

In a way, I might be able to use his curiosity against him.

“You shouldn’t be moving,” I whispered, but even as I said it, Keegan’s body tensed.

“I’m not letting him walk out again,” he growled.

Then the floor trembled beneath us.

Gideon’s laugh echoed, not from far off, but frombelow, as though he was walking just under our feet, watching, waiting for the moment to strike again.

The very stone beneath my knees rippled, and Keegan shoved me aside just as a burst of shadow tore through the ground like a geyser, splintering tiles and shooting upward in a jagged, snaking arc.

He stood slowly, blood still trailing down his arm, but his shoulders rolled back and his head lifted.

And then, I felt it.

A change.

A shift not in the walls, not in the air, but inhim.

Keegan’s magic stirred the air with a different weight this time. A low, bone-deep rumble hummed in my chest as he took a step forward. His skin shimmered, the faintest glow racing up his spine.

I knew what was coming. I’d seen it before, his shift, his wolf form. But this time, it didn’t come with a warning or violence.

It came withpurpose.

The air bent around him as the transformation took hold.

His limbs stretched, reshaped. Fur burst from his skin, not like fire, but like wind made solid. His eyes turned molten amber. He grew—not just taller, butlarger, broader, until the massive black wolf stood where the man had been.

And the moment he finished shifting, Gideon rose again.