Page 75 of Magical Moonbeam

I was here to protect what I loved from being stolen.

Ardetia gave me a nod that was almost approving. Nova handed me a small glass vial of something cool and violet.

“For focus,” she murmured. “If it starts to slip.”

I didn’t ask whatitwas. I’d find out soon enough.

The fire sprites were already circling, eyes bright, wings like slivers of ember. They knew me now. And they were ready to test me.

I stood between the cauldrons, the heat rising in waves, and I could feel them hovering at the edge of my thoughts, poking, pulling.

A memory tugged loose. Stella was in the kitchen, laughing and fixing my kitchen spells gone wrong.

I slammed the door on it.

Another tug. Celeste, as a baby, grasped my finger for the first time.

“No,” I whispered, voice cracking.

And then they tried again—harder. My time with the dragons. The silver one's voice echoing inside me. The newborn curled like moonlight. The vow I made.

My heart seized.

But I shoved the image deep into myself, wrapping it in layers of quiet, sealing it with the oldest word I knew:mine.

The sprite blinked once in confusion and drifted back.

Ardetia stepped closer, watching me like I was a strange bloom she’d never seen open before.

“You didn’t flinch,” she said.

I wiped a line of sweat from my temple. “Not outwardly.”

She nodded once. “That matters.”

And maybe it did.

Because for the first time in days, I didn’t feel like I was splintering apart.

I felt solid.

Like I could hold.

Chapter Nineteen

By the time we finished for the night, I was wrung out.

My body was heavy, and my mind was sore in that deep, unfamiliar way that only magic could manage. The forge had taken more than I expected, and I’d given it everything I had while giving it nothing at all.

Nova and Ardetia didn’t linger. A quiet nod from one, a small smile from the other, and they each vanished into the growing dusk like the night belonged to them, and I was left to my thoughts.

I murmured goodnight and let my boots carry me past the gates, past the alley leading back to the Academy, and down the cobblestone walk that wound through Stonewick. The breeze had softened to a hush, pulling at the edge of my cloak as if urging me on.

And who was I to resist?

The streetlamps flickered to life one by one, casting warm, golden halos across the sidewalk.

I passed Luna’s yarn shop, its window still glowing, a soft skein of cloud-colored wool partially knitted into somethinglovely on display. I remembered the first time I walked past this storefront, how foreign it all felt as if I’d stumbled into a postcard meant for someone else.