Page 86 of Magical Moonbeam

The question landed like a rock in my chest.

I stared past him into the Ward’s soft morning light. The breeze carried the scent of herbs. Everything around us was so alive and so gently real. But his words carved into all of it.

“I…” My voice wavered. “I don’t know.”

Twobble flopped onto the grass beside the fountain, legs crossed, apple forgotten. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

“I’m trying,” I said, more to myself than him. “I’ve been gathering threads. Pieces. But there’s no map, no scroll in the library labeledHow to Reverse a Generational Curse While Avoiding Certain Doom.”

He chuckled dryly. “If there were, I bet Skonk would’ve already spilled coffee on it.”

We were quiet for a long minute.

“Twobble,” I said finally. “What doyouthink it’ll take?”

He shrugged, but it was the kind of shrug people give when they’ve been thinking about something for a long time and aren’t ready to say it out loud.

“I think you’re the key,” he said, quiet now. “I think it’s your heart and your head and your blood and your birthmark and your grief and your hope and everything else in between.”

“That’s not very comforting.”

“It’s not supposed to be. It’s meant to be honest.”

I let my eyes drift up to the blue-tinged dome of sky above the Ward. “What if I’m not enough?”

He reached over and touched my hand with his smaller, calloused fingers. “Then none of us are.”

That nearly broke me.

Because it wasn’t just about me. Not anymore. It never had been.

And maybe that was the answer, or at least the beginning of one.

If I didn’t knowhowto break the curse yet… maybe I needed to stop focusing on thehowand start rememberingwhy.

I looked back at the Academy, at the morning sun catching on its stained-glass windows, and then I looked at Twobble.

“I don’t know what it’s going to take,” I said. “But I know I’m not walking into that place alone. Not in heart. Not in magic. Not in anything.”

He nodded solemnly, then cracked a grin. “Also, try not to fall for any sinister long-lost gazes this time. Shadowick is full of those types.”

I laughed, startled by it.

And it echoed through the Ward like a promise.

I watched the way the wind tangled through the blossoms, the soft pink petals brushing against my hand like someone comforting me in silence. The Butterfly Ward was always the place I went when I didn’t know what else to do.

Twobble sat beside me, unusually quiet, kicking a little pebble near the edge of the fountain with the toe of his boot. His earlier joke had landed like a pebble in my chest, sending ripple after ripple outward. And maybe it was time to tell him what I hadn’t dared admit to anyone.

“I was hoping,” I said softly, “that if I could just get Gideon to see reason… if I could talk to him, really talk to him, that maybe I could persuade him to end the curse himself.”

Twobble froze, the pebble stilling mid-roll beneath his foot.

“I thought if I could understand why he did it, I could undo it. Maybe not fix everything, but at least crack it open. Shift something.” I pressed my palms together, unsure of how to say the rest. “I didn’t think it would take a war. I honestly hope it will end with words.”

Twobble turned toward me slowly. His expression wasn’t mocking. It wasn’t even surprised. It was just—sad. Quiet and old and wiser than I ever gave him credit for.

“Oh, Maeve,” he said.