Page 15

The Veil shimmered like a heat mirage as we stepped through the final ring of boundary stones. What had been mere illusion minutes ago now carried weight, sound, temperature, and memory.

Shadowick.

The fog greeted us like a breath held too long, low and heavy, clinging to the ground, snaking up along walls, lampposts, and the illusion-built edges of crooked rooftops. It draped over anything upright like shawls of mourning, soft but suffocating.

The moment my boots hit the uneven cobblestones, a weight settled across my chest that was cold and familiar.

I’d been here before in dreams, in flickers through the Hedge, but this was different. This wasn’t a glimpse.

This was a crossing.

Behind me, Keegan’s presence was immediate and grounding.

One hand rested near his hip, where a short blade hung. He’d been wearing it more frequently.

The others filed in slowly, their laughter from earlier already gone. Even Skonk was quiet.

The sky above this conjured world pulsed an indigo-gray, streaked with faint hints of rust-red. No stars. No sun.

“This is incredible,” Ember whispered beside me. “It shouldn’t feel this… real.”

“It’s because it is,” I said softly. “Or close enough that it doesn’t matter.”

We moved through the narrow streets in a silent line, passing buildings with tilted signs and shuttered windows.

A faded cafe was on the corner. Its menu was still chalked in a language I didn’t recognize.

A twisted clock tower ticked slightly out of rhythm.

Everything bore the tarnish of time, but not decay.

It was as if Shadowick had paused mid-story and forgotten how to begin again.

The village was a place where those who walked among shadows could walk right into, but those of us who believed in the light stuck out, and we needed the protection of the Moonbeam, or so I hoped.

“Stick to the path,” Keegan muttered to the group. “Watch the doorways. Some aren’t just decoration.”

Nova nearly floated to my left, her bare feet somehow untouched by the damp chill. Her eyes, always steady, flicked across rooftops and alleys with eerie precision.

“Any landmarks we should explore for a signal?” Bella asked, still in her human form, though her eyes gleamed like a fox’s in the den.

I nodded toward a narrow alley that bent like a question mark between two squat buildings. “There. That’s where I’ll wait.”

Nova tilted her head. “That’s too exposed.”

“I know,” I said. “That’s the point.”

Keegan stopped walking.

“No,” he said. “No, Maeve. You don’t go out first. Not alone.”

The others paused behind us, and I turned to face him.

“It’s the only way. He’ll be watching. He’s always watching. If I wait too long, if I hide like the rest of you, he’ll know we’re baiting him.”

“Because we are,” Keegan said, his voice tight. “That’s exactly what this is.”

“He won’t come unless he thinks it’s just me,” I said. “That’s how he works. He wants to talk, to tempt, and to show me he’s always one step ahead.”

Keegan shook his head, jaw tense. “And what if you’re wrong?”

“Then I hope you’re close enough to do what needs to be done.”

“No,” he said again. “This is reckless.”

“It’s necessary.”

We stood there, facing each other in the middle of a conjured village that shouldn’t exist, each unwilling to budge.

Then Nova stepped between us.

“Maeve’s right.”

Keegan looked at her like she’d betrayed him.

“She’s the tether,” Nova said. “Gideon won’t step out of the shadows for me. Or you. Or any of us. But he will for her.”

“I don’t like it,” Keegan muttered.

“You don’t have to,” Nova said gently. “You just have to be ready.”

Keegan didn’t reply, but his hand moved to his blade again, thumb resting on the hilt like a promise.

We moved again, faster this time, purposeful. Scanning the buildings, counting the steps, and noticing the doors.

Around us, the fog thickened, swirling like breath against glass. As we passed each building, we noted the side doors, balconies, and overhangs. All the details.

Skonk took up a post behind a rusted statue that looked like a warrior mid-yawn. Twobble tucked himself into a collapsed fruit cart, mumbling about how the apples looked haunted. Ember and Ardetia split off to the rooftops, their steps so silent I doubted even Gideon would hear them.

Nova touched my shoulder just before we turned the final bend.

“He’ll know something’s off.”

“I know.”

“But not everything.”

She pressed a charm into my palm that was a delicate thing, strung with three silver threads and a blue-green gem no larger than a dewdrop.

“It’ll tell me if your heartbeat changes.” Her eyes met mine.

I swallowed. “That’s a bit morbid.”

She smiled faintly. “It’s also quite helpful.”

Then they all vanished, each finding a shadow or crevice or vantage point.

And I was alone.

Just as I had to be.

I stepped into the open space at the curve of the alley. The air felt different here…thicker and charged. The wind didn’t blow so much as breathe, exhaling from doorways and gutters like the village itself was waiting.

I pulled my cloak tighter, the charm still in my hand, and let the silence press in.

Let him find me.

Let the next step begin.

The cobblestones beneath my boots were slick with fog, the kind that clung rather than rolled, crawling along the edges of buildings and collecting in the crooks of doorways like waiting shadows.

My fingers brushed the stone walls as I walked, tracing the lines of the illusion-made village as though it might whisper secrets back to me. I silently counted stones, memorized details like the gold chain hanging from a nondescript door.

This place, Shadowick, even conjured, felt far too real.

It was colder here, and it didn’t come from wind or weather, but from something older and hollow. It was as if the buildings remembered what they once were and resented being brought back.

Still, I moved forward.

Keegan followed a step behind, silent but close enough that I could hear his breath, steady, slightly quickened. He didn’t like this plan, but he hadn’t stopped me either. That said something.

The others were scattered in shadows, waiting. Watching.

And me?

I was trying to hold on to the thread of why I thought this might work.

“If I can get to his soul,” I said softly, “maybe I can understand why he did it.”

Keegan didn’t respond immediately.

I kept walking, letting my voice follow the rhythm of my steps.

“If I can understand why he cursed my father and Keegan. Why he wants Stonewick? Why he’s pulling at the edge of the Veil like it’s a thread he means to unravel, then maybe I can end it.”

At that, Keegan stiffened. The air shifted.

“That’s not how Gideon works,” he said, his voice low, the edge sharp. “He doesn’t have a why that makes sense to people like you.”

I stopped and turned to face him.

“He wasn’t born evil.”

“No,” Keegan said tightly. “But he chose to become it.”

The words landed heavily between us.

I looked away, my gaze drifting toward the conjured horizon, where a crooked steeple leaned against the sky like it had forgotten how to pray.

I looked back toward the rise and saw the imposing mansion full of darkness and lingering shadows.

It was in direct contrast to my cozy little cottage in Stonewick.

“I’m not saying I want to excuse him,” I said. “But what if there’s something broken I can reach? Just one piece of truth I can pull forward and use to bind him back?”

Keegan’s eyes narrowed. “You think that’s all it takes? One good memory? One thread of guilt?”

“I think it’s more than we have now,” I said. “I think understanding him might be the only real weapon we have.”

A rustle behind us made me turn, expecting Nova or Ember, but it was Stella.

She moved with her usual grace, her dark shawl wrapped high around her shoulders, her boots making no sound at all on the cold stone. She sipped from a bone-white mug that definitely hadn’t come from Shadowick, steam curling from it like incense.

“She’s not wrong,” Stella said, eyes on me.

Keegan looked surprised.

“Before you start quoting historical curses at me,” she added dryly, “I do agree with Keegan. Gideon doesn’t think like us anymore. But that doesn’t mean Maeve is wrong to want to understand him.”

“I didn’t say she was wrong to want to,” Keegan muttered. “I’m saying it’s dangerous.”

“Well, darling,” Stella said, lifting her cup, “so is breathing because a moment will come when you just…don’t.”

I almost smiled. Almost.

Stella stepped closer, her eyes flicking toward the mist-shrouded rooftops.

“If Gideon still has a soul, and I mean if , then it’s tangled in everything he’s done. Which means pulling it loose might unravel more than you expect.”

“I’ll be careful,” I said.

“You’d better be,” she replied. “Because I rather like you alive.”

Another soft swish of air behind us, and then Bella appeared, walking out of the fog in her human form, copper and amber hair wild around her shoulders. Her coat was unbuttoned, and her eyes still held the gleam of her fox form—sharp, curious, alert.

“I heard some of that,” she said, stepping into the loose circle we’d formed. “And I think I might have something.”

Keegan looked skeptical. Stella looked intrigued. I turned toward her, eyebrows raised.

“In fox tradition,” Bella began, brushing her fingers through her hair as if sorting thoughts, “there’s a ritual on Moonbeam’s Eve. We don’t talk about it much, mostly because humans think it’s just a story, but it’s older than that. It’s called the Turning.”

“The Turning?” I repeated.

She nodded. “It’s meant for curses. Entanglements. Shadow-bound fates. It doesn’t break the curse, but it reverses the weight of it, and helps shift it toward healing.”

Stella tilted her head. “Why haven’t you mentioned this before?”

Bella shrugged. “Because I didn’t realize what you were trying to do until I saw Maeve walking through this place like she’d known it all her life.”

The scary part was that, with all the times I’d visited in my dreams, it felt like I had.

Keegan turned to her. “What does it involve?”

“Light,” Bella said. “And shadow. And choosing which one to walk through.”

I swallowed. “That sounds a bit... abstract.”

“It is,” she said. “But it’s worked before in small ways. A fox shifter once used it to undo a family blood feud that had lasted for six generations. We don’t know how it will work in a place like Shadowick, but it’s a bridge. Something ancient. And it responds to intention.”

Nova stepped out of the mist just then, as if summoned by the very word.

“Intention,” she echoed. “That’s what the Moonbeam responds to most.”

Bella’s eyes met mine. “You’re the tether, Maeve. If we do this, if we turn the curse back toward light, you have to be the one walking through it.”

“I was planning to,” I whispered.

Keegan exhaled sharply beside me.

And I didn’t blame him.

Because this just got very real and very close.

But I had no idea if we were going to make it out of this shadow with anything still whole.