Page 25

The morning light in the Butterfly Ward was always a little softer than anywhere else. It filtered through lace canopies and had a way of warming you from the inside out, even when you were sleepless, heavy-eyed, and full of questions you hadn’t yet formed, let alone answered.

I stepped off the stone path and wandered into the grass barefoot, letting the dew soak into my toes. The Ward shimmered faintly around me.

Its glow shifted with every whisper of wind. I needed this. The quiet. The illusion of safety. The tiny moment to breathe without bracing for what was next.

The wings of a nearby butterfly caught the sun, flashing soft pink and blue before it disappeared into the petal-thick hedges. I sighed and leaned down, running my fingers over a bloom I couldn’t name, its petals shaped like tiny folded fans, their edges glowing faintly with Ward light.

That’s when I heard the unmistakable crunch of a goblin-sized footstep behind me.

“I know about your shenanigans last night,” Twobble called out.

I turned, already guilty.

He stood with a stick over one shoulder and a half-eaten apple in the other, wearing his usual expression of disgruntled fondness.

“Out after dark, slipping into illusion-Shadowick without backup. Very cloak-and-dagger of you.”

I groaned. “How do you know?”

He shrugged. “I’ve got ears everywhere. And at least three mildly enchanted squirrels who owe me favors.”

I arched a brow.

“Don’t ask,” he said, taking a bite of the apple. “But the point is, Maeve Bellemore, sneaking off like a wayward teenager is a bold strategy when literal mind-eating shadows are trying to track your every move.”

“I didn’t exactly have a sign over my head,” I muttered.

“No, but your birthmark glows when you're stressed. And you were a firefly last night, emotionally speaking.” He shrugged. “I didn’t even need my flashlight last night when I snuck in to check on Frank.”

“You sneak in?”

“The point is that you went into Shadowick and should have at least told me.”

I sighed and sat on the low edge of the fountain, drawing circles on the stone with my fingertip. “You’re probably right.”

Twobble nearly dropped his apple. “Did you say that out loud?”

“Don’t gloat.”

“Oh, I won’t. I’ll just write it down in ink made from pixie sap and hang it on the library wall.”

I rolled my eyes, but a ghost of a smile tugged at my lips. He always had a way of cutting through my gloom without making it feel smaller. But then he tilted his head and stared at me, and I felt it—the shift. The joke was a bridge to something else.

“Look,” he said, voice dropping. “I know we’ve been working hard. Wards, training, clever illusions… lots of smoke and mirrors and hopeful sighs. But there’s an elephant in the garden.”

I blinked at him. “A what?”

“The metaphorical elephant. Not an actual one. Though if one shows up, I want full credit for the prediction.”

“Twobble…”

He sighed. “Fine. The question is… once you're there, once you're actually in Shadowick on Moonbeam’s Eve, how do you plan on breaking the curse?”

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 labeled How 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 do you think 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 know how to break the curse yet… maybe I needed to stop focusing on the how and start remembering why.

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.

And that was worse than anything else he could’ve said.

I shook my head. “You don’t think it’s possible.”

His silence was an answer.

“I want to believe there’s still something human in him,” I whispered.

“There probably is,” Twobble replied gently. “Some thread. Some spark. But that doesn’t mean it’s the part in charge anymore.”

My breath caught.

“Gideon…” Twobble rubbed his thumb across his palm, as if recalling something too sharp to name. “He’s not who he used to be. Maybe he never was. But the man you want to reason with? He’s buried so deep under what he’s become, you’d need more than words to dig him out.”

I turned my face toward the sky. Pale clouds drifted slowly across the blue like wandering thoughts.

Letting out a long sigh, I nodded. “So we have to plan for something else.”

“Yes,” he said. “Because if your heart’s set on conversation, and he shows up with something darker… you’ll get caught in it. You could lose yourself in it. You’re strong, Maeve. But you’re not invincible.”

The weight of those words pressed down on me. It wasn’t cruel or even a warning. It was just the truth.

And I hated that I knew he was right.

“Then we better figure out a different plan,” I said, voice steadier than I expected. “Something that doesn’t depend on him doing the right thing.”

“That’s the spirit,” Twobble muttered, though the sorrow hadn’t left his eyes.

The wind stirred again, and something shifted, almost like the Ward itself felt the change. It felt like the pressure was released or a thread snapped back into place. And through the glowing arch near the garden’s outer edge, a figure walked into view.

Keegan.

Coming from town, sleeves rolled to his elbows, his gait slow and thoughtful. The moment his eyes landed on me, something in his shoulders relaxed.

I sat up straighter, brushing stray leaves from my skirt.

Twobble gave a low groan. “Perfect timing. I’ll just…go inspect that patch of clover for… suspicious root systems.”

“You do that,” I murmured, unable to stop the small smile that tugged at my mouth.

He trundled off with exaggerated huffs and mumbled curses about romance and poorly timed entrances.

Keegan stepped through the last arch, steps quiet on the garden path. “Was I interrupting a summit of some kind?”

“The little guy is so wise.”

He smiled faintly, then looked more closely at me. “You look like you’ve been thinking.”

“Dangerous habit, I know.”

“Depends on the thoughts.”

I shifted on the fountain bench, tugging my shawl around my shoulders. “I was hoping for peace.”

Keegan’s brows lifted slightly. “Between you and Twobble? Twobble and Skonk?”

“Between me and Gideon.”

His gaze sharpened instantly. He stepped closer, folding his arms as he looked down at me. “You were hoping to talk to him.”

I nodded. “Not just to talk. To reason with him. To get through.”

Keegan sighed through his nose, then dropped onto the bench beside me, close but not touching. “And what did Twobble say?”

“He told me I was dreaming.”

Keegan didn’t disagree.

I glanced at him. “You think I’m wrong, too?”

“I think you’re brave,” he said after a moment. “And that you have more compassion than he deserves. But I also think Twobble’s right.”

I nodded slowly, the ache in my chest not going away.

“He’ll use it, Maeve,” Keegan said, quieter now. “If he sees a crack in your armor, he’ll make it wider. He doesn’t play fair. He never did.”

I looked away, toward the shimmer of the Butterfly Ward, the soft movement of vines along the edge of the path.

“I didn’t want it to come to this,” I whispered.

“Neither did any of us.” His voice was a low thrum. “But we’re here now. And we do what we have to do.”

He didn’t reach for my hand, but I felt the steady presence of him beside me, like a lighthouse in a gathering storm.

I breathed it in.

It wasn’t peace digging at my soul, it was clarity.

Keegan tilted his head slightly, watching the way my shoulders slumped forward under the weight of it all.

“Nova’s been waiting for this,” he said. “She’s got half a dozen spells ready for you to try.”

I turned to him, brows arching. “And I’m just learning about this now?”

His grin flashed like the sudden break of sunlight through clouds. “You were busy playing peacekeeper with the darkness.”

I let out a breath that was half a laugh, half a groan. “Of course, she has spells. Nova always has spells. I swear, sometimes I think she sees my schedule before I do.”

Keegan chuckled low in his throat. “She probably does.”

I leaned back, tipping my head against the stone edge of the fountain and gazing up through the twisting vines overhead. A hummingbird darted past, wings a blur, the moment so ordinary and magical it made my chest ache.

“That’s just how this place works,” I murmured. “You think you’re walking in one direction, and then suddenly there’s a whole other path under your feet.”

“Which makes you wonder if the path was always there,” Keegan added.

“Or if the Academy is building it around me, just a step ahead.”

He didn’t answer right away, and I didn’t mind. His presence beside me was its kind of answer.

I closed my eyes for a beat, letting the garden sounds seep into my bones—the rustle of ivy, the wind drifting through blossom-heavy branches, the faint hum of magic that was always just beneath the surface here.

One day.

One day until Moonbeam’s Eve.

And still so many unknowns.

I straightened slowly and rubbed my hands over my face. “Guess I should go see what Nova’s been scheming. If she’s waiting with a stack of incantations and that look she gets when she knows more than she’s telling, I’d rather face it head-on.”

Keegan gave me a sidelong glance. “Want me to come with you?”

I thought about it, just for a moment. Thought about his steady voice and his quiet faith and the way he’d kissed me like the world wasn’t about to turn inside out.

But then I shook my head. “No. Not this time.”

He nodded like he understood completely. And maybe he did.

“I’ll be here,” he said.

I stood and dusted my hands off on my skirt. “And it means more than you know.”

He gave a quick nod and smiled.

Then I looked down at him, heart full of something too tangled to name. “Thanks for reminding me I’m not doing this alone.”

His gaze met mine, unflinching. “You never were.”

And with that, I headed toward the Academy, ready to see what waited behind Nova’s unreadable smile.