Page 27

My bones ached.

Not the sharp kind of ache from bumping into an old stone wall or falling asleep on an uneven pillow, but the kind that burrowed deep, into the marrow, whispering things like you weren’t made for this and why don’t you just sleep for days?

But resting felt more dangerous than moving forward.

The spell had taken more than I expected.

Maybe that was the price. Perhaps I should’ve expected it, but no one could ever prepare you for the weight of weaving your memories into fire while altering them enough.

No one could explain the strange emptiness that followed, as if a beloved book had been returned to the shelf and you couldn’t remember where you’d left off.

I slumped onto the edge of a nearby bench, my fingers trembling just enough to make me clench them into fists. Bella offered me a crooked grin as she summoned a cup of honeyed tea with a flick of her wrist and handed it over without a word.

I took it, grateful.

The heat seeped into my palms, grounding me, though I wasn’t sure if it was enough to stop the hum still crawling across my skin.

Ardetia stood near the window, her posture regal and frustratingly unbothered, her braid catching the firelight.

“You’ve done well,” she said softly, turning to face me. “But there’s still one more thing.”

I groaned into my cup. “Let me guess. A nice nap on a bed of thorns?”

Bella chuckled. “Not quite.”

Ardetia’s lips twitched. “Guardianship.”

I closed my eyes, letting the warmth of the tea soften the tension in my chest. “What more can I give it? I’ve already fed it memory, intention, and whatever scrap of resolve I had left.”

“This time isn’t about giving,” Ardetia said.

“We’re going to teach you how to lock your thoughts,” Nova said. “Not behind walls. Not behind riddles or decoys. But behind fire.”

I blinked. “You want me to burn them?”

“In a sense,” she replied. “The forge can temper thought, like steel. Sharpen it. Hide it. Hedge witches are notoriously leaky because your magic doesn’t operate on formality. It thrives on wildness. You don’t block things out. You entangle and embed.”

The tea curdled slightly in my stomach. “So you want me to untangle?”

“No,” Nova said, stepping closer. “We want you to learn which threads to tuck away. Which to hold close. Which not to spin at all. And which to burn.”

The words settled like a key in an unseen lock. I stood, shaky but steady enough to follow my next set of instructions.

Nova looked at me. “Are you ready?”

“No,” I said. “But I’m here.”

The heat pulsed against my cheeks, the air thick with the scent of charred stories and ancient magic. The cauldrons hissed softly, their molten contents swirling like liquid thoughts, waiting for their next whisper.

“Sit,” Nova said, gesturing to the stool at the far side of the chamber.

I lowered myself slowly, the back of my legs brushing against the carved wood.

I was grateful I had a place to sit this time. “What happens if something slips?”

“We catch it,” Ardetia said.

“And if you don’t?”

“You’ll feel it before it leaves,” Nova replied. “The goal isn’t to trap every thought. It’s to train the instinct to guard itself.”

The fire sprites were already circling. Unlike last time, they moved closer to each other. Hungrier.

I closed my eyes.

“Start small,” Nova said. “A memory. Something benign.”

My mind reached for the image of a spoon.

It was a simple wooden one that my daughter had carved in a class once.

It had lived in the cottage kitchen drawer, slightly lopsided, completely perfect.

It was one of the first things I treasured when Twobble brought my items out of storage for me back at the cottage.

The fire in the nearest cauldron flared.

One of the sprites dove.

I gasped.

“Hold it,” Ardetia whispered. “Draw it back.”

I pictured the spoon. I pictured Celeste’s crooked grin, the wood shavings in her hair, her pride.

The sprite flinched mid-flight, reeled, and turned away.

My breath hitched. “It worked.”

Nova stepped forward. “Again. But this time, something newer in your heart.”

I didn’t want to, but I did.

Keegan’s face rose in my thoughts. The first time he looked at me after the kiss. His eyes were dark with something I still didn’t have a name for.

The sprite dove.

I flinched.

But I held it.

Barely.

It pulled at me, like a fish on a hook. I dug my heels into the stone and whispered, “No.”

The sprite stopped.

Then retreated.

Ardetia gave a rare, full smile.

“You’re learning.”

Nova stepped beside me. “One more.”

I braced myself.

My father’s voice.

His bark of laughter and the memory of him before the curse.

The sprite came hard and fast, but I was faster.

I wrapped the memory in light, tucked it behind the shape of the spoon, and buried it beneath the sound of Celeste’s laugh.

The sprite jerked away.

The forge calmed.

The lesson was over.

But something inside me had shifted.

The chaos of Hedge magic… wasn’t chaos at all. Not if I could shape it. Not if I knew where to look.

As I stood, sweat slicking my spine and my pulse finally steadying, I knew something I hadn’t known when we entered this room.

I could do this, not without pain and not without fear, but with focus and fire.

When we left the forge and entered the Academy, the walls felt calmer. The stone didn’t feel so charged.

Things were clearer, like everything had been polished under a storm. Even the sconces lining the stone walls flickered in a quieter rhythm, their glow more watchful than warning.

My thoughts were still tucked behind fire, and I was afraid that if I let my guard slip, they'd spill again, but that new awareness followed me like a second pulse.

The sprites hadn’t burned me, but they could have. And I realized, maybe for the first time, that this wasn’t just about learning magic. This wasn’t about finding a place in the Academy or understanding the wards. This was survival. And not just mine.

I moved through the quiet like someone walking the wrong way through a dream. Everything looked familiar, but something had shifted underneath.

The Academy was awake in a way it hadn’t been, and I wasn’t sure it was only because of me.

Near the stairs to the third-floor observatory, I paused. I didn’t hear anything. No voices. No flicker of magic behind a cracked door. Just silence, deep and pressing.

I turned.

No one.

But the sense of being watched didn’t fade.

I picked up my pace, letting instinct guide me, not to the common rooms or my office, but toward one of the older wings.

The stones here were uneven, the magic woven into the mortar older and thicker. This was where the Academy kept its bones, or so I imagined.

Halfway down the corridor, I stopped.

A door stood ajar.

The lantern near it had gone out, leaving the threshold shrouded in gloom. I approached, slow and steady. I didn’t call out. Something told me not to.

I pushed it open with the edge of my hand.

The room beyond was empty, or it looked that way.

Dust motes spun lazily through the low light. Tables and shelves lined the walls, most of which were covered in sheeting. A study, perhaps, or a forgotten archive. But something about it felt wrong.

I stepped inside.

The moment I crossed the threshold, the air changed.

Cooler. Denser. Like I’d just entered another layer of time.

My fingertips brushed the edge of a nearby desk. The wood groaned softly. A single candle had been left on the far table, melted almost to the base. Wax had spilled onto the floor, as if it had been knocked over.

Someone had been here.

Recently.

And then I saw it.

A torn page rested in the center of the desk with no book around it.

I approached carefully, my breath caught in my chest.

The page was nearly charred, the edges curled, and only a few lines remained legible:

“…the Moonbeam’s path is not a straight gate, but a spiraled one… only those who remember and forget in equal measure may pass whole…”

I touched the corner of the page, and it flared warm against my skin.

A fresh message, but from whom?

And why leave it here, where I may or may not find it?

I didn’t take it with me. I didn’t want to disturb whatever left it behind. Instead, I whispered a preservation spell over the page, the words catching in the back of my throat like old dust. Then I stepped back, heart thundering.

The path wasn’t straight.

It was spiraled.

Which meant…

Gideon wasn’t just waiting.

He was twisting.

Changing the shape of the path itself.

Or maybe that was my job.

And Moonbeam wasn’t a simple opening. It was layered. A mirror that showed different faces depending on how you looked.

I backed out of the room, sealing the door with a flick of my hand and a whispered enchantment from the forge. It was one Ardetia had taught me earlier, meant to cloak thought and hold memory.

I needed time to sort things out, but I didn’t have it.

Moonbeam’s Eve was nearly here.

And the path to Shadowick was already shifting.

I rounded the next corner quickly, almost expecting to run into someone, but the hallway remained empty.

For now.

The Academy wasn’t just watching me anymore.

It was listening.

And I had to make sure it heard the right things.

I was halfway down the second-floor corridor when I rounded a corner too fast and nearly collided with a velvet-wrapped force of nature.

“Oof—watch it, darling,” Stella said, catching me by the arm before either of us could topple. Her voice, as always, was equal parts theatrical and affectionate. “You’re walking like something’s chasing you.”

“Something might be,” I muttered.

Behind her, Keegan stood leaning against the stone arch, arms crossed, looking far too amused for someone I’d nearly taken down in the process. “Told you we’d find her pacing.”

“I wasn’t pacing,” I said, brushing my hair out of my face. “I was walking with purpose.”

“To what end?” Stella asked, her eyes narrowing like she already knew the answer and didn’t approve. “Planning to sneak back to Shadowick again? Because if you are, I’ll hex your boots to sing sea shanties every time you move. You need rest.”

“Please don’t,” I said with a dry smile.

Keegan pushed off the wall, his brow furrowing slightly. “Look, I know tomorrow is going to be full of spells, wards, strategy, and whatever else Moonbeam has in store, but tonight?”

Stella looped her arm through mine before I could answer.

“Tonight, we’re going to town. You, me, him”—she pointed a dramatic finger at Keegan—“and whoever else we gather on the way. We’re going to eat something fried, drink something that sparkles, and maybe dance a little if our joints don’t betray us. ”

I blinked. “Are you serious?”

“As the grave,” she said, then smirked. “Pardon the expression.”

Keegan gave me a little shrug that was oddly endearing. “It’ll be good for you. For all of us. Even Twobble’s coming.”

I arched a brow. “Twobble agreed to leave the grounds?”

“He said he would if Skonk wasn’t allowed to choose the music,” Keegan said.

“That seems fair.”

“Come on,” Stella said, her tone softening. “You’ve done enough today, Maeve. And you’ll do more tomorrow. But tonight, let’s act like we’re just people for a few hours. Friends. Not witches and shifters and guardians of all that’s holy and cursed.”

Her words curled around me like warmth from a hearth, unexpected and deeply needed.

The thought of one of the town’s candlelit cafés, the cobbled streets dotted with lanterns, the quiet joy of watching people laugh instead of worry pulled something loose inside me. A reminder of who I was before the weight of curses and illusions.

I exhaled, finally letting my shoulders relax.

“All right,” I said. “But if Skonk shows up in a top hat, I’m out.”

Keegan grinned. “No promises.”

And just like that, I let myself be led toward the stairwell, toward the heart of Stonewick and something I hadn’t realized I was starving for.

A moment to simply be.