Page 45

“I can still feel him inside.”

The words slipped from my mouth in a hoarse whisper, barely formed and trembling. My lungs burned. Every breath dragged like thorns in my chest. I couldn’t tell if it was magic, pain, or fear, or all three twisting together like a belt around my ribs.

Keegan held me tighter, one hand braced at the back of my head, the other grounding me with the steadiness I didn’t realize I needed. “Maeve, he’s gone.”

But I shook my head. Hard.

“No,” I rasped. “He... he left something. A splinter. I can feel it pressing just behind my eyes.”

And then—

A flicker.

Not of him exactly, not his shadowed face or whispered promises. But of something worse.

Something secret.

A glimpse burned behind my eyes like an after image.

Curled wings.

Molten eyes.

A shimmer of teal and silver and ancient light caught in crystal scales.

No.

The dragons.

My stomach dropped.

I squeezed my eyes shut, forced the thought from my mind like scrubbing soot from glass.

He couldn’t see that.

He couldn’t .

I had buried the knowledge deep—deep, deeper than the Hedge, deeper than my magic. Only Grandma Elira and I knew. No one else. Not even Keegan.

But the image kept flashing.

Wings.

Wings in the dark.

Wings in the Library vault. Wings in the Study.

I shoved the thoughts away again, furious and sweating.

Keegan must’ve felt the shift in me, because he stepped back, gripping my shoulders.

“Maeve, what’s happening?”

I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t find the air.

Because the thought came again.

And I buried it. I no longer could tell if it was coming from me or someone else, but it didn’t matter. I buried them all.

So many secrets tucked away.

You’re heavier with them than you know .

My eyes snapped open, and for a moment, the corridor spun around me.

He was still here.

Not all of him.

But enough.

Tell me your secrets, Maeve.

A sliver was buried somewhere in my mind, like a nail under the skin.

I stumbled back from Keegan, heart racing. “No, no, no…”

“Maeve—”

“Get Stella. Get Nova. Now.”

Keegan didn’t hesitate.

The second he disappeared down the corridor, I slammed my back to the cold wall and clawed my hand against my temple like I could dig the thought out.

Unburden yourself. Don’t carry it all.

I gritted my teeth. He didn’t know, but he was searching for something.

“No,” I growled. “You don’t get to see my thoughts. You don’t get in. ”

I dropped to my knees, sweat pouring down my spine, and summoned the Hedge again, harder this time, more desperate. I didn’t ask. I begged.

“Help me. Please. He’s inside.”

The light didn’t come gently. The beams ripped up from the floor and slammed into my back like a shield, like a cage. Thorned tendrils of light wrapped around my arms, not to bind, but to protect my thoughts.

They wove a cocoon of green and light and old magic around my head, whispering truth into my bones.

You are still yours.

You are rooted.

You are not what hides inside you.

The whispers drowned out his voice.

But only barely.

Another flicker burned behind my eyes. This time, his hand reached for the dragon den. His eyes turned toward the sealed chamber. The way the breath of stone warmed when he walked past…

No. No, no, no—

I screamed, not aloud, but inside my head, pouring everything into the Hedge’s protection.

Turn it against him.

You silly, man. Chasing after fantastical creatures that don’t exist? How pathetic. Is that what you wanted all this time? We could have shown you decades ago that nothing like that exists.

I filled my head with so many placed thoughts, guarding the real ones, while begging the Hedge for help to deliver my thoughts.

The Hedge answered.

A snap cracked through my chest like a chord breaking.

Gone.

My body sagged, falling to the floor.

When I opened my eyes, Nova was kneeling beside me, her fingers glowing with green fire as she scanned me from scalp to soul.

“You’re clean,” she said softly, brushing my hair from my forehead. “But that was close.”

I nodded, voice gone.

Keegan hovered nearby, his hands flexing like he wanted to fight something he couldn’t see.

“I felt him,” I said hoarsely. “Inside. Not just memories. Present. He tried to see something I’ve hidden.”

Nova’s gaze sharpened. “What?”

“I can’t say it,” I hissed. “Even now. He’s not fully gone. He left a tether —like a hook. It’s snapped now, I think, but if I speak it aloud, it might echo. ”

Nova frowned, but nodded. “Then we keep it secret.”

I nodded.

Nova placed her palms over mine. “We need to ground you. The tether might be broken, but his magic lingers like mildew. We clean it, now.”

“I’ll guard the room,” Keegan said. “No one gets through.”

Nova pulled a small black stone from her satchel and placed it over my heart. “Close your eyes. Focus only on your name.”

“My name?”

“Your true one,” she said. “The one only you know.”

I closed my eyes.

The Academy faded.

The pain faded.

There was only my breath. My heartbeat. My magic.

And a name whispered to me by the vines, the moss, the wind through the wildwood.

Maeve.

Not just daughter.

Not just Hedge witch.

Not just survivor.

But rooted.

Mine.

A light bloomed in my chest, soft and slow. It spread outward like honey warming in sunlight. It burned the last of his voice away.

I opened my eyes.

Nova exhaled. “Good. He’s gone.”

But my mouth stayed tight.

Because I couldn’t help but wonder—

Had he seen enough ?

Not everything.

But enough to want more?

“I have to warn Grandma Elira,” I said, rising shakily.

Nova helped me up. “Are you strong enough?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I don’t have a choice.”

Keegan stepped beside me and took my hand.

“You’re not going alone.”

His presence steadied me more than he could possibly know.

“Let’s go,” I said.

Because if Gideon had seen even a glimmer of what lay beneath the Academy.

Of what slept there…

Then we had more than the curse to worry about.

We had dragons.

Magic hummed in the walls like it was holding its breath, and I realized too late that it wasn’t anticipation. It was warning. Every stone, every shadow, every pulse of light inside the Academy had turned brittle and sharp, like the bones of something ancient waking under our feet.

Keegan and I turned the corner just as the last shimmer of the Moonbeam fractured across the vaulted ceiling. The silver light flickered once, twice, and then bled into the stone like water soaking into cloth.

It was nearly over.

“No,” I whispered.

Keegan slowed beside me, eyes narrowing at the darkening air. “What is it?”

The Moonbeam was almost gone.

Dissolving.

And the curse? Still intact. Still wrapped around the Academy like a noose, no one could find the end of.

“I thought we had more time,” I said, stumbling to a stop. My hand pressed against the stone wall, but it didn’t answer me the way it used to. It just… hummed. Tired. Hollow.

Keegan’s hand was on my back instantly. “Maeve.”

“The Moonbeam,” I said. “It’s almost over. And we haven’t broken it. The curse is still here. ”

He didn’t speak.

Because there wasn’t anything to say.

We both turned toward the far end of the hallway as a gust of cold air curled through it like a serpent. The torches dimmed. The hair on my arms lifted. The last lingering threads of the Moonbeam shimmered weakly over the stones, like veins fading from a dying thing.

And then we heard it.

Footsteps.

Light. Measured. Mocking.

A flicker of shadow stepped out from the wall ahead of us, not fully solid, not entirely gone. It was a shape that wore the suggestion of Gideon like a coat. The sliver I’d battled earlier had returned, and this time, it brought with it something colder. Clearer.

Not rage.

Purpose.

“You feel it now, don’t you?” the echo said in Gideon’s voice. “The timing. The truth. The Moonbeam wasn’t here to lift the curse. It was here to see who still stood beneath it.”

I stepped forward, magic pulsing in my fingertips. “And yet you’re still crawling in the dark, aren’t you?”

He smiled without lips. “You’re so certain you’re the answer. But what if the Academy has already chosen its sacrifice?”

Beside me, Keegan let out a low growl.

I didn’t hesitate.

I flung a column of Hedge magic forward, light coiling from beneath the tiles, grabbing at the shadow’s legs before it could retreat. It screamed, not just in sound, but in magic, vibrating through the air like glass ready to splinter.

Keegan surged past me, blade drawn, slicing into the shadow’s side. It staggered, wavered, but didn’t fall.

Instead, it split.

The smoke-body fractured into three again, each thinner than the original, each darting in a different direction.

“No,” I breathed. “He’s trying again. He’s looking for another way in. ”

Keegan caught one as it zipped past him, binding it with a circle of flame etched in runes. The second slid into the stone wall.

But the third?

It went down.

Through the floor.

I dropped to my knees and slammed both hands to the ground. “Hedge, now. ”

The light responded sluggishly. Worn. As exhausted as I felt. But they reached through the floor, snagging the fleeing shadow just before it vanished into the deep.

It struggled in the green light, twisting and writhing. But I held.

“Don’t let it slip,” I whispered, pouring more energy into the vines. “Trap it. Bind it. Don’t destroy it, not yet.”

The magic snapped around it like a cage, and the thing screamed again, not in pain, but in fury.

That was when I knew.

Gideon hadn’t just been trying to escape.

He was searching.

Probing the Academy like a hunter pressing on weak points.

And the curse?

It hadn’t been lifted because we hadn’t cut deep enough. We’d scratched at the edges, lit candles, and whispered spells while the root of it all still pulsed somewhere below.

I looked at Keegan, who was watching me with a mixture of concern and readiness.

“He knows the Moonbeam’s fading,” I said. “He waited for this. He planned for this.”

Keegan looked toward the sealed stairwell at the end of the hall. “Then what do we do?”

I stood, swaying slightly, and pressed a blood-slicked palm to the warded floor. It hissed in response, then cooled.

“We go deeper.”

“You sure?” Keegan asked, already stepping beside me. “If we’re wrong—”

“I’m not wrong,” I said, sharper than I meant to. “If we don’t find where he’s anchoring this, where the curse is rooted , then when the Moonbeam dies completely, we lose our last chance to weaken him. My dad stays a bulldog, and you might not survive your next uncontrolled shift in a decade.”

Keegan met my eyes, nodded once, then moved to reinforce the charmed vines around the trapped shadow.

I could feel it writhing below us, but even now, it didn’t scare me.

What scared me was how familiar its thoughts had felt when it tried to push into mine. Like it had worn my voice to try on a secret I wasn’t ready to admit.

But that was a problem for later.

Because we had to act now.

Keegan turned to me, jaw set.

We’d all given everything tonight.

And it still hadn’t been enough.

But the worst kind of curse wasn’t just one that choked a place.

It was the kind that waited.

That tricked you into thinking time was on your side.

Now the Moonbeam was almost gone.

And the shadows?

They weren’t waiting anymore.