Page 46

I gritted my teeth as the pulse beneath the Academy trembled again. It wasn’t just magic anymore. It was pressure.

Tension rising, coiling through the walls like breath being sucked in before a scream.

He thought he had us.

That the Moonbeam would vanish without purpose, its light spent and useless, that we would scatter in the aftermath, tired and fractured. That the curse would outlast our hope.

But I wasn’t done.

And I wasn’t letting Gideon win.

Not while I still had a single spell left in my bones. The others had followed us here, but stayed back.

Keegan moved beside me, his steps sure, but his eyes still scanning the dark like Gideon might slip through the cracks again. “You’ve got that look,” he said quietly.

“What look?”

“The one right before you do something that terrifies the rest of us.”

I gave him a tired smile. “Then I’m right on time.”

The floor beneath us thrummed again. The light I’d commanded earlier twitched in the shadows, overtaxed but holding. The echo of Gideon’s shadow was still bound beneath the layers of green magic, but I could feel it struggling. Pushing. Waiting for the Moonbeam to slip entirely below the horizon.

I could feel it too.

The light was almost gone.

Only a soft haze of silver clung to the uppermost arches of the Academy now, like dew that hadn’t yet evaporated.

One final breath of power.

And maybe, just maybe, enough.

“I need space,” I said suddenly, stepping back toward the center of the hall. “Tell the others to make room.”

Keegan’s brow furrowed. “Maeve—”

“I’ve seen Nova do it. I’ve practiced. I’ve watched the flow of layered spells.” I pressed my hands to my chest. “I can cast three. Maybe four if I time it right. But I need room.”

Keegan didn’t argue. He turned, fast and sure, and barked orders down the hallway. “Back. Everyone move. Give her room.”

Footsteps scrambled. Stella was there first, standing at the corridor edges, her eyes wide but gleaming. Nova and Ardetia appeared simultaneously from the distant corridor, their faces pale with understanding.

“You’re going to throw spells into the air,” Nova murmured, more to herself than anyone else. “Old magic. It’s a last-gasp gambit.”

Nova stepped forward, placing her hands on either side of my face. Her eyes searched mine, and for a moment, I felt like a student again, uncertain, grasping, full of raw potential.

Then she kissed my forehead and whispered, “Make it count.”

I nodded once and turned toward the fading silver thread of the Moonbeam, just a glimmer now, like a ghost across the rafters.

I raised my arms.

And I began to chant.

The first spell was the anchoring one— Vemda Felmani. Light that sought truth. It bloomed from my fingers like green flame, spreading across the floor and upward, tethering the Academy’s walls to its foundations in the Hedge.

The second came fast on its heels— Nolva Martii.

A calling spell, woven to light, that pulled the final shimmer of the Moonbeam down into the stone.

It caught like starlight in a glass prism, refracting outwards in every direction.

It’s meant for regular moonlight, but maybe the Moonbeam would make it more powerful.

The third was the hardest— Exuram Befel. Nova’s name for the spell that unspooled bindings. It wasn’t just meant to shatter locks. It was meant to reveal what held something closed, then offer a choice.

It spun from my hands like a whip of violet light, lashing through the air, twisting into the cracks of the old curse.

The moment it touched the foundation, the floor screamed.

Not in sound, but in energy. It recoiled. Shuddered.

And then—

I cast the last.

A Hedge spell, but rewritten in my blood. Nolma Nolpin. A Hedge witch’s vow not to protect power, but to release it.

My chest burned and ached before I fell back, and light exploded outward from my chest. Not bright but true. It spread like fire through the Academy, brushing every stone, every ward, every whisper of magic. It wasn’t about power. It was about choice.

And in that moment, I gave the Academy one.

Stay bound.

Or break free.

But we had to do this together.

The ground cracked beneath my feet, a clean line of silver tracing from the sealed corridor all the way to the butterfly-etched door in the entrance hall. The light beams in the ceiling shook. Every window blew open at once, moonlight rushing in like breath reclaimed.

Keegan reached for me, eyes wide. “Maeve—”

“I don’t know if it’s enough,” I gasped. “But I’ve given everything I’ve got.”

The wind slammed through the hall like a final heartbeat, rattling the stone, shaking the magic loose from the air. The spells I cast lifted like birds, spiraling together in the high rafters, woven now into one final offering.

And then…

The Moonbeam vanished.

Not slowly.

But all at once.

Like someone had exhaled it from the sky.

For one second, everything stopped.

And I thought I’d failed.

But the silver crack along the floor began to glow.

Just faintly.

Just enough.

It traced a full circle through the hall, connecting sigils I hadn’t seen before, runed edges lost to time, now blooming with magic again. It pulsed once, then twice.

Then it stilled.

I fell to my knees, exhausted.

Nova rushed to my side. “It didn’t break.”

My throat tightened. “But it moved. I felt it shift.”

“The curse is still here,” she said softly. “But you shook its spine.”

Keegan crouched beside me, wiping the sweat from my brow. “And Gideon knows it.”

Good, I wanted to say. Let him feel it. Let him see the cracks forming and know we won’t stop until they split wide enough to swallow him whole.

But I didn’t speak.

I didn’t need to.

Because above us, nestled in the rafters, where the last of my spells flickered and dimmed, a single feather of silver light remained.

Not a thread.

Not a beam.

But enough.

Enough to try again.

And enough to remind him that we’re not done.

The Academy exhaled.

Not gently, but in a sharp, shuddering breath that cracked stone and splintered silence. The magic around us surged, not in victory but in sheer resistance, as though the old spells holding everything together were pushing against a tide they could no longer withstand.

And for a single suspended second, the air trembled with possibility.

I stood, or maybe I was lifted. My legs had no strength left, but the Hedge held me.

The roots that had buried themselves deep beneath the Academy reached up, not to catch me, but to carry me.

I was breathless, weightless, flooded with power that wasn’t mine alone.

It was ours. The Academy. The land. The light.

Every spell I’d cast was a spark fanned into a flame.

Somewhere behind me, I heard Nova shouting, her voice thick with spellwork.

Ardetia was weaving a shield, the kind that glittered faintly with fae truth and sacrifice.

Stella, hissing like a kettle on the edge of boiling, was anchoring the hallway against whatever came next.

Keegan moved like a storm through shadow, his blade drawn, eyes locked on the sigils that had begun to burn through the walls.

But I could feel it before anyone else said a word.

He was here.

Not the whisper of Gideon.

Not the shadow.

Him.

Solid. Present.

Breaching the edges of what should have kept him out.

Because the curse hadn’t broken.

And the Moonbeam was nearly gone as that last feather of light blinked out in the rafters. The doorway across the hall, one that had remained sealed since the day the Academy shuttered its gates, exploded inward.

The darkness didn’t spill out. It marched.

A figure stepped through, flanked by twisted echoes of magic that shrieked like wind through dead trees.

His coat was high-collared, dark as pitch; his hair was swept back, like a nobleman dressed for war.

But his eyes, those awful, familiar eyes, glowed with the faintest ember of cruelty. Cold. Patient. Calculating.

He smiled.

“Didn’t think I’d miss the final moment, did you?”

The room braced.

Keegan stepped forward, blade humming. “You’re not welcome here.”

Gideon’s eyes flicked to him, almost lazily. “Oh, Keegan. Still playing the loyal wolf. Still pretending loyalty isn’t just another kind of chain.”

Keegan didn’t answer.

He didn’t need to.

Because I moved between them.

“I told you,” I said, voice hoarse but strong, “this place will never belong to you.”

Gideon tilted his head, that cruel smile twitching. “And yet I walked through the front door.”

The temperature dropped. Every window frosted at the corners. The light along the floor curled tighter, sensing the intrusion. Magic screamed through the foundation.

“Because the curse isn’t broken,” I said, voice cracking. “But it will be. And when it is, you won’t have anything left to twist.”

“Sweet Hedge witch,” he said, stepping closer. “You should’ve let the Moonbeam do its work. But instead, you wasted it on parlor tricks and hope.”

He lifted his hand.

The air warped.

Magic struck out, not in a bolt, but in a wave of pressure. Reality bent. Charms split. The very air seemed to fold inward like paper.

Nova countered instantly, slamming her staff into the stone.

“Protect the line!” she shouted, her voice echoing in ways it never had before.

The force of Gideon’s power hit like thunder. The wall behind me cracked. Chunks of marble shattered and flew like glass, but the shield held.

Barely.

“I’ve got this!” I yelled, pushing my hands outward. “Give me the space!”

Nova and Ardetia poured everything into the shield. Keegan dropped low, sliding across the stone floor. Stella hurled a wave of cold light across the ceiling, shattering the darkness Gideon cast above us.

But he kept walking.

Like it was all a game.

Like this wasn’t the crescendo, but merely a test.

“I know what you’re hiding,” he said, eyes fixed on me now. “I saw it. When you thought you’d pushed me out, you let me in. A sliver, a glimpse—”

My breath hitched.

He was bluffing.

He had to be bluffing.

But his smirk told me he’d seen enough.

“I wonder what the Academy would do,” he said slowly, “if it knew what you held so close. If it realized the very curse choking it might not be the worst thing that ever woke.”

Relief spread through me when I realized he wasn’t talking about the ancient creatures hidden away.

But I didn’t know what he was talking about.

So, I pulled.

I reached deeper than I’d ever dared, calling on the Hedge magic buried in the seams of my soul. I drew up the old words, the ones Nova had whispered in firelight, the ones I’d scrawled in dirt and forgotten dreams. Spells I didn’t dare use until now.

I didn’t chant.

I commanded.

The floor erupted in beams, slivers, and ribbons of living light. The very architecture of the Academy responded, ancient stones alighting with glyphs that hadn’t glowed in decades. A pulse beat through the ground, mine. Not his. Not the curse’s.

Mine.

Gideon reeled back, snarling.

“Enough,” I growled, stepping forward through the glow, every footfall a drumbeat in the rising storm. “You don’t get to pretend this is your story anymore.”

He lifted both hands, drawing more power, but it faltered.

Because I wasn’t alone.

Keegan was behind me, blade lit with runes.

Nova chanted at my side, her staff burning.

Stella’s sigils raced across the floor like flame across a dry field.

Ardetia hovered near the rafters, singing in fae tongue.

And I?

I held the heart of the Hedge.

I cast the final spell, not toward Gideon, but toward the curse itself.

Endroma Belino. Not to destroy.

But to unbind.

The curse screamed.

Not loud. Not even audibly.

But in the bones of the Academy.

The seal that held it fractured.

And through that break, I felt it breathe.

Not collapse. Not yet.

But bend.

For the first time in decades, the curse had shifted.

Gideon stumbled, catching himself on a broken pillar. His eyes were wide. His power sputtering.

“You don’t win,” I said, walking closer. “Not tonight.”

He snarled. “You think this is over?”

“No,” I said. “But we just changed the ending. ”

And in that moment, the last sliver of moonlight returned.

Not in the sky…

But in me.