“And yet,” I echoed, my throat tight, “he looked like someone who was abandoned. Who wants to understandwhyhe became what he did. And I... I wanted to know, too.”
Twobble set his cup down carefully, eyes meeting mine with startling clarity.
“You saw the knot,” he said simply.
I frowned. “What knot?”
“The one most people pretend isn’t there,” he replied. “You’re not split between four options, Maeve. You’re tied to them all. Celeste is your heart. Keegan is your steadiness. The Academy is your purpose.”
He leaned forward slightly. “And Gideon? He’s yourunanswered question.The shadow you keep circling.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“It’s not supposed to be,” Twobble said gently. “But it’s honest.”
The kettle across the room made a sharp whistle and then hiccupped before going quiet.
Twobble’s gaze didn’t waver.
“You didn’t choose one path,” he said.
I blinked.
“You choseallof them.”
The words landed in my chest like a stone tossed into a lake, skimming the surfaces of my emotions.
“You didn’t split,” he went on. “You grew. You cracked the spell that forces choice. You said,I am all of this.And the magic? You bent it.”
“But why Gideon?” I whispered, desperate for clarity. “Why does he still take up so much space in my head? Even now? That scares me more than anything.”
“Because,” Twobble said quietly, “your soul doesn’t like a question left unanswered. You’ve made peace with your daughter’s pull. With Keegan’s presence. With the Academy’s call. But Gideon? He’s the unfinished sentence in a book you didn’t write.”
My eyes stung.
“You don’t want to be like him,” Twobble added. “But part of you knows youcould have been.Under different stars. In a different life.”
I looked down into my tea.
And realized I’d stopped shaking.
Because Twobble didn’t judge, didn’t press, or offer solutions.
He simplysaw me.
He lifted his mug. “To the witch who broke the rules and wove herself whole.”
I raised mine with a shaky smile. “To the goblin who actually makes more sense than anyone else.”
Twobble smirked. “Naturally.”
And for the first time since I stepped out of that path, I felt steady. Not because the questions were gone. But because I wasn’t afraid of the answers anymore.
Twobble twirled the last bit of tea in his cup, staring into it as if the leaves might spell out something useful. But after a moment, he sighed and set it down gently on the oak table.
“I’ve never heard of this happening before,” he said, his voice low and even, but laced with something he rarely let through—reverence. And maybe a touch of worry. “Not in goblin lore. Not in fae scrolls. Not even in the old whisper-ledgers kept in the iron vaults under Stonewick.”
I looked at him carefully. “You’re saying there’snoprecedent for someone surviving the path like that?”
