The voice had been too real, too close, too heavy with something alive.
I pressed my forehead into Keegan’s shoulder, guilt washing through me. He had enough to carry without my doubts gnawing at me like this. He needed rest, healing, love—not me chasing phantoms in the woods.
And yet.
It was too quiet.
For weeks, Gideon had haunted our every step, his laughter curling like smoke through the Wards, his shadow tether pulling at the edges of the Academy. He was relentless, pressing always closer.
But since the Keeper tree, there had been nothing.
No mocking voice on the wind.
No shadows nipping at the Wards.
No communication through dreams.
No Gideon.
The silence pressed harder than his presence ever had.
I closed my eyes, remembering the last time I saw him at the Keeper tree.
He had looked worse than I’d ever seen him.
Gideon’s face had hollowed, his eyes sunk deep, his power fraying at the edges like cloth left too long in the weather.
For all his menace, for all his cruel delight in torment, he had looked… diminished as though the curse he fed on had begun to starve him, too.
But Gideon was never just what he seemed. He was cunning. A predator. And predators knew how to play weak until the moment of the strike.
The thought made my stomach twist.
Keegan stirred behind me, his lips brushing against my hair in a sleepy kiss. His voice was a low rumble, still husky from dreams. “You’re awake too early.”
I tried to smile as I turned slightly to look at him. His hazel eyes were half-lidded, darkness still clinging beneath them, but even so, he was heartbreakingly beautiful in the dim light.
“So are you,” I whispered.
He smirked faintly, pulling me tighter. “I wake up when you worry too loud. You think too hard in the mornings.”
I laughed softly, but my chest ached. “Sorry.”
His brow furrowed as he studied me. “What’s wrong?”
I hesitated, then shook my head. “It’s nothing. Just the weather. Just… everything.”
He brushed his thumb across my cheek, slow and tender. “You don’t lie well, Maeve.”
I leaned into his touch, letting the warmth steady me, though my thoughts still churned. How could I tell him I wasn’t sure the mushrooms were to blame for what I experienced in the Wilds?
That I thought the voice had been something else, someone else? That I feared Gideon’s silence more than his presence?
Instead, I pressed a kiss to his palm and whispered, “I’m just glad you’re here.”
His eyes softened, though the shadows didn’t leave. “Always.”
I clung to the word, even as my heart whispered back,but for how long?
