The door slammed open, and Stella swept in first, her shawl flaring like a cape. Twobble tripped on the threshold but scrambled up quickly, eyes wide as saucers. Ardetia moved with swiftness that made her hair nearly blaze, her hands already outstretched. Nova came last, her staff glowing faintly, her eyes locking on me immediately.
“What happened?” she demanded, striding to my side.
I couldn’t answer.
My breath came in ragged gasps, my body trembling from the Hedge’s grip. I still felt Malore’s words crawling through my skin, felt the echo of Gideon’s anguish like a bruise on my heart.
Nova dropped to her knees beside me, her hand steady on my arm.
“Maeve,” she said sharply. “Focus. What did you see?”
My lips parted, but no words came. I couldn’t speak them aloud.
Not yet. If I did, the horror of it, the simplicity and cruelty of Malore’s manipulation, would solidify, and I wasn’t ready for that.
Instead, I turned to Gideon.
His coughing slowed, but his chest still heaved. His eyes flickered open, stormy and bloodshot, and for a fleeting moment they locked with mine.
There was no arrogance there, no cruelty. Only weariness. And beneath it, something raw.
Help me.
It was written in the tremor of his gaze, though no sound escaped his lips.
My throat tightened.
Stella hovered behind me, her bracelets clinking as she wrung her hands.
“He looks worse,” she muttered, her voice pitched high with tension.
Twobble nodded furiously. “Worse, absolutely worse. If he gets any worse, we’ll need an undertaker, not a healer. Just saying.”
“Twobble!” Stella snapped, though her own eyes were worried.
Ardetia placed a hand over Gideon’s forehead, her lips moving in a quiet fae incantation. The shadows recoiled faintly under her touch, but they didn’t vanish.
Nova’s grip on me tightened, steady and unyielding.
“Maeve,” she said again, her voice low now, meant only for me. “Whatever you saw, whatever truth the Hedge gave you, it matters. Hold onto it. We will need it.”
I nodded faintly, though my mind still spun. Malore’s words looped endlessly in my head:It is the ones that stay who will be the hardest to break.
He had turned Gideon’s very longing into a weapon. He had twisted loyalty into chains.
And Stonewick was still paying the price.
Gideon coughed again, weaker this time, his body trembling under the effort. My hands itched to reach for him, to anchor him, but I stayed frozen, afraid of what tether I might strengthen if I did.
The room buzzed with voices. Stella fussed, Twobble fretted, Ardetia chanted, but all of it blurred. Nova’s presence at my side was the only thing that kept me from collapsing outright.
I clutched my knees, bowing my head, my breath ragged.
I had wanted answers.
And now I had them.
But they weren’t just Gideon’s answers. They were Stonewick’s doom, Malore’s design, the blueprint of every shadow pressing down on us.
