My stomach went cold. “They’ve moved again?”
He nodded, lips pressed tight. “Weeks ago, maybe. The trail was faint, like a memory trying to forget itself, but I caught it. Iron, rosemary, and the tiniest trace of lanolin. She’s still using her old enchantments to mask the scent, but Gideon’s shadow bleeds through everything. He doesn’t belong to any ward, and the magic knows it.”
I exchanged a glance with Keegan. The burn of his worry felt almost physical, that silent question behind his eyes:how close are they?
“Farther than before,” Skonk said quickly, as if reading both our minds. “But that’s not the problem.” He shifted his weight, claws tracing nervous patterns against the stone floor. “The problem is what’s following them.”
That sent a chill right through me. “Following them?”
He nodded, ears flicking backward. “A shadow I can’t name. It’s… wrong. Like it’s been borrowed and never returned. I tracked it along the old merchant path headed north. Thought I’d lost it, but then the ground began whispering.”
“The ground,” Keegan said, skeptical and grave at once.
“It hums when something’s learning its way,” Skonk said earnestly. “Like the Academy before it wakes. This shadow was studying how to move… how to walk.”
I rubbed my palms over my arms, trying to chase away the sudden goosebumps. “And Luna and Gideon are ahead of it?”
He nodded again. “Barely. Whatever this thing is, it’s slower, but it’s clever. I think it’s trying to reach them.”
The idea of Luna, gentle, stubborn Luna, walking willingly beside Gideon while some echo of darkness hunted them both made my throat ache. We all knew she’d helped him escape. It wasn’t like she’d been taken, hadn’t screamed or fought. She’d just… left with him. Left with her shawl, her bag, and her secrets, while she left everyone tied up with yarn at Keegan’s inn.
But none of it made sense four weeks ago. The time had been anything but right.
Keegan’s hand brushed against mine, grounding me.
“Could the shadow be Gideon’s doing?” he asked. “A fragment of himself he left behind?”
“Maybe,” Skonk said, scratching one ear. “But it feels hungrier than him. And I didn’t get close enough to ask politely.”
“Good,” I muttered. “Let’s not addeaten by a phantomto your tombstone.”
He cracked a faint grin but didn’t rise to the bait. That alone made me uneasy.
“Where are they heading?” I asked.
“That’s the part that gets tricky.” He crouched down and began tracing a path with one finger, sketching rough lines across the dusting of tea leaves I assumed Twobble had spilled earlier that day. “They left the marsh road and cut east, toward the edge of the Mellowlands.”
I stiffened.
“Toward it,” he confirmed, glancing up. “Not through it, at least not yet. They’re moving along its edge, like they’re following a seam. Luna’s magic flickers there every night when I check the readings. It’s steady but deliberate. She’s not lost.”
“You can trace our magic? Our presence?” I couldn’t hide my surprise.
He scowled at me as if I should have known something so elementary.
“How do you think Twobble knew to show up at the cottage when you first graced our town with your presence?”
“Good point.” I smiled.
“Anyway, Luna knows what she’s doing,” Keegan said quietly, though I couldn’t tell if it was reassurance or disbelief.
“Do you think she’s leading him somewhere?” I asked.
“Feels like it,” Skonk said. “And I don’t think he likes it.”
That startled me enough to look up. “Youfeltthat?”
“I’m attuned to bad moods,” he said solemnly. “You spend your life with goblins, you learn to read tone from half a mile off. Gideon’s magic is… agitated. He’s following her lead, but it’s not what he planned.”
