“They’re still fighting,” I said quietly.
“They’d be fighting even if you were there,” Gideon said. “Your wolf would just be bleeding closer to your shoes.”
“Comforting,” I said.
“Realistic,” he replied.
I swallowed.
“Keegan’s hurt,” I said. “I felt it. My dad, too, maybe. I left them. I got dragged out of there by a… broom with boundary issues. And I did it because we need you.”
He was silent for a long moment.
The only sound was the wind tearing past us and the broom’s faint, offended hum.
“You came to drag me into your little circle,” he said at last. Not accusing. Just… tired.
“Yes,” I said. “Because if we can get you in it with us, my dad, Keegan, me, if we can close the path properly, it might finally be over. We can weaken her. No more Malore. No more priestess trying to rewrite the world like it’s her hobby journal. No more hunger chewing at the edges of everything.”
He laughed.
It was not a happy sound.
“You really believe that,” he said.
“I have to,” I said. “Otherwise, I have no idea what I’ve been doing for the last year beyond collecting trauma and learning new tea blends.”
“Those are important skills,” he murmured.
The broom banked slightly, adjusting its course toward Stonewick.
Wind tangled in my hair. My eyes stung from speed and from the ache in my chest.
“You helped build this thing,” I said, voice rough. “You know how it works better than any of us. You’re the only one who can pull your piece out without tearing the whole world open. You said you’d stand in the circle. We’re holding you to that.”
He was quiet so long I thought he might have passed out.
Then he shifted, breath harsh.
“It will never be over,” he said, the words scraped raw. “Close this path, she will find another. Break this circle, and she will draw a different one. Power doesn’t stop wanting itself because a handful of us decide we’re tired.”
His head tipped back slightly, just enough that I caught his profile in the corner of my vision—eyes closed, jaw tight, and bruised mouth twisting.
“But,” he added, so softly the wind almost stole it, “we can make it hurt. We can make it cost her. We can make it so she never gets to pretend the world lies down just because she says so.”
The broom flew on toward the dark curve of Stonewick’s besieged sky.
His words lodged under my ribs.
Never over.
But maybe, just maybe, we could end this chapter.
The rest… we’d fight when it came.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
If this had been any other day, flying over Shadowick would’ve been the worst part.
