Chapter Nine
Gideon’s gaze found me the way a compass finds north—inevitable, unblinking, a quiet click you feel more than hear.
“Maeve,” he said, voice even as the ice between us. “I want to speak with you. Alone.”
Keegan stiffened at my side so fast the Hollow’s air seemed to hitch. The bramble mule lifted his head, ears pricked like punctuation. Stella murmured a scandalized “Absolutely not,” almost on top of Nova’s calm, “That isn’t advisable.” Skonk said, “Nope,” as if veto were a spell, and Twobble’s “We don’t do solos!” came out in a squeak that fogged the air. Bella went fox still…no sound, just the narrowed, steady stare of a creature measuring distance to throat.
The hexagon softened the edges of everyone’s voices, but the meaning landed sharp. They formed a half-ring without trying, every friend a small wall.
A dozen feelings jostled my ribs: relief at the instinctive way they gathered; annoyance at the part of me that wanted to step forward anyway; a thin, cold thread of curiosity I couldn’t unwind.
The Hollows was supposed to be void of manipulation, a neutral ground that tamped out theatrics and sanded down thesharp hooks of influence. The air here pressed you honest. That should have made this safe.
And yet.
What if the magic here failed me? What if I failed it?
Gideon watched me consider all of that and didn’t move. He placed both hands on the ice table where I could see them, palms open. The Hollows liked that. I could feel it.
Keegan’s fingers tightened around mine, then loosened just enough for me to feel the choice was mine.
“You don’t owe him this,” he said, low and certain.
But I owed all of us a chance at completing the circle.
“I know.” I squeezed back, the answer and the promise in one press. “It’ll be fine.”
He didn’t argue because he knew better than to try to herd me when I’d stepped onto a line only I could see. He didn’t like it, because love, in all its human stubbornness, asks you to do two impossible things at once: hold tight and let go, both on the same patch of ground.
Nova tipped her chin, reading the Hollow’s silence the way a sailor reads water.
“You’re protected by the Hollows,” she said to me, to Keegan, to the room. “True names stay shut. Bargains need two hands. If any pressure rises, we come back in.”
“Pressure rises?” Twobble whispered. “What are we, bread?”
Stella swept to my shoulder, cold glittering along her hem like a private galaxy.
“If he tries anything, you scream,” she said, voice bright as a blade. “I refuse to sit through a villain soliloquy again.”
Gideon’s mouth twitched—as much amusement as the Hollows allowed. “You do make it hard to be dramatic.”
“Good,” Stella said, and kissed my cheek quick and cool. “We’ll be right there, darling. Give him absolutely nothing he doesn’t earn.”
Keegan’s pulse thudded against my palm.
“One word,” he said, and the one word wasn’t a word at all; it was his name in my bones, his magic a warm bruise at my shoulder. I nodded.
“Five minutes,” Nova added, tapping her staff once to mark the time into the room’s slower heartbeat. “The Hollows doesn’t like conversations that forget the hour.”
Reluctantly, they peeled back. Stella steered Twobble and Skonk toward the threshold with the authority of every terrifying headmistress I’d never had. Bella padded to the veil’s edge, fox again in a blink, small body a line of attention. Lady Limora and her crew melted toward the corner pillars, eyes cool and watchful. Ardetia hovered as if stitched to the air, the faintest frown between her brows. Keegan moved last, as if distance was a language he didn’t speak but would learn for me. He stood just beyond the veils, a shadow of heat in a room of winter, jaw set, eyes on Gideon’s hands.
The shroud breathed once as the circle thinned to two. The air between Gideon and me sharpened to a fine, bright line. I took three steps forward and stopped when I could smell rosemary and iron and something else like darkness.
“You’re wasting everyone’s patience, asking for alone time,” I said, because I couldn’t lead with the thing I wanted toask, not without breaking something I needed intact. “Say what you brought me here to hear.”
He didn’t start with words. He started with a look that was half calculation, half… regret? The second half irritated me more than the first.
“You came,” he said finally.
