Keegan shifted almost imperceptibly closer in front of me, a barrier made of broad shoulders and stubbornness.
“Maeve,” he said quietly, never taking his eyes off my mother. “Stay behind me.”
“That’s my mother,” I whispered, but I didn’t argue. Not when the magic in the room felt like it might choose sides.
My mom tilted her head, finally focusing on us. For one terrifying second, there was nothing human in her eyes at all, just that eerie, shimmering weight.
Then she winced.
The glow flickered, dimming, like someone had turned a knob. She sucked in a breath and fumbled back a step, one hand flying up to her temple.
“Oh,” she said, voice rough and wrong. “That was… that was a lot.”
Keegan’s stance eased by a fraction, but he stayed between us.
“What happened?” he asked, tone gentle but firm. “Who are you talking to?”
“I—” Mom blinked hard, like she was trying to clear water from her vision. “The mirrors—” Her gaze snapped to me. “Maeve, what did you do?”
“I didn’t start it,” I said automatically, which was technically true. “The mirrors pulled me in. Elira was there. And the priestess. And then everything started cracking and…wait.” Suspicion slid cold under my ribs. “How doyouknow about the mirrors?”
A guilty flush crept up her neck. “I might have been… checking in.”
“Checking in how?” I demanded. “From my cottage? Through my pedestal? You candothat?”
Keegan’s hand brushed lightly against my arm—easy—but my heart was already hammering.
Mom grimaced. “You aren’t the only one who can improvise with reflective surfaces,” she said. “Stonewick taught mesome thingsbefore I left.”
I stared. My mother, who’d claimed her magic was “rusty” and “nothing like Elira’s” and “only good for warming tea”? My mother, who had spent years pretending we lived in a world where Wards didn’t exist, and curses were things you only joked about?
My mother, with glowing eyes and the air of someone who had just hosted a magical hurricane.
The room vibrated again. The birch leaves rattled. My butterfly mark pulsed once more, hard, like a warning.
“Okay,” Keegan said softly. “Everyone breathe. Including the cottage.”
As if on cue, the rafters gave a reluctant creak.
My mom took in a shaky breath and exhaled slowly. The glow in her eyes dimmed another notch, resolving back toward their usual softness.
Her shoulders slumped. For a moment, she looked bone-tired, like Miora had lately, the weight of too much remembered in too small a body.
“I’m fine,” she said, which was the universal phrase forI am absolutely not fine and please don’t look too closely.
“You’re not fine,” I said. “You’re… lit up. What happened?”
Before she could answer, the back door banged.
Footsteps thumped down the hallway, too fast, too heavy to be anything but a man who still thought like a dog.
My dad barreled into the room, half-shirted, half-worried, wholly my father. His hair stuck up in a dozen directions. His eyes were dark and wide, nostrils flaring as he scented the air.
“What did I miss?” he demanded, taking in the scene in a sweep—the glow around my mom, the way I was clutching Keegan’s arm, the charged air, the way the ivy along the window had curled its leaves as if ducking.
“Magic,” Twobble would’ve said, if he’d been here.
“Too much,” I said instead.
