Then back at me.
I’d seen fear on her before. I’d seen exasperation, impatience, and stubbornness. I hadneverseen this: terror edged with helplessness. Terror shaped like a secret being ripped from her without her consent.
Gargoyle shadows shifted on the roof. The hum built. The cottage seemed to lean inward, every beam and board listening.
“Miora?” I whispered one more time.
Her lips formed the start of a word—maybe a name, maybe a place, maybe a warning.
The magic from below surged…
and her voice simply…
did not come.
Chapter Twenty-Two
All I’d wanted was to make it to the circle.
That was the deal I’d made with myself, secretly, somewhere between Gideon sayingyesand Celeste textingsoon.Just get there. One step at a time. One spell at a time. We’d close the circle with everyone willingly participating, the Hollows would hum approvingly, the hunger path would fold in on itself like a bad map, and the priestess could rage from her icy balcony all she wanted. I’d hug my daughter, drink celebratory tea at Stella’s, and deal with the rest later.
Reasonable? No. Necessary? Absolutely.
But now?
Now the floor was glowing.
The beams of pale light thickened from hairline cracks into narrow, luminous streams, rising from the edges of the cellar door like ghostly vines. They curled upward and then out, tracing patterns along the underside of the table, the pantry shelves, the grain of the floorboards.
And Miora—my rather unflappable, practical, magically competent house elder—sat in her chair with her mouth open and no sound coming out.
Silenced.
Literally silenced.
The universe, it seemed, would not be accepting my sensible “one thing at a time” agenda.
People liked to tell me I was in charge now. Headmistress. Warden-adjacent. Luminary-touched. Wolf’s partner. Goblin’s friend. Take your pick. The magical world, however, seemed deeply invested in reminding me that I was as much a piece on the board as anyone else.
Fine.
If I couldn’t control the game, I could at least decide how I moved.
I straightened my back and stepped away from Miora’s chair.
“Don’t even think about it,” Keegan said immediately.
“I’m already thinking about it,” I said. “I’ve thought about it, and then thought about trying not to think about it, and then realized trying not to think about it made me think about it more. Conclusion: I’m going down there.”
Twobble made an appalled noise. “Voluntary descent into a glowing basement? Absolutely not on my to-do list.”
Skonk scribbled furiously in his notebook. “New data point… Maeve’s hazard threshold continues to be—”
“I will hex that notebook,” I said.
Keegan moved to block the pantry. Not dramatically, just enough that his very solid, very broad body was now between me and the pulsing light.
“Maeve,” he said, voice low, steady. The wolf had receded from his eyes a little, but the intensity was still there. “We don’t know what that is.”
