Celeste reached out and touched his arm.
“You didn’t,” she said, her voice softening just a fraction. “You really didn’t.”
“Then why is your mother staying here?”
Celeste hid a snicker and shook her head. “You cheated on her.”
That seemed to settle him, or at least distract him. He sighed, unlocked the car, and tossed his jacket into the backseat.
But he didn’t argue. Some things, spells just can’t undo.
Celeste turned to me, and the mask she’d been wearing slipped just enough for me to see the girl she’d always been. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around me tightly.
“I’m just leaving my backpack,” she murmured into my shoulder. “I have a feeling I’ll be back.”
My throat tightened, and I didn’t argue. I didn’t tell her to be careful or to call me every night or to avoid strange magical surges she didn’t yet know how to name. I just held her and breathed her in, memorizing the weight of her, the warmth of her, the way she fit against me like she always had.
“I’ll be here,” I said simply.
She pulled back, smiling. “I know.”
Alex cleared his throat loudly, already half inside the car. “Are we done?”
Celeste rolled her eyes. “Yes, Dad. We’re done.”
She climbed into the passenger seat, glanced back at me one last time, and lifted her hand in a small wave that felt heavier than any dramatic farewell ever could.
The car pulled away, tires crunching softly against the cement as it headed down the road and out of Stonewick.
I stood there long after it disappeared from view.
Keegan stepped beside me, close enough that I could feel his warmth without him touching me. He didn’t speak right away. He never rushed moments like this.
“You’re incredible,” he said finally.
I let out a shaky laugh. “I don’t feel incredible.”
“That’s usually how it goes,” he replied, smiling gently. “You did the hardest thing.”
I turned to look at him. “Letting her go?”
“Trusting her to come back,” he said.
Something in my chest eased at that, but before I could respond, the air shifted.
Keegan straightened instantly, his attention snapping toward the treeline. I felt it too, the tingling along my skin, the warning hum of magic stirring where it hadn’t a moment before.
But then she stepped out from between the trees without sound.
The Silver Wolf.
Keegan’s mother moved with the quiet confidence of someone who belonged to both the forest and the space between moments. Her silver fur caught the light as she shifted, her form resolving into something more human, though her eyes remained unmistakably lupine.
“Mother,” Keegan said, his voice respectful but tense.
She inclined her head to him, then turned her gaze to me. “Maeve.”
My chest tightened. “What is it?”
