Magical Musing (Stonewick Magical Midlife Witch Academy #2)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The library called to me like a living thing. The glow of floating candles cast long, golden shadows against the towering bookshelves. The air was thick with magic, old and pulsing like the very walls of the Academy were watching me, waiting to see if I would understand .

The book before me was thick, bound in deep brown leather, the title burned into its spine in old, purple script. The Wild Histories of Shifters .

I exhaled, steadying myself before opening it. The book knew —the Academy knew —this was what I needed to see next.

The pages smelled of time, ink and age, and something more that felt like whispered stories passed down through generations. I turned carefully to the first marked passage, and as my eyes moved over the words, the knowledge rushed into me like a tide.

The flickering candlelight cast long shadows as I leaned against the bookshelf.

My mind spun with everything I had just learned from my grandma.

Shifters—proud, duty-bound, fierce—were supposed to stand together. To protect their own. To be bound by something deeper than blood.

And yet…

They abandoned their own.

They had abandoned my father.

They had abandoned Keegan.

The words from the book echoed in my mind, weaving together a picture I wasn’t sure I wanted to see.

An Alpha’s duty is more than ruling a pack. It is the weight of all who follow, the burden of all who remain. To sever one’s connection, whether by force or by choice, is to disrupt the balance.

But the truth wasn’t as simple as it sounded on paper.

Shifters didn’t just follow strength. They followed traits . And if the wrong ones showed up—or worse, if the right ones didn’t—then it didn’t matter whose blood you carried.

You were disposable.

Cast aside.

I thought of my father—gentle, steady, kind. Not a man of dominance, not a man who commanded with force or authority. Maybe they had seen him as weak. Perhaps they had already decided he wasn’t enough for them when he changed for the first time.

The idea made my stomach turn.

Shifters prided themselves on loyalty, on pack bonds that ran deeper than any other. And yet, if someone didn’t fit their vision of what a leader—or a follower—should be, they let them go .

Or worse… they forced them out.

A cold feeling settled in my chest, pressing against my ribs like an ache I couldn’t quite shake.

It wasn’t fair.

But what made even less sense was Keegan.

If shifters valued strength, courage, and control, why had they turned their backs on him ?

Keegan was the embodiment of everything they claimed to respect.

Brave. Bold. Fierce.

He was sharp-edged and relentless, steady and unmoving like the mountain itself. He fought when he had to. He protected what was his. He didn’t back down.

So why had they left him behind?

The logic unraveled in my mind, each thread coming loose before I could understand it.

Had he been too much ?

Had he been a threat?

Or was there something else, something even deeper, that I hadn’t uncovered yet?

I swallowed hard as my fingers curled into my palms.

The thought of my father—alone, abandoned, forced to build a life outside of the bonds he had once belonged to—made my chest tighten.

The thought of Keegan suffering the same fate made something in me burn.

I wasn’t sure what angered me more—that the shifters had the power to discard their own so easily… or that Keegan had accepted it .

Shifters were not always fragmented. There was a time when they roamed freely, not just in hidden corners of the world, but as protectors, warriors, and keepers of the balance. They were bound to the land, its magic, and the world's thrumming heartbeat.

But as the centuries passed, something changed. Humans feared them. Magic shifted. And one by one, the great packs were scattered, their bonds weakened, their lineages broken. Some retreated into secrecy. Some vanished entirely. And others… others fought to hold onto what little remained.

I swallowed hard, the words pressing into my ribs.

My father had been one of them.

He had carried this legacy, not as a leader or an Alpha, but as something else—something even more complicated.

A reminder of what had been lost.

My fingers brushed over the page as I flipped to another section.

I closed my eyes for a moment, my heart tightening.

When the balance is broken, the land itself feels the fracture.

Was that what had happened to Stonewick?

The town had once thrived, a beacon of magic, of safety. And then, forty years ago, it had fractured —its people left, its magic weakened, its Academy locked away.

My father had been abandoned by his pack.

My mother had abandoned the town.

And somehow, I had been kept from it.

I opened my eyes again, flipping the pages with more urgency now, searching for something that would tell me how to fix what had been broken.

The next passage sent a shiver through me.

There have always been places tied to the old magic, where shifters and witches lived in harmony, where their connection strengthened the land instead of weakening it. But when these places are abandoned, when those bound to them turn away, the land suffers. The magic fades. The scars remain.

I thought of Stonewick, of the way its magic still hummed beneath the surface, desperate and waiting.

And I thought of my father.

What had his last days been like? Had he known what was happening to the town? Had he felt it, the way I felt it now?

I had only ever known him as quiet, kind, steady. He had been the type to sit beside me in silence, letting me ramble on about whatever book I was reading, the type to make bad jokes and squeeze my hand when he knew I needed comfort.

But now, I could see him as something else.

As a man who had lost everything .

A man who had been cast out from his kind and spent his life carrying the burden of what had been lost without ever telling me why.

But still believing in the magic of it all.

The goodness of it all.

Be the magic, Maeve.

Had he been waiting for me to understand?

Had he hoped, one day, that I would find my way back here?

Tears burned behind my eyes, but I blinked them away, pressing on, flipping through the book with determination.

If I didn’t know the history of Stonewick, how could I protect its future ?

The book resisted at first as if the magic woven into its pages wanted me to slow down, to absorb rather than rush.

But I couldn’t slow down. Not now.

Another passage caught my attention. This one was different from the others.

A warning .

When a lineage is severed, it does not simply fade. It leaves echoes and traces in the world that linger long after the bonds are broken. Some say these echoes can be felt in the wind, water, and earth's very pulse. And sometimes, those who were meant to carry the burden but do not… find that the past is unwilling to let them go.

The candlelight flickered violently, and the air shifted with something unseen.

My pulse jumped, and I looked around the empty library.

I brought my gaze back to the words.

A cold sensation curled at the base of my spine.

I thought of my grandpa outside the Academy, who had watched the Wards but hadn’t tried to break in.

My grandfather.

Gideon.

I thought of the feeling that had followed me since I’d arrived in Stonewick, that pull I couldn’t quite explain.

What if the past wasn’t willing to let me go?

What if I wasn’t just meant to understand what had been lost?

What if I was meant to reclaim it?

A rustling sound echoed through the library, and I looked up, expecting to see book sprites flitting above the shelves.

But the space was empty.

The air was thick , the magic pressing against me in a way that felt different than before.

Not threatening.

But expectant .

Like something was waiting.

Shifters. Fae. Witches.

Unity.

I let out a slow breath, staring down at the open book.

The past wasn’t finished with me.

And I was starting to think that Stonewick itself wasn’t finished with me either.

I chuckled at the thought because I wasn’t finished with it either.

It felt like home and nobody messed with my house.

The candlelight flickered as I slowly closed the book, pressing my palm against the worn leather cover as if that would help me absorb the weight of what I had just learned.

Shifters abandoned my father.

His own pack had turned its back on him and had left him alone to figure out who he was without them. And in some ways, that made him feel even more real to me than he ever had before.

He had never been a man who sought power. He had never spoken of duty or leadership or honor. But he had carried the quiet kind of strength that didn’t need to be announced, only proven through action.

And now, I saw the same thing in Keegan.

The thought struck me hard, knocking something loose inside me.

Keegan, who had been distant and brooding from the moment we met. Keegan always acted like he carried a weight no one else could see.

He had the same careful restraint my father had. The same way of holding himself apart from others, like trust, wasn’t something easily given, like loyalty, which wasn’t a word he tossed around lightly.

I had thought he was just naturally gruff.

But what if it was something more?

I swallowed, pushing the thought deeper, storing it away in that mental space where I filed all the things I wasn’t quite ready to deal with yet.

Because something else had settled in, something even more unnerving.

I had always assumed shifters were a unified force, a people bound by honor and tradition. But if they had left my father—if they had cast him out instead of standing by him—then how much of that unity was just an illusion?

The idea unsettled me in a way I couldn’t quite describe.

I exhaled slowly, forcing myself to shake it off.

Now wasn’t the time to get lost in questions I didn’t have answers to.

Instead, I focused on something useful .

The book sprites were still fluttering around, their tiny hands frantically gesturing as they tried to restore the books I had disturbed.

“Okay, okay,” I murmured, standing and stretching. “I’ll help.”

The sprites chittered in satisfaction, and I gathered up the books, carefully returning them to their places on the shelves. The leather bindings were smooth beneath my fingers, the scent of parchment and ink grounding me as I focused on the simple, methodical task.

One by one, the books found their proper places, and the sprites hovered around me, their vigor shifting from frantic to satisfied.

“Happy now?” I teased, setting the last book in its place.

A few gave approving chirps before disappearing into the higher shelves, content to return to their quiet, watchful routines.

I let out a small breath, dusting my hands off.

With the books settled, my mind wandered again, the thoughts creeping back like shadows.

I needed space.

Some air.

I drifted toward one of the tall, arched windows that lined the far end of the library, my fingers tracing the cool glass as I peered outside.

And then I gasped.

Because what I saw waiting outside the Academy…

I never expected to see.