Chapter Twenty-Two
“Maeve, I’ll find your daughter,” Gideon’s voice pulled me out of my terror as I spun around to see him standing next to Keegan.
“When did you get here?” I asked, panic pulsing through me as I sat back on the broom in an attempt to follow Caleb’s direction.
The urgency in Gideon’s gaze worried me even more.
“We will find Celeste together,” Keegan said.
“What, you don’t trust me?” He laughed and Keegan ignored him.
“I know the Priestess’ puzzle more than most,” Gideon explained.
“Why’s that?”
“I helped her create it.”
His words dug deep, and for a second, the battle around us muted as his words found a stickier place in me.
The winged creatures still cut through the sky above the tower, and Stella’s magic still flashed against the dark. The masked fighters still surged through the courtyard below, meeting wolves and orcs in terrible bursts of steel and shadow.
But knowing the man who helped create this mess was now offering to help both worried and confused me.
Keegan’s head turned slowly toward him.
“What did you say?” His voice dropped so low that my skin prickled.
Gideon didn’t flinch, but I caught that something moved through his expression that didn’t look like amusement anymore.
Regret, maybe. Or memory. Or the kind of fear that only arrives when the past finally catches up and taps you on the shoulder.
“This tower was never meant to be part of her compound. Not originally.” He shook his head. “It was designed to hold.”
“Hold what?” Keegan asked.
“Hold who?” Gideon corrected.
He looked at me then, and I wished he hadn’t.
I let out a low and steady breath and waited.
“For whoever she couldn’t control,” he finished.
My stomach tightened as another scream echoed from inside the tower, but this one broke strangely halfway through, scattering across the stone like the sound had been caught and thrown down several corridors at once.
Celeste.
Or the tower using Celeste. Was she part of the puzzle?
I didn’t have the luxury of figuring out which.
“She has my daughter.” My hands nearly shook.
“She’s using her to play with you,” Keegan corrected.
Bella landed hard on the balcony beside us, her boots skidding against broken stone as she shifted back from fox form. Her copper hair whipped around her face, and her eyes flashed gold as she glanced from Gideon to me.
“I hope whatever he’s saying is useful because the entrance Caleb spoke about is closing.”
“I know a better way,” Gideon directed, glancing at Caleb.
“Why should we trust you?” Keegan asked.
“You shouldn’t, but I can get you to your daughter,” he said to me, not looking in Keegan’s direction. “And to your mother.”
The pendant at my throat burned suddenly, and the silver thread Stella had tied to it lifted from my chest, pointing toward the breach.
The tower wanted me inside.
Or Celeste did.
Or the Priestess did.
Wonderful assortment of possibilities.
I looked at Keegan, who gave a slight nod.
“Fine.” I nodded.
Gideon’s mouth twitched faintly, though the expression held no real humor. “Good choice.”
Twobble still clung to my back on the broom, his fingers trembling against my coat. He looked at the opening in the stone and then at Gideon with absolute suspicion.
“If you betray us in there, I will make you wish you were a shadow.”
Gideon blinked. “That’s very specific.”
Keegan turned to me. “Stay behind me.”
“You know that’s unlikely.”
His jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue. His hazel eyes swept over my face, quick and focused, and I saw every worry he didn’t have time to say out loud.
I swung off the broom onto the broken balcony, and Twobble scrambled down after me, stumbling slightly when his feet hit the stone.
He reached for my hand and squeezed once.
That was all.
There was no speech or dramatic promise.
It was merely his fingers wrapped around mine for half a second before he let go.
“You’re staying here with Bella and Caleb,” I told Twobble.
His eyes widened. “Absolutely not. They’re fully into battle mode.”
“Twobble,” I warned. “We don’t know what we’re getting into. It could be a trap.”
“No.” His little face hardened in a way I rarely saw. “I am not letting you go into the murder puzzle with two emotionally damaged men and no goblin oversight.”
Bella let out a sharp breath behind me. “Take him. Goblins see some seams better than witches.”
Twobble’s chin lifted.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You stay close.”
“I was already planning on attaching myself to your coat.”
“Perfect.”
The tower wall scraped loudly as the breach narrowed, and we followed Gideon, ducking through an opening his hand had outlined.
The passageway smelled like wet stone and old iron. The space was narrow, barely allowing Keegan to move through without scraping the sides. The stone walls were rough and damp beneath my fingertips.
I steadied myself as the ground sloped downward, and I heard the entrance close behind us, nothing more than stone grinding against stone.
“Maeve,” Keegan said quietly.
“I know.”
The pendant gave one faint pulse.
Gideon lifted one hand and brushed his fingertips along the opposite wall.
A faint line of blue light appeared beneath his touch, thin as a scratch.
It traveled forward along the stone, then split into three different lines that disappeared into three corridors that had not been there a moment before.
I was sure of it.
My breath caught as I realized the passage had widened around us.
“It’s like a map or a maze.”
“Yes and no,” Gideon said, moving ahead.
Keegan crouched and touched the floor near the center passage.
“Did you track her?” I asked Keegan.
“Yes.”
Every nerve in my body lit.
“Which way?”
He didn’t answer immediately, and my hope stuttered as his gaze lifted to the three corridors. “All of them.”
Gideon nodded as if he’d expected that. “It pulls the scent through the walls.”
I closed my eyes for half a second. “Then how do we know?”
“We don’t follow scent.” Gideon glanced at the pendant.
The silver thread lifted again, trembling slightly before pointing toward the left corridor, and Keegan moved first.
The corridor shifted as we entered, stretching longer with every step. The walls were lined with shallow alcoves.
I noticed that each held objects covered in dust. There was a broken mirror, a rusted key, and a cracked teacup. Things that felt ordinary until I realized every one of them gave off the faintest pulse of memory.
My memory.
“This place collects pieces,” Gideon said, voice quieter than before. “It uses attachment to mislead.”
“Comforting,” Twobble muttered from beside my leg. “I’d like to leave all my attachments outside next time.”
The teacup rattled as we passed, but I didn’t look at it.
“Maeve?” My mom’s voice echoed faintly.
I froze so abruptly that Twobble nearly walked into me.
The voice came from the alcove with the mirror.
Gideon turned immediately. “Don’t answer.”
My eyes burned. “That’s my mom.”
“It might be,” he said. “That’s the point. These objects are pulled from your past. They’re meant to lure.”
“How do you know this?” I asked.
Gideon’s gaze darkened. “I put them there. Mirror from your mother’s home. Tea cup from Stella’s. And a key from your old house with your ex.”
His words were so jarring that I couldn’t even wrap my head around them.
Twobble cleared his throat. “That is extremely violating and exceptionally creepy.”
“Yeah,” I said, glancing at Keegan. “It is.”
Gideon’s gaze found mine. “Merely dabbling in magic is a personal thing, don’t you think? We get to find out one another’s fears or worries…or our greatest joys and accomplishments.”
I stared at Gideon. “You’re making a strong case for me throwing you down a stairwell.”
“I’d prefer we wait until after I’m useful.”
Keegan stepped between me and the mirror, his shoulders tense. “Can the tower hold real voices?”
“Yes,” Gideon answered.
“Can it mimic them?” Keegan asked.
“Yes.”
The mirror fogged from the inside, and for one terrible moment, I saw my mother’s face form in the glass. Pale. Frightened. Her eyes were wide as she pressed her palm against the other side.
“Maeve,” she whispered. “Please.”
My feet moved before I knew I’d told them to.
Keegan caught my wrist gently but firmly as the pendant at my throat went cold.
The mirror cracked down the center.
My mother’s face twisted with it, stretching strangely until the mouth widened too far and the eyes sank into darkness.
Twobble made a strangled noise as the mirror shattered inward without a sound, and behind the broken glass was only stone.
I stood there shaking, fury burning through the fear so cleanly that for a second, I welcomed it.
Keegan’s hand stayed around my wrist, his thumb brushing once across my skin.
I forced myself to keep walking as the corridor narrowed again before widening.
Up ahead, it split, and this time, the silver thread hesitated, twitching between two directions.
Somewhere far ahead, metal scraped against stone, and Celeste called again. The sound came from the right, and I turned immediately, but Gideon grabbed my arm this time.
I nearly clobbered him.
“Wait,” he hissed. “Listen.”
Another sound followed her voice.
Was it a breath or a sob?
Faint scraping repeated three times.
Short.
Short.
Long.
I went still.
Celeste used to tap that rhythm against my bedroom door when she was little and wanted to come in after a nightmare, but didn’t want to admit she was scared.
My throat tightened.
“That’s her,” I said. No one would know that code.
Keegan’s gaze locked on mine. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.” I nodded.
The silver thread finally snapped toward the right corridor as if Celeste’s signal had woken it, and we ran.
The passage pitched downward sharply, and I grabbed the wall to keep from sliding. Twobble scrambled beside me, surprisingly quick when fear and loyalty were both chasing him.
Blue lines appeared and vanished around us as Gideon disrupted small charms before we stepped into them.
At least, I hoped that’s what he was doing.
The corridor opened suddenly into a circular chamber with six doors.
Each door bore a different symbol:
A thorn.
A moon.
A wolf.
A mirror.
A flame.
A butterfly.
The butterfly door opened slightly, and I started toward it.
Gideon’s voice cut through the chamber. “No.”
Keegan reached for my wrist as I stared at the butterfly carved into the door, my pulse pounding. “Why?”
“Because that one is for you.”
“That sounds like a reason to use it.”
Gideon shook his head. “It’s the one she wants you to use.”
Twobble crept closer to the wolf door and sniffed. “This one smells like wet fur and regret.”
Keegan shot him a look.
“What? I’m assisting.” He shrugged.
A faint noise came from behind the moon door.
Short.
Short.
Long.
My heart nearly lurched out of my chest.
“There,” I whispered.
The moon door had no handle. There was only a smooth surface carved with thin silver lines.
Gideon stepped closer, studying it. “She changed this section.”
“You helped build it. Open it,” I told him.
“I helped create the logic. The Priestess changed things since. I don’t know what the cost will be.” Gideon’s gaze stayed on mine.
“What cost?”
He studied me as the chamber trembled, and every other door sprang open.
Keegan shifted instantly, his wolf filling the space between me and the opening doors as low growls slipped through the chamber.
Twobble backed toward me. “Maeve…”
Masked fighters stepped out of the thorn door first, then quickly followed from the flame and mirror doors.
Their curved blades caught the cold light spilling from the darkness above.
Gideon moved to the moon door, pressing both hands against the silver lines.
“Keep them off me,” Gideon said.
Keegan lunged before the first fighter crossed the room.
Twobble and I moved together. He tossed green powder at the floor while I sent vines whipping across the chamber, snaring legs, wrists, and blades before the fighters could surround us.
Gideon muttered faster as I heard bits of a chant I didn’t understand as the moon door began glowing.
And the noise came again from the other side.
Short.
Short.
Long.
“Mom!” Celeste screamed, clear enough now that every bit of me wanted to tear the door from the wall with my bare hands.
“I’m here,” I shouted. “Celeste, I’m here.”
The silver lines across the moon door flared violently as Gideon staggered back.
“She changed something,” he whispered hoarsely.
But the door opened an inch as Keegan threw one fighter hard into the wall.
Twobble shouted something deeply goblin and launched himself at a fighter’s knees. I sent every vine I could summon toward the remaining masked figures, binding them in thorn and hedge magic until my palms burned because I needed to get to my daughter.
The moon door opened wide enough for a hand to reach through.
Celeste’s hand.
I knew it instantly, and I ran toward it, trying to raise my arm toward her with every ounce of quickness and strength I had.
Our fingers almost touched, but the darkness above the chamber dropped, and I lost her.