Chapter Twenty-Four
When I saw Celeste, my heart nearly burst. Her eyes met mine, and I ran towards her. Gideon and Keegan's footsteps were behind as I knelt in front of her and held her in my arms.
“Whatever you do, don’t cry,” I whispered, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “We can’t cry.”
Celeste held me so tight. “Why?”
“She’ll use those tears.” I kissed her. “The Priestess needs our tears.”
Celeste straightened. “She’ll never have mine.”
I kissed the top of her head again. “That’s my girl.”
My eyes scanned her for injuries, and apart from a few scratches, she looked…good.
“You need to stand back, Maeve,” Gideon told me. “And I’ll get her restraint off.”
I nodded.
“Don’t leave me, Mom. The room will shift again.”
“I won’t go far. I’ll keep your hand in mine.”
Those words appeared to calm Celeste down as Gideon stood tall, and Keegan came next to me.
And that was when I saw it. A small mark on her forearm that resembled my shadow mark. The Priestess had marked her too. My heart stopped as the room shuddered as if it disliked every promise I’d just made.
Stone dust drifted from the ceiling as Celeste’s fingers tightened around mine. The chain around her wrist pulled hard against the wall, and she winced before she could stop herself.
That tiny flash of pain nearly unraveled me.
I brought her free hand to my chest and held it there, careful of the iron cuff biting into her other one.
Symbols moved across the metal’s surface in slow, deliberate loops, appearing and disappearing beneath a black sheen that looked oily even though it was dry.
Gideon crouched in front of it, his expression changing into something I hadn’t seen from him before.
Focus without mockery covered his features as his fingers hovered near the cuff, and the symbols flared in warning.
Twobble stood behind me as Keegan stepped close enough that his shoulder brushed mine. “What is it?”
“Old binding iron, as I suspected,” Gideon said, his voice low. “It responds to fear, blood, and grief.”
“Of course it does,” I whispered.
Celeste swallowed hard. “I didn’t cry.”
“I know, sweetheart.” I squeezed her hand. “You did beautifully.”
Her eyes met mine, and even in the cold, awful room, I could see the girl who had once argued with me over whether cereal counted as dinner and who had rolled her eyes every time I asked for a picture before a school dance. She was older now and braver than I wished she ever had to be.
The cuff pulsed again, and the chain rattled against the wall as Gideon glanced at me.
“You cannot panic.” His eyes stayed on mine for a brief second before switching to Celeste’s.
“Easier said than done,” Twobble muttered.
I let out a tight breath. “I love when people give me impossible assignments.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Our exchange made Celeste laugh nervously.
The pendant at my throat warmed, and Celeste’s grip tightened in mine.
Gideon looked at the moonstone, then at Keegan’s hand holding mine. “The fastest way is if Maeve anchors Celeste, and you anchor Maeve. I should be able to cut the binding without letting it redirect through the bloodline.”
Celeste’s eyes widened. “Redirect?”
Gideon didn’t answer fast enough.
“To me?” I asked.
Gideon nodded. “If things don’t go well.”
Keegan’s fingers tightened around mine. “No.”
“You asked me to break it,” Gideon said. “This is the fastest way.”
Keegan looked like he might decide to throw Gideon through the nearest wall, which would have been emotionally satisfying but not especially helpful.
I turned toward him. “Keegan.”
His gaze met mine, and all the fury in him turned into something that hurt far worse.
Fear.
“I can do this,” I said softly.
“I know you can.” His voice was rough. “That doesn’t make me like it.”
“I don’t like it either, but time isn’t on our side.” I shifted closer, careful to keep my body between her and the rest of the room, as though that could shield her from a tower built to hurt us. My thumb brushed over her knuckles, slow and steady.
“Look at me,” I told her.
She did.
“Do you remember when you were little and had that nightmare about the closet door opening by itself?”
Her lips parted in surprise. “Mom.”
“You made me sleep on the floor beside your bed for three nights and we got it through it.”
Keegan’s lips twitched while his attention stayed on the cuff.
Celeste gave a tiny, strained laugh, and her breathing eased a fraction.
Gideon clutched the cuff and murmured deeply as his body stiffened.
The cuff dimmed slightly, and Gideon glanced at us. “Keep talking. It’s channeling the energy away.”
I swallowed and nodded. “And then you decided the only way to defeat the closet monster was to tape a picture of a dragon on the door.”
“It worked, though.” Celeste grinned as if she’d been transported to that very age.
“It was a very intimidating dragon, if I remember.” I laughed. “It had extremely judgmental eyebrows.”
“I’ve always loved dragons,” she whispered, and I so wished I could tell her about the very ones under Stonewick.
Celeste’s mouth trembled, and I felt the tears rising in both of us, dangerous and bright.
I squeezed her hand. “No crying.”
“No crying,” she repeated.
“Let’s think some mean thoughts,” I offered.
She blinked. “About who?”
“Anyone. Your statistics professor. Your dad’s girlfriend. Or maybe, I don’t know… the Priestess?”
That got the smallest smile and a laugh.
The cuff flickered again, and Gideon lifted both hands.
The blue fire burning in the wall sconces bent toward him, drawn by whatever magic began moving through his fingers. It didn’t look like witch magic, or Fae magic, or even the shadow-twisted force he had carried for so long.
Whatever he was using felt precise and ancient, and the room hated it.
The walls groaned, and Keegan steadied me without letting go. Celeste gasped as the chain pulled again, but I held her hand tighter and brought it against the pendant.
The moonstone flared, and light spread over Celeste’s fingers and mine. The beams threaded down toward the iron cuff in delicate streams.
Gideon’s magic met it, and the room filled with brilliant colors.
We watched in awe as blue fire, silver mage light, and the glow of the moonstone grew to match my golden green hedge magic rising from the cracks in the floor beneath us, curling around Celeste’s ankle and mine like roots choosing who belonged.
“Beautiful,” Twobble said softly. “I just hope it works.”
The chain thrashed against the wall.
“You’re safe,” I whispered. “I’ve got you.”
“I know.” Her voice cracked. “I knew you’d come.”
The words punched through me, and the cuff fought harder as the symbols raced across the iron.
Gideon murmured under his breath, each word making the air vibrate. The magic around his hands moved into thin strands that wrapped around the cuff without touching Celeste’s skin.
Keegan’s hand in mine became the only steady thing in the room.
I felt him breathing, his strength, and the promise he wasn’t saying aloud because the Priestess would probably try to steal that too.
The wall behind Celeste began to crack, but it wasn’t where the chain was anchored. The fractures spread above it, spreading slowly outward until dark dust sifted onto her shoulder.
“Gideon,” Keegan warned.
“I see it.”
The cuff flared black and pain shot up my arm so suddenly I nearly screamed.
Keegan felt me jolt and immediately stepped closer. “Maeve.”
“I’m okay.”
“You’re lying.”
“Badly, apparently.” I eyed him as energy attempted to back into me.
Celeste tried to pull her hand away from mine. “Mom, let go.”
“No.” I shook my head.
“It’s hurting you.” She frowned and pulled her arm back, but I wouldn’t let go.
“I’ve had worse,” I said between thinned lips.
“That is such a Mom lie.”
I almost laughed, but the pain sharpened again, crawling from my wrist to my elbow.
The pendant pulsed harder, and the hedge magic at our feet thickened. Vines climbed the wall near the chain. Leaves unfurled in a room that had no business growing anything alive. They wrapped around the anchor point and squeezed as the chain screeched.
Gideon’s eyes darkened as the mage magic brightened around his hands.
And for the first time since I’d known him, he looked less like a man trying to outrun the consequences of his own choices and more like someone finally willing to stand in the middle of them and pay the price, as I felt that familiar pull to him that claimed my curiosity long ago.
Celeste let out a shaky breath that almost became a laugh, and the cuff dimmed for half a second.
Gideon seized on it as his hands moved faster, carving symbols through the air as the silver-blue strands tightened around the iron. The mage magic pierced the cuff in three places, and the whole restraint clanked.
The sound rolled through the tower as every candle blew out.
Darkness swallowed the room except for the moonstone and Gideon’s magic.
Keegan moved until his body pressed against my side, shielding all of us, including Twobble, as the ceiling cracked above. It was almost off.
Gideon drove both hands against the cuff, and light exploded outward.
The chain snapped first, whipping back into the wall so hard that stone sparked from around the anchor. The cuff split down the center with a blinding flash as the pieces fell from Celestes’ wrists.
When they hit the floor, they writhed for one horrible second before my vines wrapped around them and crushed them into dust.
Celeste stared at her free wrist as if she couldn’t believe it belonged to her before she launched herself at me.
We fell into each other as her face pressed into my shoulder, her whole body shaking as I wrapped myself around her and tried to become anything strong enough to keep the world from touching her again.
“No tears,” I whispered against her hair. “Not until we’re safe in Stonewick.”
“I’m not crying,” she said, though her voice wobbled.
“Good.”
Keegan’s hand rested on the back of my shoulder, warm and steady, and when I looked up at him, his expression nearly cracked whatever control I had left.
He loved us.
Both of us.
The knowledge settled over me with such fierce certainty that I had to look away before my eyes betrayed me.
Gideon stepped back, one hand braced against the wall. His face had gone too pale, and for a second, I saw the cost of what he’d done. There was no smirk or sly remark waiting to fall from his lips. I only saw exhaustion and something haunted.
Celeste lifted her head slightly and looked at him.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Gideon’s gaze flickered to hers, and he looked almost startled by the words.
He gave a small nod. “Don’t thank me yet. We still have to get out of here.”
A deep crack spread across the wall where the chain had been anchored. Behind it, something moved. A ripple of shadows slid through the split.
Keegan pulled us both to our feet.
“Can you walk?” he asked Celeste.
She nodded quickly, though her knees wobbled. “I can walk.”
I kept an arm around her waist anyway.
The pendant had cooled, but the silver thread attached to it twisted strangely in the air. It was no longer pointing back toward the chamber we’d entered from. It tugged toward a narrow archway that had appeared on the opposite side of the room.
I stared at it.
“That wasn’t there before,” I remarked.
Gideon let out a deep sigh. “The tower is rearranging around the break.”
“Is that good or bad?” Celeste asked.
“In my experience,” I said, keeping my grip on her firm, “magical buildings don’t usually rearrange because they’re feeling generous.”
Keegan’s gaze moved toward the archway. “It may be trying to send us deeper.”
The thought made my stomach twist.
My mother was out with my dad and Bella.
Celeste was in my arms.
Every instinct screamed to get out fast.
But somewhere overhead, the Priestess waited, and the tower still pulsed with whatever ancient thing she had woken beneath it.
Celeste must have felt the shift in me because she grabbed my sleeve.
“Mom.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.” Her eyes were wide and fierce. “She said you’d come for me. She said you’d choose me and leave everyone else to deal with what she started.”
The silver thread trembled.
“What exactly did she say?” Gideon asked.
Celeste dropped her gaze to the stone floor. “She said mothers are predictable.”
“She wouldn’t know the first thing about being a mother,” I said softly, thinking back on what she’d done to her own daughter and the families before us.
The sound of a door slamming echoed through the chamber, and Keegan moved closer to the opening.
Gideon glanced at him. “I don’t think we can leave the way we came in.”
“I assumed.” Keegan’s gaze met his.
“I need to get to the Priestess,” I told Keegan, but I could see the way his jaw twitched, he wasn’t happy.
Celeste looked at me. “You’re still going?”
“I’m getting you out first,” I promised.
Her chin lifted in a way that was painfully familiar. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Celeste.”
“No.” Her voice shook, but she didn’t look away. “I’m serious. She used me to get you here, and I’m not letting her use me to make you stay.”
Keegan’s mouth pressed into a tight line, and I knew he agreed with her more than he wanted to.
Gideon let out a low breath. “We don’t have time to debate family stubbornness, touching though it may be.”
The room darkened as a baritone sound drifted through it, followed by steady, soft footsteps.
Keegan reached for my hand again, and this time, Celeste took my other one.
The silver thread at my pendant snapped tight toward Celeste as Gideon stepped in front of us, mage light gathering around his fingers once more.
And from the darkness ahead, the Priestess began to hum.