Chapter Thirty-Seven #2
One of the orcs looked deeply suspicious of the delicate teacup he’d been handed, especially since he was already ducking to fit inside the building.
“Is this… chamomile?” he asked.
Opal didn’t even glance up. “Yes.”
The place hummed with voices.
People were talking over each other, replaying the fight, gesturing wildly as they described shadows diving through the trees and spells cracking across the clearing.
“…and then the hedge just rose—”
“I’m telling you, it grabbed three of them at once—”
“The Priestess herself was standing right there—”
“And then she ran.”
Every time someone said that part, a ripple went through the room.
The Priestess ran.
I stood just inside the doorway for a moment, taking it all in.
Stonewick felt different tonight.
Full.
That was the word that kept coming to mind.
Full of voices.
Full of warmth.
Full of life and magic and people who had decided, without planning it, without voting on it, that they would stand together when something terrible came knocking.
It settled into my chest like a steady glow.
The fiery ache in my shoulder was still there, a sharp reminder of the mark and everything tangled up in it. But for a moment, just standing there in the tea shop while everyone talked and laughed and passed around cups of tea, the pain felt… distant.
Even the knot in my chest about my mom loosened a little.
I still had to save her.
That hadn’t changed.
But suddenly it didn’t feel like something I had to face alone.
Nova guided me toward one of the big tables near the window.
“Sit,” she said.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re swaying.”
“I’m leaning artistically.”
She pulled out the chair anyway, and I sat.
Keegan hovered nearby and leaned one shoulder against the wall beside the table, arms folded, his gaze sweeping the room the way it always did—quietly checking that everyone was safe.
Luna pressed a fresh compress into my hand.
“Keep that on your shoulder,” she said.
“Yes, nurse.” I smiled, and she gave me a look.
“Witch,” she corrected, which made me so happy, and I smiled despite myself.
Across the room, Stella was moving between tables with a kettle in one hand and, for some reason, the cast-iron skillet still tucked under her arm.
“Tea?” she asked a pair of shifters.
“Yes, please.”
She poured each of them a cup, then scanned the room like a general surveying the battlefield.
“If any shadows come back,” she announced, lifting the skillet slightly, “they’ll have to get through me first.”
Someone clapped while someone else raised their teacup.
The entire shop broke into a cheer, and I laughed softly and shook my head.
“This town,” I murmured.
Keegan’s voice drifted down from beside me. “Worth protecting.”
I glanced up at him, and he wasn’t looking at me.
His eyes were on the crowd—the witches, the orcs, the shifters all sharing space in the tea shop like it had always been that way, and I realized this was what he always fought for, why he stayed behind when everyone else fled.
A few hours ago, half the people in this room would’ve avoided each other on the street.
Now they were passing around sugar bowls.
Hope.
That word came back again.
Magic had always seemed complicated to me. Spells and Wards and ancient rules I barely understood.
But tonight it looked different. Unity.
The thought warmed something deep in my chest.
And then another thought crept in behind it.
Rendel.
My fingers tightened slightly around the compress.
If my suspicion was right…
I glanced toward Keegan.
He was still watching the crowd, unaware.
A strange knot formed in my stomach as the door opened.
The tea shop door had been opening every few minutes as more people wandered in from the woods. Another witch. Another pair of shifters. Someone looking for a friend.
But this time, the room changed.
The sound faded first, and conversations stumbled before completely coming to a halt.
The ripple of silence spread across the shop until even the kettles seemed quieter.
I looked up to see everyone staring toward the door, and I didn’t understand why until the figure stepped fully inside.
Gideon.
He paused just inside the doorway like he had all the time in the world. The light caught the dark fall of his hair, the calm expression on his face.
He didn’t look injured, and he didn’t look hurried.
He looked like someone who had simply decided to stop by for tea.
No one moved.
No one spoke.
Even Stella froze mid-step, kettle in one hand, skillet in the other.
My heart gave a slow, heavy thud.
I had thought the strangest part of the night was over.
Apparently, Stonewick disagreed.
Gideon’s gaze moved slowly across the room.
Over the witches.
The orcs.
The shifters.
Before landing on me.
He didn’t speak, but something flickered in his expression.
It wasn’t triumph, and for once, it wasn’t anger.
Perhaps, recognition?
And that’s when the uneasy thought I’d been trying to ignore all evening finally surfaced. Because if the thought forming in my mind was right…
Then the most dangerous man in the room might not be Gideon.
And the person missing from Stonewick tonight might matter more than anyone realized.