Chapter Forty
The last of the tea cups were finally empty.
It had taken a while.
Vivienne, Opal, and Mara finished their tea and gathered their shawls, their conversation trailing off into quiet speculation about Wards and shadow magic as they stepped outside.
When the door closed behind them, Stella let out a small breath and leaned both hands on the counter.
“Well,” she said. “That was lively.”
No one argued with her.
Twobble had fallen half asleep against the table, his head tipped back and crumbs still clinging stubbornly to the front of his vest. Skonk was quietly arguing with a spoon about whether it had been moved when he wasn’t looking.
Nova and Ardetia were already heading toward the door.
“Get some rest,” Nova told me gently as she passed. “Tomorrow will come whether we’re ready for it or not.”
“Comforting,” I said.
She smiled faintly.
Bella lingered just long enough to squeeze my good shoulder before slipping outside into the dark.
And then it was just us, Stella, Gideon, the goblins, and Keegan.
Stella moved through the shop with practiced efficiency, collecting cups and stacking saucers, and blowing out candles one by one.
The room dimmed slowly.
Outside, the town had gone quiet.
Keegan rose from his chair, stretching his shoulders once like a man who had been sitting longer than he liked. Gideon stood a few feet away near the door, watching the whole scene with an expression I still couldn’t quite read.
Finally, Stella wiped her hands on a towel and nodded toward the door.
“Alright,” she announced. “Out you all go. Even magical crises need to respect business hours.”
Twobble jerked awake.
“I was meditating,” he said immediately.
“You were snoring.”
“Deep meditation.”
Skonk snorted.
We shuffled toward the door together.
The cool night air felt good after the warmth of the shop. The streetlamps glowed softly, throwing golden light across the cobblestones. Stonewick looked peaceful again.
Which still felt strange.
Keegan turned toward Gideon.
“The inn’s open,” he said simply. “You can take a room there tonight. Tell Ember I said it was fine. There are a few reserved for unexpected visitors.”
I blinked.
That hadn’t been the response I expected.
“I suppose I would qualify.”
Keegan nodded. “Indeed.”
Apparently, Gideon hadn’t expected it either, because one of his eyebrows lifted slightly.
“That’s generous,” he said.
“It’s practical,” Keegan replied. “You’re not wandering the town all night.”
Gideon studied him for a second longer and nodded.
“Thanks.”
And just like that, it was settled.
Stella locked the door behind us with a firm click. The vampire ladies disappeared down the street, shawls pulled tight around their shoulders.
Nova and Ardetia headed toward the opposite end of town.
The group dissolved the way it always did in Stonewick—quietly, naturally, like everyone knew where they belonged.
Soon, it was just me and Keegan walking toward the Academy.
The night air had cooled, and a light breeze moved through the trees along the edge of town. My shoulder still ached faintly where the mark had burned earlier, but it had dulled to something manageable.
For a while, we walked in silence.
I glanced sideways at him.
The lantern light caught the edge of his face as we passed beneath one of the lampposts. His expression was calm, but there was a heaviness in the set of his shoulders that I hadn’t noticed before.
“You’re tired,” I said.
He huffed a quiet laugh.
“Is it that obvious?”
“A little.”
He rubbed the back of his neck.
“It’s been a long night.”
“That’s one way to describe it.” I chuckled
We walked another few steps before I spoke again.
“I was watching everyone earlier,” I said. “In the tea shop.”
Keegan glanced down at me.
“And?”
I looked back toward the town behind us. The lantern lights, the quiet streets, the faint glow coming from Stella’s windows.
“I didn’t realize how much they’d all started to feel like family.”
He didn’t answer right away.
But I saw the small smile tug at the corner of his mouth.
“That happens in Stonewick,” he said.
“I know.”
I kicked lightly at a pebble in the road.
“But it made me realize something else, too.”
“What’s that?”
“That I still have another family out there.”
My voice softened without meaning to.
“Celeste. My mom. My dad.”
The words settled between us.
“I keep thinking about Celeste,” I admitted. “About how quickly everything can change.”
Keegan nodded slowly.
“You want to protect them.”
“Yeah.”
I exhaled.
“I didn’t expect all of this when I came to Stonewick.”
“Most people don’t.”
“But now that I’m here…” I hesitated. “It feels like I’m standing between two worlds sometimes.”
He slowed slightly beside me.
“You are,” he said gently.
We had reached the narrow alley that stretched for us, and Keegan’s steps slowed even more.
The Butterfly Ward shimmered faintly ahead, its soft glow moving through the air like drifting wings.
I glanced up at him.
“You feel it too, don’t you?”
He nodded.
“Always.”
We stood there for a moment, just outside the edge of the Ward, and I wondered if I should ask about his father or bring up my suspicions about everything.
And that was right when the ache in my shoulder changed.
It had been a steady throb all the way from the tea shop, the sort of soreness you try to ignore because stopping to think about it only made it worse. I’d managed to push it to the back of my mind while we walked. The night air had helped. The quiet had helped.
But now it flared and burned.
I slowed a step and lifted my hand to my shoulder without really thinking about it.
Keegan noticed immediately.
“Still bothering you?” he asked.
“A little.”
That was only half the truth.
My fingers pressed lightly over the spot where the mark sat beneath my shirt. The warmth there wasn’t new, but the feeling underneath it had shifted.
The burn returned so intensely that it nearly reminded me of being in the battle.
Except this time, it wasn’t merely pain.
It was… something else.
My hand stayed there a moment longer.
“Maeve?” Keegan said.
I blinked and realized I’d stopped walking.
“Sorry,” I said quickly. “Just thinking.”
He studied me for a second but didn’t press.
We stepped closer to the edge of the Butterfly Ward. The faint shimmer of it moved through the air like drifting light, soft and steady, the way it always was.
Normally, being near the Ward made everything inside me settle. The magic here had a way of smoothing rough edges.
Tonight it didn’t.
The heat in my shoulder deepened and became insistent, like a tug.
Like a pull.
I pressed my fingers against the mark again.
And that was when the realization crept in.
The sensation wasn’t random.
It was trying to lead me.
It wasn’t hard enough to drag me across the forest floor or anything dramatic like that. Nothing I couldn’t ignore if I tried.
But it was there.
A quiet, steady direction.
My breath slowed as I felt it again.
The pull.
Keegan had stopped beside me now, watching carefully.
“You sure you’re alright?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said automatically.
But I didn’t move.
Because the feeling had sharpened just enough that I could tell something else.
It wasn’t pointing toward the Academy.
The Butterfly Ward shimmered calmly a few steps ahead of us, its magic soft and welcoming.
But the pull inside my shoulder…
Wasn’t going that way.
A chill moved down my spine.
I slowly turned my head, looking past the Ward and out toward the dark stretch of forest and hills beyond Stonewick.
The burn responded instantly, stronger. It wasn’t pain. It was recognition.
My stomach dropped.
“No,” I whispered under my breath.
Keegan’s brows drew together.
“What?”
I lowered my hand from my shoulder and forced myself to look away from the direction the feeling was pointing.
“It’s nothing.”
That was a terrible lie.
Because now that I’d noticed it, I couldn’t unfeel it.
The mark tugged again.
Steady.
Patient.
And suddenly something else slid into place in my mind.
Something Gideon had said earlier.
I stopped breathing for a second.
The shadow stone.
The thought landed so quietly it almost felt like it had been waiting there all along.
My hand drifted back to my shoulder again.
The warmth pulsed beneath my palm, and the pull deepened.
And worse yet, it didn’t take me anywhere I wanted to go…not to the Academy, my daughter, my mother, or even Shadowick.
It wanted me to walk toward the stone.
A cold realization settled in my chest, and I glanced at Keegan, worried he could read my mind.
The mark nudged me again.
“Oh.” I reached up to my shoulder, and Keegan tilted his head slightly.
“That didn’t sound like a good ‘oh.’”
I shook my head quickly.
“Just… thinking.”
But my mind had already started racing.
Because if the mark was reacting like this…
If it could feel the stone…
Then wherever Gideon had hidden it—
I would be able to find it.
The certainty of that sat in my bones like a weight.
And that scared me more than anything that had happened tonight.
I hadn’t asked for the mark.
I didn’t understand what it meant.
But the craving that brushed along the edge of it now—
That wasn’t curiosity.
It was something older.
Something deeper.
The pull flared again, sharper this time.
My fingers curled slightly against my shoulder.
I forced myself to breathe slowly.
I couldn’t react, and I couldn’t let Keegan see it.
It wasn’t the Academy the mark wanted.
I could feel that much now.
The pull stretched past the trees, past the quiet edge of town, into the dark places beyond Stonewick. Once the thought formed, it settled in my chest with the slow certainty of bad news.
The shadow stone.
I closed my eyes for a second and let out a quiet breath.
Of course it was.
Wherever Gideon had hidden it, the mark could sense it. Worse than that, I could feel it too—not clearly, not enough to march straight out into the woods and find it tonight, but enough to know the direction. A faint thread, steady and patient.
If I wanted to follow it, I probably could.
That realization made my chest tighten.
Because I didn’t want anything to do with that stone. Not its power. Not the kind of magic that had settled into my shoulder like it had every right to be there.
Keegan stepped back beside me then, studying my face the way he did when he thought I might be pretending to be fine.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Just tired,” I said.
That, at least, wasn’t a lie.
He nodded and turned toward the Ward again, apparently satisfied for the moment. We stepped forward together, the Butterfly Ward drifting around us like soft light as we crossed into its warmth.
Home.
Safe.
At least that was the idea.
But the mark in my shoulder didn’t seem particularly impressed by either of those things.
It warmed again beneath my skin, patient as ever.
Waiting.
Like it knew something I didn’t.
Like it understood that sooner or later…
I was going to have to decide whether I ignored the pull—
Or followed it. And as the Academy lights came into view through the trees, a quiet realization followed them.
If the mark could feel the shadow stone…
Then eventually it would lead me to it.
And when it did—
I wasn’t sure what scared me more.
Finding it.
Or discovering I didn’t want to let it go.
***