Chapter Four
Keegan’s heartbeat was the first spell of the morning.
The sound was slow, steady, and created a warmth under my ear that made the world feel less piercing.
The loft window threw a slice of pale gold across the ceiling, and the cottage creaked the way it always did after the gargoyles changed posts with wood settling, a kettle whistling, and stone remembering.
I lay there, tracing the scuffed seam of his T-shirt with my fingertip, pretending we had all the time in the world to be ordinary.
“Keep doing that,” he murmured, voice rough with sleep and something softer.
“Tracing or pretending?”
“Both.”
A smile snuck onto my face. “We have a very long list today.”
He tightened his arm around me, not quite ready to let the list win.
“Then we should start by ignoring it.”
“Tempting.” I rolled so I could see him properly. The light found the gold in his hazel eyes, and caught on the new scruff along his jaw that really ought to be illegal on weekday mornings. “But.”
“The terrible but.” He tried to look put-upon and failed. His mouth kept finding its way back to a smile. “Say it.”
“Before we follow trails and dead ends, we should snoop in Luna’s shop.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“Snoop,” he echoed, like he could taste the word. “You’re going to make Twobble’s century with a task like that. Add in a criminal element and he’s yours for life.”
“Luna, just…” I chuckled, but quickly sobered, because even saying Luna’s name pinched something behind my ribs.
It was just so hard to believe she would have betrayed us the way she had.
“If she left anything that explains why she walked out with Gideon, it’ll be in the yarn.”
He didn’t argue. Of course, he didn’t. He only brushed a thumb along my temple and kissed my forehead like he was sealing a protective sigil there.
“Then we start with her shop,” he said. “And go from there.”
“I just don’t want the other shopkeepers worried,” I explained.
“We’ll do our best to blend in, but you know Stonewick is full of gossip. Between the tourists and locals, wild rumors get started every second of the day.”
“Then we’ll need a distraction,” I mused.
“As in Stella in full vampire,” he said, deadpan.
I kissed his cheek, stretched, and rose from bed before climbing down the steps from the loft where Twobble had crashed on the sofa.
We were out the door in five minutes, half-dressed, half-awake, fully unprepared and hustling toward Stonewick’s main street like a mismatched parade.
Frank was in his bulldog form, because apparently, when the world tips sideways, he instinctively returns to four paws and pure determination.
“Would you slow down?” Twobble whisper-yelled. “Some of us have delicate ankles!”
Frank did not slow. Frank did not acknowledge the existence of goblins, pedestrians, or natural laws. He bulldozed ahead, snorting like a tiny, flat-faced general who had discovered a new purpose.
Keegan huffed a laugh. “Your dad’s going to break in before we get there.”
“He won’t,” I said. “He has manners.”
“Does he?” Keegan’s brow lifted.
“Dog-manners,” I clarified.
“That’s generous.”
Ahead, the carved yarn-ball sign of Luna’s shop creaked in the breeze as if the shop itself felt guilty.
Frank reached the door first, landing his rump like a sandbag. He was either guarding or refusing to budge… hard to tell with bulldogs.
“At least someone’s on duty,” Stella muttered, cloak crooked, hair only 80% tamed.
Frank barked once, decisive. Stella patted his head. “Yes, yes, you’re very intimidating.”
Behind us, Skonk and Twobble stumbled up, wheezing like they’d outrun destiny itself.
“No proper investigation starts before tea,” Skonk gasped.
“Or breakfast,” Twobble added. “Or comfort.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “You both have legs. Use them.”
“We prefer metaphysical legwork,” Skonk sniffed.
Before I could reply, my fingers brushed the doorknob and everyone froze as I flicked my fingers away.
Warm.
Too warm.
“Nova,” I whispered.
Nova stepped forward, eyes focused and alert. “The charms stirred here recently.”
“As in someone was inside?” I asked.
Stella groaned. “If Luna waltzed back in after all this—”
“It wasn’t Luna,” Ardetia murmured. She touched the doorframe delicately. “But her magic lingers. Purposefully. As if she wanted Maeve to find it.”
My chest tightened. Luna always did know when I’d be snooping.
I turned the knob.
Nothing.
Skonk perked up like a goblin bloodhound. “Ah! A lock challenge. Allow m—”
“No,” Keegan said.
“Yes,” Skonk insisted, already reaching.
“No.”
Bella sighed. “Let him try. Last time he only scorched half a palm.”
A spark.
A pop.
And a goblin missile detonated.
Skonk flew backward into Keegan’s arms with a crash and Keegan exhaled.
“Why am I always catching goblins?”
“Because you’re shaped like a heroic safety net,” Skonk wheezed.
“It’s the broad shoulders,” Twobble added.
Nova waved her hand and muttered a spell, and the lock clicked like a tired old librarian saying, finally.
The door creaked open and my dad barreled in.
“Frank—!” Nova called out.
Too late. He planted himself in the center of the shop, chest puffed, eyes narrowed. Detective mode: engaged.
We followed him in.
Lavender wool. Cedar shelves. The faintest trace of citrus oil. Familiar and comforting, yet wrong.
The lights flickered awake. Skeins leaned at odd angles. Knitting needles lay scattered like they’d tried to defend themselves and lost.
Bella inhaled sharply. “She was here. A few days ago.”
“But they’ve been missing for weeks,” I muttered, looking at the shelves.
Stella pressed a finger to a dented shelf. “Someone tugged hard.”
Twobble inspected the sample basket. “No pastries. Highly suspicious.”
“Focus,” I warned.
Then we all stopped.
A shimmer wound along the polished wooden floor with thin threads of silver, blue, and gold weaving like spilled moonlight.
“New,” I murmured.
Ardetia knelt, touching a raven’s feather. “Luna’s magic and something darker threaded through it.”
“Gideon?” Keegan asked.
Nova shook her head. “Not quite. Shadows, possibly.”
We followed.
The enchanted knitting needles all pointed toward the hallway like they were tattling on someone.
“Oh, that’s foreboding,” Stella muttered.
“Should we run?” Twobble whispered.
“No,” I said. “We follow.”
“Of course,” Skonk groaned. “Explosions. Yarn avalanches. Disaster. My brand.”
We entered the back room.
Frank marched straight under a table and sat. Barked once.
The bulldog version of Look here, peasants.
Keegan lifted the tablecloth.
My breath caught.
Luna’s travel basket.
She never left it.
Ever.
Inside, nestled among rose-gold wool, lay a stitched message, with witch-thread intertwined with fae braid patterns. Luna’s signature stitch-language.
“She left us a note,” I whispered.
I reached in, fingers brushing loops and knots. Warm magic tingled beneath my fingertips.
Then I spotted it. A faint shimmer behind a skein embroidered with my name, as if the threads themselves were whispering. Nestled there was an envelope, waiting like it had been holding its breath for me.
I slit it open and my breath shook.
If you find this, you waited long enough to listen. Good.
I left to keep you from following the wrong seam.
You’ll be tempted to take the path that looks like a path. Don’t.
Follow where the fabric pulls. You’ll know it because it will feel like the wrong
choice… the shortcut that isn’t.
Bring the hinge. Leave the hammer.
Pack for cold.
He was in danger, and I knew if I didn’t hide him, someone else would find him.
The shadows are chasing him.
Twobble made a squeaky gasp.
I continued:
I am with him because sometimes the only way to stop a storm is to stand in its
center and refuse to move.
Forgive me and the method.
Trust the motive.
Find the dropped stitch.
—L.
Stella’s eyes shone. “She’s not a traitor.”
Nova’s fingers hovered over invisible threads vibrating around us. “Find the dropped stitch,” she echoed. “She wants us to mend something.”
Ardetia nodded. “If the wrong hands open a dropped stitch, it can unravel more than cloth.”
Before I could ask more, the temperature plunged.
A scrape at the front door.
A shadow pressed against the glass and the window trembled.
Twobble squealed. “It found us! I wasn’t ready! My will isn’t updated!”
Skonk grabbed him. “Quiet! Maybe it can’t hear terror.”
Keegan’s posture shifted into predatory and protective.
Bella bristled, fox form rippling under her skin.
Ardetia’s gaze sharpened like icicles.
The shadows had been waiting.
My eyes steadied on Keegan’s as I let out a slow breath.
But then…
A loud cough rattled through the air followed by someone clearing their throat.
“Should I come back later?”
We blinked.
A tourist wearing a puffy vest, holding a bakery box, while displaying a confused expression peered through the door.
“I saw all of you tumble inside and thought maybe there was a class,” the stranger continued.
My chest unfurled as my shoulders relaxed, and Twobble pressed his hand dramatically to his chest. “We almost died because of a woman dressed as a marshmallow.”
“Hello in there?” she called again.
Stella, rarely rattled, glared toward the woman. “We are closed. Please go away.”
“It’s six a.m.,” the stranger continued.
“Precisely,” Stella said. “Too early for wool.”
The tourist blinked, then walked off, muttering something under her breath.
“Let’s get back to business,” Twobble grumbled. “I need to get out of here ASAP after that. My goblin heart is not meant for such shenanigans.”
“You mean tourists?” Keegan teased.
“Exactly.”
Nova touched Luna’s stitched message. “Maeve… you don’t know where she means.”
I blinked. “I don’t, not really. I was thinking maybe one of our Wards or…”
“No.” Nova closed her eyes, listening to the magic. “She’s pointing us to the Glacial Hollow Forest.”
The room stilled.
Even Twobble shut up.
Ardetia whispered, “Ancient place. Older than Stonewick. Older than the first Wards.”
Stella groaned softly. “Do we ever get easy destinations?”
“Never,” Keegan said, his hand finding mine.
Skonk whistled. “We’re going to die.”
Twobble nodded sagely. “Bring snacks to prolong the ordeal.”
Nova leaned on her staff. “We should go soon.”
Frank barked once in agreement.
I clutched Luna’s message.
“Hang on, Luna,” I whispered, knowing so little about this little world I’d become a part of and had wanted to save with every inch of me.
But outside, the mist thickened and inside, the yarn trembled.
The stitched trail glowed brighter, urging us forward before the shadow learned to walk faster when something rustled behind the stack of discounted alpaca yarn.
Twobble froze mid-snack-theft. “What was that?”
Skonk narrowed his eyes. “Probably your conscience. Rare creature. Nearly extinct.”
Before I could tell them both to hush, the entire shelf trembled and a ball of thick plum-colored yarn unraveled itself in one violent shimmy.
Loops whipped outward like legs, stitched themselves into shape, and…
A yarn foxlet leapt out, if that were such a thing.
I screamed.
Twobble shrieked like a squeaky dog toy.
Skonk bolted behind a display of sparkly sock yarn. “IT HAS EYES! WHY DOES IT HAVE EYES?!”
The little creature blinked up at us with button eyes sewn too beautifully to be comforting and let out the faintest, softest chirping sound like someone flicking a knitting needle against cotton.
Ardetia swept forward, all grace and calm, kneeling before it.
“Oh sweet one,” she breathed, gathering the creature gently as if it were made of spun moonlight instead of worsted wool. “You’re a protective familiar. Luna must have crafted you.”
The yarn foxlet nuzzled her palm.
Bella’s jaw dropped. “We’re taking her with us, right?”
Twobble wiped his eyes. “Only if she promises not to spring out of shelves or eat me.”
I exhaled. “She’s coming. Luna left her here for a reason.”
The little foxlet chirped again readier than we were to find the woman dropping the magical breadcrumbs and possibly leading us to answers we never wanted to uncover.