Chapter Twenty
Morning came early, but anxiety came earlier.
I woke before the sun, tangled in Keegan’s arm like some sort of romantic pretzel, a stack of books threatening to fall off the side of the bed, and a half-dried trail of highlighter across my forearm where I’d apparently fallen asleep mid-magical-theory paragraph about closing the circle.
I was going to get this right.
Keegan, unfairly warm for a man who looked carved from late-autumn shadows most days, breathed against the back of my neck. His arm lay heavy over my waist. His leg was thrown across mine. He was basically a weighted blanket with cheekbones.
And normally? Normally, that weight grounded me.
Today, my chest was already tight.
The circle.
A few days away.
And the priestess’s face fractured through the mirror like a promise waiting to be broken.
I slid a hand out from under Keegan’s, rummaging blindly for the nearest book without waking him. My fingers brushed the cover of Convergences of Lineage and Time: Circle Magic Through Rites and Bond and pulled it onto my chest.
If the title alone didn’t cause hair loss, the text inside would.
Careful not to disturb the man currently preventing gravity from doing terrible things to my emotions, I tilted the lamp on the bedside table to the lowest setting. Soft amber spilled across the book.
I read.
“A circle closes at strength proportional to the participating anchors. A weakened or unwilling anchor destabilizes the entire structure.”
Unwilling.
The priestess’s warning echoed through me—Your circle is a child’s toy drawn in dust.
The rites will not respect it.
Gideon’s hint: In five days, the circle…
Elira’s face pulled away…Maeve, listen, she is not—
Not what.
Not who.
Not done?
I pressed my forehead into the book.
“This is ridiculous,” I muttered.
“Mm,” Keegan rumbled behind me, voice gravelly with sleep. “Books don’t usually get cursed until after breakfast.”
I startled. “Did I wake you?”
“No.” His arm tightened around my middle. “Your heartbeat did.”
He nuzzled into my shoulder like a sleepy wolf pretending not to be the deadliest thing in the room. I hated how reassuring that felt.
“You’re anxious,” he murmured into my hair.
“I have the right,” I said, flipping the book closed.
“Grandmother number one tried to warn me through a mirror before being hijacked by grandmother number two, who used crystal shattering as punctuation. Gideon is behaving like he’s auditioning for an antihero award.
The circle is in a few days, and I can’t tell if we’re about to save the world or accidentally open another door that should stay shut. ”
Keegan stretched, muscles shifting against me, then sat up enough to look at my face.
“You’re scared something is going to go wrong,” he said.
“Something always goes wrong,” I said. “But this feels… bigger. Like something’s leaning over my shoulder and waiting to say ‘oops and snatch something away from me that’s important.’”
He brushed hair from my cheek with a thumb, gentle. “Is that your magic talking, or you?”
“Both,” I admitted.
He leaned back against the pillows, dragging me with him until my back was pressed against his chest and he could rest his chin on my shoulder. “So. What did we learn at three in the morning from the book of Magical Doom?”
“That circles fail when one of the anchors is unwilling,” I recited.
He huffed a dry laugh. “So, Gideon.”
I elbowed him lightly. “At least pretend optimism.”
“Might be easier,” he murmured, “if he hadn’t spent the last months trying to manipulate you, threaten me, and dance around Malore.”
The name made my skin crawl. “And now he’s volunteering to help end the Hunger Path.”
“Which is suspicious,” Keegan said. “Even by Gideon standards. But it’s also a move to save himself.”
It was.
Everything he did was either a smirk or a weapon.
The moment he’d said yes to joining the circle, the Hollows had accepted it. Which meant something. But the way he’d looked at me—like he knew something I didn’t… that haunted me.
I pushed the book aside and rubbed my face. “What does he want? What does she want? The priestess. What does she think I have?”
Keegan hesitated. That alone told me he had thoughts he didn’t want to feed me before breakfast.
“Say it,” I demanded softly.
“I think,” he said carefully, “that Malore wanted the same thing she does. Power.” His hand curved around my waist. “And you’re connected to both of them now. Through lineage. Through the Academy. Through whatever the Academy saw in you.”
“That’s what scares me,” I whispered.
He pulled me closer—not possessively; protectively.
“You’re not a tool,” he said. “Not a vessel. Not a pawn for someone else’s story.”
“Try telling that to the mirrors,” I said.
His jaw tightened against my shoulder. “If I could punch a mirror dimension in the face, I would.”
A brief, ridiculous image of Keegan tackling a mirror like a bar fight gone enchanted made my lips twitch. “You’re ridiculous.”
“And you’re stalling,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to the curve of my shoulder. “What else?”
I sighed. “What if Gideon is counting on the circle to be the moment he takes… something.”
Keegan stilled. “Something like what?”
“Like power. Or advantage. Or me.”
He growled—low, soft, the wolf rising like a shadow under his skin.
“Try,” he said, “and I’ll tear him apart.”
I touched his hand, grounding him. My wolf. My storm.
“You can’t fight destiny with your teeth.”
“I can try,” he said.
We lay in silence for a moment. The morning light crept in through the window, landing on the abandoned books. Keegan’s breath warmed the back of my neck. My anxieties stacked themselves like hedges in winter, dense and thorny.
Finally, I sat up.
He followed, still watching me.
“I have to figure out what the priestess wants before she takes another swing at the Wards,” I said. “If we close the circle and weaken her, good. Great. But if we do it without knowing what she’s after…”
“She’ll find a way around it,” Keegan finished grimly.
“Exactly.”
I swung my legs off the bed. The floor was cold. The room swayed for a second, a leftover aftershock from the mirror corridor, and Keegan’s hand shot out, steadying my waist.
“You need food,” he said. “And about six more hours of sleep.”
“I need answers.”
“Breakfast first,” he insisted.
“You’re bossy.”
“You like it.”
I ignored the heat creeping up my neck and stood, pulling on my robe. My butterfly mark gave a faint, irritated tingle, almost like someone poking a bruise from the inside.
Keegan noticed. “You okay?”
“No,” I said honestly. “But I’m awake.”
Downstairs, the cottage was already up.
Miora put a teacup into my hands before I finished descending the stairs.
“You look peaked,” she said. “Drink.”
Mom was at the table, reading a book that I was 90% sure had been hidden behind a false panel in the Academy library. Dad was in human form, drinking coffee and glaring at a crossword puzzle like it had done him personal harm. They’d both slept in the family room.
And Twobble…
Twobble sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by scrolls, ink smudges, and three muffins he claimed were for morale.
“You’re up,” he said happily. “Good. We have updates.”
“No,” Keegan said behind me. “Breakfast.”
“Yes,” Twobble said firmly. “Breakfast for Maeve’s brain. Important distinction.”
I took a seat slowly, sipping tea.
“Okay,” I said. “Hit me.”
Twobble dramatically unfurled a scroll. “We have compiled, through research, bribery, and sheer goblin intuition, a list of possible things the priestess might want.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I’m terrified.”
“You should be,” Skonk called from the doorway, carrying a stack of freshly copied diagrams. “His first draft included a better hat and immortality but sparkly.”
“Both still viable,” Twobble muttered. “But not completely accurate.”
Dad set down his mug. “Let’s hear it.”
Twobble cleared his throat like an overexcited professor. “The priestess wants three things: power, permanence, and possession.”
“Possession of what?” I asked.
“Either you,” Twobble said, “or something you’re connected to.”
Keegan stiffened.
Mom pressed a hand to her chest. “She wanted Elira in Shadowick. But she didn’t get her. Elira stayed with the Academy.”
“And now Elira is gone,” I whispered.
The room went quiet.
Miora set her teapot down slowly. “And you, Maeve,” she said gently, “are the next Bellemore witch tied to the Academy’s core.”
Dad swore under his breath.
I sat back, tea forgotten.
Connected to the Academy.
Connected to the Wards.
Connected to the dragons, which she should know nothing about.
Connected to both lines of magic—mine and Shadowick’s.
My grandmother’s expression in the mirror, cold and calculating, flashed behind my eyes.
“She wants me,” I whispered. “She wants to use me the way she tried to use Elira and Gideon.”
Keegan moved closer, hand on the back of my chair. “She won’t be able to touch you.”
Twobble nodded eagerly. “Also, Gideon was definitely lying by omission.”
“Which omission?” I asked.
“All of them,” Twobble said. “I’ve made a list.”
Skonk handed me another scroll. “He spent years in Shadowick’s upper circles. He knows more than he said. He gave you just enough truth to make you trust the lie under it.”
I rubbed my temples. “So we don’t know what he wants.”
Miora shook her head. “We know what he’s afraid of. That’s something. He doesn’t want to die.”
Mom looked up. “The priestess wouldn’t let him leave Shadowick unless she wanted him to.”
Dad nodded grimly. “He’s her tool, whether he hates her or not.”
Silence.
Keegan crouched beside me. “Maeve. Look at me.”
I did.
“You said last night you thought the circle could weaken her.”
“It should,” I said. “If all our magic binds and if we close the path she’s been trying to widen, it might shut her out.”
“It might not be enough,” he said quietly. “Not if she wants you as the anchor to reopen it later or start something new.”
My breath stopped.
“I don’t…I don’t want to be a key to anything,” I whispered.
“You’re not,” Keegan said. “Not to her. You’re the door she’s desperate to pry open.”
Dad leaned forward. “Which means closing the circle is the best move we have.”
“And finding out what Gideon isn’t telling us,” Mom added.
“And panicking,” Twobble said helpfully.
“No panicking,” Skonk corrected. “Strategized alarm.”
I laughed, weak but real.
Keegan’s hand slid into mine under the table.
“You’re not doing this alone,” he said.
And I believed him.
But as the cottage hummed around us, alive, awake, fierce with my mother’s new wards, my butterfly mark gave a soft, icy pulse.
A warning.
Somewhere in the Academy, one of the cracked mirrors stirred.
Somewhere beyond Stonewick, the priestess lifted her head.
Somewhere between us all, Gideon smiled and waited.
Something was coming.
And it wasn’t going to wait for the circle.