Page 11 of Hexy Bear
But as the healing continued, Griff became aware of something else. The magical connection between him, Mara, and Tilly wasn't just healing the shadow beings. It was creating something new, something that felt like family bonds made manifest in magical energy. He could feel Mara's thoughts, her fierce protectiveness toward Tilly and her growing affection for him. He could sense Tilly's joy at having two adults who understood her magic and made her feel safe.
And underneath it all, he could feel his own walls crumbling, the careful emotional barriers he'd constructed to protect himself from the possibility of loss dissolving under the weight of connection and trust.
"I'm scared," he admitted, the words emerging before he could stop them. "I'm terrified of caring about you both this much, of letting you become so important that losing you would destroy me."
"Fear is natural," Mara said softly, her voice carrying through their magical connection as well as the air between them. "But Griff, isolation isn't protection. It's just another kind of prison."
"She's right, Daddy," Tilly added, her child's wisdom cutting straight to the heart of the matter. "Being alone doesn't keep yousafe. It just makes you lonely. And lonely people can't protect anybody properly."
The shadow beings, now fully restored to their human forms, began to fade in a different way. Not dissolving back into fragments, but simply becoming translucent as their connection to the physical world weakened.
"Thank you," the man who had been a father said, his voice strong and clear. "You've given us what we needed to break free from her control. We can move on now, find peace, and she can never use us against others again."
"Wait," Griff said, reluctant to let them go when they might have crucial information. "Can you tell us how to protect ourselves from her? How to fight something that powerful?"
"You're already doing it," the young woman with braids replied, her form beginning to shimmer with golden light. "Love, trust, connection. She feeds on isolation and despair, but she can't touch bonds that are freely chosen and fiercely defended. Your family, all three of you, you're stronger together than she could ever be alone."
As the shadow beings faded into peaceful light, leaving behind only the faint scent of summer rain and the echo of grateful laughter, Griff found himself still connected to Mara and Tilly through the magical bond they'd created. The link felt permanent, unbreakable, like something that had always been meant to exist.
"We're a family now," Tilly announced with satisfaction, settling back down on her bed with Mr. Gruff. "I can feel it. The magic knows."
Mara's eyes were bright with unshed tears as she looked at Griff. "Is that what you want?" she asked quietly. "Because I need you to know that I'm not going anywhere, regardless. Whether you're ready for this or not, whether you can acceptwhat's happening between us or not, I'm staying. You and Tilly are my family now, and I protect what's mine."
The fierce determination in her eyes and how she claimed them both without apology or hesitation, broke the last of Griff's resistance. For five years, he'd been carrying the weight of single parenthood alone, convinced that protecting his daughter meant keeping everyone else at arm's length. But watching Mara heal the shadow beings with compassion and courage, seeing the way she'd stepped into their lives and made everything brighter and stronger, he finally understood what the restored spirits was trying to tell him.
"Yes," he said, his voice rough with emotion. "That's what I want. You're right, both of you. We're stronger together."
Tilly cheered, her magic sparkling around her like fairy dust, while Mara's smile transformed her entire face. The magical bond between them pulsed with contentment and promise, and ever since Sarah's death, Griff felt like he was exactly where he was supposed to be.
Outside, the sun was rising over Mistwhisper Falls, painting the sky in shades of hope and new beginnings. But even as they celebrated their breakthrough, none of them noticed the way the shadows in the corners of the room seemed to deepen, or the faint sound of laughter that carried on the morning breeze.
The entity that had controlled the shadow beings for so long had felt their liberation, and she was not pleased. The game was changing, the players were choosing their sides, and it was time for her to make a more direct approach.
The pretty lady with dark hair and star-filled eyes was coming to Mistwhisper Falls, and she was bringing all of her remaining power with her.
SIX
MARA
Two days later, the Gossamer Grimoire looked like a hurricane had torn through its usually pristine interior. Books lay scattered across every surface, their pages marked with scraps of paper covered in Nico's precise handwriting. Ancient texts that normally resided in climate-controlled cases were spread open on reading tables, their parchment pages weighted down with crystals that hummed with preservation magic. The air itself felt thick with accumulated knowledge and the kind of exhaustion that came from months of obsessive research.
Nico stood in the center of the chaos, his elegant fae features drawn with fatigue as he gestured for Griff, Mara, and Tilly to settle themselves wherever they could find space among the literary debris. Aerin and Leo had arrived moments earlier, their expressions grim as they surveyed the evidence of whatever truths Nico had spent seven months uncovering.
"I apologize for the state of the shop," Nico said, his usually cultured voice rough with sleeplessness. "But I needed to cross-reference genealogical records from seventeen different supernatural archives, and some of these texts haven't been opened in centuries."
"What exactly were you looking for?" Aerin asked, her academic instincts clearly engaged despite the circumstances. She'd brought her own research materials, tablets and printouts that documented the supernatural disturbances spreading across the continent.
"Proof," Nico said simply, settling into the chair behind his usual reading desk. "Proof that what we've been told about the founding of Mistwhisper Falls, about the bloodlines and the binding and the entity contained beneath the falls, was carefully constructed fiction designed to hide a much more dangerous truth."
Tilly, who had been unusually quiet since their encounter with the shadow beings, suddenly looked up from the ancient tome she'd been examining. The six-year-old could read three languages fluently and had an unsettling tendency to understand magical theory that should have been beyond her comprehension.
"The books are angry," she announced matter-of-factly. "They don't like being lied about for so long. They want to tell the real story."
"What kind of real story?" Leo asked, his law enforcement instincts clearly on high alert.
Nico opened what seemed to be a ledger bound in leather so old it looked like it might crumble at a touch. "The story that begins with the fact that there were never three founders of Mistwhisper Falls. There were four. And the fourth one didn't die or disappear or fade into obscurity."
He turned the ledger so they could all see the page he'd marked, revealing a property deed signed in four distinct hands. Three of the signatures were familiar from local history: Helena Whitaker, Garrett Halloway, and Silvane Beaumont. But the fourth signature, written in script so elaborate it wasalmost unreadable, belonged to someone whose name had been systematically erased from every official record.
