Page 158 of Magical Mission
The mist behind me was thick now and opaque. It was hard not to be reminded of Shadowick.
The shimmer had folded over it like a curtain falling across a stage. I reached out toward it, and my hand met not resistance, butabsence.
It reminded me of the shimmer within the Academy.
There was no warmth or pressure, just nothing.
The vagueness swallowed my fingers like it meant to forget them.
I pulled back quickly, heart hammering.
“Okay,” I whispered. “Okay.”
A path stretched out ahead, one of many.
And yet…
Something about it vibrated faintly beneath my feet.
The others were quiet, still, and waiting.
But this one?
Itwatched.
I took a step forward.
The shimmer shifted instantly, curling around my ankles like gold-threaded fog. The moment I moved, the other paths blinked out, snuffed like candles in the wind. This was the path.
Or maybe just the one that had chosen me.
The silence around me thickened. It wasn’t peaceful. It was loaded.
The air buzzed softly with static, magic, and memory.
The trees, if they could be called that, grew at odd angles now, their trunks twisted like questions never asked. Their bark shimmered faintly, but no leaves grew from the limbs. Instead, tiny motes of light drifted between them, blinking on and off like confused fireflies.
I kept walking.
The path narrowed again as the shimmer rose higher now, brushing my shoulders, cool and cloying. The sound of my footsteps shifted.
At first, my feet stepped over grass and then stone, turning to something softer, like velvet stretched over old memories.
I don’t know how long I walked.
Time slipped.
My feet didn’t ache, but my mind…
Something began to scratch at the edges with loneliness.
It wasn’t mine, exactly, but the feeling crawled in, and perhaps, it was a yearning that wasn’t shaped like fear but wore its skin.
But it led me to a wall of mirrors, and each one was freestanding.
Tall, arched, framed in metal that pulsed with symbols I couldn’t read. It reminded me of the Academy’sHall of Promises.
I stood before them, and the one closest to me flickered.
