Page 173 of Magical Mission
He gave me a long, slow blink.
“No precedent for someonerefusingit and being changedbyit rather than destroyed. You didn’t emerge as someone who made a choice. You emerged as someone whorefusedto make one, and the path listened.”
“I’m not sure that’s comforting,” I murmured.
“It isn’t,” he said with a dry twist of a smile. “But it’s true.”
I looked down into the mug between my hands, fingers wrapped around it for comfort, I hadn’t realized I still needed.
“And Gideon?” I asked, my voice quieter now, as if even saying his name might summon the dark thread of him still tangled somewhere in my thoughts.
Twobble didn’t rush to answer.
Instead, he leaned forward, elbows braced on the table, and studied me with eyes that belonged to a much older world than this one.
“You will meet him again,” he said, solemn now. “That’s certain. The path doesn’t throw shadows for no reason, Maeve. It knew he was part of your arc. Your question.”
I swallowed hard. “What if I don’t like the answers?”
His gaze didn’t flinch. “You’ll get them anyway.”
The weight of that settled between us like a third presence. The truth wasn’t cruel, but it was cold and hard, biting into something metallic and unexpected when you were hoping for sweetness.
“I don’t want to be like him,” I whispered.
“You’re not,” Twobble said quickly. “But you’renearthe edge he once walked. And you’re aware enough to know it.”
That’s what frightened me the most. I’d seen that edge. I’d felt it under my feet, inside the path, when Gideon looked at me with eyes full of something unspoken. Not power. Not madness.Loneliness.
I started to let out a breath, maybe to thank Twobble for not treating me like a danger to myself, or maybe to bury the rising guilt that came from still wanting to understand someone like Gideon.
But I never got the chance.
Because just as I parted my lips, apiercing shriekechoed through the Academy’s halls.
Then another.
And another.
The sound came from above, then the west wing, then impossibly close.
Twobble jumped to his feet, knocking over his stool in the process. “That’s not excitement,” he said sharply. “That’s panic.”
I was already on my feet, the chair scraped back behind me, the warmth of the tea forgotten.
The next shriek rang out, turning into a chorus of frantic, overlapping voices from students, their heels pounding across the polished stone, as doors slammed open.
I dashed to the kitchen door and flung it open. The hallway outside was chaos, with spell scrolls scattered, an overturned cauldron rolling in lazy circles near the far wall. One student-a witch with glitter in her hair, ran past us, tears in her eyes.
“What happened?” I called after her.
But she didn’t stop.
Twobble darted up beside me, already pulling something from his coat. A short wand carved from riverbone, old and humming with goblin energy appeared in his short fingers.
I looked down at my hand.
Empty.
