Page 105 of Magical Mission
Twobble placed a mug in my hands filled with spiced tea, warm and sweet and strong enough to anchor me back into myself.
He sat again, cross-legged this time on the edge of the rug. “Then the question isn’t merely who wanted to destroy Stonewick. It’swhyGideon’s curse only bent the circle.”
I looked up. “By design?”
“I think if someone wanted to break it, they would’ve. They didn’t. They twisted it. Bent it. Left it that way on purpose.”
“To finish it later,” I added.
“Maybe to finish itwith someone else.”
My fingers tightened on the mug.
“What if I wasmeantto come here?” I asked. “Not because I could stop it. But because I was always part of it. What if I were brought here the same way Gideon was drawn here?”
Twobble’s voice dropped to a murmur. “Then the circle didn’t fail the first time. It waited.”
The room went quieter still.
Outside the windows, the sky had gone gray. Frank let out a quiet grunt but didn’t lift his head.
My tea had cooled slightly, and it hadn’t warmed me up.
I pulled the blanket tighter, let the orb rest beside me, and looked across the room at the two souls I trusted most.
“I need to know who that woman was,” I said softly. “Before I can understand what’s coming next.”
Twobble gave a single, solemn nod. “Then we start with what’s missing from the history books.”
And my dad thumped his paw once, like an oath.
I should’ve been focused on the woman in the orb. On the unraveling history. On the not-so-subtle warning of magic that waited in silence until someone foolish enough like me opened the box.
But all I could think about was Gideon.
And I hated that.
I sat cross-legged on my bed, tea now cold on the table, the orb sleeping beside me as my dad snored gently at my feet, and Twobble disappeared down the hall in search of nourishment that wasn’t crumbs and dread.
I should’ve followed the line of the mystery. I should’ve been elbow-deep in research about ancient Wards and founders who looked like me. I should’ve been tracing the circle back to its first bend.
But instead…
I kept returning to that image I’d seen, not long ago, when I was trying to get my father back from Gideon.
The moment I’d stepped into the realm with him, and we traded something we shouldn’t have, and I watched a young Gideon standing just outside Stonewick, seething with something that looked too close to grief to make me comfortable.
The way he hadn’t been able to enter.
The way he hadn’t tried to hurt me.
He’d looked… broken.
Andfuriousthe moment we returned to life in the middle of Stonewick, and he’d been tricked.
There was no doubt I appealed to him as a hedge witch. The potential I represented scared even me.
But I remembered the way my breath caught in my throat that day—not out of fear, but confusion. Because for a split second, I hadn’t seen the monster who cursed a town and fractured its people. I’d seen a man exiled from something he used to belong to or always hoped to become.
