Page 177 of Magical Mission

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Not a real door.

The shimmer from days earlier.

But this time…

It hadn’t closed.

It had openedsomewhere else.

And it had let something through.

I stared at the word carved into the book’s spine.

Soon.

It wasn’t just a warning. It was a message.

A signature, and I knew who had left it.

This was Gideon.

The same essence that met me out of the path.

Keegan stepped beside me, silent, his arm brushing mine. His hand lifted, hesitant, and then settled on my shoulder with a gentle squeeze.

I didn’t realize how much I needed that until I felt it.

My breath came shallow. Not out of panic, but out of restraint. If I let myself feel everything right now, the fear, the guilt, the curiosity, I might drown in it.

“It’s him,” I said quietly.

Twobble nodded grimly. “I suspected.”

Keegan didn’t speak, but I felt the way his grip tightened ever so slightly. He had known too.

But it wasn’t just that Gideon had been here.

He hadn’t come in person. Not yet.

The shadow we saw, that had been somethingelse.

A carrier.

A hitchhiker.

A tether.

“I don’t think that shadow belonged to the man who stayed at your inn,” I said slowly, turning to Keegan. “I think itusedhim. Hitched a ride on his presence. Used his connection to Krina. To her pain. Her magic. His own shadow work.”

Keegan’s eyes darkened. “I agree. Like a vessel.”

“Yes,” I said, a chill threading through my spine. “It followed him here. Lingered in the Academy. But now it’s delivered his message.”

Twobble’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Then it wasn’t trying to breach the library for our tomes.”

“No,” I said. “It was trying toleavesomething behind.”

The book that bore the wordsoonvibrated faintly under my fingers.

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