Page 117 of Magical Moonbeam
“No,” I admitted. “But it’s the only shot we have. And it wasn’t just my plan. We all came up with it.” I chuckled and let out a deep breath.
Skonk flung a pebble into the grass. “Well. Let’s make history then, eh?”
Stella raised a brow. “Let’s make itmemorable,at least.”
Twobble cracked his knuckles. “Let’s make it fast. I don’t like the way the trees whisper over here.”
“Let’s just… make it,” I said, more to myself than anyone else.
And then I turned toward the Moonbeam, its edges flickering faintly in the still air like a dream barely held together.
The moon was no longer content to wait.
Its glow painted the earth in an unearthly silver, sharp and soft all at once, threading through the trees like a call and bouncing off the tombstones.
My skin prickled where it touched me, as though it were pulling something deeper from my bones. I looked to the others, my friends, my strange and fierce little family gathered near the boundary between the Academy and the grave-shadowed edge of the cemetery.
We weren’t stepping into the false illusion of Shadowick anymore.
We were tracking the real moon—the real doorway.
It would act as a portal and a place where the truth called.
“Does everyone remember their stations?” I asked, my voice steadier than I felt.
Twobble gave me a solemn thumbs up. Skonk tried to salute but ended up flinging a biscuit crumb into Bella’s hair. She gave him a look that could melt varnish.
Ardetia touched her temple and nodded once. Lady Limora's eyes were already closed, her fingers flicking the air in patterns only she seemed to understand. Vivienne held her staff like a spine, firm and unshakable. Mara crouched low, breath synced with the wind.
I looked at Keegan last.
He didn’t speak. He just took my hand and pressed it to his chest for a beat. “I’ll guard your father with my life.”
It wasn’t poetic.
It was just true.
He always had, and he always would.
I let the moment burn into memory before turning back toward the Moonbeam. It spilled down in a perfect shaft, cutting across the long grasses of the cemetery like a divine arrow. The light shimmered along the headstones, making everything look suspended between this world and the next.
This was the moment. There would be no second whistle. No do-over. No last-minute cup of tea or second spell check.
Just this.
And us.
And the Hanged Man tarot card in my pocket as a reminder.
“Hide like your lives depend on it,” I whispered, not to scare them but because itdid.
Then I stepped forward into the light.
The breath I took felt ancient, and it filled my chest with something more than air, more than magic…conviction, maybe. Or courage disguised as desperation. The second my foot touched the circle of silver, my heartbeat echoed like a drumbeat through my ears.
The Veil rippled, and I stepped through.
Shadowick breathed.
