Page 123 of Magical Moonbeam
It shimmered, then vanished behind the old clock tower.
A chill crawled across my skin.
“Whatisthat?” I whispered, before I could stop myself.
Gideon tilted his head. “You see it too?”
My throat tightened. “What did you summon?”
“I didn’t summon anything,” he said calmly. “Not tonight. That one came of its own accord.”
Another shape flickered between buildings, just a flash, like ink in water.
Panic fluttered in my chest.
“If you’ve lost control of your constructs—”
“Oh, I haven’t lost control,” he said. “But you might, very soon.”
He turned then, slowly, as if he were admiring his handiwork.
“There are things that feed on the edges of curses,” he said. “Creatures that thrive where the Veil thins. The longer Stonewick has been bound, the more… hungry they have become. They’ve gathered. I don’t command them. I can’t. But they know me. And they know you.”
My mouth was dry. “Why would they know me?”
“Because you’re trying to unravel what they were born to protect.”
The wind shifted suddenly, bringing with it a scent I hadn’t expected: burned sugar, iron, and something sweet gone sour. My stomach turned.
Another shadow moved, larger this time, and I heard a door creak open somewhere deep in the village.
It wasn’t an illusion or a memory; it was a real door to a real house, and someone stepped outside with footsteps falling.
Not one of my friends.
A woman in a long gray cloak. Her eyes were black as ink, and her mouth was sewn shut with silver thread.
She didn’t look at Gideon.
She looked straight at me.
And smiled.
I took a step back in horror. It was what nightmares were made of.
“Your town,” I whispered. “It’s alive with those who...”
“Oh, Maeve,” Gideon said. “You don’t break a place like this without waking something. It’s how I keep things…in control.”
His words pulsed in my bones like a warning.
And suddenly, I wasn’t afraid of the shadows anymore.
I was afraid of thedepthof this place. Of how far the curse had reached, and what it had grown while it waited. It wasn’t just a curse rolling over Stonewick. It had crept back into Shadowick to feed the shadows.
The shadows drifted like smoke caught in a dream, slipping through the cracks between buildings and curling around stones older than memory. I’d seen fog before. I’d seen illusions,specters, nightmares pulled from the forges of memory and magic. But this was different.
These were the shadow dancers.
