Page 136 of Magical Moonbeam
“I cursed Stonewick to save it,” he said.
I laughed. Ihadto. “You cursed it into silence.”
“I stopped it from vanishing.”
“You trapped it.”
“Preserved it.”
“Like a bug in amber,” I snapped.
“Better than a corpse in the ground,” he countered.
I couldn’t believe I was even entertaining this.
“You think this place—” I swept a hand toward the haunted alleyways, the flickering lanterns, the slow shuffle of shadow dancers gliding across rooftops like smoke on silk, “—this issaved? There’s nothing alive here, Gideon.”
“Therewillbe,” he said calmly. “If the curse breaks the right way.”
I stiffened. “There’s arightway to break a curse?”
“There is if you’re the one who cast it.” His voice was too smooth now, and I felt the tug in my gut, the way truth wrapped itself around manipulation. “And if I remember correctly, that was my role in all this.”
“You’re not here to lift the curse,” I said. “You’re here to transfer it. To pass it off. Who takes it next, huh? Me? My daughter?”
“That depends,” he said, and for the first time, there was something in his voice I couldn’t quite name. Not glee. Not triumph. Something closer to desperation. “On what you’re willing to sacrifice.”
The air between us pulsed, and my hands itched. My magic stirred beneath my skin, useless as ever when my emotions weretangled this tightly. I couldn’t help but think of the card in my pocket.
“Let her go,” I whispered. “Let her go, and I’ll listen.”
He didn’t blink. “You’re already listening.”
“You know what I mean.”
“And you know I can’t do that.”
I looked past him again, toward the window of the café. Her silhouette shifted as she leaned in, laughing at something. I felt bile rise in my throat. She didn’t know she was in danger. She didn’t think she was the leverage.
Or the target.
Surely someone,someone,had seen her walk by. Nova. Ardetia. Bella, even in fox form. Someone should’ve noticed. But if they didn’t know who she was…
No one expected it to beher.
No one would expect my daughter to walk straight into Shadowick with a boy who’d been planted like a thorn in the middle of our family.
And that made me feel more alone than I ever had.
I curled my hands into fists. The fury bubbling through me was electric, terrifying, and hot enough to sear through bone. I wanted to burn every stone of this twisted village down. I wanted to scream until the sky cracked open and swallowed us all.
Gideon took a breath, and I watched as the airshifted.
He was feeding on it. I could see it. The faint ripple along the edge of his shadow, the sharpness in his cheekbones as my rage strengthened him, and my pain brightened him.
I remembered back to the Academy and the chandelier.
“Youwantme angry,” I said slowly.
