Page 178 of Magical Moonbeam
The ground cracked beneath my feet, a clean line of silver tracing from the sealed corridor all the way to the butterfly-etched door in the entrance hall. The light beams in the ceiling shook. Every window blew open at once, moonlight rushing in like breath reclaimed.
Keegan reached for me, eyes wide. “Maeve—”
“I don’t know if it’s enough,” I gasped. “But I’ve given everything I’ve got.”
The wind slammed through the hall like a final heartbeat, rattling the stone, shaking the magic loose from the air. The spells I cast lifted like birds, spiraling together in the high rafters, woven now into one final offering.
And then…
The Moonbeam vanished.
Not slowly.
Butall at once.
Like someone had exhaled it from the sky.
For one second, everything stopped.
And I thought I’d failed.
But the silver crack along the floor began to glow.
Just faintly.
Just enough.
It traced a full circle through the hall, connecting sigils I hadn’t seen before, runed edges lost to time, now blooming with magic again. It pulsed once, then twice.
Then it stilled.
I fell to my knees, exhausted.
Nova rushed to my side. “It didn’t break.”
My throat tightened. “But it moved. Ifeltit shift.”
“The curse is still here,” she said softly. “But you shook its spine.”
Keegan crouched beside me, wiping the sweat from my brow. “And Gideon knows it.”
Good, I wanted to say. Let him feel it. Let him see the cracks forming and know we won’t stop until they split wide enough to swallow him whole.
But I didn’t speak.
I didn’t need to.
Because above us, nestled in the rafters, where the last of my spells flickered and dimmed, a single feather of silver light remained.
Not a thread.
Not a beam.
But enough.
Enough to try again.
And enough to remind him that we’re not done.
