Page 196 of Magical Moonbeam
“I don’t know,” Keegan said. “I haven’t tried to shift again since the battle. I don’t want to test it before we understand more.”
He was thinking clearly. Sharply. Not fading into some dazed curse-born version of himself.
He was stillhim.
But that could change.
“I need to observe,” Nova said, already pulling out another crystal, this one etched with threads of living runes. “We need to document this. Measure the transitions. See what remains and what grows.”
“No more assumptions,” I added, my voice steadying. “We thought the curse worked one way. But that was justits last shape.We don’t know what this one will be.”
Keegan offered a thin smile. “So I’m a study subject now.”
“You’re more than that,” I said. “You’re still you. And you’re not alone.”
Twobble cleared his throat behind me. “As fascinating and wildly magical as this is, I do feel compelled to ask if we should, I don’t know, keep him in a charm circle for safety? Just a gentle bubble, perhaps?”
“No,” Keegan said firmly.
Stella grunted. “Agreed. Containment will agitate what’s building. If it senses fear, it could interpret that as a threat.”
“It’s not feeding on hostility,” Nova added. “It’s behaving like… an ancient seed. One that’s only now waking up.”
Silence settled again.
And I understood something then, deep in my bones.
Keegan wasn’t cursed, not in the same way my father had been.
This was something stranger, more intimate, and more powerful.
This was achoice the curse had made.
Not to destroy him.
But to evolve.
And in doing so, it had chosenhim.
A sacrifice had been made.
Nova’s expression didn’t change, but her eyes warmed.
“You’re not afraid,” she said, looking at me.
“I’mterrified,” I answered honestly. “But that doesn’t mean we react without listening.”
Keegan looked at me then.Reallylooked. And his pain softened, just a little.
“Thank you,” he murmured. “For seeing me. Not just what might be inside me.”
I stepped forward and touched his chest, where the ache coiled beneath his ribs. “I always see you.”
The corridor was quiet again, but not with fear, with focus.
We weren’t in a rush to fix him or hide him.
We were going tounderstandthe curse to break it, not him.
