Page 128 of Magical Moonbeam
I chilled at the words resurfacing.
I shook my head. “That’s not possible.”
He laughed, but there was no joy in it.
The floor tilted under me, or maybe that was just my stomach.
“There has to be a way.”
“There is,” he said, and this time, he stepped into my space.
Close.
Too close.
“Only one.”
I didn’t move. “Then say it.”
He leaned in, eyes shadowed but alight with something hungry.
“You have to take my place.”
My heart thudded once. Then again, slower. Like the world had stopped spinning just long enough for my body to realize what it meant.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
A wind swept through the room, but it didn’t touch me.
Only him.
And that was when I saw it through the broken window, far past the iron arch outside, a flicker of movement.
A figure.
Tall. Upright. Still.
My breath caught. My heart slammed against my ribs.
I knew that shape.
That posture.
Even through the fog and the gloom and the strange way Shadowick twisted everything, I knew it in my bones.
No. No, it couldn’t be—
Gideon noticed my attention shift.
His voice snaked around me like a serpent. “You see it, don’t you?”
I couldn’t look away.
The shadow beyond the window stood completely still, waiting and watching.
Dread sliced through my stomach like glass.
