Page 83 of Magical Moonbeam
I turned the corner slowly, careful not to brush against the ivy-lined stone. Every detail felt like it mattered here, like one wrong touch might shift the whole illusion into something I couldn’t control.
The next shop was better. Or at leastlookedbetter.
It had bright, clean windows—so clean that I leaned in and gasped quietly when I saw the delicate arrangement of pastries inside. There were loaves of bread, stacked in braided coils. Sugar-dusted tea cakes. Even tiny frosted buns were arranged into a perfect heart shape on the counter. It was sweeter than anything in Shadowick.
My stomach growled. I stepped closer, almost amused by my reaction.
And then I saw it.
Movement.
A blur.
A rustle of something living.
No,I thought immediately.Nothing else should be here. This is an illusion. Just me.
I peered closer, heart thumping, pressing my fingertips lightly against the glass.
There, on the far end of the counter. A rat.
Its slick body scurried along the wood, sniffing one of the sugar cakes before diving behind a canister.
I jerked back, nearly stumbling into the fog.
What in the hell—
My pulse surged.
It wasn’t that I’d never seen a rat before. But inhere?InShadowick’s echo?
This version of the town was conjured, built from maps, memory, and magic. Nothing living should move without purpose or permission. It was a pocket realm, a practice ground. A mirror.
And mirrors didn’tchangeon their own.
I looked up sharply, eyes scanning the rooftops, the doors, the corners of every building I could see. Nothing else stirred.
But now my ears were tuned to something different.
I listened harder.
The fog didn’t shift.
The wind didn’t rise.
But that sense I’d had earlier that Gideon couldn’t feel me was starting to twist into something else. Not fear. Not even dread.
Awareness.
Someone, orsomething, was here that wasn’t supposed to be.
Not a shadow. Not an illusion.
A stowaway.
A rat was never just a rat in a place like this.
A breath left me slow, tight, and controlled.
