Page 94 of Magical Moonbeam
I slumped onto the edge of a nearby bench, my fingers trembling just enough to make me clench them into fists. Bella offered me a crooked grin as she summoned a cup of honeyed tea with a flick of her wrist and handed it over without a word.
I took it, grateful.
The heat seeped into my palms, grounding me, though I wasn’t sure if it was enough to stop the hum still crawling across my skin.
Ardetia stood near the window, her posture regal and frustratingly unbothered, her braid catching the firelight.
“You’ve done well,” she said softly, turning to face me. “But there’s still one more thing.”
I groaned into my cup. “Let me guess. A nice nap on a bed of thorns?”
Bella chuckled. “Not quite.”
Ardetia’s lips twitched. “Guardianship.”
I closed my eyes, letting the warmth of the tea soften the tension in my chest. “What more can I give it? I’ve already fed it memory, intention, and whatever scrap of resolve I had left.”
“This time isn’t about giving,” Ardetia said.
“We’re going to teach you how to lock your thoughts,” Nova said. “Not behind walls. Not behind riddles or decoys. But behind fire.”
I blinked. “You want me to burn them?”
“In a sense,” she replied. “The forge can temper thought, like steel. Sharpen it. Hide it. Hedge witches are notoriously leaky because your magic doesn’t operate on formality. It thrives on wildness. You don’t block things out. You entangle and embed.”
The tea curdled slightly in my stomach. “So you want me to untangle?”
“No,” Nova said, stepping closer. “We want you to learn which threads to tuck away. Which to hold close. Which not to spin at all. And which to burn.”
The words settled like a key in an unseen lock. I stood, shaky but steady enough to follow my next set of instructions.
Nova looked at me. “Are you ready?”
“No,” I said. “But I’m here.”
The heat pulsed against my cheeks, the air thick with the scent of charred stories and ancient magic. The cauldrons hissed softly, their molten contents swirling like liquid thoughts, waiting for their next whisper.
“Sit,” Nova said, gesturing to the stool at the far side of the chamber.
I lowered myself slowly, the back of my legs brushing against the carved wood.
I was grateful I had a place to sit this time. “What happens if something slips?”
“We catch it,” Ardetia said.
“And if you don’t?”
“You’ll feel it before it leaves,” Nova replied. “The goal isn’t to trap every thought. It’s to train the instinct to guard itself.”
The fire sprites were already circling. Unlike last time, they moved closer to each other. Hungrier.
I closed my eyes.
“Start small,” Nova said. “A memory. Something benign.”
My mind reached for the image of a spoon. It was a simple wooden one that my daughter had carved in a class once. It had lived in the cottage kitchen drawer, slightly lopsided, completely perfect. It was one of the first things I treasured when Twobble brought my items out of storage for me back at the cottage.
The fire in the nearest cauldron flared.
