I sat down, leaning against the front door, crossed my legs, and pulled out my phone. I dragged over the pair of shorts I’d worn the day before and pulled out a card from one of the pockets. I glanced at it, flipped it over to the other side to see if there was anything written there, and flipped it back over.

“Him?” Silvy asked, slithering out of my hood and sitting on my shoulder. “That's who you're going to call right now?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Seems risky.”

I rolled my eyes and tapped the phone number into my cell. The phone rang two times on the other end before it was picked up. I could hear noise, like whoever had picked up was surrounded by a lot of people all talking at once.

“Hexana?” Flin asked through the phone.

“Yeah,” I said in a quiet voice, probably too quiet for him to hear me, but I wasn't in the mood to yell.

“Just a second,” he said. “I can't hear you. Let me…” The crowd noise slowly abated and then I could hear him clearly. “Okay. What now?”

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi?” he asked. “Why are you calling me?”

“Isn't that what people do when they're given phone numbers? Call them?”

Flin cleared his throat, clearly struggling and trying to find some sort of response to give me. I let him hang in the awkward silence until he found his words.

“Yes. I… I suppose they do, but didn't you get—”

“Expelled?” I finished for him. “Yes. Exiled? Sure. I was there too. Remember?”

“Okay,” he said, “and you called me?”

There was a sudden burst of crowd noise and I frowned.

“Where are you right now?” I asked.

“I’m watching a game of scheme. Don't worry about it.”

“Scheme?” I asked and then shook my head. I didn't have time for this. Maybe some other time, but not now. “Look, I need to talk to you.”

“You were expelled, Hexana.”

One track mind this boy…

I took a deep breath and looked over at Silvy. She stared back at me from her spot on my shoulder.

“It's Hex,” I said.

Silvy's eyes widened at this.

“What?” he asked.

“It's Hex. Not Hexana. Call me Hex.”

“Okay… Hex… Whatever.”

“So, listen,” I said, trying to drop my voice and sound a little more intense than usual. “I'm gonna need you to come over.”

Flin cleared his throat again, and I picked up on his nervousness. “What do you mean?”

“I need to talk to you about something. We have unfinished business.”

“Unfinished business? Hexana.”

“It’s Hex.”

“Right. Sorry. Hex. You were expelled. Lebec give me explicit instructions to escort you out of the magick world. You're out. That's permanent.”

I had an idea that, much like the stick world, the only thing permanent about anything was how hard or soft someone held to the belief that it was permanent.

“Something happened,” I said.

“What?” he asked.

“Something happened. I need you to come over here so I can explain.”

“What is there to explain? You scammed Geist.”

I let out a chuckle. “The only one running any scams was Geist. Possibly Lebec.”

I sensed a sudden change in energy from the other end of the phone. “You think Geist scammed you? You think Lebec was involved?”

I shrugged even though he couldn't see it.

“Yeah,” I said. “I do.”

“Do you have proof?” he asked.

“Proof?” I asked, chewing my lip.

“Yeah. Proof.”

I picked up a fork from the counter, felt its weight in my hand, and shrugged. Fuck it.

“Yup. I’ve got proof.”

“Wow,” he said in a quiet voice. “A teacher scamming a student. That would be big.”

I didn't fully understand what he meant, but I went with it anyway.

“Sure,” I said, playing it up. “It's huge. A bombshell.”

“A what?” he asked.

I dropped the fork and cringed at the loud clatter it made. “Uh, nothing. Can you come over?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Let me finish up here and I'll be right there.”

“Do you know where I live?” I asked.

“Of course.”

“How?”

“I'm a teacher. We have access to student records. How do you think I knew it was you calling?”

“Oh. That’s comforting.” It would be all too easy for Geist to get your address. What sort of a threat is a stick to him?

I smiled.

A stick might not be able to do anything to him, but I have a good idea that this half-witch can do plenty.

When I grinned, my teeth felt different, foreign. Frowning, I stood up and walked to the bathroom. I lifted my lips away from my teeth and saw that my left canine tooth was slightly longer than it had previously been, it was also slightly pointier. Even though it was only longer and pointier by the smallest of amounts, the change felt huge in my mouth.

I spun my tongue around my left canine, tapped it once. Weird.

Why had it only been my left one? My right canine was still the same length. It looked exactly the same as it usually did.

Why are you growing a fang on the left side of your mouth?

“Is this normal?” I asked Silvy.

“Is what normal?” Flin asked me from the other end of the phone. I’d forgotten he was there.

“Uh, nothing,” I said. “Girl stuff. Just come over. I'll be waiting.”

“Sure, I'll be—”

I hung up the phone.

“Silvy, is this normal?”

“I mean…” Silvy said, floating up from my shoulder and spinning in slow, lazy circles around my head. “Is any of this normal?”

“Just answer the question.”

“No,” she said. “It's not normal, but you’re a half-witch, so I guess it makes sense that your teeth didn’t really grow in. Kinda like your horns being so tiny.”

“My horns are tiny?!” Great, something else to be insecure about. Wonderful.

“I think it’s adorable,” Silvy purred.

“Is it going to get longer?”

“Your horns or your fang?”

“Either.”

“I certainly hope not. Your horns haven't grown at all since they first appeared, so I doubt they'll keep growing. Your fang… I have a feeling is the same way. Your one fang is just gonna be longer than your other fang.”

“My other fang?” I asked. “My other one is just a canine, not a fang.”

“What do I know?” Silvy smiled, showing me a mouthful of needle teeth. “I still think it’s adorable though.”

“I think your tail is adorable.”

Silvy grumbled under her breath and disappeared.

I shook my head and turned off the light in the bathroom, heading back to the little patch of carpet where my bed had been. I fell to my knees and slumped forward at the hips so my face pressed into the carpet, the hood on my head meeting the carpet as well, blocking out all the light, surrounding me in a cocoon of darkness and silence. That didn't stop Silvy from slithering in to hang around my neck.

“They make you look broken. The horns and the fang, I mean. You know, kinda like something that was half used by a kid and tossed away because it had a crack in it.”

“Yeah,” I grunted.

“Yeah. A crack. You're like a cracked toy.”

“Great,” I said into the carpet. “Love it. That's so me.”

Silvy giggled.

“So,” she said after several moments of silence. “How are we feeling about Flin now?”

“Same way we've always felt about Flin.”

“And that is?” Silvy asked. “Because I'd really hate for this to turn into some sappy love story.”

“Not exactly lovable at the moment.” I sighed. “And aren't you supposed to love yourself before you go try to let someone else love you?”

“How would I know?” Silvy asked. “Anyways, Flin?”

“He's cute. Not my type. Not my time, not my anything.”

“So, what you're saying is that you're interested.”

“No,” I said and really thought on it.

I wasn’t interested in anyone, and if I was, it would’ve been Ted. Flin was… whatever. He was a semi-friend from a semi-world I'd semi-been a part of, but he wasn't anything more than that.

“Okay well, he's standing outside your door right now.”

“How can you—”

Someone knocked three times on my door.

“You can see through doors?” I asked.

Even though my face was still pressed into the carpet and my eyes were shut, my eyelids suddenly brightened as Silvy’s eyes blazed with light from inside the hood.

“I can see all sorts of things, Hex.”

“Well, then… I'm sure you'll see this coming.”

I rolled over onto my back and sat up.

I got a sudden image in my head of a zombie sitting up from a grave, all stiff and jerky.

I rolled over onto all fours and managed to get myself standing, my head spinning for half a second as the blood rushed there.

I groaned.

I’d been so happy lying on the carpet with my face pressed into it. I'd been so happy breathing in all my excess skin flakes, dirt, everything else. I’d even felt the tiniest bit of warmth, but now that I was standing, I was cold again.

I walked over to the door and pulled it open, not bothering to look through the peephole.

Flin stood there, staring back at me.

“Hi,” he said.

I watched him with something approaching amusement as his eyes took in what I was wearing. First there was surprise that I still had on the parka from the day before. His eyes continued down to see the skirt. Then he made it all the way down to my thigh high socks and boots. He raised an eyebrow.

“Is this a costume party?”

“It's a long story,” I said, “and I’m not a storyteller.”

I stood back to allow him entrance to the apartment.

He raised an eyebrow. “Aren't you going to invite me in?”

I raised an eyebrow back. “Are you a vampire?”

Flin snorted and walked in. “I don't know what that's supposed to mean, but okay.”

Once he was inside, he looked around the place almost as though he was looking for something.

“Oh,” I said, realizing what he was searching for. “Right. So, I'm gonna need my furniture back from my dorm room. You’ll have to sit on the floor in the meantime.”

I sat down to demonstrate that I was serious and Flin stared down at me, still not believing what I'd said.

“I'm serious. I don't have any chairs.”

Flin didn’t say anything, but also didn’t sit.

“We could always go to the bathroom. I can sit on the edge of the bathtub, and you can sit on the toilet. Or vice versa. Guest’s choice.”

Flin gave a tiny nod and walked over, sitting down on the floor next to me. I opened my mouth, started to say something, but caught myself.

No. This is your fight. You can accept his help, but you’re not going to rely on him to fix this. You’re not going to make the same mistake you keep making. You have to rely on yourself.

I took a deep breath, glanced up at the ceiling to send up a quick prayer, and then looked at him.

“Here's the deal,” I said. “I need to tell you what happened.”

Flin opened his mouth to interrupt me, but I didn't really care what he needed to say right then: I needed to finish what I was saying more.

“No,” I grabbed his lips and squeezed them shut before he even got a sound out. “Give me a minute tell you everything, and then you can tell me your thoughts. Don't interrupt me until I’m finished. There's a lot.”

I let go of his lips and Flin gave me a quick nod.

“Marvelous.” I swallowed and dove in headfirst. “So, I'm sort of a half-witch?”