Oh God. They were outside, of course they came in. Of course, they were already inside waiting. What was I thinking?

“Little Hex,” Renald says, leaning against the railing. I want to rip the smirk off his face. “How embarrassing,” he continues. “How completely and utterly embarrassing for you.”

This is Kiora's fault. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't trying to help her.

“What do you want?” I call up to Renald.

He doesn't answer. He only smiles at me and gestures at all the casters inside of Sulis as if that's some sort of answer.

It doesn't really matter what he once. I only have a few options in front of me. I can hand over the witchstone and gamble that he'll let me go free. I can step back into Blackhart, leaving Kiora here to fend for herself while I try to find help…

Before I can think it even farther through my options, something pushes me forward from behind. I spin around to see a stone wall blocking the mirror, much like the stone wall that blocked the exit to Beckeldorff's.

They really like that spell, don't they… I can try to run, maybe have Silvy portal us out of here?

That seems like the best option as the only other option is trying to fight and that's a losing proposition. I'll end up dying and giving them the stones anyway. Where's the fun in that?

Escape it is…

I'm growing weary of running away from my fights, but I keep finding myself in situations where I'm vastly outnumbered and outgunned. What am I supposed to do?

I glance at Silvy on my shoulder, trying to make eye contact with her. She yawns and rolls her eyes.

“Fine.” She glances down at the floor and after several seconds she starts giggling. “You're gonna hate this.”

“Hate what?” I ask without moving my lips.

“They've warded Sulis. I can't open a portal.”

I swallow.

Renald, seeming to clutch onto my apparent distress, smiles wider. “Is there a problem, little witch?”

“No,” I say, “I'm just wondering how you got in? I have rat traps, so it’s strange seeing you here.”

“You know what’s strange?” Renald asks, answering his own question before I have a chance to. “What’s strange is that you’re not disappearing? I wonder why that is?”

He'd planned for this. He'd expected me to portal out.

This is so much worse. Not only are we outgunned and outnumbered, but now it's apparent he's planned for this, planned for me.

“I'll ask you again,” I say, trying to sound brave. “What do you want?”

“The thing I wanted last time, the thing you wouldn't sell me.”

“I told you the price,” I say. “Twenty K. You have that, right?”

“Why would I pay full price? And why would I pay full price to a witch. You're beneath me. You’re nothing more than gutter sewage.”

I shook my head. “Gutter rat. Gutter sewage. I get it. You're into gutters. Just pay the price. I'll give you the stone. It's really not any more difficult than that.”

“Oh, but it is. It's a matter of pride. You damaged my pride the last time I was in your shop. You will not damage my pride again.”

I clear my throat. “Does your boss know you're here?”

He licks his lips.

“You're not supposed to be here, are you?” I smile. “What do you think he's gonna do when he finds out?”

Renald laughs. “You're in no place to tell him. You can't even escape. You're not going anywhere.” I start to speak again, but he cuts me off. “And you. The other witch.”

“There's no other witch in here but me.”

He raises his eyebrow. “The little witch next to you. The full blood witch.”

I glance at Kiora and back at Renald. How does he know that she's a witch? Did Arbor tell him? Why would she do that?

“You know,” Renald continues, “for a long time, I thought Arbor was the one I was looking for. Turns out I was wrong. Turns out you…” He points at Kiora. “You were the one I was searching for all along.”

I look at Kiora. “What's he talking about?”

Renald belts out a laugh. “She doesn't know?” he asks Kiora. He turns his attention to me. “You poor, dumb witch. She didn't even tell you?”

My mind races. She didn't tell me what? That she was dating Arbor? That Arbor was a runaway, a royal?

I can't say any of these things out loud because I'm not sure how much Renald knows. I'm not about to give away any secrets.

“Are you going to tell her, or am I?” Renald asks, the shit-eating grin plastered to his face.

Kiora sighs. “You do it.”

I shoot her a look and she shrugs.

“We both know she's a witch,” Renald says, “but did you know that she's also a royal?”

I look at her, frowning.

That didn't make sense based on what she told me unless…

She faintly nods at me.

“All that time, I thought Arbor was the royal, but Arbor was just a decoy,” Renald says.

Kiora shakes her head. “Arbor wasn't a decoy. She just wanted to learn more about Bristlebloom. That's all.”

Renald nods as though this makes sense.

“So if she wasn’t a royal and she wasn’t a decoy, that would make her your…”

Girlfriend.

“Bodyguard,” Renald finishes.

I shoot Kiora a harsher look, but she turns her eyes to the ground. I close my eyes.

She's lied to me so many times. Kiora is the royal. Arbor was the royal guard. And if Arbor was a royal guard, that meant those other two witches in coffee and content were royal guards as well. I sigh. The horns. The green, mossy surface of them were the same.

“Are you putting it together now?” Renald asks.

Kiora is the royal who ran away from Belladonna. Those two royal guards in C&C were there to take her back, not to investigate Arbor's death. Hell, Arbor was probably the one who’d alerted them before she died.

This whole thing. This whole, entire thing is one big ball of knots that I no longer have the patience to unravel.

“So,” Renald says, the haughtiness dripping off his words, “as you can see, witches have this disgusting habit of lying. Deception runs through that witch’s veins just as it runs through your veins, Hex. The only difference is that witch knows what she is. You're still confused.”

“Look,” I say, exhaustion weighing down my shoulders. “You want the stone. I told you that you can have it for twenty K. After that, we can be done.”

Renald laughs. “Why would I pay when I can just take it?”

Oh God, does he know I have the witchstone in my pocket?

Something pokes into my back and I turn around, staring at two casters, both holding long, curved knives at my stomach.

“Back up,” one of them says. When I don't immediately move, the caster jabs at my belly. The ward on my parka repels the attack, as it does most physical attacks and the caster drops the blade. He frowns at it, before grabbing it again.

I kick him directly in the nose with my steel-toed boot. He screams as his head snaps back, blood arcing through the air. Silvy hops off my shoulder, catching several droplets in the air and then just floating there, licking her lips.

“Yum,” she whispers.

Once the caster has the blade back in his hand, he lifts it above his head, preparing for a massive blow.

“Stop!” Renald shouts. “Stop right now.”

The caster freezes and lowers his blade, gesturing for me to back up, glaring at me from above his ruined nose. Blood dripped down the front of his chin and onto his cloak.

“You're leaking,” I say and spit on the floor in front of him. I do back up though. The parka might be warded against physical attacks, but if the caster uses anything magical, it will cut right through the ward like a hot knife through butter.

I take another step back and watch as another caster destroys the wall in front of the mirror. This caster reaches his hand out to the mirror, at first tentatively, and then a little more adventurously. He pushes against the surface, prodding, trying to figure out how I'd slipped through the surface.

Based on what happened to Kiora, I've got a good feeling that it isn't going to work for him.

The caster, seeing no way to push it open, pulls his own blade out, holds it handle downwards in his hands, and brings it above his head. I scream as he swings it down in a fast arc, the handle banging into the mirror but doing little else. The sound of the handle hitting the mirror is like wood hitting rock. I chew on my lip, surprised at how strong the mirror is.

The caster looks up to Renald and slowly shakes his head.

I glance up at Renald. “Twenty K. Twenty K in it’s yours. I can hop in, grab it, and hop right back out. It'll be easy.”

The stone wall reforms in front of the mirror.

Renald gives me a sickly smile. “Are you finished?”

I start to answer, thinking he's talking to me, but one of the casters with the blades answers him before I can.

“Yes,” the caster says. “It's in her left pocket.”

“You dumb witch,” Renald says. “You brought it right to me. A pity. I thought I was going to have to torture you to get it. It looks like all I'll have to do is kill you. Such a shame.”

My eyes scan the room, looking for any sort of escape, any sort of way out. The casters slowly closes ranks around me, moving in for the kill.