Marist is sitting next to the two adepts who are bound together and leaning to the side.

“What's with your hands?” Kiora asks.

I nod my chin in the direction of the two bound adepts. “So long as I keep my hands like this, they're not going anywhere.”

Kiora nods.

“You don't look weird at all,” Silvy comments.

Why did Marist notify the Austerium? How did she notified the Austerium?

Does she think that I'm working with Renald? Does she think that I helped kidnap Pixie?

Marist keeps sneaking glances at Kiora.

There's something to that. There's something I'm missing.

“We need to get out of here,” Kiora says.

If we do that, we'll never find out what's going on. Sure, more adepts might be on their way here right now, but why did adepts show up in the first place?

From what Kiora says, Marist was trying to sneak out the back door.

I don't understand.

She hired me to find her daughter, a person who was clearly kidnapped by Renald, unless he and his boss were just pretending to have kidnapped a girl named Pixie.

“No,” I finally say. “We’re staying here until we figure out what the hell is going on.”

“Yes. And let's start this off by tasting a little blood,” Silvy says. “It seems like a good tradition to start.”

Marist sneaks another little glance at Kiora before turning her eyes back to the ground. That's when it clicks. Marist has been acting strange since we arrived. I lean over to Kiora and whisper in her ear.

Kiora nods once she understands and moves forward towards the couch. She crouches in front of the adepts, smiling.

“You know what the best part of being a witch is?” she asks. “A real witch, not an inert witch like Hex over there.”

Rude.

“The best part is, we get to destroy little casters like you from the inside out. You know, it's interesting, we get enough magick into our bloodstream just by existing. We really only eat magick if we've been starved of it or if someone's attacked us and we want to inflict maximum damage.”

Kiora smiles at the casters. “Guess who attacked me?”

Both the adepts start babbling at once.

“We’re sorry—”

“We didn't mean to—”

Kiora nods.

“I told him not to—”

“I never wanted to be here—”

“Why are you here?” Kiora asks.

They both glanced over at Marist and then back at me.

“Her,” the adept on the left says. “We were told to bring in the exiled witch.”

Kiora raises an eyebrow. “Who are you working for?”

“The Austerium,” the same adept answers. The other adept stairs at the ground.

“Sure, “I say, “but within the Austerium, who are you working for? Who do you report to?”

Both of them looked nervous to begin with, but now they look absolutely terrified.

The one on the left starts shaking his head no and the other continues staring at the ground.

I take a deep breath and blow it out. “I'm really sorry, you two. Truly, I am. The thing about witches is they can't really control whose magick they’re eating. In a small enough room, a witch absorbing magick absorbs all the magick in the room. That means she can't differentiate between you two.”

One of the adepts looks up at me. “That means she’ll kill you too.”

I let out a genuine laugh. “I keep telling you idiots this over and over. I don't have any magick. That's the curse. I look like this but have none of the power.”

The adept who's been staring at his feet closes his eyes. “Just do it. Just get it over with.”

I swallow and nod at Kiora. “Go ahead,” I say. “Do it.”

I watch as she begins to transform. First her eyes turn black, then—

“Stop!” Marist screams. “Stop! I'll tell you everything! Don't kill me!”

Kiora looks back at me, her eyes already back to normal, shaking her head. “You were right.”

I nod.

When I'd whispered into her ear earlier, I'd told her to start transforming, but not to eat any magick. I had a feeling that if she did, if Marist thought she was in serious danger, that Marist would break.

Marist is a caster. She saw Kiora's horns when she opened her front door. That's why she froze.

“The thing about witches,” Kiora says, “is that our power is exact. I could have been in a room of a hundred casters, and only eaten the magick of one.”

The adepts both stare, confused, but Marist looks down, her cheeks flooding with color.

“You tricked me,” Marist says.

“And you lied to me.”

The two adepts continue staring at me and I chew on my lip. I want to talk to Marist but away from the adepts. I don't want them influencing what she says.

“Silvy,” I say, “keep an eye on these two.”

The adepts look around, confused, for a moment before seeing Silvy puff into existence on one of their laps, looking up at both of them and licking her paw.

“Do you know what she is?” I ask.

They both nod slowly and look even more terrified than when Kiora started to transform.

“Good. Silvy, if they move, take them to the Shadow Vaile and leave them there.”

The color drains from both of their faces.

Silvy looks back at me. “If I do that, can I also bleed them dry?”

“You can flay them alive,” I say. “I don't care.”

Silvy smiles and looks back at the two adepts.

“Please try something,” she purrs. “I'm oh so hungry, and I seem to have grown a fondness for adept blood.”

I release my hands and the magick spell, the magickal gloves, dissipates. The adepts on the couch are released from each other and slouch.

“Careful,” Silvy warns. “If either of you moves much more, I get a little taste.”

I walk over to Marist, grab her arm, and jerk her off the couch. I lead her out to the entryway, and we walk up the stairs.

The farther away we get, the less she'll think about the adepts. I choose the first room on the left, opening the door and seeing a sign above the bed that reads Pixie.

The window is open, and a humid breeze blows and in.

I gesture to Pixie’s bed. “Take a seat.”

Marist sits down on the bed and puts her face in her hands.

“Oh, spare me,” I say.

Marist starts crying.

“You're a caster,” I say.

Marist nods.

“You're a caster who's been lying to me this entire time. Why did you call the Austerium?”

Marist looks up at me. “I didn't.”

“Then how did they get here?” I point at the floor, to roughly where the living room and those two adepts are.

She swallows. “They’re with Renald.”

I stare at her. I don't know what to say.

“What do you mean they're with Renald?” Kiora asks.

“He kidnapped Pixie. He told me if I didn't help him that he would kill her. She's just a stick. She can't defend herself.”

“Your daughter’s not a caster?”

Marist shakes her head and I sigh.

Most of the time, the Austerium turns a blind eye to caster-on-stick violence. Stick-on-caster violence though, they very much pay attention to. If you're a stick who's killed a caster, you've effectively signed your own death sentence, whether you know about Anara or not.

“Why did you send me to Beckeldorff's?” I ask. “Renald seemed surprised to see me.”

Marist chews on her lip.

Kiora steps forward. “Well?”

“Because I knew he'd be there,” Marist says.

“You thought you were sending me to my death?” I ask.

She shakes her head no.

I snap my fingers. “Then what? Why did you send me there?”

“When I came into the shop, I was supposed to get you out. I was supposed to make you leave Blackhart so Renald could steal something from you. I don't know what he wanted to steal, but it was something in Blackhart.”

I nod. Theoretically his plan made sense, but the one thing Renald hadn't realized was that Blackhart wasn't a typical Anara shop. I was the only one in Anara or the stick world who could access Blackhart.

“So you were a decoy,” I say. “What happened?”

“Well, I realized that he was probably never going to give me Pixie back. So I emailed you. I emailed you where he would be. I hoped that since you were a witch that you could eat his magic. Kill him.”

“You thought you’d sent in an assassin,” I mumble.

Kiora looks over at me and shakes her head. “I never realized casters were so fucking dumb.”

I shrug at her and turn back to Marist. “So you sent me to kill Renald because you figured he'd already killed Pixie. Or was going to at least.”

She nods.

“Why did he pick you?” I ask. “Why Pixie?”

“Pixie is dating this guy they wanted.”

“This guy…”

“His name is Dom,” Marist said.

Kiora and I stare at each other for a long time.

Dom is Pixie’s boyfriend. Dom was Arbor's teacher. Dom seems to be the connecting piece in all this. What the hell was going on?

“Where can we find Dom?” I ask.

If we find him, maybe we can figure out what Renald and his boss want that witchstone for, why they kidnapped Pixie, and murdered Arbor.

“He's always at the Forbidden Library,” Marist says. “Go there.”

I've heard the Forbidden Library mentioned in whispers but nothing outside of that. I don't know where it is.

“Find him,” Marist says. “Find him and you'll—”

Marist stands, rubbing her eyes as she walks around the bed and over to the window. She crosses her arms, looking out on the neighborhood.

“You know,” she says, her voice completely different. A male’s voice. With an accent I recognize. She looks at me over her shoulder. Her eyes are the color of tomato soup. “We never did finish our conversation.”

My mouth dries up and my palms sweat.

It can't be. That can't be him.

Marist tilts her head as the blood wizard looks out through her eyes. “Don't tell me you don't remember what happened in the Shadow Vaile? Our dance?”

The color drains from my face and my knees weaken.

It’s him.

Marist lifts her pointer finger and waves to me with it twice before throwing herself backwards out the window.