As I walked through the hallways of Bristlebloom, my mind spun with thoughts of the Lumaverse and all the possibilities it opened.

The only problem was that I wasn't entirely sure what the Lumaverse even was.

Even as I stared at the map and followed its directions, my mind focused on where I'd be staying that evening, what I would be eating.

My stomach gurgled, but I ignored it. I didn't have time to eat. I didn’t even know where to go to get food.

Maybe I could get some food at Geist's, maybe he would already have food waiting there for me. I really couldn’t be sure what was going to happen or what was expected, until I got there.

I followed the map and made my way to the end of the hall where I entered a set of staircases, went to the bottom, exited, went around a corner, and twisted a doorknob. When I pulled the door of the gateway open, I was surprised to see a dark alleyway stretching out in front of me.

I glanced down at my map again and, sure enough, I was where I was supposed to be. Looking to the left and right, I saw there were no doors anywhere else and walked through. The gateway slammed behind me and I found myself standing in an alleyway.

I glanced up to see a darkened night sky. No stars, no weird constellations of spinning colors here.

Water dripped somewhere. I lifted my foot and could see that the ground was wet beneath my sneakers. To either side of me, far closer than I would've preferred, were brick walls that towered up above. At the far, far end of the alleyway I could see warm, yellow light.

I started walking in that direction, gradually growing more comfortable as the alleyway started to widen. There were cubes of stone as tall as I was here and there, doorways at random intervals. As I walked, I started to realize that there was no trash on the ground.

For a dark, wet alleyway, I would've expected some sort trash on the ground, but there was none.

Does trash just not exist here? Or maybe they have some way of making it vanish? This feels like a theme park.

I kinda laughed to myself. I remembered what Lebec had said about vanishers. I couldn't believe that I was about to become the magick world equivalent of a sanitation worker. There was nothing wrong with doing sanitation work, but it was definitely not a thing I'd ever expected to be. I guess I'd never expected to be in the magick world at all either, but that was an entirely different thing.

As I passed by one of the many stone cubes, I heard a voice hiss from the darkness.

“Hexana,” it said. I turned and, from the shadows, a cloaked figure materialized.

“Who are you?” I asked, taking several steps backwards. “How do you know my name?”

The figure pulled the hood of their cloak back so that I could see their face. Grey Eyes stared back at me.

“Oh,” I said. “Hi.”

I glanced down at my bracelet and saw that the map had disappeared.

Does that mean I’m standing where I’m supposed to be standing? Is Grey Eyes who I’m supposed to be meeting?

“I’m here for work?” I asked.

Why are we meeting in a back alley?

Grey Eyes handed me a small leather pouch. It was the kind of a pouch you'd see a bunch of marbles carried in, and that's actually what it felt like was inside. I jiggled the pouch in my hand, started to open it.

Grey Eyes placed a single finger at the top of the pouch and shook his head, clucking his tongue as he did so. “The contents of this customer’s purchase are not for you. They are for the customer. Please deliver this.”

I frowned and narrowed my eyes. I wasn’t sure how to tactfully broach what I wanted to ask so I just blurted out the question. “What's in it?”

Grey Eyes clucked his tongue again. “The contents of the customer’s purchase are not for you.”

“Meaning… you don't know?” I asked.

Grey Eyes fixed me with a sour smile. “The contents of the customers purchase are not for either of us to know.”

He said the last bit very pointedly so that I couldn't miss what he was trying to convey.

“Right.” I bit my lip and sucked in a breath. “Here's the thing though: I'm not really into being a drug mule so I don't know that this is for me.

Grey Eyes scoffed at me. “Right. You’re a stick. Of course, you would think these were drugs. Not that it’s any of your business, but these are witchstones.”

Stolen novel; please report.

I still didn't know what they were and hadn't had the time to look up the definition.

“Witchstones?” I asked, hoping for something, anything.

Grey Eyes rolled his eyes at me. “You really are a stick,” he said.

“Yeah.” I rolled my eyes harder. “It's almost like I have a crown of light designating me as such, isn't it?”

“You're lucky you work for Geist now. Killing a stick isn’t a crime here.” Grey Eyes turned away from me and as he walked away, he called over his shoulder, “If you weren’t under Geist's care, I would exterminate you like the vermin you are…”

Grey Eyes disappeared into the darkness of the alley, back the way I’d come, and soon I couldn't make out the outline of his cloak in the shadows.

I glanced down at the pouch in my hand, considered opening it, but just as quickly decided not to. I slipped the pouch into my back pocket and glanced down at my bracelet, hoping a map would materialize.

Thankfully, one did.

I was supposed to walk out of the alleyway, hang a right onto the street there, at least what looked like a street because for all I knew it could be a river, and then take a left. The delivery location would be at the end of a tiny road.

Easy.

Okay, Geist, I’ll deliver your package, but you and I are going to have a talk about Grey Eyes.

I walked to the end of the alley, thinking about what Grey Eyes had said, considering whether or not what he told me about killing sticks was true.

Who would notice if you disappeared? Who in the stick world would even realize that you’re missing?

Ted would just assume I'd moved, gone somewhere else.

Luke wouldn't remember me.

I had a few friends, but none that I actively hung out with anymore. We mostly drifted apart as they took professional jobs, had kids, got married, moved on with their lives; while I continued my little hobby, my habit, my gambling for the theatre.

When I got to the end of the alley, my mouth, for like the eighteenth time, fell open.

The street the alleyway fed into went in either direction for as far as I could see. Lining the street, on either side, were massive skyscrapers. Floating from one side of the street to the other, like lazy jellyfish, were bright paper lanterns of different colors. They cast a yellow glow over the street.

No cars moved in the street; it was chock-full of carts. Vendors stood behind these carts, selling food, selling witchstones much like the ones I'd seen in Geist's store, other trinkets.

As I stood at the mouth of the alleyway, gaping out at the street before me, I felt a dumb smile drift onto my face. It was a night market.

I glanced at my watch. It was the middle of the day.

I glanced back up at the sky, at the darkness there, and it made no sense. How could it be night when it was 2 PM?

I stepped out onto the street, trying to blend in with the bustle of people moving here and there. Everyone wore cloaks except me and no one else had a crown of light above their head.

Off to my left was a cart filled with scarves that wafted in the breeze, only there was no breeze. The scarves there, multicolored, glowing and vibrant, slithered as though they were possessed not just with the wind that was lifting them, puffing them out, but also something intelligent and alive, reaching towards everyone who passed by.

I didn't know what they were and didn't want to.

I hurried away and saw that on the surface of the next cart there were multiple squares of paper. The squares looked like origami paper, and as I stepped closer the paper folded itself, lightning fast, into the shapes of two wrestlers. The two origami wrestlers began grappling with each other, flipping each other over, each trying to pin the other.

Other sheets of the square paper folded into giants, into dragons, and these attacked the two wrestlers, turning the surface of the cart into a melee as more pieces of paper folded into other shapes, other fantastic beasts, that attacked one another. I kept moving as from all around me came the sound of the vendors calling out their wares, calling out what they were selling.

“Arcane trinkets!”

“Cursed jewelry!”

“Blank witchstones. Blank witchstones. Empty witchstones. Empty witchstones.”

Witchstones can be empty?

I added this to my growing knowledge of the magick world.

The map on my bracelet instructed that I turn, and I did so, moving up a quiet side street. This street only held a few people. Everyone here seemed to be making a point not to notice anyone else. The carts and the vendors were unobtrusive. No one called out to the passersby, everyone minded their own business.

At the very end of the tiny side street was a little shop. Hanging from above the shop was a sign, but I couldn't read it as it was just a blank shingle of black wood.

I tried to turn the knob of the store, but it didn't move. I glanced down at my map and saw that the map was gone.

I was where I was supposed to be.

I knocked on the door, not really sure what I was supposed to do as my eyes drifted over to a storefront farther up the street that looked abandoned.

There was a black heart burned into the bone white wooden shingle hanging above its front door. The heart was upside down.

Something about that symbol was familiar, something about it reminded me of my father for some reason. Frowning, I stared at it until the sound of the door opening in front of me brought my attention back to the job.

I turned to see a hand reaching out from the tiny sliver the door had been opened. The hand opened its palm and waited there.

Not knowing what else to do, I placed the pouch I'd been given into the open hand and the hand shot back inside the door. The door slammed in my face and I was left standing there, wondering what the hell had just happened.

I hung around for several minutes before I slowly backed away, not really sure what else to do.

I moved up the side street and back onto the main thoroughfare, hanging a right and heading back towards the alleyway I had first entered.

My eyes scanned the crowd, looking at the people, the vendors, the carts, taking it all in, taking in this brand-new magickal world.

I hadn’t made it very far down the main thoroughfare when a low rumble shook the ground beneath my feet. The rumble turned into a growl that turned into a roar as a blast shot out from behind me.

I turned in that direction and saw a bright column of light tearing up into the night sky. The light was a dark, bloody red that bathed everything with its hue. I stared at my now red hands, at the now red faces of the vendors and the other people on the street.

Some of them were screaming.

Some of them were moving towards the bloody light.

Others ran.

No two reactions were the same and I wasn't sure what I was supposed to gather from all of it. I didn't really have time to think much more about it as I felt the crown of light on my head buzz, bringing my attention back to my real purpose.

My next class was about to be in session.

I turned to the nearest marked gateway, took a deep breath, and opened it.