From what I could tell, it appeared that the shop had been lifted off its foundation turned upside down, and then crushed down.

Wood, glass, and brick radiated out from where the storefront used to be.

“Hey.” Mr. Scratchy Suit frowned as he looked at me. “They’re walking away from us.”

He was talking about the rest of the class, but I was still trying to breathe, trying to process what I was looking at.

I gulped.

This seemed worse than bad. Had I been seen? I must've stuck out like a sore thumb with my crown of light. Someone had to have seen me delivering the pouch to the store. Someone had to know.

My eyes shot to either side, searching for parted shades, any swishing curtains, any eyes peeking around the corners at me. For any store owners ready to burst out of their storefronts, ready to point their fingers at me, to report me.

“Hey,” Mr. Scratchy Suit said. “Hey, you're not looking so good.”

“What's your name?” I asked, trying to keep him distracted, trying to keep his mind on something else.

“Me?” he asked in response. “Didn't we already introduce ourselves?”

“No. What's your name?”

“Flin,” he said, and then he sighed. “F. L. I. N. Flin.”

“Thanks, Captain Spelling Bee. Do you always spell your name?” I asked.

“Only for the people who matter,” he said, and gave me a cockeyed grin.

“Right,” I muttered. My mind was less on Flin and more on the destroyed shop.

Something else bubbled to the whirling surface of my thoughts.

Am I a terrorist now? Is that what this means? Am I responsible for magickal terrorism? Is that a thing here? Did I just make it a thing?

“Flin,” I said in a voice that didn't sound like my own. “Is this normal?”

“Introducing yourself to others? Yeah. It's normal. What's your name?”

“Hexana,” I said.

Flin snapped. “Like the fairytale.”

“Fairytale?” I'd never heard any fairytale with someone named Hexana in it.

“Yeah. Everyone in the magick world pretty much grows up hearing the Hexana fairytale.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake… I’m named after a fairytale?!

“That’s nice,” I said, making a mental note to investigate the Hexana fairytale at some later point in time when my thoughts weren’t consumed with whether I was a terrorist or not.

Flin and I caught back up to the rest of the class and watched as men in green cloaks sifted through the wreckage. They did this without ever actually wading into the destruction.

They stood in a semi-half circle in front of the destroyed building. Each of them traced shapes in the air, examining pieces of wood that floated up and away from the main body of wreckage in response to them. When they were finished examining them, they deposited the inspected pieces in a pile off to the side.

Another group of men and women stood around this pile. These people wore goggles with completely opaque lenses that were edged with leather.

Around their wrists, both wrists it seemed, they wore leather cuffs studded with clear witchstones. They bent over the wood, tracing their wrists above and around the wreckage like it was a crackling campfire they were using to keep their hands warm.

“Okay,” Lebec said, lifting both of his hands and motioning everyone to come closer to him. “The adepts are examining the wreckage for any signs of curses or any other sort of ambushes. Off to the side,” Lebec gestured to the goggled people with the leather cuffs, “are the vanishers. They’re using magickally imbued leather cuffs that absorb the lume left behind from the magickal incident that occurred here.”

A girl raised her hand.

“You don't need to raise your hand,” Lebec said. “We’re not in class right now. You can simply speak.”

“What do they do once they absorb the lume?” the girl asked, her voice quite a bit higher than I'd expected it to be.

“That's a very good question,” Lebec said. “Every vanisher is given two numbered cuffs. These cuffs are studded with empty witchstones. A vanisher will absorb lume into these cuffs until all the crystal are opaque. Once the cuffs are full, they will return them to the Austerium and exchange the full cuffs for a new set of empties. The Austerium will repurpose the lume harvested within each of the cuffs. To be reused.”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“In other witchstones,” the girl said.

“Right,” Lebec said. “In other witchstones, experiments, and research.”

So many things were happening right now, so many words I didn't really know the definition of. I had to get some sort of handheld Lumadex with which I could figure out what these words meant as they came up otherwise, I would never be able to follow a single conversation.

“So,” Lebec said, “what we think happened here?”

I looked down at my shoes but saw a boy off to my right raise his hand.

Lebec shook his head.

The boy lowered his hand and spoke. “It looks like a magick grenade went off.”

There was something in his voice that spoke of money and entitlement. He sounded as though he believed whatever he said was the correct answer, simply because he'd said it.

“Magickal grenade.” Lebec rubbed his chin. “Possibly, but not likely. Had that been the case there would've been wood scattered all the way back to Main Street. As you see, wreckage is only apparent immediately around the site of the incident.”

“Maybe the adepts already took those pieces of debris and gave it to the vanishers,” the boy suggested.

“Not likely,” Lebec said. “Any debris they would've taken from farther away would've been placed in a sack beside the larger piles of debris the vanishers are now working through. The adepts would've wanted to keep that debris separate from the main wreckage.”

The boy deflated, but there was something to the slump of his shoulders that made me believe that the boy thought Lebec was wrong and he was right.

“Any other observations?” Lebec asked.

No one said anything and Lebec fixed his eyes on me.

Oh god. Don’t do this. Not me.

Before he even said anything, I already knew what he was going to do: the one thing I absolutely hate that teachers do. He called on me even though my hand wasn't up, even though I wasn't trying to speak, even though I didn't really have a thought in my head other than my own survival.

“Hexana,” Lebec said. I was instantly reminded of what Flin had said about my name being used in a fairytale when several of the other classmates turned to see who he was referring to. Once they caught sight of me, several of them looked at each other and snickered. “What are your thoughts on what happened here?”

Does he know? How can he know? How could he know?

“Uh,” I said, not a great start. “It looks like someone picked up the house, turned it upside down, then slammed it down.”

There were several other snickers at this, but Lebec raised an eyebrow. “An interesting theory. Why do you say that?”

“Well,” I said in a quiet voice, “the roof is at the bottom of the wreckage pile. Look at the shingles poking out everywhere underneath the heavier beams. Everything, including what little furniture you can see, is upside down. Had the place exploded, sure some of it would've been upside down, but not all of it. Look at that chair specifically.”

I pointed out the chair I meant. The chair was completely made of some sort of metal. The back of it was bent away from the seat and two of the chair legs were folded across the bottom of the seat while the other two were folded out away.

“I see what you mean,” Lebec said. “Look at the bed. The box springs are crushed on top of the mattress.”

I nodded.

“Good eye, Hexana,” Lebec said and I wished he would quit saying my name out loud. Those in the class who’d been snickering now glared.

Great. I've gone from being an outcast stick to being the brown nose with a joke of a name.

“So,” Lebec said, looking at the others in the class. “What sort of magick could have caused this? As you all know there are four types: life, death, bone, blood. Which of these four would've caused an incident of this magnitude?”

“Life magick,” most of the class mumbled.

“An interesting observation which will more than likely prove to be correct, but why ask, when we can just find out?” Lebec opened his cloak and pulled out a pile of the same style of goggles the working vanishers all wore. He handed them out to us, and we all slipped them on.

When I first slipped mine on, I thought they were broken, or malfunctioning.

Flin whispered under his breath to me. “Give it a second. These goggles were just made, and they haven't acclimated to your body. The magick has to warm up.”

I nodded but figured he couldn't see me nodding as the only thing I could see was darkness.

After a few moments though, something happened. The goggles began to show something else. It started as a flickering light, a faint glow directly ahead of me. I could see green light being emitted, traced, and realized this was the lume left behind by the adepts who were picking up the main bits of wreckage.

These green covered pieces of wreckage flew over to the right and were placed down where they promptly disappeared, almost as if they were erased out.

That’s gotta be the vanishers absorbing the lume.

There was something else though… Something at the center of the wreckage was glowing in a different color. A red pulsing heart of light.

Several of my classmates must've seen it because I heard gasps.

It was surprising, but I didn’t think it was shocking enough to gasp at.

“Blood magick,” Flin muttered to himself. “Interesting.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“Because practicing blood magick is banned,” Flin said. “After the culling, blood magick was prohibited.”

“The culling?” I asked.

“We don't have enough time. Suffice it to say those who practiced blood magick were summarily executed and the use of blood magick was banished after that point.”

“Oh,” I said. “So, there was a blood wizard genocide.”

“Some wizards died, yes, but the majority of those who died were casters.”

“What's the difference?”

“Wizards are much more powerful than casters. They’re strong in a single style of magick. Casters are more varied in their magick abilities, but far less powerful. As in exponentially less powerful.”

“Oh. Okay. So how does blood magick work?” I asked.

“Blood magick allows the caster or wizard to take control of others, to bend them to their own will. It's a dark sort of magick and seeing it here, seeing that amount of lume, indicates that there is an active blood wizard who has access to this place.”

“Okay, class,” Lebec said. There was nervousness in his voice now. “If you could all remove your lume goggles and return them to me, we’ll head back to Bristlebloom. Get yourselves settled in your dorms. Classes will resume in the morning. I must also request that none of you speak of what you have seen here. I did not realize the gravity of this incident. Your silence is appreciated.”

As we walked back, I felt the bracelet around my wrist clamp down.

I’d wondered when Geist would call me back.

Is he a blood wizard? A blood caster? Were those things in the pouch I delivered blood magick bombs?

I didn't know what was possible and yet there I was trying to figure it out. As the class made their way through the Night Market, I slipped away, found a marked gateway, and stepped through.