Even though I’d declined, I couldn’t get my mind off the stonebreaking job. The seed of the idea had been planted and was growing at a decent clip.

The idea of following in my father's footsteps was exciting.

If I take up the family mantle of stonebreaking, I’ll be closer to him than ever. Maybe even closer than if I buy the theatre.

The theatre.

That was another thing. Now that I was headed back to Nightsbridge, I could find out if anyone had put a bid on it yet. I needed to know what the situation with the theatre was. Just being away from it for as long as I had felt like I’d betrayed my father’s memory in some way.

As I stepped through the gateway and back into Nightsbridge, I breathed in the night air. I still didn't know exactly what time it was and had no way of checking. I didn’t even know where in Nightsbridge I was. It took me a moment to get my bearings as I looked around, trying to figure out which streets were where.

“Hexana,” someone hissed from the shadows. A familiar voice. A voice edged with ice that I knew all too well.

“Grey Eyes,” I responded. I still didn’t know what his real name was, and I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to know, either. “Long time no see.”

It been less than twenty-four hours, but it felt longer.

There was a chuckle from my left and I turned in that direction. Grey Eyes materialized out of the shadows and stepped forward; his dark cloak bunched up around his face.

“It's kind of warm to be wearing a cloak, isn't it?” I asked.

“Environmental temperature makes no difference to me,” Grey Eyes said.

“Yeah?” I asked. “What about global warming? What's your plan when the magick world is underwater?”

Grey Eyes laughed. “Do you think a simple thing like water matters to magickkind? To the magick world at large? Do you not think we have already planned ahead, already foreseen the dangers and dealt with them?”

“Must be nice…” It was something I hadn't thought they'd taken care of, but now that he said it, it made sense. They had the means to avoid it, much as we did, but I had a feeling that magickkind was working on a much longer timescale than the sticks were. I’d read in the library that wizards live for hundreds of years.

“Right,” I said, not really knowing what else to say. “I was told you had a package for me.”

Grey Eyes grunted in agreement. “You know the antique shop on Fifth Way Alley?”

I stared at him. Fifth Way Alley? Since when were alleys listed like streets? I'd lived in Nightsbridge my whole life and never heard of an alley designated as anything other than “that alley behind” whatever store was in front of it.

“Uh. Fifth Way Alley?” I asked.

Grey Eyes rolled his eyes. “Yeah,” he said, as though I should know exactly where it was. “Fifth Way Alley. You did grow up here, right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I grew up in the stick world. Not the magick world. I don't know what Fifth Way Alley is.”

Grey Eyes sighed. “It's parallel to Carson's Way.”

Fifth Way? Carson's Way? What’s he talking about?

“Look…” I rubbed my eyes in the humid heat. It had to already be at least 80° out. Mid-eighties more than likely. “Tell me the stick version of what you're saying. I don't know either of those streets. What stick world street is nearby?”

“There's a bar,” he said. “Right in front of the alley. I don't remember what the name of it is. I don't drink in stick bars.”

Something in my stomach turned and I knew, immediately, which alley he was talking about.

“Luke's,” I said. “Luke’s Bar and Bookshop.”

Grey Eyes shrugged. “If you say so.”

It had to be Luke's. Its address was on Fifth Street, so it made sense that Fifth Way Alley was the alley behind Fifth Street, right?

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“Okay. So, Fifth Way Alley…”

Grey Eyes just stared at me.

“What else?” I asked. “That alley’s fairly long.”

“There's a clock.”

I raised my eyebrows at this. “A clock? Great. A clock. That really clears things up. Thanks.”

Grey Eyes stared at me blankly.

“I'm sorry.” My eyes narrowed. “What I meant to say was that doesn't make sense at all. There are no clocks in that alley. I would've noticed a clock mounted to one of those walls. It would've stuck out like a sore thumb.”

Grey Eyes’ mouth did a curious thing. The corners turned up. He opened his mouth and let out a bellow of laughter.

Wonderful. Your second time to get laughed at tonight. Two for two. Fantastic.

“The clock,” he said between guffaws, “is a drawing. It's not a real clock. That would attract attention.”

“But a drawing of a clock stuck to an alley wall wouldn't?”

“It's done in chalk. Look down by the ground. You'll see it.”

“And this chalk clock I'm supposed to find, what do I do when I find it?”

“Stand with your toes touching it. Right against the wall, and then you'll know exactly what to do.”

I sighed. “Stand with my toes against the wall in a back alley in the middle of the night? Sounds like an exciting new way to get mugged.”

“Mugged? What's that?

I sighed again. “Probably something you've never had to worry about. Don't start now.”

Grey Eyes didn’t respond.

“Right. So, I’ll step right up to the wall, put my toes to the little chalk clock down at my feet, and everything will just make itself known to me?”

Grey Eyes nodded, tossed a little pouch at me, and smiled.

“You're really helpful. You know that right?” I asked him.

Grey Eyes took several steps back into the shadows, and before I knew what had happened, his form was gone. Frowning, wanting to see for myself, I stepped in the shadows as well.

He’s gone.

I made a mental note to look this process up in the library later. I wanted to know how he’d done it.

I slipped the pouch into my back pocket, next to the one Geist had already given me, and walked out of the alley.

There might be some sort of magickal storefront in the alleyway behind Luke's. When Lebec had demonstrated his magickal ability on the dumpster, maybe that’s where he went to hide.

I looked in either direction, realized I was on First Street, and started walking towards the alleyway that was behind Fifth. It was a short, uneventful, and sweaty walk.

I entered the alley at the wrong end, the far end, and had to walk all the way down.

Past Luke's.

I glanced at the dumpster and the door that led inside the bar.

I kept walking.

There was nothing for me there and I felt nothing for the place.

I made it about twenty feet down the alley before I noticed the clock. It was just as Grey Eyes had said. It was only about an inch by an inch, but you could still make out its white form in the darkness.

It was a simple circle with an hour hand pointing at eleven o’clock and the minute hand pointing down at the six. There were no numbers on the face of the clock.

Honestly, if I’d chanced across this before being told about it, I would've just assumed it was some weird stain or scuff mark on the wall. If I'd really noticed it, I probably would've just ascribed it to someone’s drunken drawing: nothing more than a random chalk doodle.

Let’s try this out…

I stepped up to the wall as Grey Eyes had instructed. I made sure that my toes were touching the clock and then it happened in the blink of an eye.

Two blinks of an eye.

I blinked several more times and each time that I blinked the image before me clarified a little more. There wasn't a brick wall in front of me at all. Down at the bottom, where my toes touched it, sure there was, but directly in front of me there was nothing.

There was a hazy veil, something that gave the illusion there was a brick wall there. I reached my hand out and felt the hardness of the brick wall. Even though I could barely see it, I could still feel it.

I pushed a little harder and my hand, feeling like it was still touching brick, slipped right in and through.

This was something more than just a visual illusion.

Great conclusion, Hexana… maybe because it’s magick?

I had a feeling I could stand in the alley all day, tossing a tennis ball against this illusion, and the tennis ball would bounce back to me every time as though the wall was real.

It wasn't until I’d activated it and I’d placed my toes at the clock that the illusion could be seen for what it was: a temporary wall, something insubstantial, something you could move through. Without another thought, my other hand already through the wall, I stepped in and across.

When I was on the other side of the illusion, I turned around to look back at where I’d come from. I could still see the faint outline of the bricks. I could still see the alleyway behind and the stick world waiting there, being secretly watched by the magick world, by me.

“Hexana?” A familiar voice asked.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. Starting to get real tired of familiar voices saying my name like that.

I turned around and faced someone who I’d known of all through my childhood, a man who owned an antique shop on the other side of Nightsbridge. An antique shop that only operated during strange hours. On Mondays it was open from 9 AM to 11 AM. On Fridays it was open from 1 PM to 2 PM.

The rest of the week? Closed.

Growing up, there'd been plenty of gossip over how the owner, an older man with a bright grey streak, could possibly have been able to pay his bills. Lots of people in Nightsbridge said that he came from money and his inheritance paid for the shop. They figured he'd been willed the place with a trust large enough to pay for the shop until he was long dead. People said he was friends with my father.

I didn’t really know what to believe, but now I understood something vital. Looking behind the man I knew so well and into a place I'd never been, I realized that the antique shop was nothing more than a front. It was something to give the man before me a reason to be seen about Nightsbridge.

The man's genuine business was behind him.

“Mr. Carson?” I asked.

Mr. Carson nodded, and his eyes creased in accompaniment with his smile. “I suppose if you're here, you finally crossed over.”

“Crossed over?” I asked.

“Into the magick world. To follow in your father's footsteps?”