The Night Market smelled like warm apple cider on a crisp fall day.

I made my way through the main thoroughfare in a daze, thinking through what I’d gambled with my lie and what was to come. In my pocket I touched the witchstone Geist had given me.

What do you do, little witchstone? How do I break you? How do I learn your secrets?

I made my way down the small side street Blackhart resided on. Everything on the street looked as though it was back to normal.

As back to normal as such a weird street in the magick world could get.

The people who walked along it, far fewer than on Main Street, still stared down at their feet and avoided making eye contact with anyone else. The vendors still huddled in the shadows. At the very end of the street, where there should have been wreckage from the shop that had been destroyed, was a new shop.

All traces of the previous shop were gone, and a completely new building stood in its place. It blended in perfectly with the buildings to either side, the color matching exactly. There wasn't a shingle hanging above the door yet, but there were lights on inside and occasionally, I could see figures moving past the windows.

I frowned. You don't know the names of any of the streets here.

To be honest I didn't know much about the market itself.

Why is it always night here? How does anyone find any of the shops? How big is this place?

The main street looked as though it extended far into the distance with numerous side streets and back alleys. The skyscrapers that lined either side of the main street extended up to the sky and, way off in the distance, I could just make out a strange sort of wall dotted with weird and different colored tiny squares, rectangles, and circles.

I didn't know what it was or what it was supposed to represent.

Maybe it’s a monument? Or a shrine?

I shook my head at my overwhelming ignorance of this place and continued on my way. I came to a stop before Blackhart and stared up at the strange shingle hanging above it. The Blackhart symbol felt like home. I didn't understand why, but something about it gave me comfort.

The building for Blackhart was different than the buildings to either side of it. Whereas all the other buildings shared the same sort of structure and brick color, Blackhart was entirely black. The front door was bright white down to its doorknob. It was a strange thing to look at: this completely dark building with a single shining door that reflected the lights around it. It looked like a black chunk of volcanic rock sitting between all the other brick buildings.

“Blackhart has belonged to the Covingtons for centuries. Blackhart will always belong to a Covington,” I mumbled under my breath, not really sure why, but hoping the words were somehow magick enough to enable me to open the door.

I reached my hand out, grasped the knob, and twisted.

Nothing happened.

The knob didn’t budge.

I was surprised to find the knob felt warm, though. Frowning, a sudden image of a roaring fire engulfing the interior of the shop slipped into my mind.

Stop. Relax. There’s no way there’s a fire on the other side. You’re overreacting. No one can get in.

From what I'd heard, Blackhart had been closed for years. There were no windows to be seen. It was just a solid black wall with a white door.

As I examined the doorknob, I realized there was no keyhole.

Stranger and stranger.

I tried to twist the knob in the opposite direction, but, once again, it didn't move.

Frowning, I tried something else. I pushed the knob in, hoping that it would click in and the door would just open.

It clicked in, but then it clicked right back out.

I tried leaning against the door, futilely hoping that I’d solved it, but the door didn't budge. I twisted the knob again and this time it twisted easily.

In fact, it spun completely as though it was a well-oiled wheel on a skateboard, as though it was attached to nothing.

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It spun easily in both directions.

I sighed.

This is going nowhere, and you might have just broken the doorknob to the building that’s supposedly yours. Wonderful.

I looked down at the big white knob, slowly turning it and examining it as I did so.

For the first time I noticed that there was a dot on one side. It was a black dot, no larger than any of the dots on a pair of dice, and perfectly circular.

The dot was there for a reason.

Has to be.

Frowning, I spun the knob to the right and to the left.

What if the knob is some sort of secret combination lock?

I bent down a little, tried to see if there were any numbers on the surface of the door to either side of the knob.

There were no numbers. No letters, either.

Frustrated, I spun the knob as hard as I could, seeing if it would continue to spin forever or if it would eventually stop. I couldn’t keep track of how many revolutions it spun before something slipped lose in my memory. Something from when I was a child. It was a simple rhyme my father had taught me.

“We call this the oil extractor’s melody,” he'd said. Sure, it was a strange title for a rhyme, but I was a little kid and the dance that went along with the rhyme was so goofy I couldn't help but enjoy myself while reciting it and dancing. “Two to the left. Two to the right. Click in, click out. Click in, click out. Throw it to the ceiling.”

Everything about that rhyme now seemed like it was made for Blackhart, minus the throw it to the ceiling line, but what the hell did I know?

I followed the rhyme to a T, spinning the doorknob twice to the left, counterclockwise. Then to the right, clockwise. I clicked it in and out, once again, and then, holding the knob in both hands, I tried to throw it up at the sky.

The knob tracked upwards, but more like it was attached to some sort of lever. This lever moved the knob up and into the door, the surface completely absorbing the knob until it no longer existed.

The white door shifted colors, turning completely black to match the exterior of the building. I put my hand out, fully expecting my hand to slip through the door, to slip through as it had in Fifth Way Alley at Mr. Carson’s shop.

The door didn't do that, though.

It slid back a foot as though it was as light as a feather, then it didn't move any farther. I pushed harder, but it didn't budge.

What am I doing wrong?

With both of my palms pressed to the surface of the door, I tried to push up, thinking it was like one of those metal doors that rolls down over businesses on the street, covering the entire storefront in a protective shell of metal.

The door didn't budge.

I tried pushing it to the left and to the right.

The door didn't budge.

With a heavy sigh, I brought my hands down to my sides and, as I did so, my fingers slightly dragged along the surface of the door.

The door melted into the ground.

I now stood before an opening into Blackhart. I took a step across the threshold and the door behind me slid back up of its own volition.

Before it did, though, I saw a man in a white robe walk past the opening. I felt a little nervous, but he didn’t appear to pay me any attention. I turned around and faced the interior of the shop, staring at strange candles with flames burning in different colors. They dotted the walls. By their light I could see that the floor was much like the flooring in Geist's but more magnificent.

How long have these candles been burning? Is someone here? Are the candles magickal?

“Hello?” I called out.

There was no answer.

The wooden parquet floor beneath my feet was so much more elaborate. So many more pieces had gone into making it with woods of all colors.

At the center of the showroom, at the center of Blackhart, was a huge and slowly rotating sphere of witchstones. The rotating sphere had to be at least two stories high and made up of hundreds of witchstones, maybe thousands. Down at the floor, directly below the sphere, were what looked like multiple golden rings tied together with silver chain.

I made my way over to the rings, picked them up off the floor, and looked at them. There were ten in total, five on each of two chains. Feeling possessed with some sort of forward momentum, I slipped the rings onto my fingers.

As I flexed my fingers, the sphere above me responded. Waves broke out across its surface.

I brought my hands together, interlacing my fingers and the sphere compacted down so that there was no space between any of the witchstones.

Bringing my hands out wide expanded the sphere, giving it the maximum amount of space between every single witchstone so that the lowest it went was directly above the floor and the highest it went was to the ceiling.

I allowed my hands to drop to my sides, watching as the witchstones slowly rotated around me. They were segmented by color, giving the sphere the appearance of a shimmering rainbow gradient of hues.

I pointed at a single witchstone and the sphere stopped moving. The witchstone I’d pointed at floated towards me, stopping directly in front of my face. I plucked it out of the air, tossing it between my palms. Smiling, I tossed it up and watched as it floated back to its original position.

You own this place!

I let out a shriek of pure joy, a cackling laugh. Things were going right. This was all going to work. I had Blackhart. It was all so natural. I was going to get the theatre, too.

I slipped the rings off my fingers and placed them back on the floor.

Don’t get your hopes up, Hexana.

With my aunt’s voice lurking in my thoughts, I examined the rest of the room and found strange little cubbies and even stranger little cabinets built into the walls. I also found an out of place rectangular outline on the wall at the far side of the showroom.

I tried everything I could think of to get it to open, thinking it might be a door of some sort. Knowing how I'd first opened the door to Blackhart, I considered the second part of the oil extractor’s rhyme. I considered the dance that went along with it.

Standing before the door, feeling ridiculous, I hopped twice on my left foot then twice on my right. I hopped backwards then forwards, backwards then forwards, and then jumped as high as I could.

The rectangle before me stayed where it was, but I did notice a strange sort of breeze puff out to touch my face.

I had good idea that I knew what I was looking at.

I reached my hand out to touch the surface of the rectangle and my fingers went right through it. I stepped across the now recognizable barrier and looked around.

This is my father's secret lab.

I stood in the lab where he’d done all his stonebreaking.