Flin didn't say anything as he escorted me to the nearest gateway.

No words of encouragement. No words of hope. Nothing.

The sounds and the sights of the Night Market bled into each other like melting crayons in the hot sun. I tried to imprint everything I was seeing on my memories. I wanted to see everything, to experience everything, as I was led to that gateway out. In the distance, back down the street, I could see Coffee and Content. Its warm windows spilled light onto the street, inviting me in, whispering for me to come closer and to look inside its now forbidden limits.

I looked to Flin.

“Please,” I said in a quiet voice. “Please don't do this.”

Flin shrugged. “I don’t have a choice. Lebec is above me in Bristlebloom. Even if I wanted to overrule him, it wouldn't matter.”

“Geist lied. What he told me was a lie. What he told Lebec was a lie.”

“What he told you?”

“All of it. He lied to both of us.”

Flin licked his lips and nodded his head, but I could tell that nothing I was saying would make any difference. Zero impact.

We stood before the gateway, the thing that would take me out of the magick world forever.

“So that's it,” I said.

“Yeah,” Flin said. “That's it.”

Silvy whispered at exactly the wrong time. “Just tell him you're a witch. I'm sure he could grow to love you.”

“Shut up,” I said through clenched teeth.

“What?” Flin asked, and there was a look of anger on his face.

“No,” I said. “Not you. Look…”

I didn't know how to explain it. Didn't know if I even wanted to explain it.

“Just go,” he said. “Go back home, go back to where you belong. Where sti—”

His cheeks blazed red and I could tell he hadn't meant to go that far.

“Where sticks belong…” I finished for him and leaned in. “Fuck you.”

I wasn't sure if anyone in the magick world used language like that because the way he took a step back when I said it surprised me.

Good. Let it offend the fuck out of him then.

“Fuck you and fuck all of them,” I said. “I was railroaded here, Flin. This isn't my fault. I put my faith in Bristlebloom, the Austerium, in Geist who worked for the Austerium. How do you think I met him? Lebec. Lebec brought me in and I trusted him. I trusted Geist. I trusted all of them and now look at what's happened. Are you telling me this is my fault?”

Flin didn't say anything. He just stared at me with a sad, embarrassed, and hurt look. When he spoke, his words were barely audible. “I think you should leave.”

I ground my teeth together and nodded. “So do I. Fuck your world.”

I reached out for the gateway and twisted the knob. Of course, it didn't turn.

“Here,” Flin said, trying to sound like he was doing me a favor by helping open the door that led to my exile. “Let me help.”

I waited until he’d twisted the knob and just started opening the door before I kicked it all the way open and leapt through.

And like that, I was back in Nightsbridge.

There was an afternoon thunderstorm and rain poured down on me. Thankfully I was wearing the parka, the one last thing I still had from my father. Rain hammered down on the hood, the sound of it filling my ears with a strange cacophony.

Freezing, I shivered even though I could see steam rising from the hot pavement as the raindrops evaporated there.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

I turned around to see if Flin was looking out after me, to show him both of my middle fingers, but turned to face a strange, pristine wall.

The Nightsbridge Mall.

I was in some nook with a dumpster off to one side. Farther in the distance I could see only a few scattered cars. The rain and time of day were keeping most mallgoers away from the area.

With a sniff, I headed inside. I didn't have a way to get back home, so I walked around the mall, fading in and out, moving among the people, memories of the Night Market fluttering back as I looked at the carts and kiosks selling cell phones and trinkets.

A man stood directly in front of me, coming from one of those makeup kiosks at the center. “Miss, you could be a model. Have you ever tried—”

“Rot,” I said and moved past him, making sure my shoulder hit his. He was heavily muscled and didn't even budge. The shoulder check I’d been trying to plant on him reflected back into my own body and I ended up spinning around, off-kilter, stumbling to the side. He held his hand out and I gave him the two middle fingers I’d wanted to give Flin, sure that the look of my running eyeliner within that furry hood was enough to scare him off.

I turned around and kept walking, ignoring everyone, trying to disappear.

Once you know something exists, it's hard to forget about it. It becomes all you can think about. Especially when you've been locked out.

“So,” Silvy said through a yawn. “That was exciting. What are you going to do now?”

I ignored her.

“Oh, you can't be mad at me. I didn't kick you out of the magick world. I was just along for the ride. Really, I got kicked out too so I should be just as mad as you.”

“How does that make any sense?”

“It speaks.”

“I don't get it,” I said. “I don't understand why he would want access to Blackhart only to destroy it. What's the point?”

I remembered the strange red light that shot out of Blackhart. It was the same strange red light that had shot out of the first destroyed shop. The two things the shops had in common were Geist.

Is Geist some sort of blood wizard? Or a blood caster?

“I warned you,” Silvy said. “Not to tell you I told you so, but I did. I did tell you so. I so told you so. Did you hear me tell you so? Because it happened. It was me. And I did it.”

I sighed.

“Horns and an annoying pet. Great,” I whispered.

“Have you ever considered the dark side?”

I had no idea what Silvy was talking about. “What?”

“The dark side. My side. Come on over. It's a lot of fun.”

“I don’t know what you're talking about,” I mumbled, ignoring the looks of the people in the mall. Several mothers clasped the hands of their children, pulling them closer, pulling them away from me.

I need to sit someplace quiet. Someplace where no one will bother me.

“There's a whole dark underbelly to the magick world,” Silvy explained. “Just because you’re kicked out of the magick world by the Austerium doesn't mean you can't interface with magickkind. There are tons of people who have been banished. Do you think you’re the first?”

In truth, I hadn’t really considered that.

Silvy kept talking. “The Austerium thinks it's this all-important organization, but of course, if you kick enough people out, there's going to be an alternative economy. An underground market, as it were.”

“An underground market? What’s it sell?”

“Much and more,” Silvy said. “There are all sorts of jobs you can do. Hell, your minuscule training from Bristlebloom puts you leaps and bounds ahead of most of the vanishers currently working in the underground world. Not all of them, but quite a few.”

I hadn't realized there might be a seedy underbelly to the magick world. It made sense though.

“No,” I said as I made my way through a department store and into a dressing room. I locked the door behind me and pulled my hood off, staring at my reflection in the mirror. My skin was as pale as notebook paper and my eyeliner dripped down both cheeks in a black running mess. The horns sticking out of my head had started to change colors. In Blackhart they had looked white, just like bone, but now they were a strange pink color. They were almost cotton candy pink.

Silvy, sitting on my shoulder, striped tail swishing back and forth behind her, stared at the horns. “They suit you.”

“Do they change colors more?”

“Define more,” she said.

“I don't know, can I make them change colors?”

“No,” she said. “There is a way to make them visible to everyone in the magick world, though.”

I raised an eyebrow at this. “Why would I want to do that?”

Silvy shrugged. “I don’t know. I was just giving you the heads up. It's an option.”

Silvy and her options.

I pulled the hood back up and covered the horns, not bothering to wipe any of the eyeliner off my face. Silvy slithered back inside, disappearing into the darkness of its folds. Once she was situated, I saw her black and white tail hang over my right collarbone and her glowing eyes appear in the darkness to the left of my neck.

“Where now?” she asked.

I wanted to be outside. Away from all these people: all these mindless, trudging people going from one store to the other.

I wanted to be warm. I wanted to be alone.

I left the department store and headed out into the parking lot. Walking across it, I made my way towards Main Street. I cut across the parking lots of other businesses, trudged through the grass occasionally when I had to, ignoring the looks of everyone, knowing how strange I must look. Some strange girl trudging through the rain with a parka in the middle of the Nightsbridge heat.

That was strange too. I was still cold. Even in the middle of a humid thunderstorm, I was so cold.

I kept walking, making it into Nightsbridge proper. I walked up and down the streets, looking into stores, not really seeing anything other than a ghostly reflection of a girl with running eyeliner and a pair of glowing orbs beside her neck.

Eventually I ended up in an alley. An alley I knew well. Fifth Way Alley.

I wanted to talk to Mr. Carson. I wanted to see if he had something to say about my predicament. I wanted to go to his magickal antique shop and see a tiny bit more of the place I’d just been kicked out of, to get a taste. It was as if I was addicted to the magick world and now that I'd been cut off, I was fiending for it.