This time when I entered the Shadow Vaile, there were no lights at all.

Pure darkness.

I closed my eyes, knowing that for some reason the darkness within my closed eyes was more finite than the darkness stretching out before me in the Shadow Vaile. I also didn't want to see Silvy's eyes, each one larger than me, and have to think about her possibly just swallowing me whole. She could eat me like nothing more than a crunchy little morsel.

Silvy's voice came to my ears. “What are you doing?”

I opened my left eye first, convinced I was still in the Shadow Vaile, but then I saw ambient light coming through what looked like a doorway on my right. I looked around the inside of what I now realized was my dorm room, what had been my dorm room for all of two days.

I went over to my bed and lay down on it, enjoying the feel, the squeaks of the familiar springs beneath my body. Silvy, floating at the center of the room, slowly spun in a circle. “Don't you have something you're supposed to be doing?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Waiting.”

“Right,” Silvy said. “So, what are you going to do with all this furniture if you end up getting the theatre?”

“I guess I could convert some of the upper tiers, some of the old opera boxes into bedrooms. That would be neat, I guess.”

“You think living in an abandoned theatre, in a decrepit opera box, would be neat?

“Different worlds.”

“Obviously.”

“Speaking of different worlds,” I said. “Why did this second trip go so much faster than the first one? Why were we in the Shadow Vaile for so much less time?”

Silvy smiled at me. “I thought I'd introduce you to the family.”

My eyes snapped open and I stared at her. “You’re related to that thing?”

“I was. And then…” She broke into a fit of giggles. “I wasn't.”

I didn't even want to begin to delve into that.

I sat up on the bed, a growing sense of unease roiling in my stomach.

I hated that I couldn’t just have Silvy open a familiar portal into Geist's shop. That would've been ideal. But I was hamstrung here, having to rely on Flin for this part. Hating every second of it, it felt like I was regressing. It felt like it would be so easy for me to fall back into my old habit of relying on others to fix my own problems. Luck, fate, whatever misguided thing I’d call it.

Something was posted on the back of my door, something I hadn’t noticed and hadn’t put up.

A poster.

I'm not exactly a poster sort of girl. I never really saw the point. There were always lottery tickets or scratch offs that could have been bought with that money, so I never saw the point in burning cash on something that would just hang on a wall.

This poster showed an image of me.

Above my picture it said FORBIDDEN in thick, capital letters and below was my name.

I let out a laugh at the picture they chose. It was the last picture that had been taken of me in high school. My senior picture.

I smiled, knowing that I looked nothing like that anymore. I knew that, with the hood up and my hair the way it was, not to mention my weird clothing and thigh highs, I looked completely different.

“Well,” Silvy said, “I guess the ugly duckling didn't grow into a swan after all.”

“Thanks,” I said flatly.

“She grew into something worse: a serpent with horns.”

For some reason, for some dumb, strange reason, I took this as a compliment. It felt like an almost signifier of respect coming from Silvy's mouth.

“Yeah,” I said, looking at the image of myself. Forbidden. “Yeah, I guess I did.”

Shaking my head, I read the rest of the poster.

If you see Hexana Covington, please report her to the nearest Austerium authority.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Below that were several other words and symbols, some of which I understood and some of which I didn't. The word stick I understood, but beside that there was another symbol.

It looked like a thick X, but the lower left arm was twice the size of the other arms.

“What is that?” I asked, pointing at the symbol.

Silvy looked at it and laughed. “You don't know the symbol for your plaine?”

“I didn’t know my plaine even had a symbol. I didn’t even know it was called a plaine.”

“I think—” Silvy started to say, but before she could finish, there was a knock at the door.

I glanced through the peephole and saw Flin standing there with his arms crossed.

I opened the door, but only got it open a foot or so before Flin grabbed the knob and slammed it shut, staying on the other side. Frowning, I reached out for the doorknob and tried to pull it open again. His hand was gripping the knob on the other side and he was pulling it to keep it from opening.

“Uh,” I said, glancing at Silvy who was floating beside the door. “What's going on here?”

Frowning, Silvy dissipated into smoke and slipped through the cracks edging the door. She was gone for a moment before the smoke came back through the cracks and she reformed.

“Lebec is walking down the hallway. He’s walking towards Flin.”

What Silvy had said after tasting Flin’s blood came back to me: He tastes like a liar.

My mind took off, spinning out in possible theories as to what was happening.

Was this all some sort of elaborate trap to get me into this dorm room so he could turn me over to Lebec? Is this some sort of sellout?

As I stared at the poster on the inside of the door, my thoughts a mess, I saw something at the bottom that made my heart stop.

Reward: $200,000 dollars and the eternal thanks of the Council of Elders.

I closed my eyes and Silvy whistled. “That's a lot of money for a regular stick. I wonder why your reward is so high…”

I could just see Flin, knowing that my plan was a long shot anyway, knowing that I would probably get caught, deciding to cut his losses and just take the reward. To turn me over to Lebec and the Austerium.

I sighed. And like that I realized it was over before it ever began. I was done.

Or are you…

I stared at the door, not wanting to leave my fate in the hands of the two men outside the door. I couldn't do that. I wouldn’t.

I glanced at Silvy.

“Can you open a portal to the dorm room across the hallway?” I asked.

Silvy shrugged. “Sure. What's your plan if someone's in there?”

“I don't have a plan,” I said, and I didn't. But it was the only thing I was willing to do. I wasn't willing to sit there to wait and see. I wasn't willing to bet my freedom on luck and luck alone. I wanted to know whether Flin could be trusted, whether what Silvy had said had been serious or just...

I need to know.

“Do it,” I said.

The portal opened below me, and I fell through the floor of my dorm into the other dorm room. Thankfully, I landed on a bed.

Silvy floated through calmly and landed on my shoulder.

“Lucky thing no one was sleeping,” she said, and I caught sight of a mischievous grin.

She'd been hoping that I would fall onto some poor, unsuspecting sleeping student and that it would cause a scene.

I hopped off the bed and walked over to the door, doing everything I could to block out the pleased sort of purring coming from my shoulder. I looked through the peephole, watching. I could just barely make out Lebec. He stood just out of sight of the peephole, just under its range.

I pressed my ear to the door, listening, trying to make out what they were saying. I could only get every other word, but Silvy, already having made her play at fun, helped me out. She was soon whispering into my ear, her ears pricking and twisting as Flin and Lebec spoke. Her voice even changed, approximating Lebec’s voice and Flin's, filling my ear with their conversation. I listened, my heart pounding.

“What are you doing here?” Lebec asked. “Why are you standing outside of Hexana's room?”

“I was seeing if she came back,” Flin said. “I wanted that reward. And I thought if she did come back, this is where she'd go first. I mean, all of her furniture is here, right?”

“Is it?” Lebec frowned. “They should've already transported it back to her house. Why’s it still in there?”

Flin shrugged. “No idea. I was surprised to see it. I was actually coming to find you.”

“Were you?” Lebec asked.

“I was. I just went in there, checked it out, saw it all, and thought you should know.”

“Well…” Lebec said, staring at Flin. “Thank you for that.”

“Yeah,” Flin said.

“Was there anything else?” Lebec asked. “Anything else you think I should know?”

“No,” Flin said. “Well, actually there's one thing. There's been a disturbing complication.”

My heart froze at this.

“What sort of complication?” Lebec asked.

“With Blackhart and with the other shop. Why do you think we've seen blood magick lume at both sites?”

Lebec cleared his throat. “I don't think there's a blood caster out there. I think someone has access to high-quality blood magick witchstones.”

“I have several ideas as to where those stones might be coming from.”

“So did I,” Lebec laughed, “until Blackhart was destroyed. That ruined that idea, though.”

Flin laughed. “That was my thought too, but what if someone, whoever was inside Blackhart, took all the witchstones, transported them somewhere else, before destroying the place?”

“That may be the case,” Lebec said, “but only a Covington can ever have access to Blackhart. How would someone other than Hexana or Hexana's father enter Blackhart?”

“I'm not sure,” Flin said. “I don't think Hexana could.”

“Well it wasn't her father,” Lebec said.

“That's true.”

“Right, well, thank you for letting me know about the furniture. I'll report it to the Austerium and make sure they return it all to her. From what I understand she's not going have a place to put it, but we have no use for stick furniture.”

“No,” Flin agreed. “No, we don't.”

I sunk down, my back pressed against the door of the dormitory, my eyes closed and my heart pounding.

Flin hadn’t betrayed me.

I closed my eyes and sat there, listening as Flin and Lebec’s footsteps moved down the hall in opposite directions. Soon a single pair of footsteps returned. I heard the door across the hallway open.

I stood up and watched through the peephole as Flin entered my dorm room. I opened the door I was behind and stepped into the hallway. Then I opened the door to my own dorm, my old dorm, and stood there. Flin jumped as the door opened, spinning around.

“Hex!” he almost shouted. “You scared me.”

I shrugged.

“How did you get out of your room and into that other one?” he asked.

“That's my secret,” I answered. “Everyone's got a few, right?”

Flin grinned. “Right.”

“Time’s wasting,” I said. “Let's go.”