The familiar portal was how I'd planned to steal Geist's witchstones.

I’d planned to have Silvy open one between his shop and my apartment. Then we could just throw witchstones through the hole and they would end up back at my place in Nightsbridge. Not the most elegant plan, but it would’ve worked.

Now I was using the familiar portal to save myself. I was using it to send all of us to a place where the Covington blood would ensure that I survived.

I wasn't exactly sure what was going to happen to the other two though.

As we fell through the portal, I immediately realized we were in a different part of the Shadow Vaile than I’d previously seen, or maybe it was the same part, but with light.

Does the Shadow Vaile have sunrises and sunsets?

There was a dim, green glow that bathed every surface, but I couldn't tell where the source of light was. Geist slowed in his descent and then simply floated in the air. Farther away from both of us, Flin was spinning in circles, screaming, gurgling for help.

“Son,” Geist called out across the abyss that separated them. “Stay calm. We have to keep our heads about us.”

“That's going to be near impossible,” Silvy said, still tiny as she floated up between Geist and me. “How do you expect to keep your own head, when I can't keep mine?”

Her head separated from her body like a real-life version of the Cheshire Cat.

Floating away, her head spun loop-the-loops around Geist's own. He swatted at her but never got close. Her head floated back to her body and reattached itself.

Silvy lazed on her back and swam away, moving closer towards Flin. I squinted my eyes, noticing I could make out several strange shapes below us. I could only see a few at first, but gradually these few turned into many and went for as far as the eye could see.

Below us was an infinite sea of obelisks that would’ve put the Washington monument to shame. Looking down at them, seeing all their black spires pointed up at us, I saw a wave ripple through them. In one section, they lifted up and then relaxed back down as though there was something breathing underneath, almost as if the obelisk landscape was the skin of some giant beast.

Flin floated down towards the obelisks, screaming still, but continuing to spin. His spin slowed and then he was looking back at Geist and me, a look of sheer terror plain on his face.

Silvy's voice spoke into my ear as if she was right next to me as opposed to where she actually was, slowly orbiting Flin's sinking body. I glanced over at Geist and could see that he’d heard her voice as well.

“He should be screaming so much more right now,” she purred.

Flin shook his head and his words came out mostly garbled, but still understandable.

“No. Please. Please don't.”

Flin drifted closer to the obelisks. Only four feet away now.

What’s going to happen?

Silvy paused in her orbit around his body for just a second to ask in return, “Please don't what?”

Two feet.

Flin opened his mouth to answer, but realized he had no idea what she planned to do. He didn't know what the obelisks were, didn’t know anything about this strange landscape.

Mere inches.

“Please,” Geist begged for his son. “Just please don't.”

Flin had barely touched the tip of an obelisk when Silvy shot back towards us and away from him.

As Geist and I watched, the obelisks near Flin suddenly snapped shut around him and he disappeared into a puckered seam on the landscape. There was a low rumbling that made my head vibrate, made my horns feel like they were on fire, but then the rumbling stopped, and the landscape stilled. The little seam where all the obelisks had collapsed in on themselves flattened, and all you could see now was that some of the obelisks had blood dripping down them.

There was no body. No bones. No gore. Just blood.

Silvy floated to one of the bloody obelisks and perched there, licking at its surface. She looked up at us and smiled, her teeth glowing in the strange light.

“Still tastes like a liar,” she said, letting out a titter of laughter before returning to her feast. Geist turned to look at me, tears in his eyes.

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“I'm sorry,” he said. “I'm sorry for all of this.”

I stared at him blankly.

I knew exactly why he was sorry. He was sorry Flin had died. He was sorry he'd been caught. He was sorry the tables had turned. But he wasn’t sorry for what he had done to me. Up until the moment we fell through the familiar portal, he’d been all too willing to hand me over to the Austerium for an inquisition based on something he’d set me up for.

“Are you?” I asked.

Geist stared back at me blankly. “Am I what?”

How soon he forgets.

“Sorry,” I said. “Are you sorry?”

“Yes,” he said, nodding his head vigorously. “Oh yes. Deeply sorry.”

I was about to respond when his left eye, seemingly of its own volition, moved to the side, looking toward his ear even though his right eye stayed firmly on me.

The wayward eye snapped back to its original position and focused on me, almost as though realizing it had been caught wandering.

Geist cleared his throat and shook his head with confusion. “Sorry. You were saying?”

I frowned, wondering if this was some sort of magick I didn’t know about.

“Silvy?” I called over to her, somewhat worried that Geist might be a threat even in this place.

Silvy glanced up at me, the fur around her mouth shiny with blood, before glancing at Geist. She then went right back to lapping the blood off the obelisk’s surface.

Okay. You’re on your own.

I took a deep breath and looked back at Geist.

“Listen,” he said. “Just get me out of here, take me back to my shop, and I'll give you the theatre. I'll give you everything.”

I raised an eyebrow at this, considering.

The theatre was the one thing I wanted more than anything else.

The theatre was the one key to get me to do just about anything.

And Geist knew that.

“You give me the theatre?” I asked. “No strings attached?”

“No charge.” He licked at his lips. “I'll even forgive you for killing my son.”

I sighed. Forgive me for killing his son. Amazing.

“That's wild,” I said, all big eyes now. “How did we end up here again?”

“You opened a portal, you trapped us here, and you killed my son!” He shook his head viciously, seeming to come back to himself. “I'm sorry. Sorry. Look, I'm sorry.”

His left eye slowly twisted to the side again and then snapped back to center. He didn’t acknowledge it at all.

“And how did we end up in your shop?” I asked.

“You were trying to steal from me.”

I shook my head and stared at him.

He’s not going to understand. He’ll never see what actually happened and take responsibility.

“Right,” I said. “I did all this.”

Geist nodded. “You did all this, and Flin had so much of his life before him. He was going to finish up his studies at Bristlebloom, go on to lead his own battalion of adepts. Maybe even cross plaines. My son, a plainestraveler. All that potential… everything he could have been is gone now, all gone, wasted, because of you!” He screamed the last few words and shook his head. “Sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry. Sorry.”

His left eye twisted to the side again.

I raised an eyebrow.

“So, what?” I asked. “I was just supposed to let him do whatever he wanted to do to me so he could live out his potential?”

“It's not like that. That's not what I said.”

I nodded. “No, but it's the underlying truth of what you were saying.”

“Twisting my words,” Geist said. “You stupid bitch. You’re twisting my words.”

I took a sharp breath in through my nose and nodded.

“Stupid bitch?” I asked. I placed the fingertips of my right hand to my chest. “Stupid bitch?”

“Look,” Geist said. “Please. I'll give you the theatre. I'll forgive you. I won't say a word to the Austerium. I won’t say a word to anyone. I'll even…”

He gestured for me to come closer, as though I could control my movement then at all, in any way. I stayed exactly where I was and Geist gave a weird grunt of frustration, trying to swim through the air, but going nowhere, held in place exactly where he was.

While he was trying his little swimming move, I noticed something.

We’re descending. Almost too slow to notice, but we are.

The obelisks had cleared out below us and there was a fairly large, clear witchstone circle below us. It was surrounded by those black obelisks, though. They hadn’t disappeared.

I had a feeling the witchstone center was fine, unless it was a mouth, unless it just ate us outright whenever we hit it. It was probably safe, but those obelisks were worrisome.

“What else?” I asked.

“What do you mean what else?” Geist asked me back.

“What else will you give me?”

“Isn't the theatre enough?”

I shook my head. “You destroyed Blackhart's storefront in the Night Market. I'd say the theatre is only the beginning. What else?”

“Money?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Okay,” I said. “And how would I get that money. How would I deposit it, where would I go?”

“I would go with you, obviously.”

I'd been hoping he had some little hidden place where he had a bank account number written down, a routing number, a password.

My impromptu plan had been to leave the Shadow Vaile without Geist or Flin.

So, it looks like me getting rich off this whole thing is out.

If I left and took Geist with me, I could have the theatre, but Geist would always be out there. If I was honest with myself, I didn't really believe he was going to let go of the fact that his son had died here. He was going to hold onto that little nugget, polishing that rage and hate and blame to a sharp edge until he decided that maybe I didn’t deserve to live.

You’ll get the theatre, but you’ll be placing all your trust in someone else. Do you really want to do that?

If I did, it would be like going back to my old ways, falling back into my past missteps.

And you’ve already come so far.

I looked at Geist, really looked at him, and realized he was a symbol for everything I was trying to change. Relying on him would be relying on fate would be relying on anyone other than myself.

Frowning, I shook my head. “No.”

“No?” Geist asked. “Bitch! Sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry.”

“You heard me,” I said. “No. I don't want your help. Keep the theatre. Burn it.”

Geist's nostrils flared as he realized I wasn't going to give in to him. Every single bit of power he'd held in the magick world was gone now, stripped away. This little stick girl floating in front of him, with her annoying familiar and her horns and her oversized parka, stood between him and the rest of his life.

Geist slipped his hand into his pocket, pulled out a witchstone, and slipped it into his mouth.

I glanced over at Silvy, who was still licking blood and completely ignoring the fact that Geist was about to kill me.