I'm not sure how long I sat at the center of that circle in the Shadow Vaile, staring at the place where the obelisks had split, and Geist had disappeared.

All I remember from those hazy moments is Silvy stretching on top of her obelisk, and then floating down to sit beside me. We sat like that for a long time, but I didn't say a word. For once, Silvy didn’t either.

I tucked my head between my knees, staring at the ground between my ankles, droplets of Geist’s blood occasionally dripping from my horns to form a spatter.

I felt warm again, but also cold.

I felt as though a piece of me had died.

I'd known exactly what I was doing when I rammed my horns home, known that I was going to kill Geist, or the blood wizard inside him. Maybe both.

I think that's what made it worse. Geist hadn't even been conscious, hadn't been in control, when I killed him. I'd effectively killed a zombie being controlled by someone else. A puppet.

What did the blood wizard call him? A vessel?

I chewed on my lip.

What if Geist could see everything that was happening, like he was watching a movie, only of his death?

That was a gut punch, but I shook it away.

The blood wizard was still out there.

Geist was dead and so was Flin.

I was alive but forever changed.

Below me, a familiar portal opened, and I closed my eyes as Silvy, and I slipped through it. I breathed in, smelled a familiar smell, and opened my eyes to find myself sitting in the empty bedroom of my apartment.

Cold poured into my bones and I let out a breath of surprise.

A mostly transparent cloud puffed out of my mouth, as if I’d eaten a metric ton of ice cream on a hot day.

I took in a deep shuddering breath and got up as if in a dream. I walked to the bathroom feeling numb and mechanical. I stripped off all my clothing, getting a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror.

My horns were caked with dark dried blood. There were also trails of dried blood down my forehead, over my cheeks, and pooled at my chin.

My skin was paler than usual, and I had dark, almost purple, circles under my eyes.

I shuddered and turned away from my reflection.

After getting into the shower, I turned it all the way to hot and stood there for a long time. Of course, the water was only tepid on my skin, but it felt better than nothing. And soon the rust colored water dripping down to my toes finally went clear.

When I could stand the tepid water no longer, I got out of the shower and toweled off. As I did so, I laughed.

You managed to take all your clothes to Bristlebloom, except for the rags, but you left behind all your towels. How were you planning to dry off in the dorm?

“Just like you,” I muttered, finishing drying off my hair and freezing skin.

A thick rip sounded when I pulled the towel away from my hair.

I sighed, looking down at the long rip in the center of the towel. In the future, I was going to have to be more conscious of my horns, otherwise the price of towel replacement alone would bankrupt me.

This made me giggle, but the giggle died when I looked up at the mirror.

Frowning, I took a step forward, my attention completely on my horns.

Before my shower, all I could see was crusted blood, but now that my horns were clean, I saw that they were no longer white or cotton candy pink in color.

They were a bright magenta.

I sighed and shook my head. “Perfect. Just what I need. Magenta horns. The witches are gonna love this…”

I slipped my clothes back on and huddled into the parka but didn't bother pulling up the hood.

Now clothed, I stared at the magenta horns. Silvy appeared on my shoulder in a puff of smoke and crawled behind me into the hood, nestling there. Soon I could hear her purring mixed with snores.

All the death, all the killing, and she seemed to be completely unaffected.

I laughed. Just like a real cat.

When I opened the door to the bathroom and walked out, Lebec was sitting at my kitchen table watching me.

“What's funny?” he asked.

I stared at him, surprised to see him inside my apartment.

His eyes traveled up to my head and his mouth fell open. “You've got horns…”

It was a simple statement, but it led down so many rabbit holes.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

He didn’t have horns, so if he could see my horns, then the whole of the magick community could probably see them.

Does that mean sticks can see them too? Is he going to take me to an Austerium lab to be experimented on for the rest of my life?

I'd watched every episode of The X-Files. I knew what was possible.

“You’re a witch,” he said, horrified. He stood up suddenly, the chair sliding and tumbling over. The back of it snapped against the floor, banging too loudly in the small kitchen.

I sighed and sat down on the carpet, pulled up my legs, and relaxed.

Lebec traced symbols in the air and a green bubble surrounded him. He stood within it, staring at me, fear in his eyes.

I raised an eyebrow. “I'm a half-witch. I got the horns, but not the powers. I can’t eat your magick. Relax.”

Lebec continued staring at me, not cancelling the spell, but just standing there, watching me.

“Geist gave me a witchstone…” I started there and explained the whole mess to him, leaving out the part about luring Geist and Flin to the Shadow Vaile, leaving out the part where Flin died and then I killed Geist. I also avoided mentioning the blood wizard.

What I said instead was that Flin and Geist had seen my horns and had been just as scared as Lebec was. That they’d left me alone after that.

Lebec nodded, but still didn't cancel the spell that surrounded him in green light.

“The Austerium has been investigating them for a while,” he said.

“Geist or Flin?”

“Both,” Lebec said in a gruff voice. “We had suspicions to believe that they infiltrated the Austerium for personal gain.”

I nodded.

“We also have reason to believe they weren’t even the real culprits. From what we've been able to gather, they were working for someone else, someone in the shadows.” He lifted an eyebrow at me. I almost wanted to laugh, to let out a ringing peal of lunatic laughter.

The shadows. The Shadow Vaile. Geist and Flin's final resting place.

“If you know anything you think I should know,” Lebec said, sounding every bit like a cop, “you should tell me now.”

I stayed quiet.

“Anything,” he said. “I think your father would've wanted you to help me on this.”

I blew out a breath. “I don't know about that and I don't know about anything.”

“If you know where Geist and Flin are, you need to tell me.”

Making up my mind, I cleared my throat and folded my arms. “Let's just say I don't think anyone's going to ever hear from them again. Either of them.”

“Okay,” Lebec nodded. “Additionally, I have a duty to inform you of something you’re probably not going to like.”

“Oh? What’s that? It's not like I’m enrolled in Bristlebloom anymore, or even the magick world. You already took care of that, remember?”

“Unfortunately,” he answered.

“Get to the point then,” I snapped.

He glanced up at my horns and then back down at me. I sighed and pulled up my hood, burying my head in the back of it so that my face was partially obscured in shadow.

“Barring a full investigation of your claims that you don’t have any witch magick, you no longer have access to the magick world.”

I snorted. “So, what else is new? You already kicked me out.”

“Temporarily,” he said, “but now we will need to conduct an inquiry.”

Temporarily my ass…

“An inquisition?” I asked.

His eyes grew wide and he shook his head. “Heavens no. An inquiry. We just need to do some tests to ensure that everything is as you say it is. I believe you're the first half-witch I've ever heard of. And if you're going to be allowed back into the magick world, we’re going to have to ensure you're safe, for the rest of magickkind.”

I made my eyes go big and nodded very slowly. “The rest of magickkind’s safety is my top priority.”

“There’s no need to be sarcastic.”

“Isn’t there?” I spun my tongue around my left fang. “I think there’s plenty of need.”

“Unfortunately,” he said, “we can’t allow you back into the vanisher program. That's off the table now, given…” He trailed off, doing everything in his power not to stare at the top of my hood, at the place where he knew my horns were.

“You know,” he finally said, each word racing the previous, “given the circumstances.”

“It’s fine.” I felt numb.

“So,” he said, looking around the apartment. “Where should we send your furniture?”

I held up my hands. “No idea. I'm getting evicted from here. I don't have a job. I don't really know what's going to happen, where I'm going to live.”

He nodded as though he completely understood the struggles of the stick world.

“You know I'm reminded of something I learned when I was in school,” he said. I sat there and waited, just wanting him to leave, just wanting to stretch out on the floor of my apartment, to pass out, to leave this world to itself for a little bit. “We learned that the warriors within witchkind go through a sort of trial on Belladonna, the witch shard, where they become fully blooded. Have you ever heard of this?”

I shook my head and he continued.

“What happens is they find a caster, a wizard, or some other person or being belonging to magickkind. The witch going through the trial then kills them using their horns. Thus, their horns are rendered visible to the rest of magickkind. It's a badge of honor to them. It's a way of flaunting that they’re witches, showing off their pride in having killed someone, in no longer being hidden.” He glanced up at my head and then back to me again. “You say we’ll never hear from Geist or Flin again. I say I can see your horns.”

He let that hang in the air between us before breathing in a deep breath and letting it out. “What I also say is if you ever do find who was behind Geist’s actions, I hope you would let me know. The Austerium could be very friendly to someone who figured that out.”

I nodded, not fully taking the bait, but also not wanting to say no outright. Lebec knew I’d killed Geist. Maybe he even thought I killed both Geist and Flin.

“You certainly didn’t waste time, did you?” Lebec asked.

I wasn’t sure what he meant.

“Between losing your stick crown and now possessing a pair of blooded witch horns. Did you think I didn’t notice your crown was gone?”

I didn’t say anything. I’d wondered about this, but never really thought about it all too hard.

You’re not as sneaky as you think you are.

“Anyways,” he said, moving towards the front door. He was still surrounded in that green glow. “Catch.”

He tossed something at me, something that caught the light as it traveled through the air. I leaned to the side and let it hit the carpet, wary of what he might be tossing towards me.

It bounced once and then stopped. It was a single golden key.

“Mr. Carson’s cover for living in the stick world is an antique shop. Do you know what mine is?”

I waited.

Lebec shrugged. “I own Nightsbridge Realty.”

That means…

“Funny thing… it seems that someone bought the theatre in the past few days, seems that they paid cash, but never came to pick up the key.”

I could only stare at Lebec.

“From what you’ve told me,” Lebec said, and the corner of his mouth quirked with what might’ve been a smile, “I don't think the owner is going to need that key anymore.”

Without another word, he walked out of my apartment and closed the door behind him. Even though he was outside my apartment, he somehow managed to lock both locks on the door.

I stared at the golden key. I wasn't sure whether it was magick. I wasn't sure whether it was cursed.

“Silvy,” I said.

Silvy grunted from inside the hood.

“Is it safe?” I asked. I wasn’t about to take anything from someone in the magick world for granted.

Silvy slithered to my shoulder. “It's a key.”

I rolled my eyes. “I know that. Is it cursed?”

Silvy shrugged.

“Can you find out?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes. “You kill one caster and all of a sudden you're in charge.” Silvy slithered down to the key, sniffed it once, and then hopped back up onto my shoulder and into my hood. “It's just a regular key. No magick at all.”

Frowning and still not allowing myself to believe it was what I thought it was, I picked it up.

It wasn't until I turned it over to read a word carved into the fob that I finally allowed myself a tiny smile.

The word on the key?

Sulis.