I want to ask Kiora more questions about the witch hives of Belladonna, but there's something more pressing.

The abandoned house.

If Arbor was there the night she was murdered, maybe that's where the murder took place.

It's been a day or so since Arbor was found so I'm not expecting the murderer to still be hanging around the abandoned house.

The murder has to be this Dom guy. Secret tutoring sessions for a magickal card game? Seems like a recipe for death to me. What's the motive though? Why would he tutor her if he was only going to kill her in the end? Was it a lure? Was it to make her feel comfortable before he went through with it?

“What are we going to do?” Kiora asks. “How are you going to get me back to Belladonna?”

I try to come up with a feasible reason to go to the abandoned house and see if Dom is around or if anybody in the area has seen him.

I don't have time to figure out how to access a place I've never been to.

I know Cerulea will be coming to Sulis soon, and probably with Lebec.

And then there's the problem of Renald. He might know about Sulis as well.

I chew on my lip and look at her. “So, here's the thing…” She frowns, but I continue. “Cerulea knows about this place. And if she also knows that you're a witch, she's probably getting back up before coming here. We need to get out of here.”

“Where do we go?” she asks.

I lick my lips. I know exactly where I'm going to go: the abandoned house. The problem is I don't know if I want to tell her that.

“Someplace safe,” I finally say. “Someplace they won't think to look for you, or me.”

She nods and Silvy appears on my shoulder.

“I can't believe you're doing this,” Silvy says. “Lying to her, leading her out there. I'm almost impressed, darling.”

I don't respond and I hope that Kiora can't hear her.

“Open a portal,” I say in a quiet voice.

Kiora's eyes grow wide and she shakes her head. “No. No I think that's a bad idea. We shouldn't do that. I don't want to go back to the—” A heavy shudder interrupts her sentence. “—the Shadow Vaile.”

I hold my hands up. “Relax. We only have to go through the Shadow Vaile if we’re moving from Anara to the stick world, or in the opposite direction. We don't have to do it if we're going to a stick location from a stick location. It's an instantaneous process.”

“A pity,” Silvy whispers. “I would've enjoyed returning again today. To see my friends. My family. My countrymen.”

What I don't tell Kiora is that the portal still passes through the Shadow Vaile, you just never see it because it happens so fast.

“Please make this portal one where we won't fall over,” I whisper to Silvy.

“Where's the fun in that?” Silvy asks.

The portal opens on the wall of Sulis, right next to the mirror that's a gateway into the back room of Blackhart.

I approach the black portal, looking back at Kiora. “Come on. It's not the Shadow Vaile. Don't worry.”

“Why is it so black then?”

Because it's really the Shadow Vaile.

“That's just how it looks. Don't worry about it. Just step through and as soon as your head goes to the other side, you'll be able to see.”

Kiora nods and I walk through.

The smell of grass and warm wood hit me immediately. In front of me though all I can see is an empty field. Trash letters it. There are destroyed Styrofoam cups, wrappers from fast food joints, straws.

To my left I see a mound of diapers with a toothpick stuck at the top like it was some kind of hors d'oeuvre.

I shudder and turn around. Silvy placed the portal on the wall of the abandoned building. It looms above me, two stories in height.

I didn't remembered it being two stories. In my mind it's only one story, no more than a three room shack, but what I'm looking at here is different.

Kiora comes through the portal next, arms hugging her shoulders as if to protect herself.

She looks around, confused until she turns.

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“What’s that?” she asks.

“It's the abandoned house. No one else knows about Dom, right?”

She shrugs.

“So no one should think to look for us out here, right?”

She shrugs again, not sold on it.

We walk around to the front of the house, looking at all the broken glass on the ground.

Why is the glass outside? Shouldn't it be inside? Don't kids usually throw rocks from outside a building into it to break windows?

We walk to the front door. A piece of paper is nailed there. The paper is weatherworn and some of the ink has dripped. I'm surprised it's still there at all.

“It's magick,” Silvy whispers. “I can see the luma around it.”

Frowning, I read the words.

Meetings by appointment only. No walk-ins.

A sign on the outside of an abandoned building seems like a joke.

“I really just want to go back to Belladonna,” Kiora says. “Please. Can you help me get there?”

“Yes,” I say, not really meaning it but fine with telling her that for now. “Let's just go in here first. We’re here, no one expects us to be out here, it will be fine.”

I'm already at the abandoned building, I'm not about to turn away.

I knock on the door, expecting a man dressed in an immaculate suit to pull it open and send us away because we don't have an appointment.

No one answers.

I twist the knob, look at Kiora with raised eyebrows, and push the door open. It opens a fourth of the way before bumping into something and stopping.

The gap is wide enough for me to stick my head in so I lean in and look around. Down on the ground is a rolled up carpet.

I frown and lean my weight against the door, feeling the carpet on the other side slowly start to slide away.

When the door is open, we walk in and look around. There is no dust whatsoever anywhere. The entryway is completely clean. No trash. No glass.

What is this place?

I close the door behind us and we make our way out of the entryway and into the living room.

A massive chandelier hangs from the ceiling, crystals glittering in the sunlight that shines through the windows.

How did a chandelier like this survive in an abandoned building for this long?

There is a table at the center of the living room with four chairs surrounding it. There are faint chalk marks on the wooden table’s surface, chalk marks that I recognize from scheme.

Okay, so scheme was being played here.

“Oh God,” Kiora whispers under her breath.

I turn to my right to see what she's looking at. There's a staircase and up near the top, just out of view I can see two feet.

They're hanging down, barely swaying to the left and right.

I close my eyes. That better not be Dom. He better not have hung himself.

I slowly make my way to the staircase.

Expecting to see a hanging body, I see something else entirely.

The body isn't hanging from a rope.

It's floating.

Nothing attaches it to the ceiling above. Before me is a man in a dress shirt and pants . No shoes. I can't see his face as his head is tipped back like he's gazing up at the stars. His arms hang down at his sides, fingers spread out and extending towards the ground.

Another body floats two feet behind him. None of the bodies show any decomposition.

I start up the staircase, realizing that behind the second body is a third, a fourth, and a fifth. I press my body against the wall, not wanting to touch any of the floating bodies as I make my way to the second floor.

The second floor is a nightmare compared to the staircase. There's an entire labyrinth of floating people. All of them have their eyes shut, all of them stare up at the ceiling, all of them float.

I frown, Arbor's murder scene coming back to me. She'd been floating too. Floating upside down, sure, but floating.

“Silvy,” I whisper, convinced that if I speak too loudly all the faces will turn in my direction and all the eyes will open to stare at me. “Can you tell what kind of magick was used here? Was it blood magick like with Arbor?”

Silvy shakes her head. “It’s life magick.”

My eyes narrow. “Life magick? You're sure?”

Silvy nods. “There's a ball of life magick above each of these people. It's what's making them float. It's holding them up.”

“Are they dead?”

“I could always open one up,” Silvy suggests. “See if they bleed.”

“No,” I say. I look behind me, expecting to find Kiora. She isn't there. She must still be downstairs.

As if in answer, she calls up from the bottom of the stairs. “There's a button on the wall. Should I push it?”

Silvy spoke before I had a chance, imitating my voice, “Yes. Push it.”

Before I even have a chance to say no, a change occurs on the second floor. The floating bodies begin moving, floating in single file lines. As I watch, I realize what I'm seeing.

“That fucker.”

“Hm?” Kiora says from the bottom of the staircase.

The bodies travel in single file lines, moving this way and that upstairs before moving towards the staircase where they go down to the last stair and then return.

If you've ever seen an automated clothes rack at a drycleaners, that's what this looks like. Only instead of hanging shirts, dresses, and suits, human bodies float down to the bottom of the staircase before filing backup.

“Push the button again,” I call down.

The bodies quit moving and I make my way back down the staircase.

I look over at the scheme table and back to the staircase.

“I don't understand.”

“You're not the only one.”

“Right. So as interesting as this is, can you please help me get back to Belladonna?”

We're at the scene where her friend might've been murdered, but the only thing she can think about is getting back to Belladonna?

She’s lying again.

“Who were those two witches in C&C?” I ask.

“I already told you that.”

I cross my arms. “Really though. Who were they?”

She opens her mouth to answer but closes it when I shake my head. “You were about to lie.”

She swallows. “We were dating.”

“What?”

“Arbor and I. We were together.”

I study her closely, and when she notices this, she starts crying.

“We were,” she says. “I didn't tell you because I was afraid you would think I was the one who killed her.”

“I'm not the police,” I say. “So you were dating. I don't understand.”

Kiora starts crying harder. “You wouldn't. You're not from Belladonna.”

“So make me understand.”

She takes a deep breath, calms herself, and shakes her head. “They're after you now too.”

“What now?”

“Those two witches. They’re with the Royal Guard. They're not from another hive. I lied.”

I close my eyes. Royal Guard. Everything slides into place.

“Arbor was royalty?” I asked. “On Belladonna?”

Kiora nods.

“So a Belladonna royal was murdered in Bristlebloom.”

Kiora nods again.

“And you were dating this Royal?

She nods.

“And if the Royal guard was there to see you, they must have known about it.”

“They saw you too,” she says.

“Shit. They think I'm involved, don't they?”

“She was a runaway. She came here to get away from Belladonna. She didn't want to be a royal. She didn't want to be a princess.”

“And you helped her?”

Kiora nods. “It's all my fault. She came here for me. I left Belladonna first and she followed me. She's dead because of me.”