Kiora and I both hung there, suspended in the air.

“Fuck!” I say, realizing in the same moment that my lips and my mouth work.

Thoughts of the execution to come flash in my mind. The Austerium has been looking for a reason to get rid of me and now they have it. The magick fog is dissipating, and as it does, I can see the carnage surrounding us.

“Fuck!”

Another thought slips into my mind. Am I being held up by blood magick right now?

I didn't think I was, but based on the blood magick I'd seen at Arbor's crime scene, it was something I couldn't rule out.

“What do we do?” Kiora asks in a quiet voice. I almost don't hear her.

“Well… we can just stay here until Lebec shows up. Throw ourselves on the mercy of the Austerium, see how far that gets us.”

“Won’t he believe we killed all these people though? All these casters?”

“Maybe,” I say, “but we didn't make ourselves float, waiting like wrapped presents for him to arrive. He'll have to see that and realize that someone else had to have been in here.”

“I guess,” Kiora says.

“I really think we need to get out of here. If we do that we'll at least be in control of what we do next instead of relying on the Austerium to make a ruling.”

“That one,” Kiora says. “That's the one.”

“Just one problem,” I say.

“How to get down,” she finishes.

“Correct.”

My eyes find Silvy a short distance away, lapping at a pool of blood like it's nothing more than milk.

“Silvy,” I say. “Can you get us down?”

Silvy's only answer is a quick grunt before hopping to her left and starting in on another puddle.

“I thought you were full.”

She ignores me.

“Nice cat you have,” Kiora says.

“I wish she was a cat.”

From the top of the staircase, a tiny scream erupts. We both glance up there. A tiny floating crystal in the shape of a skull hovers, pulsing with green light.

“What did you do to my theatre?” Ivy screams from within the crystal.

“What is that?” Kiora asks.

“That's Ivy. She still hasn't given me her full story but suffice it to say she's a snail that lives in that crystal. Outside of the crystal she's just a regular snail. Inside it, she can speak. I don't understand it. She started off as a slug.”

“What.”

“You heard me. It happened around the time I got cursed with my horns and Silvy. It's just about as ridiculous as it sounds.”

“I asked a question!” Ivy screams. “What happened to my theatre?”

“Is it her theatre?” Kiora asks under her breath.

“Not even a little.”

“If you help us down, I'll tell you,” I call up.

“No!” Ivy screams. “I do what I want!”

“Okay,” I say and Ivy floats back out of sight.

“Where was she while we were fighting?” Kiora asks.

“Asleep. That's what she usually does. Sleep. A lot.”

“Sure,” Kiora says.

We're still hanging in the air and time is running out. We need to get out of there before Lebec finds us. Before Cerulea finds us.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“I have a witchstone in my pocket,” I say. “If I can—”

“Shh,” Kiora interrupts.

Right. Shh. Why hadn't I thought of that?

I stay quiet for a few moments before opening my mouth to speak again.

I quickly close it again as Kiora's eyes open wide. They're completely black.

I swallow. “Uh, you good?”

If Kiora hears me, she doesn't respond. I watch as ripples form across her forehead, and her horns, caked in blood, start to glow.

It's not a glow like I normally see when magick is being used. It's a deep glow from the inside, it almost makes the horns look like they're blurring out, like the light around them is hazing over the edges, making them hard to focus on.

Kiora's lip curls back and I frown. Her teeth, previously regular looking, are now sharp. She looks like she has miniature daggers dotting her gums. I try to look away but can't.

As I continue watching, her fingers lengthen and her fingernails turn into their own unique sort of hellish daggers. They're sharpened on both sides and come to a deadly point. Each of her claws had a tiny dot on the underside. I don't ask what the dot is as spines erupt from her back.

“Silvy?” I call over to her in the most quiet voice I can manage. “A little help?”

Silvy glances up from the puddle of blood she's lapping from. She glances at Kiora and then glances at me. She smiles, the blood staining her teeth and dripping down her chin. “Good luck.”

With that, she turns her back to me and bends over the pool of blood, beginning to drink again.

To my right, Kiora slowly sinks in the air, all the way until her feet touch the ground. She turns her attention to me.

We're eyelevel now. She's grown taller.

I swallow. “Don't eat me?”

She shakes her head. “We don't eat flesh,” she says, and although I can tell it's her speaking, there's a guttural harshness to her voice now.

It almost sounds as if her regular voice is saying the words, but two additional, much deeper and angrier voices, echo the words as well.

“Help me down?” I ask.

She closes her eyes, her horns do that blurring glow thing again, and I slowly drop to the floor of Sulis. As my feet touch down, I can feel the magick from the witchstone I'd used leave my body completely. The spikes on my knuckles melt back into my skin.

I slip the unused witchstone I'd been holding back into my holster.

She’s a witch. Of course she can eat magick. I wonder if she tell what kind of magick she’s eaten though?

I want to do nothing but flee from Sulis but something makes me ask, “Was it blood magick?”

Kiora shakes her head. “Life magick. And it was waning.”

I nod. So it wasn't the same thing that had been used on Arbor.

The floor of Sulis is charred and singed in multiple places with blood splatters everywhere.

And I'm not even going to talk about the bodies of the adepts heaped about the lobby.

Silvy glances up from the pool of blood she's working on. “Oh good, you made it. Lucky you.”

“Thanks,” I say.

“Lucky her,” Kiora growls from beside me.

“Can you change back to your regular form?” I ask her.

I glance over, hoping I haven't offended her.

She's already back in her regular form, looking at me with a raised eyebrow. “Better?”

“If I say yes, will that offend you?”

She shrugs. “We all have to eat some time.”

“I don't know what that means, and I sort of don't want to know. How did you change so fast?”

“The change back is always faster than the initial metamorphosis.”

“Right.” I nod. “Sure. That makes complete sense.”

It doesn't make sense at all, but I don't really feel like getting into the weeds over witch metamorphosis.

I head over to the front door of Sulis, looking out onto the street. There are five black cars out there. The doors to three of them open. Lebec steps out of one and Cerulea steps out of the second.

“We need to go,” I say. “Like now.”

I move away from the front door, heading across the lobby and towards the entrance to the theatre proper.

Bangs ring out from the back door.

The only other way out is through the roof. There's a ladder that leads to the roof in what used to be the projection booth. Unfortunately, that room is where Ivy lives.

“Silvy, can get us out of here?”

“Hol' on,” she says.

“Lebec is coming. Cerulea too.”

She looks up at me with drooping eyelids.

“Are you—”

She interrupts me with, “'m not drunk.”

“Are you su—”

“Not drunk enough.” She raises an eyebrow. “Are you?”

Her words slur together.

She’s blooddrunk.

I imagine her drunkenly opening a portal into the Shadow Vaile and killing us all.

“Can you open a portal? To someplace safe? Someplace in Nightsbridge?”

Silvy hiccups and smiles. “Darling, I can open a portal straight to hell.”

“Uh, don't?” I hold both my hands up. “Nightsbridge is fine. Please.”

“Just saying.” She takes a step forward and stumbles to the left.

Her eyes narrows as she focuses, then her eyes relax and she sits down.

That's when it hits me.

The spell.

The spell Renald put on Sulis that had initially blocked Silvy's portal. It's still here. We're trapped.

“Please,” I say. “Please, Silvy.”

Silvy's head slowly rotates in a circle. “It's there.”

“The spell?”

“The portal,” she says.

I look around. “Where?”

“Behind us,” Kiora says and I turn around. Directly behind us is a tall rectangular black hole of emptiness. Past the portal, I hear the front doors of Sulis crash open. I lean to the left to peak around the portal and Kiora leans to the right.

Lebec and Cerulea stand just inside of Sulis.

Cerulea smiles. “See. I told you she betrayed us. And look, she's gone and killed all these adepts. You can’t even deny it, Lebec. Look at her friend. There's your proof. That witch is blooded.”

I completely forgot about Kiora's horns. If I'd remembered, I would've pushed Kiora through the portal before Lebec or Cerulea saw her.

I pull back, preparing to step through the portal into someplace unknown. Someplace hopefully safe and not hell.

“Hex,” Lebec calls out. “Wait. I'm sure there's an explanation.”

“There's an explanation, Lebec,” Cerulea answers for me. “Your little witch protégé, the little exile, just massacred all these adepts. You know what that calls for. There doesn’t even need to be a trial. We can just get on with the—”

“Stop,” Lebec tries to shut her down.

“—execution,” Cerulea whispers loud enough for me to hear the smile in her voice.