“Nice job,” Silvy purrs. “Wasn't that money required for something?”

“He got what he deserved,” I mutter. I slip the empty witchstones out of my pocket and put them into the basket beneath the counter where I kept all of the used ones.

A lot of people in Anara just throw away witchstones once they've used the magick within, but I can't bring myself to do that. I'm still working on a way to refill empty witchstones, but I haven't yet figured out how to do it.

“He never wanted to deal,” I tell Silvy. “He just wanted to rip me off. Maybe he just wanted to fight.”

“Maybe,” Silvy says. The sarcasm in her voice doesn’t go unnoticed.

She watches me pick up the witchstone he'd been interested in and place it back in its cubby hole on the wall behind the counter.

I shake my head. So many casters have been in to Blackhart since I took over, but never had I been attacked like that.

People threaten me all the time.

People promise that they are going to kill me.

This is the first time a caster had actually used a witchstone though, used magick, to attack me.

It would've been worth it had some of those dollars been left behind.

That's where the real problem is. I need money. Desperately. Rent is coming due on the gateway to Blackhart, and if I don't have a gateway to the magic world…

“I need money,” I tell Silvy, “but I don't have a lot of options. I can stay here, hope someone comes in with enough money, or…”

Silvy leans forward. “Yes?”

I roll my eyes. “You know what else. Or we can go to the Red Market.”

“The second option is obviously the most palatable,” Silvy says.

Outside of the Shadow Vaile, the Red Market is just about her favorite place. It's sort of like the night market only the goods are a bit… tainted. In the Red Market, you can buy dark magick, curses, and occasionally even blood magick (which is banned, obviously).

It's an interesting place for sure, but one you don't want to stay in for very long.

I cross my arms. If I stay here, in Blackhart, I might be here all day and still sell nothing. If I go to the Red Market though, I can definitely sell something, but who knows who I'll be selling to.

Silvy stretches. “Isn't the lease on the gateway is due by the end of the week?”

I take a deep breath and sigh. “Fine. We'll go to the Red Market.”

After reloading my witchstone holster and putting it back in my pocket, I pull my parka closer around my body and shiver.

That's one of the “perks” of being a witch. You never feel warmth. Except in the Shadow Vaile.

Why don't you just go to the Shadow Vaile? you're probably asking. Because there are monsters there that would suck the marrow from my bones. That's why.

“I really don't want to go to the Red Market,” I mumble, pulling out a satchel with pouches filling the inner walls, as well as hidden pockets with more pouches.

Silvy giggles. “That's because you have no class, darling. They can smell it on you. The lack of class, I mean.”

I ignore this, walking along the walls of Blackhart and pulling various witchstones from their cubbies.

Nothing too powerful, just in case I end up selling it to someone who wants to do something nefarious. The witchstones do have to be powerful enough to be sold though. I can't get away with selling weak spells. The return would be too low.

I tap the hidden witchstone underneath the counter twice and a cellar opens up to my left. I crawl into it and grab several items. The whispering down there isn't too bad today. The curses must be in a waning cycle.

Sometimes when I go down there's screaming from the curses possessing some of the objects.

I crawl back out, double tap the hidden witchstone again, and the cellar insurance disappears.

A buzz sounds from the gateway. A witchstone I mounted to the top of the gateway's frame glows green.

Someone's hit the buzzer on the stick world side of the gateway. Nightsbridge, Texas to be exact. The small suburb outside of Houston that the Austerium has imprisoned me within the borders of for two entire years and counting.

Frowning, I stow my satchel under the counter and walk over to the gateway. The sticks that stumble into Blackhart typically only do so to browse. The prices are too high for them and I'm not willing to sell them outside of a few harmless trinkets.

To a stick, Blackhart is essentially a shop filled with poison. If a stick uses a witchstone, they instantly age ten years, and that's assuming they use a witchstone containing the weakest, most inconsequential spell.

If they use a witchstone containing a strong enough spell, they'll die instantly.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

I upon opening the gateway, I find myself face-to-face with a puffy-faced woman with red curly hair. Her eyes are bloodshot and her mascara drips down her cheeks.

I raise my eyebrows. “Uh, hi?”

“Are you her?” the mousy woman asks.

I glance back at Silvy and mouth the words, Am I who?

“You are,” she says, not waiting for an answer. “You are her. Oh God, you have to help me. Oh God. Please.”

“I don't know who you are.” The words come out much harsher than I mean. I bite my lip. “I don't know what you want?”

The image of my satchel, only half-filled behind the counter, comes to me, urges me to get this woman out of Blackhart so I can go about packing my stuff for the Red Market.

“They say… they say… they say…” Her stutter is cut off by a sob. People on the Nightsbridge side of the gateway stop to stare.

“Fuck,” I mutter. When I go to get groceries, I already get enough raised eyebrows. I don't need any more. “Come in,” I say, stepping back into the shop and pulling the gateway wide open. “Come in, come in, come in. Hurry.”

The woman shakes her head no and just stands there on the sidewalk.

Really? “Then I'm going to shut the door. Just come in.”

“Not until you tell me that you’re her,” the woman says.

“Lady, I don't know who you think I am and I don't know who you are. Who exactly do you think I am?”

“If she thinks you’re an embarrassment,” Silvy suggests, “she’d be correct.”

I glance back at her. “Shut up.”

“But I didn't say anything,” the woman says and the tears begin to flow.

“Who do you think I am?” I ask.

“Hexana. Hexana Covington? You went to school with my sister. My little sister.”

I'd grown up in Nightsbridge, but I didn't recognize this woman, and I had no idea who her sister was. “Okay. Is she in trouble? Your sister?”

“No.” The woman rubs at her nose with a tissue. “My daughter.”

A man walking by the open gateway stops and looks between the crying woman and myself.

“Is everything okay here?” he asks the woman.

“Why are you asking her that?” I ask. “I work here. I just opened the door.”

He glances over at me and turns his nose up. He grumbles something I can understand before turning his attention back to the woman. “Ma'am? Are you okay?”

She nods and shooes him away. After some more grumbling and another few dirty looks, he does what she says.

“So you know who I am now,” I say. “Will you please come inside?”

She nods and steps into Blackhart. She does the same thing that every stick does when they first walk into Blackhart.

She shivers.

From the answers I’ve gotten over the past two years, it's not from cold, it's just a sudden spontaneous shiver. It's almost like stick bodies can sense that they’ve passed over into a realm that isn't their own.

“Take a seat,” I say, closing the gateway and gesturing over to the tiny waiting room I had. The waiting room is nothing more than two antique chairs and a little coffee table. The woman takes a seat, continuing to dab at her eyes and her nose. I sit down opposite her and cross my arms. “What's your name?”

“Marist.”

“So, what's wrong, Marist?”

“My daughter. She's missing.”

“Okay, I'm not the police.”

For the first time Marist really looks at me. Her face grows stiff and she nods. “I know, that's why I came to you. The police say they can't do anything.”

“What do you mean they can't do anything?”

“She's eighteen,” she says. “As far as they're concerned she's an adult.”

“Okay. So your eighteen-year-old daughter, an adult, is missing. How do you know she didn't just…”

“Run away?” Marist snaps. “She didn't run away. It's Friday night. We always watch Filmore on Friday nights. Together.”

I shrug. “Maybe it's a rerun tonight?”

“It's always reruns. That's the point.”

I don't get it. “Okay, so you had a standing date that she missed.”

“No,” Marist says, shaking her head violently. “We didn't miss it. It's tonight. The night before though we pick the episode we’re going to watch.”

“Okay, and she didn't show up to that? Last night?”

Marist nods.

“I don't know why you came to me,” I say. This is a lie. I have an idea.

“People talk about you in town. People who have... used you... in the past.”

“What people?” I ask.

“People,” she says. “It doesn't matter who, but they said they were pleased with the work you did.”

I close my eyes. Someone who I'd helped in the past had given a recommendation to their friend. I occasionally moonlit as a… not a private eye, but something else. Helper? Someone who can find things? Solve problems? Maybe that is a private eye. I don't really know.

When you're trapped in the town you were born in for two years and can't leave, you try and find ways to alleviate the boredom. Besides, it's not like I advertise.

“Okay,” I say. “So I've helped a friend of yours.”

“Acquaintance,” she corrects.

“Fine, acquaintance. It doesn't matter. I've helped someone you know. And you want me to help you now.”

She shakes her head. “I want you to help my daughter. She's missing. Find her.”

I take a deep breath, hold it in for a few moments, and let it out slowly. I imagine all the sales I could have been making at that moment in the Red Market all disappearing, running through my fingers like sand.

“Okay,” I say. “Fine. I'll help you.”

“How much?” she asks. “How much?”

I chew on my lip, considering it. If this woman is wealthy, I might be able to get enough out of her to pay for my gateway lease right here and now. The monthly lease on the gateway is more than most sticks have though.

“Five,” I say.

It's a low price, but I don't know what else to ask. Like I said, I'm not exactly a professional here.

“$5,000?” she confirms. “Done.”

I start to correct her, but Silvy appears on my shoulder and shushes me. “Just take it. She seems fine with spending $5,000. So you should be fine with it.”

I swallow and nod at Marist. “$5,000. Half now, and half when I find your daughter.”

“You'll find her though?”

I'll either find her daughter alive or I'll find a body. The only problem is that if she isn't within the borders of Nightsbridge, I'm out of luck.

“Yes,” I lie. “I'll find your daughter.”

She nods and stands up. “Her name is Pixie. She's—”

I hold my hands up to stop her. “I'm not gonna remember. Email me all the information you have on her, who she knows, what she was doing, etc., as well as the first payment.”

“How do I send the payment? By email?”

I pulled out a business card and handed it over.

She raises an eyebrow as she read aloud. “Blackhart: Witchstones, Magick, and Arcana. Exceedingly rare witchstones of unfathomable power.”

“Flip it over,” I say.

She does and sees my email address as well as the web address where she can send the payment to. “Okay.”

I walk her to the gateway and hold it open for her.

“Thank you,” she says. “Thank you so—”

She hesitates for a moment and I see it in her eyes. I see what she's was going to do. Oh God, she's going to hug—

She wraps me up in a huge hug and squeezes me tight. I choke on her perfume as she squeezes even harder before letting go.

“Right,” I say. “Good.”

“You’re gonna smell like old lady for weeks,” Silvy giggles.

I ignore her and close the gateway.

“Marist, Marist, Marist.” I shake my head. “Probably worried about nothing. Eighteen-year-old daughter, she's probably shacked up somewhere with her partner.”

I move towards the gateway, intending to shut it down so no one else can interrupt to me, when it buzzes again.

I glance up at the witchstone, fully expecting it to be green, fully expecting for Marist to have returned, to have remembered some other such piece of info she could have just emailed me.

The witchstone is golden. There's someone waiting on Anara side of the gateway.

I pull the gateway open, my hand already in my pocket, fingertips clutching a witchstone, fully expecting for Renald to be standing there, maybe this time with some friends as reinforcement.

Before me stands someone I had once considered a friend.

My upper lip curls as I look down at him. “Lebec.”