I have to get out. I have to escape. And fast.

No. Take a deep breath. Relax. You're fine. You can't keep running.

Everyone is against me. Lebec. Cerulea. Even Kiora left me, abandoned me.

I can easily have Silvy open a portal to some other place, but I don't want to do that. I want into the Forbidden Library.

Pixie is counting on me. She's in there. Somewhere. Against her will.

I look around the lobby in front of the Forbidden Library, scanning the crowd for any adept that might be on the lookout for me. I have at least a few minutes before Lebec's adepts get here, which is better than nothing.

I have to figure out what my next best move is, but I don't have many choices.

I could take an adept hostage. I can imagine that one playing out. As soon as I take the person hostage, all the other adepts would turn towards me, attack me. Or, worse, they would let me walk right to the door and destroy myself on the ward protecting it.

Additionally, I could take a wizard hostage. The odds of me being successful at that are about as good as the odds of me becoming a wizard. A wizard would destroy me where I stood, even if I threatened them, it's not like they wouldn't go down without a fight.

Even if I did take a wizard hostage, and they did comply, they could still walk right through the warded door and I would still burn up unless they allowed me in.

And then there's my last option. It's probably both the safest option as well as the riskiest one. I could take all the witchstones in my holster, activate them all at the same time to temporarily boost the magick in my system, and hope the ward protecting the door detects enough magick to pass me as a wizard.

I have quite a few strong witchstones in my holster, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to handle the amount of damage I'll take just from using them.

Some of the witchstones even create opposite effects in the body. My mind flashes back to elementary school when our science teacher made a volcano, putting baking soda down at the base and then pouring vinegar inside. I imagined activating two different witchstones, the magick racing through my veins, the magick hitting the opposing magick force, fizzing up through my veins, through my throat, through my brains.

I swallow. I want to throw up.

It's my only option though.

Pixie is depending on me. Marist is depending on me.

“So,” Silvy says, “what's the plan?”

Staring over at the door, I turn my decision over in my head. It's risky. It's dangerous. The timing will have to be perfect. I can't use all the stones too early before reaching the door, otherwise the adepts guarding it might suspect something. I'll have to trigger the witchstones right as I come up to the gate.

“We’re going through,” I say.

“Through?” Silvy asks. “Through what?”

I nod in the direction of the Forbidden Library.

“Have you lost your mind?” Silvy asks. “I mean truly, have you completely gone stark raving?”

“No,” I say in a quiet voice. “It's what I have to do though.”

“You have to die?” Silvy asks. “Far be it from me to stop you from destroying yourself, but I'd at least like you to do it in a more entertaining way than this. Burning to death? Being led off to an Austerium dungeon? The whole thing just reeks of desperation. It's embarrassing, darling. Pathetic even.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Are you not getting it? I have no confidence in you. I've never had confidence in you, but I must say, this is a new low. This is tragic. You're tragic.”

Silvy's just worried about her own existence. If I die, I don't think she knows exactly what will happen to her.

I was cursed with her presence when I'd been cursed with the horns.

If I no longer exist, does she no longer exist?

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I slowly start walking toward the giant doors that lead into the Forbidden Library.

I take in my surroundings, it may be the last time I'm able to see anything.

“You really must think about this a second time,” Silvy says. “Possibly a third if the second time doesn’t take.”

“I'm going to use all the witchstones in my pocket.”

“And what?” Silvy asks. “You think that's going let you pass through the ward? The ward only lets through those who have the magical stores of a wizard, not those who have magick racing through their veins like some junkie.”

“You don't know that,” I say.

“Of course I know that. I can see the ward’s magick right now. All you're doing is walking into a death trap. You're going to burn alive. Why don't we portal out of here, take a breather, and re-collect ourselves?”

“Not gonna happen.”

“Not gonna happen?” Silvy asks as I got closer to the door. “What do you mean not gonna happen? You’re going to burn alive, and that's not even considering what sort of damage using all those witchstones at once is going to do to your body. You're a witch in horns only, you don't have a witch's magick abilities. The magick from those witchstones, once it's in your system, is going have to go somewhere.”

“I know,” I say. “That's one of the things I've been thinking about.”

“It's one of the things she's been thinking about… Well, isn't that nice?”

I'm within ten feet of the door now. I slip my hand into my pocket.

“Are you ready?” I ask.

“No,” Silvy says. “I'm not ready. This is a dumb idea. And you’re dumb for doing it. The idea is dumb and you're dumber. Congrats.”

I nod, screwing up my courage for what's to come. I start flicking the witchstones out of the spring-loaded holster, feeling them in my pocket, cold and filled with so much magickal energy.

I swallow as I get closer to the door.

“Stop,” Silvy suddenly says. “Stop. Turn around. Right now.”

“No,” I say. “This is going to happen. Pixie is depending on us. Pixie doesn't deserve what's happened to her.”

“No,” Silvy says. “It's something else.”

I glance around, thinking it's Lebec’s adepts coming to get me. But so far I don't see any adepts who are scanning the crowds for a witch.

I hesitate for just a moment, but it's enough.

“Something about the ward changed,” Silvy says. “Something's different.”

I peel off to the left. I'm still clutching the witchstones in my hand, and can easily use them any time I want.

“I'm making one loop,” I tell Silvy. “One loop of this chamber and then I'm going through those doors. Why did you stop me?”

“The ward… relaxed. I don't know how else to explain it to a stick.”

“What?” I ask, my grip on the witchstones loosening the tiniest amount.

“When you approached it, the ward relaxed its stance.”

“You're saying I can enter the Forbidden Library?”

“I think so,” Silvy says. “I'm not sure how, but you can.”

“When we were in the Shadow Vaile, I thought you said you couldn't portal into the Forbidden Library.”

“I couldn't, but maybe I misinterpreted the reason why.”

I frown, thinking back to the witchstone I'd used that resulted in my horns. It was an imitation of the Builder's Stone, the stone that had been used for centuries to make the new Lord Wizard of the Lumaverse.

I still can't inherently use magick like an adept or a wizard.

I have no gifts.

Wizards can cast spells on a whim. I can't. I have nothing like that. I can't even absorb magick.

I swallow. “You're saying I have the magical stores of a wizard?”

“Yes,” Silvy says hesitantly and there was confusion in her voice. She isn't lying. This isn't some sort of deception on her part.

“If I have the magical stores of a wizard, why can't I do magick?”

“I don't know,” Silvy says. “Maybe it has something to do with the curse.”

“You think?”

“Look,” she says, her voice urgent now, “I do not fully understand why you're able to enter the Forbidden Library, but you can. I suggest you do it now.”

I look around and that's when I see them. To either side, adepts are closing in. Four on the left, seven on the right. Every single one of them stares right right at me. My legs move briskly towards the large doors of the Forbidden Library.

“Stop!” several of the adepts to either side of me call out. “Stop her!”

The adepts guarding the Forbidden Library look in the direction of the adepts closing in. The two groups don't seem to have the same information. The adepts guarding the Forbidden Library step forward, maybe thinking the adepts approaching are some sort of threat.

Two of the adepts guarding the door glance at me.

“They’re blooded witches,” I say, putting on an urgent, terrified voice. Truth be told I am terrified. I'm two seconds away from either getting arrested and executed or burning myself to death if the information Silvy gave me was wrong.

“What?” one of the adepts asks, but widens his stance, looking at the approaching adepts.

“They want to kill the wizards inside,” I say. “They're all witches. They're here to kill the wizards.”

Several of the other adepts guarding the Forbidden Library here this and assume battle readiness. I don't hesitate, I reach my hand out, through the Forbidden Library's ward and turn the knob. The door clicks open and I don't burn.

This seems to be the final straw in convincing the adepts guarding the door.

I glance back as Lebec’s adepts approach. The adepts who guard the Forbidden Library form a wall in front of the door, bright green seals already glowing into existence as they prepare to attack.

I smile. “Fucking idiots.”

I step through the ward and close the door behind me. The massive doors echo in the giant, empty space I now stand in.

I look around.

Directly in front of me is an enormous light floating above the ground and chained there as though it might float away.

Beyond that initial light is another and another.

I look to either side and suddenly feel dizzy.

Bookcases line the walls, but all the book titles are upside-down.

I look up and my knees buckle.

I'm on the ceiling. To either side of me are what look like seventeen stories of bookshelves. There are columns of bookshelves holding the ceiling up. Down on the floor, the opposite direction of where I stand, are what looks like multiple tables where people sit, reading in silence.

“The Forbidden Library,” Silvy says in a quiet voice.

“Look how far we’ve made it,” I whisper.

A deep voice speaks from behind me. “Too bad it's as far as you're gonna make it.”

My hands are pulled behind my back and I feel magick encircle my wrists.

The magick of Austerium handcuffs.