They're going to execute me instead of going after the person running away with Filigree.

“Where did he go?” I whisper to Silvy.

Silvy says, “He used a familiar portal.”

Even as the wizards are closing in, my mouth falls open. “How?”

“Oh, I think I have a pretty good idea.” There's a smile in Silvy's voice. “I've been to where he's going. A few times.”

“Let's get out of here,” I say to Silvy.

Silvy drops a portal below me right as one of the wizards casts a spell.

It passes right over my head as I fall through the portal, slicing through several of my hairs and hitting my horn. The spell shatters, erupting into a ball of magick that shoots out and away from me. I don't see the aftermath because Silvy closes the portal as a hand reaches through.

The hand is neatly snipped off and Silvy floats up to it to lick at the bloody stump.

As deep warmth floods my body and fills my bones, I shiver.

“Why are we in the Shadow Vaile?” I ask. “I thought you said you knew where we were going?”

“You'll figure it out,” Silvy says.

We float in the air and off in the distance green light peeks above the horizon. For the first time I can see what the green light belongs to and turn away from it, not wanting it to know that I can see it.

As we continue floating towards the ground, I ask, “How did you open a portal? I didn't think you were able to do that back there?”

“I wasn't,” Silvy says. “The wards blocking portals weren't put up by the wizards. They were put up by something that wanted them there to keep you in.”

“What do you mean?”

Silvy sighs. “Who just used a portal?”

“We did.”

“Besides us, dummy.”

Maldive used a portal. Does Maldive have a familiar?

I thought about all my interactions with him. He never seemed like he had a familiar. Then again, I don't tend to seem like I have a familiar until Silvy makes herself known.

What about Sulis? He appeared behind Renald out of nowhere. Even Renald seemed surprised.

“The blood wizard can control familiar portals?” I asked.

Silvy sighs again. “Just wait. You'll figure it out. Hopefully.”

We touch down onto solid ground.

The part of the Shadow Vaile we've come down onto is actually covered in small hills, mounds, not flat as it appeared from up in the air. There are little mounds everywhere, and the mounds all have doors. Each mound is at least eight feet tall.

“Silvurn,” a voice croons from everywhere and nowhere.

My eyes narrow as it all clicks.

Before Maldive left the chamber, he called my familiar by her full name. Silvurn. I’m the only one who knows her full name besides…

“A familiar?” I ask, the logistics of it all still not making sense, but the beginnings of an idea there, the beginnings of a solution.

“Close but no,” Silvy says in a quiet voice. “It wishes it was a familiar.”

The door to one of the mountains creaks open and Maldive steps out.

Behind him I can see Pixie, still holding the pillow, still looking lifeless.

Surrounding her are tiny creatures, creatures I can see through for the most part, but that are solid in the hands and the teeth. They flow around her like dust, small as baby kittens, but with none of the cuteness.

“What are those things?” I ask.

“Dustkins,” Silvy says.

“What's a dustkin?”

“The pupal stage of a familiar. The dustkin inside of Maldive seems to have airs.”

“Can you kill it?” I ask. “Can you take care of it?”

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“No,” Silvy says. “Much as I'd like to, I can't.”

“Can't, or won't?”

“If I kill the dustkin, the brood mother will eat me for breakfast.”

Brood mother? Silvy has never mentioned that before. I have a feeling I don't want to tangle with whatever the brood mother is.

Maldive smiles and his eyes flash red. I freeze.

The blood wizard.

Maldive blinks and the red disappears.

“I see it in your face,” he says. “The fear. The horror. Oh no, the blood wizard. So scary.” Maldive blinks again and his eyes turn red. “It's almost like I watched you fight. It's almost like I live in the Shadow Vaile and watched you kill the blood wizard. Or at least the vessel he was possessing for the moment. Do you know how easy this is to do?”

Silvy floats off my shoulder and onto one of the mounds. She curls up and within seconds is snoring.

I swallow and clinch my fists.

“Why?” I ask. “Why did you do this?”

Maldive, or at least the thing inside of him, smiles at me. “Filigree. Why else?”

“What's it do?”

“Do? By itself, quite a lot. But with its mate? Everything.”

“What about Nightsbridge?” I ask. I can’t get the thought of the blood wizard possessing so many in Nightsbridge out of my thoughts.

“It’s a shithole,” Maldive says. “And the insides of those people smell like rot.”

I open my mouth to ask another question, but before I can utter so much as a syllable, Maldive lunges at me, throwing witchstones at my feet.

I hurl myself backwards, unsure of what's in the witchstones, unsure of what’s about to hit. I roll to the side as two massive explosions rip through the air behind me. Hot knives stab into my calves and as I turn over, I see what Maldive did.

The first witchstone contained a trap spell, sending out magical knives attached to chains in a perfect 360° circle. The second witchstone contained a vortex spell, sucking in everything around it.

The knives piercing my calves drag me towards the center of the vortex. I scream out in pain, reaching a hand down to pull the knives out of my calves. Both my hands light on fire, burning, the flesh crackling.

I roll over onto my stomach, but the damage is done. My hands are ruined. I’m slowly being pulled into the vortex by my calves in jerks and sputters, pain lancing up my legs, making it hard to think, harder to breathe.

At the center of the vortex, green light writhes in fits and spurts. An unwell heartbeat of a pulse.

I glance to my left, at the green light coming over the horizon and realize where that vortex leads. It's some sort of portal that's going drop me over deliver me directly to the green light.

Is that the brood mother?

As this thought slams into my head, I see Pixie standing in the doorway, behind Maldive, looking less blind and more aware of her surroundings. There’s fear on her face, terror in her eyes. She's looking at me as if pleading for my help. I think of Marist, her mother, who wasn't possessed by the blood wizard at all, but by this dustkin. I think about the people in Nightsbridge, possessed by this dustkin.

This dustkin has attacked my home, my livelihood, my everything.

I realize what I have to do. It doesn't matter if my hands are ruined, it doesn't matter what happens to me, and I scream as I do it.

Shoving my charred, ruined hand into my pocket, searching for any witchstone I can find.

“Magickal mindset, Hex.” Words grind out through clenched teeth. “Magickal mindset. Come on, be fucking magickal.”

I manage to pull out two witchstones. Not as many as I want, but as many as my ruined hands can manage. I look at the witchstones and see what I pulled.

I close my eyes.

I'm going to die.

A strengthening witchstone as well as a water witchstone.

Bad luck.

I automatically crack the strengthening witchstone, feeling the magick flow through my veins. Using its power, I jerk the knives out of my calves, breathing hard, panting in pain. Blood pours from my legs, but I don’t have time to worry about that.

The other witchstone is a water witchstone.

Why would I ever pack a water witchst—

Oh. I smile. That’s right.

“What are you smiling at, meat? When I kill you, we’re going to eat you.”

I squeeze the water witchstone in my hand, and feel the magick flow through my fingertips. I pull my arm back and throw the witchstone at Maldive like I’m throwing a baseball.

Maldive, the big dumb idiot, catches it. He looks down at it, confused.

“Oh,” he says and then starts speaking sarcastically. “What's this? A little life spell? Oh no. Please. Don't.”

He drops it onto the ground and takes a step forward. He doesn't realize what he’s done. Water shoots up from the ground in a screaming roar, throwing him up into the air on a torrent of water.

I can hear his screams as the torrent comes back down and Maldive hits the ground of the Shadow Vaile with a wet smack. The vortex blinks out of existence and Maldive lies panting.

His breaths come out in tiny little gasps and his eyes alternate from red back to their original blue every single time he blinks.

As Maldive continues sucking in sharp breaths, his mouth stretches wide.

It can’t stretch any wider.

The ligaments in his jaw interrupt my thoughts with a wet snap. His teeth are pressed out of his gums like M&Ms through wet cake as the thing inside him, the dustkin, crawls out.

It's almost completely solid, only translucent in a few places.

Its sharp, black talons reflect the green light of the Shadow Vaile. Its teeth are bared as it crawls towards me, leaving a long line of smoke that drifts up from the ground in its wake. It reaches out for me, opens its mouth, screams.

I roll over and get up, crawling on hands and knees towards it.

“Let this be a lesson,” I whisper as I glance over at the dustkins surrounding Pixie in the little hovel. “Let this be a lesson to all of you.”

The dustkin that was inside of Maldive reaches out for me, looks like it's preparing itself to pounce, possibly to tear my throat out of my neck.

When it jumps, I catch it. I catch it right around its own neck. It claws in my hand, at my arm.

“You forgot something,” I say, the strength spell still flowing though my hand.

To my left is the giant puddle where the water shot out of. When the dustkin sees this, it starts squirming frantically, trying to get away. I've got a firm grip around its neck, the strength witchstone amplifying my own strength. I clamp down, choking it as I push it into the water.

Black smoke erupts from the water. It's like one of those Army smoke bombs has gone off. The dustkin screams and I see one by one, the dustkin's inside of the hovel begin to disappear. I push harder, submerging the entire thing.

Only when it stops struggling do I relax. I swallow, trying to get my nerves under control.

“Good job,” Silvy says. “You've made an enemy of the brood mother.”

I laugh. “What else is new?”

I glance over at Pixie. She's looking around terrified. I wave her over.

“What is this place?” she asks, her eyes wide. “Where are we?”

I laugh and lie back. “Silvy, take us home.”

A portal opens underneath us and when I next open my eyes I'm on the floor of the Sulis lobby, staring up at the ceiling.

I close my eyes.

“It's good to be home,” I mumble as I pass out.