Stupid stick girl. What was she thinking?

I'd only ever been in there when hiding my horns and couldn't even fathom a girl with no powers at all walking in.

I, at least, have a warded parka. I have witchstones at my disposable.

What did she have?

The fan continues to spin in slow circles.

How did she even find out about Beckeldorff's? How did she make it into Anara, especially the darker and unregulated part? She might be dead already. Or worse.

I've heard rumors of people in Anara buying and selling sticks to test out witchstones on. It's an easy way to see the effects of a witchstone while only using a fraction of its power. The stick dies before the power of the witchstone expels.

Sticks are also a good way to get rid of curses on a stone. Curses usually target the first user, leaving the true spell on the other side. Use a stick to take care of a curse and you essentially have a clean witchstone with which to cast a spell.

I push this away and shift my mind to the morning.

What should I do first? I could go to Beckeldorff's and gamble with my life. I’d been several times in the past but had kept my hood tight around my horns and not spoken to anyone besides the bartender.

I could also go to C&C, to see if that witch I’d seen exactly one time two years ago still worked there.

Maybe she knows the girl who died in the dorm?

Either way, having Cerulea around would severely cramp my options. I couldn't tell her that I was trying to see a witch at C&C because she would report that to the Austerium. A witch execution would follow shortly.

I couldn't take Cerulea to Beckeldorff's though. That would be like taking a cop to a drug dealer convention

Every adept I've ever seen in the Red Market was met with an immediate show of force.

The bodies of the adepts were left out in the streets for days afterwards. The smell of death runs deep in the Red Market.

The only thing I have to go on is that the witch in Bristlebloom is dead and Pixie might still be alive.

This decides it.

***

I wake up the next morning to the sound of banging at my front door. I sit up, a light sleeper, already wide awake. My eyes search the vast emptiness of the theatre for a threat. Finding nothing immediate, I relax a little and get out of bed.

“Who is that?” Silvy purrs, still curled up on the bed, where I wished I was.

I mumble, “No clue. I'm not at the door.”

“Yes,” Silvy agrees, “but maybe you should be.”

“Maybe they'll just—”

More bangs from the front door kill the rest of my sentence.

“Maybe they'll just keep knocking,” I finish. I head out of my bedroom to the second floor of the front lobby. Once I'm downstairs, I find myself staring through the peephole at Cerulea.

Sighing, I open the door. “What time is it?”

She brushes past me and enters Sulis. “5:45. Good morning. I told you I would see you soon. Are you ready to get started?”

“I can't even think right now. I'm not ready to get started on anything.”

“Yes, well, maybe you should figure that out. I brought you breakfast. So we can save time.”

I glare at her, my mind flipping through excuses to give her. “No coffee?”

“Coffee? What does that have to do with finding a witch?”

“Specifically? Nothing, but if I'm going to function properly, I'm going to need a coffee.”

Cerulea shrugs. “Which coffee place did you want to go to? There are a couple I enjoy. What about Ca-Coffee-Ne?”

“No. We’re going to C&C.”

Cerulea raises an eyebrow. “That hole in the wall? Must we?”

“We must. Why don't you go ahead and eat the food you brought. I'm gonna take a shower and throw on some clothes.”

Cerulea eyes me up and down. “You mean you're not going to go out naked like that?”

Shit.

I glance down at my lack of clothing. “Uh, no,” I say. “I don't feel like bathing in the blood of my enemies today.”

Cerulea raises an eyebrow at that, and I don't bother explaining. Not that I have an explanation. I'm sleep deprived and not making any sense.

After I shower and get ready, I come back down to see Cerulea finishing off the breakfast she brought for me. She's sitting and staring at a snail slowly making its way across the table top.

“You have bugs,” Cerulea says.

I glance at the snail then back at her. “That's Ivy. She used to be a slug, but now she's a snail. Don't ask. We don’t have time for that story.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Does Ivy speak to you? In your head?”

I glare at Cerulea. “No. She speaks to me when she goes into her enchanted crystal and the crystal glows.”

Cerulea nods as if I've said the most ridiculous thing in the world. “Right. Sure. I totally believe you.”

The snail slows its pace for half a second, turns to look at Cerulea, and then keeps moving.

“I swear… that snail just shook its head at me.”

I shrug. “Wait till you hear her talk.”

Cerulea dabs at the corners of her mouth with a napkin. “What are we doing first?”

“Coffee,” I say.

“Wonderful,” she says. “To Ca-Coffee-Ne.”

“C&C you mean.”

She makes a disgusted noise at that. “Why? That place is a dive.”

I shrug. “Maybe, but the drinks are good.”

Cerulea sighs and then shrugs. “If you say so. Do you have a gateway?”

She's asking if I have a gateway into the night market. I don't want to tell her about the gateway in Sulis that leads into the back of Blackhart. Every adept who's visited me during my two-year exile has inquired about how I make it to Blackhart. I refuse to tell them, because I am afraid they're gonna start making me pay for that gateway.

The Austerium has so many gateways and so much bureaucracy that they've forgotten about quite a few of them.

There's no way in hell I'm gonna tell Cerulea the truth.

“I don't have a gateway,” I lie. “Do you?”

“Yes,” she says. “Of course. Let's go.”

I lock up Sulis and we head out into the early morning. We make our way down Main Street and then she hangs a left onto Mockingbird. She hangs another left into a back alley and pulls on what looks like the delivery door for a dry cleaning shop.

Inside, faintly glowing, are candles arranged in a circle. The room is small and there are four doors, not including the one behind us. She picks the second door, twists the handle, and pulls it open.

On the other side of the open gateway, the night market bustles with energy. The night market never shuts down. It's terminally this busy.

Around us, commerce thrives as cart owners shout their wares to the market goers. Money changes hands. Magick, power, curses. All of it for sale… if you can afford it.

The witch barista might be working. She won’t be expecting me to show up with an adept. I’m bringing a direct threat to her life and she has no idea.

The sign for Coffee and Content is in sight.

There has to be a way I can speak to her without alerting Cerulea. Maybe I can make eye contact with her, head to the bathroom, and wink at her as I go. Might end up with more than I’m looking for, but maybe it will get the message across.

Once through the door of C&C, I can tell that she isn't there. There are several baristas behind the counter, none of whom are witches.

“Here we are,” Cerulea says. “What a little pit of ugliness. Do hurry.”

She takes a seat, looking none too pleased at the arrangement. At the counter I look over the menu, wishing I knew the name of the drink the barista had made me before, the last time I'd been in here. It's the only thing, besides being in the Shadow Vaile, that has warmed me even the slightest.

“What can I get for you?” a barista asks.

I smile at her and shrug. “I don't know.”

No witch barista here. No way to find her. Just my luck…

I walked back to Cerulea and take a seat across from her.

Cerulea raises an eyebrow. “You didn't get anything.”

“What?” I look down at the table between us. It's empty.

“Oh,” I say, scrambling. “Yeah, I was trying to think of what I wanted. You know, couldn't decide.”

“I don’t know.”

All I can do is shrug.

Cerulea’s upper lip curls back. “So you needed to sit down to make up your mind? You couldn't just do it up there at the counter?”

“You know how us sticks are.”

Silvy appears at the center of the empty table. “I don't think she's buying it. I wouldn't buy it.”

“Shut up.”

“What?” Cerulea asks.

“Nothing.”

We sit in silence for several moments before Cerulea breaks it. “Well? What are you getting? We have a job to take care of.”

“I'm thinking.” I am thinking but not about what I'm going to order.

How do I ask the barista if she knows someone I met one time two years ago?

“Well?” Cerulea glances at her watch. “I don't understand what the issue is. Why don't you just buy two different things, take a sip of each, and then throw one away?”

“Some of us aren’t made of money like you,” I snap.

Time is ticking. Someone could’ve already been killed in the time it’s taking you to sort out how to ask a question.

“Then I'll pay,” Cerulea says. “This really is a waste of time.”

Oh my God, my social failures are going to get someone in Nightsbridge killed. Time. Is. Ticking.

“This is ridiculous,” Cerulea mutters. “I cannot believe that Lebec stuck me with you. How useless.”

I stand up, not really knowing what I'm going to do next, just knowing that I have to do something. My stomach buzzes. My head spins. The pressure. Everyone is counting on me.

I turn away from Cerulea and walk back up to the counter.

Improvisation. No plan, just hope it works out.

“You’re back,” the barista says. “Wasn't sure if you were going to order anything the way you just walked off like that.”

“Sorry,” I say, chewing my lip. “There were just so many choices. It was hard to decide. So, I decided…” My eyes scan the menu, trying to pick a single thing, not knowing what any of the drinks were. “I decided…”

The barista's eyebrows lift in expectation.

“I decided to try whatever you suggest. You pick a drink, and I'll drink it. I haven't had a lot of these things, so that makes the most sense.”

The explanation sounds cardboard, structurally empty, but if the barista realizes it, she doesn't let on. She just shrugs and starts tapping on the panel in front of her.

“Have all of you in here worked here for a long time?”

Silvy giggles from my shoulder. “Fantastically smooth, darling. I really think you nailed down your meaning with that one. Such a good question.”

“Uh,” the barista answers as she works on my drink. “Sort of? Turnover is kind of high. It's a coffee shop.”

I lean an elbow on the counter.

“No,” I say. “It's a coffee and content shop.”

I expect a laugh of some sort. The barista looks at me like I've just killed her cat. Silvy looks at me like she wants to die. I feel the same way.

I clear my throat and try a different approach. “So, this one time, I was in here and this barista made me a drink that wasn’t on the menu.”

I describe the witch barista, omitting the whole horns thing, and only get a blank stare in response.

“I've only worked here for two months,” the barista says. “I have no idea.”

“Right. Of course not.”

The barista puts the drink on the counter in front of me.

In the glass is what looks like shimmery purple nail polish dotted with lime colored beads.

I pay the barista who keeps glancing at me when she thinks I'm not paying attention.

“Oh look,” Cerulea says when I return holding my drink. “The witch decides to return. What did you order?”

I shrug.

“You spoke to that barista for so long I figured you'd at least know what you ordered.”

“No,” I say, “I had her pick the drink. I figure she works here, she knows what's best.”

Cerulea rolls her eyes. “And that's why you'll never know what to order. That's why every other time you come in here it'll take just as long.”

I glance back at the counter, trying to will the witch barista into being.

The barista who just took my order stares back at me.

“Well…” Cerulea pulls out a small flat pane of glass and taps it several times.

“What is that?”

“It’s a lumadex,” she says with a shrug. “I thought you’d been to Anara before?”

“I have, but I've never seen a lumadex that small.”

“Okay,” she says. “Just drink your drink.”

I take a sip of it and him surprised to find that even though it looks like nail polish and glass, it actually tastes nice. Something like currant, with an earthy herb underbelly. Sage maybe? It's strange but filling.

When I finish, I say, “We can go now.”

Cerulea stands and we leave our table.

At the front door to C&C, I freeze.

Standing on the other side of the glass door is the witch barista. There's a name tag on her apron.

Kiora. Her name is Kiora.

Kiora's eyes open wide when she sees who's walking behind me. She looks like she's trapped, caught. I shake my head ever so slightly and open the door.

“Excuse me,” I say as I brush past her and into the night market with Cerulea.

She still works there. She still works there and her name is Kiora. I know who to ask for now.