Cerulea pipes up from behind. “You still haven't told me where we're going. It might do to let your Austerium escort know.”

“You'll find out. Don't worry about it.”

You'll find out just as soon as I find out.

As I think more about Kiora, my surprise and joy at seeing her slowly turns to anger at Cerulea. Had Cerulea let me sleep in even 30 minutes longer, we probably would've been in C&C during Kiora's shift.

I could go back in there…

If I go back in there though, Cerulea will surely know something's up. What would I even do once inside? Order another drink? I need to go away for a little and then circle back. The only problem is I need to find something that's quick so I can make it back before the end of Kiora's shift.

I could go to Bristlebloom and search for other witches, but if I do that, I'll have to out the student. A prompt execution sponsored by the Austerium would follow.

Alternatively, I could go to Beckeldorff's. I could ask around about Pixie (and Filigree), but lie to Cerulea and say I'm looking into the witch's death.

Hex, how dare you…

A caster yelling into lumadex almost runs directly into me as I come to a halt.

“Watch where you're going,” the caster says with a dirty look as he moves past.

“Why did you stop?” Cerulea asks.

“What was her name?” I ask.

“Who?” Cerulea asks.

I swallow. “The student at Bristlebloom. The witch. What was her name?”

Cerulea shrugs. “I haven't the slightest. Why does it matter?”

I nod.

Why would it matter? To the Austerium, the best type of witch is a dead one.

“I want it,” I say.

“You want what...” Cerulea raises an eyebrow.

“Her name.”

Cerulea choose on her lip for half a second, looking me up and down, deciding if this fight is worth it.

“Fine.” She sighs. “You'll have it. Not now, obviously, but later.”

“When?”

She rolls her eyes. “By the end of the day. Can we get on with our business? Where are we going?”

“Somewhere you're not welcome. Somewhere you’ve never been.”

Cerulea looks nervous then, but the nervousness fades into assured smugness.

“Really?” she asks. “You don’t know how travelled I am. Don't embarrass yourself.”

Silvy whispers from my shoulder, “I could always drop her in the Shadow Vaile.” Cerulea licks her lips and her eyes dart around as she hears Silvy speak. “I bet she's never been there before.”

It's my turn to raise an eyebrow. “Have you ever been to the Shadow Vaile, Cerulea? I wouldn’t want to embarrass myself after all.”

Cerulea swallows. “No. And I don't believe you have either.”

Silvy giggles and I smile at Cerulea. “Don't tempt me, adept.”

I spit the last word like she and so many others like her spit out the word witch.

Cerulea's eyes narrow, her chin lifts, and she turns away from me. “Anytime you feel like telling me where we’re going, I'd be grateful. This is growing tiresome and time is running out. You wouldn't want another dead witch on your conscience.”

“You mean like the dead witch whose name we still don't know?”

Before Cerulea can respond, I turn away from her and move towards a bank of gateways.

“You'll need me to go through those,” Cerulea calls from behind.

“Yeah. I'm counting on it. After that I won't need you to get where I'm going though.”

“And where is it we’re going? Nightsbridge? Do you really believe that you have a hot lead in stick town?”

“You'll see…”

* * *

In Nightsbridge, we make our way to a back alley.

In roughly the center of this alley is a door, just a regular gray, metal door, on the back of the building. The only thing that marks it in any sort of way is a tiny dot at the upper right-hand corner.

A red dot.

“Where are we?” Cerulea asks. “Where is that door supposed to take us?”

I smile at her. “Where's your sense of adventure?”

“Adventure is for children.”

“I agree, darling,” Silvy responds.

I open the door and step through, the cool darkness inside enveloping me at once.

Directly ahead is a steep staircase. The door closes behind us and darkness covers us.

Cerulea snaps her fingers several times, each time letting out an angry grunt.

“What is this place?” she asks.

“Problem with your magick?” I asked.

“Where have you taken me?”

“Nowhere yet.”

“I just want to create a light. Why can't I?”

“Where we are is warded. Don't worry about it.”

“But I can't see anything,” Cerulea complains.

“Stay close then.”

We descend in the darkness for what feels like several minutes.

Near the bottom of the staircase is a hollow step that makes a strange echoing sound. It's a warning that you're at the end of the staircase.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Grab a hold of my parka,” I say over my shoulder to Cerulea. “If you get lost in here, you get lost forever.”

I don't really know if that's true, but it will probably wipe some of the smugness off Cerulea's face. For at least a couple of seconds.

Cerulea complies, and I imagine her as a little child, holding onto the jacket of her parent.

I step forward five steps, turn to the right and move three steps in that direction. Then I turn to my left and take an additional five steps. I reach for the doorknob and pull open one of the few gateways I can operate.

A red glow spills onto the platform Cerulea and I stand on. She looks over to either side, there's a sheer drop.

“What is this?” Cerulea asks, concern in her voice as she turns her attention to the open gateway.

“I told you,” I say. “You'll see.”

I step through the gateway, holding it open for her. She enters and the gateway closes. Before us, in the red light, is a massive underground street studded with tall arches. This street extends far into the distance. Dotting the street are stands and carts, haphazardly placed as if they are nothing more than building blocks tossed across the floor by an angry child.

There's no order to it.

In the night market, there are cries of stand owners, barkers calling for you to come forward and purchase their wares.

The Red Market hums.

Down here the stand owners whisper, never quite sure who they might be speaking to.

Cerulea swallows. “Is this where I think it is?”

I pulled the hood of my parka a bit tighter around my horns. “Yeah.”

“We thought the Red Market was somewhere in Anara. We never thought for a moment it would be located in the stick world.”

I look at her and laugh. “It's not.”

Cerulea shoots a glance back at the doorway we'd gone through. “That was a gateway?”

I nod.

“An official Austerium gateway?”

“Not all gateways are owned by the Austerium.”

“That's illegal.”

I shrug. “Welcome to the Red Market.”

“I'm in the Red Market,” Cerulea repeats in a low voice. “The Austerium is going to have a field day with this place when I get finished.”

I laugh. “That gateway isn’t gonna be there the next time you go looking for it.”

“How did you know it would be there?”

I smile at her. “You have to be invited to the Red Market. Once the invitation has been extended, you can come and go at will. You, and the rest of the Austerium, aren't invited. I am.”

“Then you could let us in. You could invite us in.”

Silvy giggles. “Darling, you're embarrassing yourself. Best to quit while you're ahead.”

Cerulea opens her mouth to say something else, but closes it instead. We make our way through the Red Market, moving between carts, being given sideways glances by the cart owners. Thankfully, Cerulea isn't dressed in official adept robes. She's wearing a simple cloak, nothing that will give her away.

About halfway down the street I turn left and enter an even darker alleyway. We walk in the dark for a few moments before finding ourselves standing before the place I've come to visit.

The sign above the entrance reads Beckeldorff's Tea Room.

“Enter at your own risk,” Cerulea says, reading the tinier sign out loud. “Witches, sticks, and adepts will be executed on sight, on site.”

I shrug.

“So what is it we’re here for exactly?” Cerulea asks. “What do you hope to gain from this… tea room…”

“That's what I'm gonna find out. Everyone that knows anything about dark goings-on comes here. This is the central hub of it all.”

“It’s 7 AM though. No one will be here.”

I look at her. “You don't get it. This is when Beckeldorff's is busiest.”

“At 7 AM? Are you serious?”

I roll my eyes at Cerulea. “When do most bad things happen?”

“Late at night. What does that have to do with this though?”

“Where do you think all the people doing the bad things go to blow off steam after they’re finished with their work?”

Cerulea's mouth falls open. She looks at the tea room with a newfound respect. “Well… I guess that makes sense.”

“Right,” I say. “Follow me. Don't stand out. Don't say anything about the Austerium, and for the love of all that is holy—”

The door to the tea room slams open and I grab it. A man stumbles out, putting his shoulder into me as he goes. I let it roll off of me and wait for him to keep moving.

When he passes, Cerulea leans in. “For the love of all that is holy what?”

This will be fun…

I shrug and enter Beckeldorff's Tea Room.

While the Red Market is only lit with dim red light, Beckeldorff's is slightly brighter and lit with yellow light. The light makes everyone in the place look like their kidney's failed decades ago.

Beat up tables are scattered about, none too close to any of the others. In the back of the room, cloaked in darkness, are several booths. I'm not sure if it's magick, but none of the light in Beckeldorff's hits those booths and only patrons who've earned the right to use them ever dare approach them.

Beckeldorff's may be called a tea room, but they only sell alcohol.

Alcohol laced with magick.

A circular bar slumps in the center of the room. If you're not paying enough attention, your drink will slide right off the edge of the bar.

I step up to the bar and glance over at sign hanging from a black chain. The sign announces the house special.

“Three voidmakers,” I order. The bartender grunts at me and sets up three shot glasses. He grabs a dusty, brown bottle, pulls a rotting cork from its mouth, and pours liquid into the glasses. Black specks dapple the clear liquid.

I've never seen anyone order anything other than a voidmaker and I'm not about to make the mistake of being the first.

The bartender re-corks the bottle and grabs a tiny blue vial the size of his pinky. Using a dropper, he allows a single pearl of oily liquid to fall into each of the shot glasses. When the pearl hits what's already in the shot glass, it reacts, turning bright green and frothing almost over the edge. Once the foam recedes, the bartender pulls out three mugs and pours one shot into each mug.

He then pulls out three circular balls the size of marbles. He drops them into the mugs and they clink when they hit the bottom. I know, from experience, that when you get to the bottom of your drink, there's nothing there. No marble.

The green liquid turns crimson and lifts until it makes it just to the lip of the mug. Once the bartender finishes, he points at a witchstone that's recessed into the top of the bar.

I swipe my fingertips across it, wait, and when it turns green, he nods at me.

I hand a mug to Cerulea, place another mug in front of myself, and push the third mug to the left. Silvy hops down and before either Cerulea or I have time to bring our mugs to our lips, Silvy's is gone.

The bartender, used to seeing strange things, grunts in response, picking up the empty and setting it aside to be cleaned.

Silvy sighs contentedly as I sip from my mug.

“You know,” she says, “blood is delicious, but these do approach the throne.”

Cerulea takes a tentative sip, and once the first bit is in her mouth, her eyes widen. “I don't… I've never…”

“Relax,” I say under my breath.

The initial rush whenever you first try a voidmaker is a high unlike anything else. It's like being stimulated to the point beyond stimulation while also feeling like your muscles are drooping relaxed all the way down to the ground and through the floorboards.

“It's fine,” I say. “It’ll ease up in about five seconds. Just relax.”

I see her finally relax and look around Beckeldorff's.

“Is the bartender Beckeldorff?” she asks when she can finally find words.

“The bartender?” I ask. “No. I don't know who Beckeldorff is. The bartender is always here, but everyone else in here, I don't recognize.”

Cerulea looks like she wants to say more but doesn't say anything.

Smart girl.

I gesture at the table near the back of the room. “Why don't you go sit down over there. I'll be over in a second. Stay away from the booths.”

Cerulea nods, gets up from the bar, and wobbles her way over to the table. She does an admirable job. The first time I tried a voidmaker, I almost fell on my ass.

I swallow and look at the bartender. “I've got a question.”

He glances at me and then around the room.

“Probably don't have an answer,” he grumbles.

“Probably not. But here's the thing, I think you do.”

His eyes drift up from the bar and lock onto mine. Having eavesdropped on a lot of conversations in that tea room, I know a lot of the people in Beckeldorff's only respond if the person talking to them is worth responding to.

“Ask your question,” he says.

“Thursday night,” I say. “Did you see a stick girl in here?”

The bartender laughs. “You read the sign?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I did.”

We stare at each other for a long time before he finally shakes his head. “No. No stick girl. No executions.”

“Okay,” I say. “What about a person named Pixie? Maybe a caster name Pixie?”

The bartender's eyes flick to the right, over my shoulder, and then back to me.

“Never heard of no one named Pixie.”

Silvy purrs in my ear, “I think he was looking at a booth in the back. Interesting.”

“What does Filigree mean to you?”

His eyes get really big then and he stares over my shoulder.

“He’s looking at that booth again,” Silvy whispers. “Someone's coming out. Someone's approaching.”

I turn and look at the cloaked figure making its way through the room. The people at the tables the cloaked figure passes hunch down, doing everything but cowering away from the figure.

I glance over at Cerulea, but she isn't paying attention. She's staring at her mug, tasting tiny little sips with large eyes.

Perfect. She's so helpful. Love the Austerium.

The cloaked figure takes a seat next to me and looks at the bartender.

“We have a problem, Clive?” the man asks and I recognize the voice. I'm not sure who it belongs to, but I've heard it before. “Is this gutter rat giving you problems?”

The bartender swallows, shakes his head no, and walks away.

Gutter rat... Where have I heard that before?

I turn on my barstool to face the cloaked figure.

Don't do this, Hex. This is such a bad idea.

“So,” I say, “have you ever heard the name Pixie?”

Stop while you’re still alive.

The cloaked figure doesn't move.

“What about Filigree?”

The cloaked figure’s shoulders shift and he turns to face me.

Gutter rat. Renald.

Renald smiles and raises his voice to say, “Beckeldorff's patrons. There is a witch in our presence. I believe it's time for an execution.”