In order for us to make it out of the alley alive, we're going to have to kill every single person who comes out of Beckeldorff's.

Flashes of the sleepless nights I've had since killing Geist in the Shadow Vaile play on loop in my head. Every night when I close my eyes for bed, I see his face. I see him getting dragged off, and I see Silvy perching atop a pyramid, licking blood from her whiskers.

I swallow. This isn't going to work. We need to get out of the alleyway. We need to escape before the people inside make it to the front door.

I glance over my shoulder.

The alleyway is too long. If we try to escape, they might hit us with a spell from behind, shoot us in the back. If I kill all the people in there, who knows what will happen to me, what will happen to my sanity.

I glance at Cerulea's broken arm.

Outnumbered and with an adept who only has one functioning arm, the odds are stacked against us.

Cerulea and I make eye contact. I make peace with what's to come.

“Are you ready?” I ask.

“Ready?” she asks. “For what?”

“They’re about to come through that door. They're not gonna stay in there and wait for us to leave.”

“Why would we wait for them to come through the door?”

“I like your thinking.” I looked over at her and smile. “Let's kill them all.”

I widen my stance and slip my hand into my pocket, pulling out two witchstones that would make my skin invulnerable from any sort of piercing attack and another that would amp up my speed.

Cerulea reaches over with her good arm and squeezes my wrist. “We're outnumbered.”

“I know.”

“We're outgunned.”

“I know.”

“And your plan is to try to kill them all?”

“Yes.” I take a deep breath and try to relax my shoulders. The fight will be long and painful. It will be worth it though if we made survive. At least, I think it will.

Cerulea slips her hand into her pocket, pulls out a witchstone, and throws it sidearm at the door to Beckeldorff's. The stone shatters and tendrils of green light stretch out from the center.

Shining, green veins of light worm their way across the door and into the wall to either side. The glow fades as someone on the other side rattles the knob. I hear shoulders ram the door, but the door doesn't budge.

“We don't have to fight,” Cerulea says. “My arm is broken. How did you think fighting them was gonna go?”

“Not like this,” I say.

“That's a shame,” Silvy says from my shoulder. “There would've been so much blood. So many different types to taste and feast upon.”

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

Cerulea grows pale. “I hate that thing.”

Silvy disappears from my shoulder and reappears on Cerulea's shoulder.

“You love this thing,” she whispers into Cerulea's ear.

Cerulea jumps, her shoulders spasming.

While Cerulea swipes at her shoulder with her good arm and Silvy keeps disappearing to the opposite shoulder to whisper threats into Cerulea's ear, I stare at the sealed door to Beckeldorff's.

I'd been ready. I'd made peace with myself.

I chew on my lip. They know about Pixie. They know who she is, and now Cerulea's blocked this avenue of questioning from me.

I watch Cerulea and Silvy for a few moments before my eyes grow wide.

“Silvy,” I snap. Both Silvy and Cerulea halt at once. “Can you open a portal into there?”

“Yes,” Silvy hisses. “Yes, let's go back in and kill them all.”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “That's not what I mean. Can you open a portal so that I can stick my head in, preferably in a dark corner of the room, and hear what they're saying?”

Cerulea sneers. “Eavesdrop? How pedestrian.”

“Maybe,” I say, not swayed by her annoyance in the slightest. “But it could work.”

Silvy hops off Cerulea’s shoulder and opens a portal on the wall next to me.

The thing about portals is there's no warning. They just appear when Silvy makes one.

I put my head in the portal and look around, trying to figure out where I am.

Beckeldorff's is upside down. I'm at the center of the room, behind one of the rafters in the ceiling.

There's a group of casters at the front door, trying to open it, using witchstones and other sorts of magick to force it.

It's not budging though.

Renald is standing at the back of the tea room. He's speaking to someone sitting in one of the darkened booths.

I pull my head out of the portal. “Can you move the other side of the portal closer to that booth?”

She slips her head in and nods as she pulls it out. “Done.”

I stick my head back through the portal and look around.

Silvy's placed the portal in one of the darkened booths. From what I can tell, the portal is on the cushion of the booth next to the one containing the person Renald is listening to.

“You simply must do better,” a voice I don't recognize says. The voice is lower pitched, with a slight accent I can't place. It sounds like a person who thought themselves smarter than they truly were.

“I think she's following me,” Renald says. “I don't like to say it, but I think she followed me here.”

“Do you?” the voice asks. “And why would you believe that? Why wouldn't this all just be a coincidence?”

“I tried to get the witchstone for you. I went there, tried to buy it, but she wouldn't sell it to me.”

“You went there.” The man lets the statement hang in the air.

I hear Renald swallow. “Yes. I was trying to—”

Renald's voice chokes off in a gurgle as the other voice interrupts.

“And now you believe that she's following you because you let her know you were interested in the witchstone.”

A wet croaking sound is all that comes from Renald.

“I'm not quite sure what that means, but I'll take it to mean you’re apologizing. You shouldn't have gone there. It was a mistake.”

More wet croaking from Renald.

“Right. Here's what I want you to do. Stay away from that little witch. Stay away from her shop. You've screwed things up enough as is.”

More croaking, only this time a wheeze accompanies it.

The man in the booth chuckles with amusement. “Why, Renald, I think you’re dying. You know the funny thing about dying?”

The wheeze weakens.

“The funny thing about dying is that your blood stays right where it is when you're dead. In fact, you become even easier to use once you're dead.”

There's no noise in response.

Oh god. He's a blood caster or...

I close my eyes, instantly transported back to the Shadow Vaile, back to my battle with Geist.

The voice from the booth continues. “I can take your body, walk you right home, and pay your wife and daughter a nice, sweet visit. Do you think they'd enjoy that?”

There's no response at all from Renald.

“Renald!” The man snaps twice. “Renald, you’re turning blue and embarrassing yourself. I feel as though you’re hardly paying me any attention.”

A sudden blast of coughing and choking erupts. Renald can breathe again apparently.

“Now listen,” the man says when Renald pulls himself together. “We have Pixie and we know where to find Filigree. All we need is the witchstone and it'll be finished.”

“Yes,” Renald wheezes. “I promise you, this time I won't fail.”

“I know you won't,” the man says. “How could you? You won't be involved.”

“Sir?”

“You heard me, you're done. You're finished. You're out.”

“I—”

The other man interrupts again and this time his voice is so much lower. Darker with the promise of things to come. “Walk away.”

I hear Renald swallow again and then I hear his footsteps moving away.

I pull my head out of the portal and Silvy closes it.

So they are the ones who’d kidnapped Pixie…