I told him everything, the entire ridiculous thing. From the beginning to the end. I told him about my father. I told him about Blackhart. I told him about the witchstone, and what I'd become. I told him about Silvy.

At the end of it, he stared at me for a long time before he finally said, “I think something might be wrong with you, Hex. I can arrange for you to meet a doctor. Would you like that?”

I pulled back my hood. I saw his eyes move up to my head, examining my skull for horns, but I knew he couldn't see them. I knew the fact that he couldn't see anything was encouraging his faulty belief that I wasn’t a half-witch.

I gave him a soft, gentle smile, took his hands in mine, and placed them on my horns. His jaw slowly dropped as his fingertips ran over the horns which he could feel but couldn't see.

“Careful,” I said with a sharp click of my tongue. “They’re sharp.”

“They’re—” He sucked in a quick gasp and stared at his finger. On the tip was a tiny cut, nothing more than a paper cut compared to the gash I'd given myself earlier, but it was there. He now had physical evidence that my horns were real. He couldn't deny that.

“Is that why you're wearing that parka? Those leggings?” He swallowed. “Because you’re cold?”

I nodded.

“So… you're a witch.” He licked his lips, and I could see the nervous energy radiating from him. “You can eat magick.”

“I can't eat magick.”

“But—”

“Silvy explained it all,” I said, cutting him off. “Silvy, tell him.”

Silvy, sitting between us on the carpet, off to the side, licked absently at her paw. “I'm good.”

“She doesn't want to talk to you.” I sighed and looked back at him. “She's being bitchy.”

“Bitchy?” Silvy slowly walked over to Flin, to where he was holding his hands in his lap. Before I could stop her, before I could say no, she licked his finger. Only she didn’t just lick his finger. She licked the place where two seconds earlier I had seen tiny little beads of blood. Flin pulled his hand back as though he'd felt something but wasn't sure exactly what.

“It was her,” I said. “She just licked your cut.”

I didn't tell Flin what she'd really been doing. I didn't tell him that she had finally achieved a goal: she’d finally tasted his blood.

Silvy slowly floated in the air and turned over onto her back, her feet kicking up and her striped tail swishing back and forth.

“He tastes like a liar,” she said.

I rolled my eyes at her. “Anyways, she doesn't want you to see her right now, I guess. But you felt her, she's there.”

Flin chewed on his lip. Unable to disagree with the cut on his finger, but also unable to fully believe something he couldn't see.

He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. I waited as he did this several more times, apparently unable to come to a decision as to what he wanted to say.

He chewed on his lip for another second longer and then blurted out, “You know, they say that witches, even when they're not actively trying to eat magick, that they drain the magick of those they’re around.”

I took a deep breath and let it out. “Look, I’m a complete stick minus the horns and the familiar.”

I avoided telling him that I could exist in the Shadow Vaile, because I didn't want to blow his mind any more than it already was. I couldn’t have him distracted from what I needed him to do.

“How can you know for sure?” he asked.

“I can't,” I said. “I can only trust the familiar that will be with me for the rest of my life. However long that happens to be.”

“So…” Flin said, thinking. “Will you live for hundreds of years now?”

I glanced at Silvy who stared back at me. “Well?”

“Well what?” Flin asked me back.

“I'm asking Silvy. Just a second,” I told Flin. “So? Am I gonna live for hundreds of years?”

Silvy gave me a faint smile and shrugged. “You’d have to see a scryer. I'm not that.”

I looked over at Flin. “She says I’d have to see a scryer.”

Flin nodded as though this made complete sense.

“Well, you can use witchstones now,” he said, and then frowned. “Or maybe you can't. Witches can use witchstones without having any adverse effect on their lifespan, but seeing as you don't have the witch power, it’s…”

“I know, right?” I asked. “It's kind of a mind screw. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. What I can do and what I can't.”

Flin let out a bark of a laugh. “You’re a new species, Hex.”

I didn't think it was that funny, but I gave him a smile anyways. He was right. I didn't like that he was right, but he was. I was a new species, a new sort of being. A half-witch.

Frowning, I wondered if there had ever been another half-witch in the history of the magick world. If so, maybe I wasn’t as novel as I thought.

“So, if you're saying that I’m a new species, there haven't ever been any other half-witches in magickal history?”

Flin shook his head. “Not that I know of. Then again, my expertise isn’t magickal zoology.”

Magickal zoology… Just the sound of those two words opened a world of horrors and delights that I wasn't sure I wanted any part of. There were plenty of scary animals in the stick world. I didn't want to think about any scary magickal creatures and what they might be capable of.

I swallowed. I qualify as one of those magickal creatures.

I choked out a laugh. “They’ll put me in a zoo.”

“Zoo?” Flin asked with a frown. “The Austerium doesn't use zoos. There are special shards dedicated to—”

I was staring at him with my eyebrow raised.

“Right,” he said, catching on. “They're not gonna send you to a shard. They wouldn't do that.”

I laughed. “They would, but they're not going to get the chance. Listen. I need your help.”

“With?”

I took a deep breath. “We need to clear some things up first.”

“Like?”

“Do you believe me? Do you believe what I've told you?”

“I mean… yeah.” He glanced down at the cut on his finger. “I kind of have to, don't I?”

“No. You don't have to. That's why I'm asking.”

“I mean… you have the horns, I guess you have the familiar. I don't know what else there is.”

“You don't know what else there is,” I said. “So, let me tell you: Geist scammed me.”

“You told me that, but I still don't understand why. You said that he scammed you to get inside of Blackhart. But why would he destroy it?”

“I don't know.”

“And you said that he had you deliver witchstones to the shop right down the street that was also destroyed in the same way. Are you saying he had something to do with that as well?”

“I don't know. All I know is that he had something to do with Blackhart being destroyed.”

“You can't know that. What if some outside force attacked both of those shops?”

“It’s possible I guess.”

He frowned. “I just don't understand why you're so convinced that it was Geist who destroyed Blackhart.”

“Because he told Lebec that I scammed him. The very fact that he lied about what happened once I gave him access to my shop means that he has to be lying about so much more. He wanted access to Blackhart so he could destroy it.”

Flin shrugged. “I still don't think one means that the other occurred, but I understand how you could reach that conclusion.”

I shook my head.

“I think the real question,” Silvy said, stretching on the carpet, “is whether or not Flin is being willfully stupid, or if it's just natural.”

I sighed.

“Okay,” I said, shaking my head and trying to sort through things. “So, are you willing to find out if Geist's lying? Are you open to the possibility that he’s lying and that he’s the one that destroyed Blackhart?”

“Yes,” Flin said without any hesitation. “I'm open to that.”

I started to speak again, but Flin cut me off.

“You know,” he said in a low voice. “The way Lebec talked about what Geist told him made it seem as though Geist had said quite a bit more. Lebec made it seem as though he was only giving us the surface story.”

I nodded, waiting for him to continue. I didn't know where he was going or what he was getting at, but I hoped it would be in my favor. Whatever it was.

“You know,” he said again with a nod of his head. “I think you may be right. Why would Geist go through all this trouble? Why would Geist lie to Lebec, to the Austerium, to everyone about—and I'm sorry for saying this—about a stick like you.”

I shrugged. “Exactly. I'm no one, except when it comes to one thing.”

“Blackhart,” Flin said.

“Blackhart,” I agreed.

“Okay,” Flin said as he wrapped his mind around what I was saying. “Okay, I think I can help you.”

“Will you help me?”

“Yes,” he said. “I'll help.” He stared up at the ceiling for a long time before he looked down at me. “What can I do?”

I pulled my hood back up over my head and smiled at him from the darkness within.