As Geist and Flin escorted me to the gateway, Silvy disappeared from my line of sight.

We were about two steps from the gateway when it happened.

Behind us, one of the cases fell over. Geist and Flin both jumped.

If I’m honest, I did too.

Silence fell on Geist’s shop.

Geist and Flin both whirled around to face the darkness. Flin's hands traced elaborate shapes in the air as Geist's hands slipped into his pockets. He pulled out several witchstones, putting one of them in his mouth and squeezing the other one tightly in his hand.

Flin finished casting and a huge blue globe, triple the size of the puny orb he’d made when we first entered, flickered to life before him, blue flames kicking off the top of it. It illuminated the entire interior of the shop.

Even the tiny orb of light he cast earlier was a lie… just small enough to mask that Geist was in the shop the entire time.

Flin sent this globe of light towards the center of the room, shining into all of the corners. Silvy sat on top of the case she'd knocked over, licking her paw.

Can they see her?

Geist and Flin glanced at each other in confusion before their eyes returned to scanning the storeroom, giving me my answer.

“What knocked over the case?” Flin asked, his fingers tracing another symbol.

As I watched, convinced my eyes were misleading me, Geist visibly grew wider. His arms grew bigger, straining at his clothing. He spit a completely clear witchstone into his thickening hand and slipped it into his back pocket. I could see veins popping up along his neck towards his head. He’d essentially grown three sizes wider, bristling with muscle and malice.

I traced my tongue around my fang, smiling. All that muscle won’t matter in a second or two.

Silvy yawned and hopped over to another case. She melted down to smoke and slithered to one side it. The smoke pooled there, and the case tipped over, crashing down in plain sight.

Flin finished tracing out the symbol in the air and blasted a green seal in the direction of the case. Silvy faded into smoke and the seal shot right through her body, the smoke dissipating and then coming back together as she solidified into her cat form. She hopped off the case and, as soon as her feet touched the floor of the shop, she melted down to a low bed of smoke. This layer of smoke raced across the floor and circled up Flin's leg and then sat on his shoulder.

“I'm gonna have fun with you,” she whispered into Flin's ear.

Flin jumped and looked to the left, looked at Geist.

Geist stared back at him: what?

“Did you…” Flin started but trailed off.

“Did I what?” Geist asked.

“Did you hear that?”

“No. Hear what?”

“Something just whispered in my ear that they were going to have fun with me.”

Flin and Geist both turned to look at me.

Silvy slithered onto Flin's other shoulder.

“I'm going to take my time with you,” she whispered into his ear. Flin grabbed over his shoulder, his hand passing right through Silvy as Geist looked between Flin and me with confusion.

“What?” Geist asked him. “What’s happening?”

“Something just said that they were going to take their time with me,” Flin answered, his voice beginning to quiver.

“What do they mean?” Geist hissed.

“Who's there?”

“Show yourself.” Geist whirled around, clenching his fist so hard that I heard the witchstone inside it crack open.

He threw it down at the ground and the fragments bounced up to about waist height. The entire room suddenly filled with a green light that illuminated every nook and cranny, but there was an almost hazy look to the light.

It was like the room had been empty before and someone had poured thicker light into the empty vessel, filling it, surrounding us.

It’s like looking through water.

I could see green clouds of smoke pouring out of Geist's nose and mouth. His ears, his eyes. I could see at the far side of the shop two impact craters, brightly lit green with lume from where both the dwarf had sent a spell as well as Flin. I could see trails where the blue orb and globe had passed, one trail much thicker than the other.

A dark shadow formed in one of the corners.

“There!” Geist pointed. “That's it right there. It's…”

The shadow was purple at first, but just like Silvy’s fur, it shifted to blue, then to red, then to a dark green before going back to the purple color.

“It’s changing colors,” Geist said under his breath to Flin. “What sort of magick does that?”

The cloud suddenly popped, twisting into a bright toxic yellow. The shadow no longer looked like smoke but like billowing ink, completely opaque, moving towards Flin and Geist. Geist slipped his hand into his pocket, pulling out another witchstone and Flin started tracing shapes in the air again.

Flin sent another life spell hurtling towards the yellow inkiness, but the yellow simply parted at the center and allowed Flin’s spell to pass through it. The stamp of the spell left a bright splatter of green lume against the back wall.

Geist, holding another witchstone in his hand, slipped it back into his pocket, reconsidering.

“What do we do?” Flin asked, already tracing out the shapes of another symbol to send toward the disembodied Silvy.

“Yes,” Silvy's voice said. “What do you do? When faced with a curse, what do you do?”

Geist took a step back towards the gateway.

“I think we should leave,” he said in a quiet voice to Flin. “I think we need to get the hell outta here.”

“Agreed,” Flin muttered and they both turned to face the gateway.

Geist reached out to pull the doorknob, but the metal melted in his hand and left him screaming as he clutched at it. The yellow cloud hit the ground and spread for a fraction of a second before racing across to spin up in a whirling cyclone that surrounded Geist.

Geist kept screaming, using his undamaged hand to pull out a witchstone from his pocket. He squeezed the witchstone and threw it down. When it hit the ground, the hazy green light filling the shop disappeared, leaving only Flin’s bright blue globe pulsating at the center.

The bright yellow cloud started billowing into itself, shrinking down and collapsing.

Silvy screamed, “Oh no, oh no, they'll see my true form. They’ll see who I truly am!”

Flin and Geist both looked at each other like they were terrified, like they didn't want to know what this creature truly looked like. I watched, horrified in my own way, as Silvy compacted down into her 4-inch cat form. She sat before us, licking at her paw, her eyes glowing.

“What is that?” Geist asked.

Flin glanced at me and then back at Silvy. He nodded; it had finally clicked.

“It's her familiar,” he said.

“From the witchstone?” Geist asked.

“Yeah.” Flin shrugged. “Where did you get that thing?”

Geist glanced down at Silvy, shaking his head. “From her father,” he spat.

My father gave Geist the witchstone that cursed me? Why? For what purpose?

“Well, what are we supposed to do with it?” Flin asked. He kept glancing back at the gateway’s melted doorknob and then his eyes jumped to his father's hand.

The skin of Geist's hand had completely burned to black in places. I could see reddish bone in other spots.

Geist didn't seem to feel it, didn't seem to even notice.

“We’re supposed to be scared of you?” Geist asked Silvy. “A kitten?”

“A kitten?” Silvy scoffed. “Really?”

“I mean,” Flin said, glancing at me and then back to Silvy. “You look more like a rat with a striped tail than anything else. What's with the stripes?”

Silvy frowned and I started laughing.

“What?” Flin asked me, no longer scared of the familiar, not understanding how fragile the ground he now tread on had become. “What's funny?”

“It's just…” I broke into a fit of giggles. “Of all… of all the things you… you could've said… that was probably… probably the worst?”

I sat down, laughing, pulling my parka tighter around me, trying to get warm.

I was freezing, but I knew what was coming up. I knew I was going to feel beautiful warmth soon.

“A rat?” Geist asked. “The worst thing we could have done is call your scrawny, stripe-tailed kitten a rat?”

“No,” I said through the tears streaming down my face. “You talked about her tail. You ridiculous bastard. You made fun of her tail.”

“I don't understand,” Flin said, mirroring his father’s confusion. “Why are you laughing that we pointed out her ugly tai—”

What happened next happened so fast it took my breath away.

Silvy disappeared entirely only to reappear on Flin’s shoulder. Her striped tail twitched right underneath his chin. The sharp arrowhead tip of the tail shot up through the underside of his chin spearing his tongue to the roof of his mouth. Silvy ripped her tail back down, through the tissue and muscle and skin. Silvy stared up at Flin with big, glowing, innocent eyes as she licked the blood from the tip of her tail.

He tried to talk, but none of his words came out right. Instead he coughed out thick and bloody foam as his fingers examined the underside of his chin. He gaped at the blood on his fingertips. He tried to speak again but couldn’t get his tongue to work.

Geist glanced at his son and then at me. “Was that it? Was that the big finale?”

I shrugged and cinched down my hood. I wanted it to be tight when it happened.

“And why are you huddling in that parka like you’re cold, like you're going somewhere.”

“Oh,” I said with a laugh. “We’re all going somewhere.” I raised an eyebrow. “Some of us are even coming back. Not you two, though.”

Silvy floated over to my shoulder and sat. I watched and waited as Flin, holding his chin with one hand, reached his other hand out for me.

Geist did the same and as they did so, Silvy said, “Your shoes are untied.”

Both of them paused to look down and then looked back up.

Geist laughed. “You really thought you'd get us with that?”

“Oh,” Silvy said in a flat, quiet voice. A low growl reverberated through it. “I've got jokes now? You want to hear another joke?”

“Yeah,” Geist said. “And after you tell it, before you get to the punchline, maybe we’ll just skip the inquisition and kill both of you.”

“What did the two casters say when they stepped into the familiar portal to the Shadow Vaile?”

Geist glanced over at Flin who was staring down at our feet. Geist glanced down at his own as a black hole yawned wide below us in an instant.

Then we were falling through the familiar portal into the Shadow Vaile.

I screamed laughter as the two casters going along for the ride simply screamed.