*Quin*

Using the artifacts Alex gave me, I was able to run back to the others without any real problems. She'd taught me invisibility well enough. Still, the feeling of her magic coursing though my veins was enough to keep my cheeks wet.

Explaining to Heather, Michael, and Jacin what had happened was one train wreck.

Explaining it to the refugees she'd last freed was another.

Explaining it to Niquie and Wynnie was like unleashing hell on earth.

Surprisingly, it was Niquie who jumped across the counter, puffy eyes and all, and smashed a bottle of vodka over my head. And I let her. God, I let her because I deserved it. Wynnie and Jacin both had to pull her off me.

Wynnie, eyes red and dark, hair now black, dragged her girlfriend away.

After a few minutes of awkward silence, Heather had left, eyes puffy and voice cracking, explaining that she needed to see a friend. I didn't question her.

Jacin and Michael went next, leaving me in the silent Black Hat to wallow in my own tears.

*Heather*

I ran. I ran and I ran and I ran and I ran.

I ran until I was standing at the only familiar door in this entire damned city that reminded me so much of her.

"Hello?" A man said, peeking out. No, not a man, a boy. He looked no older than eighteen. "Miss, um, are you okay?"

I shook my head. "Is Mary here?"

"Um, yeah just-just hold on a second, okay?" He turned back into the small apartment. "Mom! You need to come here. Like now."

I could hear footsteps coming from the back of the apartment. "Daniel? What's... Heather?"

She sat me down on the couch, ushering her son, Daniel, into the back.

Finally, she dropped down next to me.

"What's wrong, sweet heart?"

I couldn't talk. My brain didn't work properly and my mouth couldn't do anything but cry and yell.

My mother, she would've yelled at me. Called me weak. Mary wrapped her thin arms around me. Her hands landed on my back where they gently held me.

"My friend," I finally managed. "My stupid and genius friend who-who was so brave and selfless. She went and did something stupid and brave and genius and selfless and-and she went somewhere we can't help her."

Mary let out a little hum of acknowledgement.

"She's gonna die."

The woman who I wish more than anything was my mother crushed me against her.

And I cried like the eight year old Heather who got smacked with the recoil of her first gun.

I hadn't known what it was like before to loose someone you truly cared about. Not like this. When my Dad hated me, that was one thing. I was ready for it because I knew it was coming. I'd always felt like there was something missing there.

But Hecate? She was everything that was missing. At first, I hated her. I hated her because she was perfect and because she was magic and I didn't get that. But then... she was Hecate. She went out of her way for others, even when she was hurt and she was so human and perfectly imperfect that I couldn't help but want to be near her.

When I was young, it was just me, Quin, and Hatchet. The three of us were like one person. We did everything together and no one could ever change that. But she did, she crept her way into a spot that only Michael and Quin fit and she'd sown herself into the ground there.

And now she was gone. She's ripped herself right back out, that coke loving dumbass.

And I could still feel the place she was missing from, where she'd been ripped from the very ground.

And it hurt.

*Wynnie*

"I hate him," Niquie yelled, throwing a lamp across the room and shattering it across the wall. "It's his fault. It's his fault that she's dead- that she's gonna die."

"You know it's not."

"Yes it is!"

Her face was stern and straight, not a single tear staining her cheek. Nothing but pure anger in her eyes.

The T.V. went flying next.

"You're running out of things to break, love." She looked at me and I could see the glaze on her eyes, threatening to spill over. I opened my arms to her. "Come here."

She dove into me, burying her face in my stomach as I fell back on the bed I'd put myself on. Our bed.

I let my hands brush through her thick ebony hair as she sobbed onto my shirt.

"It's his fault," she cried.

"Niquie Valentine, stop blaming the man who saved her life. We both know that if it weren't for him she would've died in that prison the first time."

"Yeah, and now she gets to die two months later. How amazing is that?"

I looped my hands under her arms and pulled her up so that her head was laying next to mine.

"It's not just that and you know it."

She sniffled.

"You remember when we first met her Highness, don't you?"

"It's her Majesty," Niquie corrected. "Highness is for princess. She's a queen."

"Right, right. Well, you remember when we first met her, don't you?"

She nodded. "I worked at a normal bar and you were always with me. You weren't a magician then, so your hair was always that beautiful honey blonde."

"Right. And then-"

"Boom. Your magic exploded."

"I tried to get you to leave me alone."

"You yelled at me and attacked me and tried to scare me away. You said you didn't want me to get hurt by Black Hands, after you finally calmed down."

"And you yelled at me. That was the first time I'd ever seen you get mad. I remember your speech too. 'Wynnie Grey, I swear to God, if you try to leave me again I will steal a damned silencer and lock you up right besides me. You think we haven't been through a lot already? I'm a fuckin' lesbian, okay? People don't like me already so...don't leave me alone.'"

"And then Hecate broke into the bar," we chorused.

"She was smiling," Niquie said.

"But not like she does now. Not after him."

She sniffled again.

"Me and you, we've known Hecate for eight whole years, so we can tell the best. That guy, the king, he made her so much happier. He gave her everything she didn't have. Everything she lost."

Niquie pushed herself up onto her elbows so that she was looking down at me. Tears dripped from her eyes onto my cheeks. Her bottom lip quivered as she tried to keep calm.

"You don't get to pretend to be all wise when you're crying too," she said, pressing a small kiss to my cheek.

"Am I?" I asked, my vision blurring and my voice finally cracking. "Huh. I guess I am."

I couldn't hold it in anymore.

*Michael*

I was propped up against Jacin in one of the vans in his garage. Not the front seat, that was her place. We sat in the back, leaned against each other while we failed horribly at not crying.

"You know," I finally said, "when I first met her I thought she was crazy."

Jacin let out a short huff of a laugh, hand moving over to hold onto mine. "Thought? When I met her, I knew she was crazy."

"You never told me how the two of you met."

"I didn't? Hmm, well it was about two years ago. I told you I lost my parents to Black Hands, didn't I? Well, I've always known I had magic, see? They protected me with their lives, to the end of their lives. Us magicians, we're executed or experimented on or whatever they feel like doing with us. If an average human struggles, they can just shoot them. So they did. I know I told you I ran away, but that cowardly solution seemed better than admitting I was there when they died...and couldn't do anything.

"I got hauled into a van, I remember. I was too broken to fight and that's when she showed up. Broke into the back, stopped then van with a flick of her wrist while putting the guards to sleep. 'Kindly touching their brains to their skull to make them go night night,' she'd said. She brought me here and here is where I stayed. Sorry, it's not a very interesting story."

I shook my head. "Everything she did was interesting. The way she thought and talked and moved. She wasn't exactly normal." We were quiet for a few seconds before I spoke up again. "What's going to happen next?"

"We'll stick with Quin, if that's okay with you. I want to keep doing her work. No more being locked up in a garage for me."

"Yeah, I wouldn't want to do anything else."

*Quin*

It was all a common factor that brought us here. That made us put on brave faces and drive all the way to the City. She was always the common factor.

With the combined forces of Wynnie's and Michael's magic as well as Heather an my own knowledge of the place, we managed to sneak in rather easily.

And that's what brought us here. The room full of Black Hands with nothing but invisibility between us.

The room wasn't full, but there were plenty of people I recognized. One of them being the ten, nine after me, commanders. Paige Lilia Carroll in particular. She was always the scariest of the commanders at the ripe young age of seventeen. Much younger than the average.

Now she looked out at the center of the room with cold blue eyes, looking at the square instrument of death.

It was a platform that I was so familiar with. I'd seen many magicians and supporters executed on it, after all. Underneath the steel where the victim stood was a symphony of torches that allowed fire to seep through the little whole that punctured the platform. It was actually a relatively quick death, but not painless. For the estimated five seconds that you lived, it was supposed to fell like hell had ruptured in your body.

Years ago, I'd watched plenty of magicians walked up on the stage, now I felt sick watching my queen be walked by a leash attached to a silencer. In fact, they had upped the number, this time. There were silencers on her wrists and ankles as well as her neck.

She looked ruff, even though they'd only had here for a mere forty-eight hours. Her eyes were unusually hollow and dark.

Heather had already given up. She cried into my shoulder, unable to look.

Niquie and Wynnie were on my left, holding onto each others hands. Michael and Jacin on my right. It would be a lie if I said we all weren't crying, because we were.

The man who lead her now had her standing on the platform. Taking the leash, he tied it to the center before quickly scurrying off.

A man, a high commander dressed in a nearly entirely black uniform, besides the red lining, looked down at her. "Any last words, your highness?"

I saw the familiar quirk of her lips as she looked up at him. "Thanks for the niceties, but it's your majesty. Highness is for princes and princesses. I'm a kinda a queen. Just a little more important." She took in a breath of air as thought it was her last, which I suppose was fitting. "You know, New York is extremely nice this time of year."

He scoffed at her, not that it deterred her now vibrant smile. "New York is a dead city."

Somehow, her smile widened. Like she wasn't about to die. Like both of our worlds weren't about to end with the single press of a button in an ironic blaze of fire. It was the same smile she wore at her first sentencing. The one that let everyone know how insane she really was.

This time, her eyes found her way to where we were standing. All the way to me.

"Then I guess I'll see you there."

Her words wore the cloak of a true queen. They were pristine and calm, like someone saying 'I'll see you later'. Like it wasn't a lie, maybe the only lie she'd ever told. Like somehow the arrogant gods of this world bowed to her and she would be back.

Unfortunately, she didn't believe in gods.

We believed in magic.

The inferno started.

I wish I could've seen it like an author. I wish it could've 'gone black' or ended there. I wish the words would stop moving and everything would be over, maybe not okay but over and I wouldn't hurt. I wish I could've said I saw her go to her eternal peace, but that's not how it happened because it's not a book. Because this is, was, and always will be life.

The inferno roared though the room as it grew considerably hotter throughout the room. Her screams lasted for about three seconds that was honestly the longest eternity I'll ever live in.

I chocked back a sob but I knew Wynnie or Michael would hide it. Heather was wailing into my arms. To the arrogant around us, it was silent. But to us? Our world just burned in a fire. And we were not okay.

There was no and 'everything would be okay', because it wouldn't.

No, everything was so morbidly and horribly wrong. An applause sounded from around the room and I wanted to scream at them all, to tell them to shut their fucking mouths because someone, not just someone, just died.

I finally realized the true meaning of her tattoo. Esclave a la magie. A slave to magic. And she truly was. For every moment of her life in the North Continent, she spent her life serving those who had magic. Even the ones who refused that everyone was magic. The ones that tried to kill her, fight her, called her crazy, and even loved her. She truly was a slave to the world. But she was willing.

Jacin, tears seeping from his eyes, was holding a weeping Michael into his chest for both of their sakes. I felt Heather's grip tighten around me when I realized I'd taken a step forward.

"Where now?" Michael asked, looking at me with weak eyes. "What happens now?"

I didn't both wiping the tears that stained my cheeks and even dripped onto the floor.

"We go to New York."

The normally florescent colors of New York were a sobering white, as well as those of the Black Hat.

"We don't normally mourn the lost," Wynnie told me, head laying on a table, eyes dry. I don't think any of us could drown in our tears anymore. We were dry. "Hecate's idea. She says it boring to mourn the dead, and it's too sad. She taught us that when someone dies, they don't really die. Their magic is just released into the air and helps the environment."

"That was something to celebrate," Niquie chimed in from behind the bar, where she was making her seventh Sunrise or Sunset even thought there were only six of us. "For magicians death means life because true magic never dies."

"It doesn't feel right," Wynnie said, "not to mourn her. It's like..."

Like the burial we don't get. The painlessly painful way of saying goodbye.

"It really didn't feel right, though," Niquie said. "To not mourn her, I mean. So when something bad happens, we mourn in white. Black is the Black Hands. Bright colors is magic. White is...nothing. Did I ever tell anyone how Hecate names the Black Hat? She-she said, 'Black Hat. Somewhere for rouge Black Hands and people who wanna use their heads and their hearts.' Sometimes I really think she was super high."

A sobering silence went through the room. Because she was gone and we'd never get that back. Never get that stupid, verging on drunk or childish demeanor. Because she was dead.

"Jesues Christ," new voice said, making all of our heads pop up. "Remind me to never really die, okay? Cause this... This is a little beyond depressing. Is there a word for that?"

There she stood, in the back doorway of the Black Hat, a smile plastered to her face. Her brown hair was tied in a tight ponytail behind her. She wore clothes that were so ordinary that I might have mistaken her for a modern teenager, even though she was twenty.

But I could never mistake her for anyone.

"Hecate," I cried, crushing her in my arms.

I half expected her to push me away, to complain about how I was crushing her. She didn't. Instead, her arms found my back, pulling me into her.

"You know, I didn't mind when you called me Alex."

I pulled back, holding her slim shoulders between my hands. And I looked at her, really looked at her. Everything I thought I'd have to live without.

"Alex."

She smiled.

"I just- I-"

I was shoved out of the way by and oncoming horde of friends, Heather at the lead, tackling the slim queen to the ground.

"Damn you!" Heather yelled. "I thought you died!"

Alex let out a somber laugh. "Hey, I thought I was gonna die too but..."

"But...?" Niquie asked, eyes once again puffy. Apparently we still had some tears left in us. "You're not getting away with a but. Not after what you pulled."

"Apparently, I had more friends than I'd anticipated." She looked back to me, her eyes softening when she saw my sloppy, wet face. "Come here, beautiful."

I crawled over to the little huddle the seven of us had made on the floor around her.

She snapped her fingers. When her long sleeve fell, I could see when looked like char marks on her wrist and, without her hair covering it, her neck.

The lights in the room changed from white to a rainbow of colors.

As if seeing all of our gazes, she said, "Apparently they'll go away. Sorry, but I'm kinda sworn to secrecy."

And that was fine, because she was fine. Everything was alright. She was alright, Michael and Jacin we alright. Niquie and Wynnie were alright. Heather was crying, but alright. I was alright. We were alright.

"What now, your Majesty?" I asked.

She smiled. "I don't know. I figured I'd lay low for a while, but that's not really my thing. So, maybe we can go save some lives again? Yo-"

"We're laying low," Michael yelled. "Just for a while. We all need a little rehab after the hell we just went through. Got any good therapists around here?"

"No," Wynnie answered, he hair now a purplish pink, "but I think you raise a good point. We're like, the most unstable people on the earth. We need some therapists."

*Alex*

I watched them laugh with puffy eyes and scratchy throats. Them. My people. My friends. And then there was Quin. He looked at me with eyes that said he's give me the world on a silver platter. Fortunately for him, I already had everything I wanted.

And they all sat around me.

Smiling.

Laughing.

Shining.

Alive.

We were all alive.

And they were right.

We probably needed therapists.