Saule was on her broken rolling stool again when I entered the room and let the door partially closed behind me. I glanced at the large, adjustable chair I had used when she had healed me, but Saule gestured at a secondary stool I failed to notice and I took that instead. We situated ourselves across from one another with a rolling cart slid between us. The cart was short and precariously wobbly, but Saule didn't seem particularly concerned about that as she poked around the cart's open shelves, extracting various materials from its innards. A beaded pouch landed on the cart's top, followed by a mundane jar of rubbing alcohol, an empty ampoule half the size of my index finger, a length of braided leather, a large white talisman, a red eyedropper bottle, a needle, an inkwell, and—finally—a frazzled artist's brush.

I was eying Saule's gathered accouterments when the witch asked "So, what else did you want to talk about? You didn't come all the way out here to look at mana pots and tell me about that stupid book."

She was correct. I hadn't left my home and risked Darius' anger just to apologize for her burnt text and to poke my nose where it didn't belong. I dropped my eyes to her hands as Saule began her preparations. The witch waited for me to speak as she arranged the items she had selected. I noticed she had a multitude of slender, intentional white scars ruling the outside of her small palm.

"I must confess, I do not know what exactly I wish to ask you. To ask questions you have to have a basic understanding of the subject matter you are inquisitive about. I have very little understanding about any of this." I waved a hand to encompass the room we were currently in. The room was far more average the main floor space, but strange implements and plants lingered in this room as well. The scent of loam was a pungent perfume leaking through the door I had left ajar. "I can't just ask you to start from the beginning. One day I had a normal life and the next...I didn't. I do not know anything about the world I have been living in my entire life. I am so far out of my element I know I should just shut my eyes and do as I am told—but I refuse." Uncomfortable, I dropped my hands to my lap, where they knotted themselves together and proceeded to fidget. "I have a contract I must fulfill. I can't—won't—say anything about it. But to do this, I have to expand my understanding. I have to recognize what I could not even see before." I bit the inside of my cheek as my eyes slid shut. "My blithe ignorance killed my sister. I don't want to be ignorant anymore."

"Mmmm." Saule dipped the brush into the inkwell, then began carefully painting characters along the length of the talisman. The characters were almost Asian in style, but distinctly different and simply nonsense to my eyes. "Humans aren't typically happy to learn about what exists beyond their narrow understanding of their society. Your kind don't like feeling helpless. I mean sure, some of you guys say 'Oh neat, witches and mages and magic!' But then they learn humans can't ever have any of that magic, can't ever become witches or mages, and their enthusiasm wanes. Humans are notorious for destroying things they cannot have or can never become." She dipped the brush again, retouching her glistening black lines. "The unknown is pretty scary. Just because I'm a witch doesn't mean I know everything that's out there. We have our own bogeymen." She lifted the brush and set it aside as a weak breath escaped her. A trickle of energy swept over the talisman and was gone. "Hell, you're one of them."

I gaped as the witch undid the drawstrings on the bead pouch. "Me?" She withdrew a handful of white powder and let it sift through her small fingers to covered the entirety of the white talisman. Judging by the coarseness of the crystals, I could guess the powder was salt. "Why me?"

Saule dusted off her hands. "Because you're a Sin's host. When I was little, my mother used to tell my sister and me stories about the Sins and how we were supposed to be careful what we wished for, because if our wish was too impossible a Sin might appear to try to buy our souls. Typical bedtime story, right? Only meant to get your kids to behave, right? Except its true. You grow up and it's not a spooky urban legend anymore, it's a coven-clad truth, and there's actually people who look for them, for the Sins. People like you who have sold their souls to them." Saule sighed, watching the salt. "I don't mean to judge you. It's not my right. But it's like you're wearing a cloak of living shadow, and it scares the holy mother out of me."

The salt on the talisman was growing black as the ink sept into its grains. Saule tapped her fingers along the cart's edge, waiting.

"Is that why you're so afraid of him?" I asked, my voice soft to keep the accusation from it. "Because you were told to fear him as a child?"

"Partially." The salt was nearly full-black, only the inner section still pure. Saule leaned on her hand as the music coming from her headset muttered in the background. "But not fully. It's hard to explain, but they're not like us, are they? Sure, I'm a witch and you're a human, but we both watch television, complain about taxes, and walk our dogs after work. Admittedly, my dog got into the trash last month and ate an old potion and now has feathers, but we live similar lives."

My brow rose.

Saule shrugged, leaving traces of salt on her face when she rubbed her nose. "We grew up and exist within the same society—at different extremes of it, but within the same boundaries. Sins like Pride don't have that common ground. They're not from here. They're not really from anywhere is what I was taught in school. They're permanent drifters. They've always been around, they've always been a cautionary tale, their history melded into our beginnings, and undoubtedly in our end. They're survived...everything. Guns, explosions, atomic bombs, mage rebellions, revolutions, volcanoes—falling through the vacuum of the void to the nether beneath. I mean, what does that even do to them? They can't be rational after all they've witnessed in this world and the next. It's just not plausible. Yeah, I'm afraid of Pride. Anyone in the coven would be. When I look at him, I don't see a person. I see...like, an embodiment of the infinite. The birth and the death of the universe. All of it wrapped up in a pissed off package telling me to heal some human or he'll snuff me like a candle—and I knew he could do it. He could do it without a pebble of remorse rippling the unplumbed depths of his conscience."

Saule gave me a wry grin as she jerked the talisman out from under the salt. The black characters were gone, leaving the talisman utterly untouched while the salt was jet black. She crumpled the empty talisman and tossed it behind her shoulder. "Not what you wanted to hear, is it?"

I smirked, watching her hands as the witch swept the black salt into the small ampoule, capturing every grain. The hum of energy that had soaked into the talisman had been sucked out by the salt. Interesting. "It's nothing I hadn't thought of before. It's not like I expected you to say he's just terribly misunderstood. I know Pride is...different." A vast understatement. I had hoped Saule could expound on what trifling bits of information I had on the past of the Sins and Darius, but she didn't seem to have much more knowledge of them than I did. I should have realized it earlier, given how secretive Darius and his ilk were.

"Sorry I can't really tell you more about them. Not much to say because not much is known. You saw what happens to the information we do have on them. I just thank my lucky charms it wasn't me he decided to set on fire." Saule twisted the top of the red bottle to get it open and used the dropper to slip four or five viscous drips into the open ampoule. I squinted at the new liquid. It looked like—. "I bloody hate sticking myself every time I have to fix something like this up," Saule grumbled as she twisted the droplet bottle closed again. "Yeah, it's my blood. I'm a blood witch—goes with the territory. And, no, before you ask, I'm not evil or wicked or whatever. Such a dumb human prejudice. The majority of blood witches are healers, and it's not nearly as badass as it sounds." I hadn't said a word, but I could sense Saule's good humor evaporating as her attention turned to the subject. "It's not fair. It's more flash-bang propaganda. Black mages like to take bits of blood-witch spells and pervert them, using them to hurt humans and other mages, and we get a bad rep for it."

The coarse salt had liquefied in the blood, leaving a dark, sludge-like residue in the thin vial. The witch's magic was a wire-thin rivulet circling us and cart, twisting in smooth revolutions I could almost sense. Muttering under her breath again, Saule plucked the needle up and held it out to me. I carefully took it, confused, until the witch said "Splash some of the rubbing alcohol over a finger and the needle, then prick your finger. It needs a drop of your blood as well, but your skin has to be free of impurities. Especially after man-handling my other mana pots."

Complying, I uncapped the rubbing alcohol, tipped some over the needle and my fingertips, and held my breath before jabbing the needle into my middle finger. I couldn't smother my yip of surprise, nor the sudden jerk of my knee hitting the cart. Saule snorted as she held onto the ampoule and the alcohol to keep them both upright.

"Sorry," I said as I extended my bloody hand toward her. The witch held the ampoule under my fingers to catch a drop of my blood, then she squeezed my wounded fingertip between her thumb and knuckle. She whispered a word in a different language, and a familiar prickling heat lanced through my hand before vanishing quicker than an electric shock. Surprised, I jerked my hand away from her to blink at my healed fingertip.

Ignoring me, Saule capped the vial and inverted it, bringing the glass close to her lips as the black liquid swirled inside. A stream of foreign words hissed through her teeth, my ears only able to capture the odd syllable or two. The witch softly blew against the vial and the blood inside reacted. The black color purged itself like a shadow shredding in the daylight, expanding outward as the energy captured by the salt reached a fevered pitch and boiled everything in the ampoule but the barest breath of my mana to nonexistence. Saule flipped the vial upright again and, with the eye of a professional, held it up to the light.

"Well, that's unexpected," she said as she tapped a finger against her chin, lost in thought. "It's not completely clear."

The vial clasped between Saul's two fingers was mostly clear, in the nebulous way water is clear but able to ensnare stray beams of sunlight and refract them to create intangible lines of color. The glow coming off the mana pot was bright enough to be visible even in the healthy light shed by the overhead fluorescents. As Saule lowered her hand and brought the vial closer for my novice eyes to inspect, I could see the sheen of a different color hemming the mana pot, visible only about the edges and only when Saule pulled it from the direct light. It was like light gray silk, spun so gossamer I thought I was only imaging it until the witch mentioned it as well.

"You're a mixed-blood," she blurted, blinking rapidly as her cherub cheeks brightened. "I'm sorry. That's rude—but, hey, it's not so uncommon. A lot of humans have a little supernatural in their lineage."

I was surprised. "What is it? Mage or witch or...?"

"No, which is strange. It's not teal or blue. It's silver. It's something Valian, I think." She gave me a weird look. "You didn't know?"

"Alien?!"

"V-v-v-alian. Get your ears cleaned, nitwit." Saule was fitting the leather about the ampoule's neck, clearly fascinated by the odd coloration and unaware of my confusion. What in the Hell was a Valian? Saule held the ampoule to the light again, which washed out the wisp of silver but brought out the black stain. It sat at the vial's bottom, insubstantial but evident, almost as if Saule had dropped a match inside the ampoule and it had singed the glass.

"What's that?"

Saule shrugged as she tapped the glass once before allowing the vial to swing on the braided leather. "I haven't got a clue."

I caught the ampoule when Saule let go, my heart leaping into my throat when it nearly slipped between my fingers. I marveled at the subtle beauty of the transparent color and the way it bent the light. It was a simple thing; Saule was wholly unimpressed with the whole process of making it, already sliding her gathered materials back into their selected storage, but it was a taste of magic, and I had helped her make it.

"Thanks," I said as I slipped the leather over my head and dropped the vial behind my shirt's neckline. I felt its light heat settle against my chest like a dapple of sunlight warming my skin. "Can I ask you something else?"

"Sure." Saule swept a damp rag over the cart's top before sliding it aside. We both stood, and despite our height differences and her confessed fear of what I was, Saule wasn't intimidated. She grinned, salt still on her nose and smidge of my blood dried to her fingers. She was an odd woman—not what I would have expected from a witch.

"It's a hypothetical question."

"Naturally."

I scratched my chin, looking away. "Hypothetically, if someone were searching for...a vampire in Verweald, where would they look?"

"Hypothetically that someone is an idiot and should be told not to go looking for vampires because they're not warm and fuzzy and helpful like the friendly neighborhood blood priestess." Saule tone was sharp, and even with the lingering note of sarcastic humor, the reprimand was clear.

"I wouldn't be the one looking," I clarified, abashed by the piercing glint in her eyes. At least not alone. An idiot I may be, a fool I was not. Saule understood immediately, and the pink color in her cheeks dispersed.

"Oh," she muttered as she glanced away. Her hands began fidgeting with the cleaning rag again. "I can, um, write down an address but I...can't guarantee its right or anything." She stopped wringing the cloth between her hands and threw it against the wall cabinet, annoyed with herself. "All joking aside, I was serious about you not going to look for them. Leave sleeping vampires lie, right?"

I lifted a shoulder in acquiescence. "Like I said, I wouldn't be the one looking."

Saule and I returned to the front room and the witch darted behind the counter while I took my place before it, waiting. The front door swung open and shut, admitting a woman chatting loudly on her phone about her absolute need to finish her latest batch before tomorrow or someone named Mallina would "sling her ass back to cauldron buffing." The woman—witch—wore green palazzo pants with a line of dirt along one pant leg and a butter yellow halter top. She had black cat earrings and a whole cluster of charms swinging from her phone. She snatched up two teal mana pots as if they were sodas at a gas station and came to stand behind me at the register, chatting away.

I was at a loss. How did these people remain hidden from human society?

Saule shot the newcomer a withering glance, and the chatty witch's voice subsided into a softer conversation. "Here," Saule said, using a pen to scribble the address on the back of a receipt. She ripped it from the book and held it out to me.

"Thanks," I said, taking it—but Saule held on, and I blinked, meeting her severe gaze for a final time.

"Remember what I said about being an idiot." She glanced over my shoulder at the other witch, then at me. I trill of concern tightened the freckled skin around her eyes. "And remember what I said about him not being...rational."

I simpered, though a strange needling sensation in the anterior of my thoughts set my teeth on edge. "I heard you." I tugged, and the receipt slid from Saule's grasp. I stepped out of the other witch's path, inclined my head once to Saule in a show of respect, then left the parlor with my goal in hand.

I stood on the sidewalk, squinting in the afternoon sunshine slipping through those monstrous oaks. My long hair was unbound, a mana pot was hidden in my shirt, and a yellow slip of paper was clasped by my fist. It had been a very odd, but very progressive day. There were many labels people could lay at my feet. Weak. Selfish. Foolish. Prideful. Cruel. Even ignorant. I would accept that. I was an ignorant human bent on vengeance against an anonymous cult capable of summoning eldritch creatures from the depths of the Pit. I had lived my life with jaded eyes shut to the mysterious and unexplained things of my world, studying literature of the mythical with bored indifference, never questioning the legitimacy of what I learned, never daring to wonder if those storytellers were weaving truth beyond my comprehension.

My eyes were open now. I would live in ignorance no longer. Darius had opened the door, and I had stepped through. The Sin could kill me tomorrow and abscond with my soul, but I vowed to live, breathe, and die in this world, to challenge its denizens, to discover its secrets and to enact vengeance on those who stole my soul's innocence even if I had to die and come back to do it.

The daylight warmed my face and I laughed at nothing in particular.