edited: 27/01/2018

The key had grown so hot that Remy was forced to pull the necklace from her neck in one swift motion. Even the chain was too hot to touch now, so she pulled her jacket off despite the cold and gathered it up, making sure that her fingers didn't touch it. She had come back to the beach after deeming it strange to go home. She could not simply sit on the sofa and watch Keeping up with the Kardashians now, when she had just witnessed some strange sort of magic. Even as she thought of the word, she shook her head.

Magic wasn't real. It couldn't be. If it was, she would not be living in a rundown town where everybody walked around like zombies. Would she?

She hung the key into the water, her hand still wrapped in her jacket, and allowed the tide to wash over it a few times. She hoped that perhaps the ocean would cool it down. Just as she was about to splash some water over her face to be sure she wasn't going mad, she heard her name being called, causing her to jump and drop the key.

"Remy? What are you doing?"

She scrambled for the key before the waves could wash it away and was glad to find it was cool enough to hold again. She turned around to find her best friend stood behind her with a raised eyebrow.

"Nothing," she said quickly. She did not want to tell anybody about what had happened, partly because they would think she was insane and partly because she selfishly wanted to keep the boy for herself, as something that only she knew about. "I was just, er, looking for shells."

Sarah narrowed her eyes suspiciously but said no more on the matter, a wise decision. She was probably used to her best friend acting strangely by now, anyway. "Well, your mum wanted you to look after the kids for a while. I texted you, but you didn't reply."

Remy rolled her eyes and pulled her jacket on, preparing herself for a night of screaming children. The exact reason why she had come to the beach was to get away from her unbelievably chaotic family, but somehow, the peace never lasted for long, with her mother treating her as a babysitter rather than her child. "Great. I guess I won't be coming tonight, then."

Sarah sighed and looked at her sympathetically. The pair were supposed to be gathering with the rest of their friendship group, who Remy had barely seen since quitting college even in a town so small, and she had told her mother about it weeks ago.

"We can do it again another time, Remy. It's okay."

Like everything Sarah said, the words came out sounding monotonous, and Remy wasn't sure if it was because she was annoyed or indifferent to the matter. Remy and Sarah had always been the type of friends who would not be friends at all if they had anyone better to hang around with. They were polar opposites, with Remy thoughtful and filled with wanderlust and Sarah simple, taking everything the way it was and never thinking too deeply of anything. Perhaps telling her about the boy would not be such a bad thing.

"So, something weird happened today," she began, her eyes lowering to her black Vans in embarrassment. She already felt silly, knowing what she was about to say was not the least bit realistic. She still couldn't be sure that it had really happened, but perhaps if she said it out loud, it would make more sense to her.

"Something weird always happens to you," Sarah responded, frowning when Remy chose to go the opposite way to usual, the way that she had followed the boy earlier. "You're a weirdo."

"Thanks," Remy scoffed. Her eyebrows knitted together when she reached the alley and found that the portal had closed, replaced by the brick wall covered in what Remy thought was completely unoriginal graffiti, which could be interpreted to be a certain part of the male anatomy. She edged to the wall anyway, and when she reached it, her hands instinctively rose to it, finding that it was warm and buzzing the way her necklace had.

"What are you doing?" Sarah questioned, her feet scuffing against the concrete as she walked towards Remy. "You do realise what that drawing is supposed to be, right?"

Remy sighed and shoved her hands in her pockets, her fingers curling around the boy's ring to reassure herself that it had been real.

"There was this guy," she said quietly, turning to face her. "He said he was a warlock, and he was fighting these guys on the beach. I followed him here, and he went through a portal in the wall."

"Yeah, okay," Sarah laughed slightly and rolled her eyes. "Come on, let's go."

"I'm serious! He left this." She held out the ring, and Sarah inspected it, her dull brown eyes still disbelieving behind her wide-rimmed glasses.

"It's pretty," she said after a minute, turning around and continuing to walk.

"You don't believe me?" Suddenly, she desperately wanted Sarah to believe her, so much so that the feeling surprised her. Even if Sarah didn't have much imagination, she was supposed to be her best friend, and if she didn't believe her, who would Remy talk about this to? And, more to the point, how could she believe it really did happen if no one else did?

"I believe that you have an overactive imagination, and you want to believe these things, so you do," she said simply. Sarah had taken one class in psychology last year, and now she thought she was some sort of psychiatrist. She had diagnosed her fish with depression, telling Remy that it had spent a lot of time at the bottom of the tank recently. Remy had laughed about it at the time, but now she realised that she was becoming the fish, being told about her own mental state by somebody as clueless as Sarah. She refused to allow it.

She gulped, stopping in her tracks. The statement hadn't meant to be offensive, but somehow, it had made her stomach drop. "Yeah, well I'd rather have an overactive imagination than be completely boring and have no interest in anything." She couldn't help the bitterness that laced her words, or the way she walked off with as much attitude as she could muster—that was, until she almost tripped over a loose flagstone in the pavement.

"I meant to do that!" she called behind her without looking back.

As soon as she got home, she slid the ring onto her silver chain so that it collided with the key, thinking—or hoping—that perhaps the boy would come back for it one day soon.

* * *

The walk from the Old Ruins had been a long one, what with it being on the outskirts of Astracia, Maksim's current city of residence, and the rat's unwillingness to co-operate and stay put in Maksim's grasp didn't help much. By the time he reached the crystallised green walls of his home, he was clutching the thing by its neck, tempted to strangle it and forget it ever existed. In fact, he was about to do so before his mother, Hilda, appeared at the door, confusion etched into her tired features. Warlocks aged slowly, if at all, but his mother had been alive long enough now that her maturity was showing through the very faint crinkles in the corners of her eyes and lines beside her mouth.

"Is that a cat?" she questioned, taking the burden from Maksim and cradling it as though it was a child.

"A cat. That is what they call it," he responded, scowling when its green eyes ogled him distastefully. "It is not a very nice one, but I am sure it will do for you."

"Where did you get it?"

She lead him inside and placed the cat down on the marble kitchen counter before producing a bowl of water for it with a flash of green sparks. Maksim could already feel that Hilda held a preference for the cat rather than her son.

"Well, ah, that is just the thing I was meaning to talk to you about. I was in the Mortal World to continue my search for Ackmard, and when I came back, the portal would not close. I did not have enough magic to close it myself, so-"

He was interrupted by Hilda's high-pitched voice. Her emerald eyes glittering with worry and anger that would no doubt erupt soon enough. "Tell me you did not leave a portal to the Mortal World open, Maksim."

"I may have accidentally left a portal to the Mortal World open," he replied cautiously.

His mother sighed, and Maksim's heart sank at the sound of disappointment in her voice as she spoke again. "Maksim, you are the son of a Council member. You cannot keep making these mistakes."

Hilda never missed an opportunity to tell him, or anyone, that she was an important member of the Warlock Council, not even when she was in the middle of scolding her son.

"I was trying to look for my brother, just as you asked," he retorted. "I was attacked by his associates. I am doing my best, Mother."

"Perhaps your best is not good enough," she answered coolly, raising her voice over the sounds of that godforsaken cat. Maksim really was beginning to despise it. "Your brother would never make such mistakes."

"No, my brother would not," he spat back. "Instead, he would run away to join those with dark magic and plot against those he loves."

Hilda paled, just as she always did when she knew she was wrong but did not like it and did not choose to acknowledge it. "Your brother needs your help."

"No," Maksim retorted. "My brother needs to be locked away for the Council to deal with. But then, that would mean you having to accept that he is far more treacherous than me, and I know you would sooner magic yourself a second head."

With that, he walked back out of his home and into the humid city of Astracia, where there were fewer cats and fewer disappointed parents.