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On the lower floor was a pristine bar, glass shelves hovering over it along the wall sparkling with crystal bottles of liquor, and a central section partitioned with half walls to provide sectional seating. Behind the counter of the bar was a woman dressed in a black vest and white dress shirt underneath, glasses on the bridge of her nose, mixing a cocktail.

The state of the room was close to empty, except for one table blocked off by a half wall. Several heads came into view, with cigarettes perched between their lips, playing cards. Ties pulled loose. Tattoos marking up their necks. Black blazers strung over the back of their seats.

Cards levitated in front of them inches above the table, the same way the mugs and plates of food had at Madam Maeve’s Café.

Magic. No, mages.

A cold sweat shot down Naia’s nape.

I need to leave?—

A muffled shriek of agony pierced through the walls of the room.

Naia’s body went rigid, and her eyes darted around to pinpoint the source of the noise. The bartender minded no attention to it, nor did the table of people.

“No, please, stop, I’ll tell you!” Pained and ragged cries reverberated through the walls.

She felt the rise in her stomach, pushing her lunch into her esophagus. Her hand covered her mouth.

Another violent burst wailed from behind one of the many solid doors in the lounge, and Naia stumbled backwards until her heel smashed into the bottom stair.

By pure luck, she slipped away unnoticed, retracing her path back into the taproom. Sharp, pulsing terror jarred her system, urging her to put as much distance as she could between her and the mages as possible.

With two hours left until closing, two suit-clad individuals strolled across the taproom and out the door. Naia recognized them by their outfits and tattoos peeking over the hem of their collars.

Half-distracted, wiping remnants of chicken batter and fries from a table, her eyes strained through one of the windows, watching their figures through the dim light of the streetlamps.

Without question, they had an ominous vibe about them, but Naia’s intuition wasn’t screaming danger the way it did up against Marina or Mira.

What were mages doing on the non-magic side of the city, anyway?

No, what are mages doing in Ronin’s brewery?

The answer became a battleground of indecisiveness. Naia weighed her safety, her next move, and the intentions of Ronin—a possible mage. If he was the one behind those tormented cries she’d overheard in the lounge, he was more dangerous than she thought.

And if he wasn’t, he still needed to explain himself.

“You know who they are, right?” a customer asked.

Naia raised her head towards a young woman seated a few tables away, savoring a chicken’s leg drenched in a brown sauce.

The stranger took a swig of her beer, then licked her lips. “Are you new? Sorry, I saw you staring at them, and I’ve never seen you here before.”

“Yes. Just moved to the city.” Naia stood up with the towel bunched in her fingers. “The people in the suits. Do you know who they are?”

The woman’s glassy eyes flitted up from her beverage and around the room. Then, she leaned forward, and Naia involuntarily did the same, as if this stranger was about to let her in on a secret. “They are the Blood Heretics.”

Naia’s pulse echoed in her throat. “Who are the Blood Heretics?”

The woman rested back in her chair and took another long swig of her beer.

Naia clenched her jaw as she took her time. “Are they ma—witches?”

The woman sat her glass down and picked up her phone, lying beside her plate. “They are a notorious organization of them.”

Naia shook her head. “But we are on the non-magical side of the city, right?”

The woman’s eyes flickered around on her screen for a beat before stuffing it in her back pocket. “Magical folks rarely come on this side of the city, but I guess they had some sketchy business to attend to.” She downed the rest of her beer in one large gulp, and then dug around in her purse, pulling out a bill and slipping it under her empty glass.