Half Pint Hex

Second generation con woman and all-around thief Remi Wilde joined the Hundred Halls—the world's only magical university—in hopes of learning the right spells to pull off a dangerous heist. But rather than one of the less scrupulous Halls, she ends up in Aura Healers, known for its public service and healing arts.

Remi isn't dissuaded, and prepares to turn this setback into an advantage as she steals from the school's ample alchemy supplies to fund her artifact hunting mission. The only problem is one of her fellow students, a try-hard werewolf with a god complex, is doing everything he can to get in her way.

As the already chaotic hospital gets overrun with patients suffering from a strange madness, the handsome werewolf asks for Remi's help—and her thieving skills—to find out who's really behind the chaos. Their journey leads them into the darker corners of the university, and reveals a plot against the city that will force her to choose her true destiny.

Half Pint Hex
Chapter One

A line of vehicles sped past the Utica Magical Juvenile Penitentiary. Remi counted them as they turned the corner. Two hundred and fifty-four cars had passed her since she'd been released. Three and a half hours of waiting for her parents.
She picked up a rock and threw it at the last one, narrowly missing its bright red brake lights. She would have hexed its back tires to go flat, but she had a searing headache from the faez dampeners she'd had to wear for the year she'd been inside.
The gears on the chain-link gate startled Remi to turn around and watch a forest green minivan slip out from the interior of the penitentiary, tires slowly crunching across the gravel. After parking, a woman with curly brown hair wearing a simple A-line dress with a purse hanging on her shoulder climbed out. Her eyes always had dark circles and crease lines at the corners despite the smile on her lips. The rough terrain made her stumble, but she managed to reach Remi without falling.
"I thought you were going to see me for a last session before you left," said Sophia, her face wracked with concern as she glanced down the road at a car speeding past the entrance.
Remi didn't know how Sophia did it, caring for other people all the time. It had to be exhausting to be a therapist.
"I had to get out. Being in solitary for the last week was a shit show," Remi said, staring at her gnawed fingernails and the white lines where the cuts on her knuckles had healed. The blank walls and lack of human contact had left her feeling like an animal in a cage.
Sophia clutched a card between her hands. "I'm sorry, Remi. I should have done a better job of arguing with the warden. Solitary is cruel and should only be used in the most dire situations. You were only protecting your friends. Speaking of. They wanted to hold a party for you." The older woman sighed as she handed over the card. "Happy birthday."
Remi shoved the card in her back pocket. "Thanks? Damn. It's my birthday?"
She should have known what day it was, because she'd been released having reached the ripe old age of eighteen, but her mind was still in a fog from solitary. Or she'd purposely suppressed that knowledge, which if true, brought a new set of concerns.
Sophia inhaled sharply as she frowned at the empty gravel parking lot. "Do you need a ride? Or want me to call you a taxi?"
"No. I'm sure my parents will be here soon. They knew when I was getting out. I'm sure they're caught in traffic or something," said Remi, scraping her foot along the gravel.
Sophia took a step forward. "Remi..."
"They're coming, I swear."
"When was the last time you talked to them?"
Remi ran her hand through her short black hair. "Wasn't long ago. A few weeks?"
The rounding of Sophia's eyes brought heat to Remi's chest. She hated pity.
"I checked your phone records. It was in May."
"May? Damn, three months. Time kinda passes weird in there."
"That's not the first time I've heard that. The magic dampeners don't help either."
Mention of those cursed bracelets brought a surge of tension in her temples, but Remi resisted the urge to massage them in front of Sophia, otherwise she'd get even more clingy and demand to take her to where she wanted to go.
The last thing she needed was for her parents to see her riding in a minivan of all vehicles.
"Remi. I think you have to accept that they might not be coming. Based on everything you've told me, it might be for the best. You're in here because they put you into a terrible situation."
Remi regretted telling her therapist the details of the last job, but after months of sitting in her office, she'd let her guard down. She wouldn't do that again.
"Juvie's better than real jail, and I got my record wiped clean," said Remi with a shrug.
"That's a shit deal, I don't care what your parents said. They shouldn't have used you like that."
"The world is full of users. Better the ones you know."
Sophia checked the watch on her wrist. "I have to go. My daughter needs to be picked up at piano practice."
"Arabesque, right?"
"Yeah," said Sophia, her face brightening. "Recital is next week. Thank you for remembering."
"Hard not to when that's all you talk about," said Remi with her mouth cocked to the side.
Sophia chuckled softly. "I'm going to miss you, Remi. I know this wasn't how you wanted your last year to unfold, but I hope it's been a good experience for you. Given you some time to decide what you want to do with your life." She glanced down the road at an approaching car. "I truly hope you can find a better path."
A better path. It wasn't hard to read between the lines.
Sophia never said it directly, but she'd been hinting about getting away from her parents for months. Another reason Remi regretted letting her guard down with the therapist. The only good thing about those hours in her office was the bowl of hard candy and that the entire conversation was confidential.
"Thanks, Miss Brown," said Remi, holding out her hand.
The therapist smiled wistfully and accepted the handshake. "Are you sure you don't want me to call you a taxi?"
"I'm sure. They'll be here."
Sophia released their hands. "Good luck and happy birthday. I'm rooting for you."
The therapist headed back towards her minivan, but stopped halfway. She held up her wrist and shook it lightly, showing off the watch.
"What gives? I bought this crappy watch expecting you to steal it. You never left my office without draining the candy bowl despite my best efforts to watch you."
A laugh slipped out unexpectantly. Remi held out her other hand, revealing a wad of bills.
"I was wondering why you kept checking back to it. All you did was provide the distraction that I needed to slip my hand into your purse." Remi handed over the money. "Never trust anybody."
Sophia waved off the bills. "Keep 'em. Call it my price of education. And someday, Remi, you're going to have to learn to trust somebody. The world isn't as bad as you think it is."
Remi almost didn't want to take the money, but it was hard to turn down, even if she was sure Sophia had planned the watch bit as a way to give her cash. She waved as her former therapist left the parking lot, her tires slipping as she pulled onto the asphalt road.
She pulled out the card from her friends and stared at the outside. The pencil drawing of the three of them was nearly perfect, even down to the pain reflected in her eyes. She opened the card, then quickly closed it before tearing it up and throwing it into the grass. The last thing she needed was to be seen bawling on the side of the road.
Two more hours of waiting left Remi with the certainty that her parents weren't coming. Maybe they were in the middle of a job, or lying low and couldn't come get her. It was more than possible. When her mom had gotten out of prison in Cleveland, they hadn't been able to pick her up because they were hiding out in a shuttered McDonalds from the local crime boss.
Remi approached the road and stuck out her thumb. To her surprise, it didn’t take long for someone to slow down, which made her instantly suspicious until the window rolled down, revealing three older women with gray hair.
"Need a ride, young lady? We're headed into town."
Remi climbed into the backseat and for the next twenty minutes did her best to deflect all questions about why she was in Utica.
They let her out near the park as shadows lengthened. In the middle of the green expanse, a massive oak tree dominated the area. Remi approached the wide roots, checking that no one was near, before reaching into the wide knothole that led deeper into the internal cavity.
"If anything tries to bite me, I'm going to burn this fucking tree down," she said with her arm in the hole up to her shoulder.
A moment of panic set in when she couldn't find the package, but after climbing onto the roots to get more reach, she found it'd slipped lower during the year that it'd remained in the oak tree.
The brick of bills was thinner than she remembered. She opened up part of the package to make sure they hadn't been damaged and to retrieve the pendant which was worth more than the money to Remi. She rubbed her thumb over the raised circular pattern before slipping the chain around her neck and tucking the oblong pendant beneath her shirt.
Using the money Sophia gave her, she bought a burner phone and dialed her parents' place from memory. A rough, pack-a-day voice answered, "Yo?"
"Are the Wildes around?"
"The who?"
"The Wildes," repeated Remi. "Greta and Archer."
"Never heard of 'em. You must have the wrong number."
A click left her staring at the phone. She called again in case she'd misdialed, but when the same voice came on, she quickly hung up.
Remi found a café and ordered a greasy cheeseburger and fries with a massive chocolate milk shake while she considered her options. If her parents weren't at the old place, then she had no idea where they might be. They'd burned multiple hideouts in the months leading up to her getting arrested, but they'd hoped it would be the last job and after that, they'd be set up for life. Every petty thief's dream.
Remi finished with the burger and quietly sang "Happy Birthday," eating the cherry at the bottom of the glass as her cake.
After paying the bill, Remi spotted a bus station across the street. A chart of destinations provided a wealth of ideas. While she didn't know where her parents were, she had other connections, some she'd acquired during her year in juvie. She could find work in Tampa or Chicago, maybe even Memphis if that girl had been honest about her past. But all those places would be one step away from getting thrown back in jail, and this time, it'd be the big house, with real inmates and guards, and fewer idealistic therapists.
It wasn't that she didn't want to pull a job, but every one was another chance to get caught. The only way to win was to hit it big and never cross that line again.
She'd always wanted to visit Paris and eat croissants in the cafés. Maybe even find out what all the fuss was about when it came to museums and art. It was better than the shitholes she'd been living in.
But a life like that required money.
She could get to Paris with the stash she had in her pocket, but she'd quickly run out and be back on the streets. What she needed was that one last job. The one that made everything right. Remi pulled out the pendant, rubbed the oblong metal, and dreamed of flaky, buttery breads.
The only way she was going to hit the big time was pull that last job, and the only way she was going to do that was if she had more than her lame list of tricks up her sleeve. What she needed was real magic, not the side street hexes and sketchy elixirs she knew how to mix.
Remi approached the bus counter.
"One ticket."
"Where would you like to go, young lady?"
Remi checked over her shoulder one last time, hoping to see her parents striding across the street towards the bus station, but when no one appeared she turned back.
"The city of sorcery."