Prešpurk, Austria-Hungary

1906

Catriona Murdoch clutched a chilled mug of her precious Irish tea between two frozen hands and lifted it to her lips; miraculously, the liquid was still lukewarm even though the temperature was dropping close to zero Celsius. Her hood shielded her from the snow, now falling. Aiden had gone out on the last reconnaissance mission, and he was not yet back to relieve her. It wasn't as if Prešpurk was among the more dangerous outposts; that wasn't the matter. The matter was that her brother and she had been hired to keep the Lord Davishkov and Lady Davishkovna safe. The other matter was that between them Aiden was still an amateur sorcerer without much more than a third level knowledge of incantations and enchantments. Nonetheless, Sir Thorald Darev controlled them and all battalions stationed at Prešpurk. Now, of course, all Catriona wanted was to complete the mission, get the Davishkovs back to safety and then take her furlough back in Ireland. Ideally, Aiden would be with her on furlough, but he'd decided to ask for duties in the vanguard, if a war was to start. Catriona didn't like the trend of late because it was a straight line bending toward unrest: the Slovaks were deeply unimpressed with the Hungarians while the pesky Czechs were beginning to get frustrated with their Austrian overlords, and that grumbling was on the surface in the Muggle world. In the Wizard world, Austria had essentially broken their union agreement with Hungary and that had left the Czechs in turmoil over whether to remain allied with Austria or to break off. Aiden didn't think they could survive as a separate and independent nation, so the Northern Council swept in – the reason they were stationed here at all – and was having conferences with both the Austrians and the Czechs. In poetic terms, the world was becoming darker and colder.

Catriona heard his footsteps before she saw her brother appear around the corner and crouch beside her. She passed him the mug and hunkered down. Aiden frowned as he swallowed the tea. "It's cold."

"What did you expect, A?" Catriona answered.

"Well, you know magic better than I do," he protested.

"Yeah, and draw attention to ourselves, that's a good idea."

Aiden shrugged and took another sip. "It's still cold. You couldn't have warmed it a little?"

"No."

"Not even for your baby brother?"

"No."

"Fine." Aiden said, pouring the tea out. "What good is magic anyway?"

Catriona ignored her brother, a bit frustrated with his impetuosity. "What did you learn on the streets?"

"Nothing new," Aiden growled. "If they're going to rebel against the Hungarians, don't you think they'd be planning it?"

"Yes," Catriona answered. "But not in the open."

"Well, there's more evidence from the Muggles that something is going to happen. Not now, I don't think, but eventually." Aiden said.

"Well, it's like that at home though too, isn't it?" Catriona challenged.

"Why are you thinking about home out here? This place is nothing like home." Aiden challenged back.

"Because it's where I'd rather be," Catriona snapped, taking the empty mug back from her brother. "I'm going in." Aiden said nothing. Catriona sighed, got up and adjusted her uniform before looking down at her brother. "You'll be okay?" She asked.

"Why on earth would you ask me that, Cat?" Aiden snapped at her.

"Not a bloody clue," she said as she strode off down the alley, out into the street and found herself staring across the river Danube in the breath of morning that comes before first light. If all things were successful at the palace this evening, they could go back to Kyiv, issue her travel papers and send her off to the West for furlough. The streets were quiet between the foot of Braslav Castle and the Danube: except for the usual vagabonds sleeping on the streets, this was a ghost world. It was beautiful in its own right, but it wouldn't ever please Catriona because it wasn't Ireland. Home had so much more that made her heart beat than the intrigue of this foreign place. She thought about how this experience with the militaristic arm of the Northern Council had given her so much insight into the issues ripping apart her beloved homeland. Foreign occupation was foreign occupation, no matter how any politician – wizard or muggle – chose to spin it, and the occupation of Ireland by the woefully unqualified British occupiers was more than just an insult to the great emerald island kingdom. It had seemed that every day, when she was able to receive messages from her personal crew of couriers, their contents reflected the attitude of the occupied Slovaks here: disgruntled, angry and oppressively impoverished. Both the Hungarians and the British were raping these mystical lands of their virtues and plowing through centuries of traditions that they couldn't possibly understand. When would it end, the imperialism of brutish occupiers? War was not an option for her magical brethren, especially since their Minister of Magic had stepped down to the Minister in London – perhaps too readily. On the muggle side, all they had for them was a splintered association of rebels scattered across the island and in remote positions in London and New York. Such divisions were discouraging for any collective movement toward freedom.

When the morning came, Catriona rose from the uncomfortable bed she rented in a second floor apartment, decorated sparingly, and went into the larger second room where she found Aiden passed out on a small couch. He must have been relieved shortly after the 8 o'clock patrol went out. He'd have been asleep less than two hours, in other words, so though tempting, she decided not to wake him. Pulling out her wand, she conjured a nice Irish breakfast of sausages, dark (and hot) tea, soda bread with raisins and creamy Irish butter, and a bowl of steaming steel-cut Irish oats. "Go big or go home," she said with a smile, tucking into the meal. She was interrupted shortly after digging in by a single knock on the door. Aiden jumped to his feet as if he'd never been asleep. He got to the door before Catriona could get up, and after he opened it, the messenger slipped in and closed it behind him. He was breathing heavily and his pupils were dilated in fear.

"It's begun," he said in a shaking voice accented in his native Russian. "The Hungarians have come, armed, a secret battalion has the castle surrounded, comprised of the vagabonds we overlooked. They aren't muggles." Catriona shuddered.

"Evgeniy," she said getting to her feet and pulling out a chair. "Sit down and tell us what you know." But the boy shook his head.

"We have no time. The Slovaks don't know they're under siege. And Lord Davishkov and Lady Davishkovna are still in residence at Braslav. It's…" he took a deep stuttered breath and finished what they already knew. "It's going to be a massacre whatever way we look at it. But, there is a portkey just across the bridge. It's for emergencies. It'll take us all back to London. I'm supposed to raise the alarm at the Ministry of Magic there. We have to go now." Aiden was already in action but Catriona frowned.

"Why London?"

"The British are the only Ministry with enough gold and strength to oppose this… this…" Evgeniy struggled for the word.

"This war," Aiden finished for him, shoving a large overcoat into his arms and another into Catriona's. "It doesn't matter where we're going, if we want to save the Lord and Lady Davishkov, we need to go now."

"I'm not going to England for help," Catriona said defiantly, throwing down the overcoat. "I'm staying."

"Don't be such a stubborn headed fool, Cat," Aiden snapped at her, but he could see it was no use. She sat down and that punctuated her statement. "Fine. We'll go alone. Feel free to die here, sis." He said at her angrily.

"At least I'll be free," she gave back to him. Aiden clenched his jaw and grabbed Evgeniy by the forearm, pulling him toward the door.

"Let's go, Yev." He said, still angry. Evgeniy protested but not strongly.

"You'll be sure to die if you stay, Catriona," Evgeniy protested at the door. "Don't do this!" He had begun to scream as Aiden pushed him through the door and tried to close it. Evgeniy stuck out a foot and stopped the door from being closed. "Don't do this, Cat!" With one magnificent push, Aiden threw Evgeniy against the opposite wall and slammed the door shut behind him. Catriona could hear them struggling, but it didn't last long: there was a loud thud as she guessed Evgeniy's body hit the floor, and then all sounds of struggle ended. Aiden's heavy footfalls receded as he marched away from the apartment. Catriona was tempted to go to the window and see him out in the street, but she stayed where she was stubbornly. She had no intention of leaving this spot, even for a final glimpse of her brother. Instead, she began to plot how to achieve the same measure of success within the country. She was a spy, after all, and she knew how to conduct covert missions. This one, unlike others, was so covert it was clandestine, and there was no one else running point but her. She'd need a new identity first – of all things to do – and she'd need to brush up on her Slavic and Hungarian.

"So much for a furlough home," she sighed, disappointedly resigned to the fate she'd chosen. Her breakfast was bound to be the last piece of Ireland she would cherish for a while. Leaving all else to be worked on later, Catriona Murdoch – soon to be a dead rebel spy for the Northern Council – dug into her breakfast again on the morning that would go down in history and create so great a splash that her great-great-great-granddaughter, a beautiful golden haired orphan girl from America called Katherine Stark, would awake one morning in her soon-to-be castle room in Norway and feel its first little ripples across more than a century. But she didn't know any of that; she had not the foresight. All Catriona Murdoch – soon to be the first of a long line of champions called Lavinia Olekseva – could see was her final opportunity to indulge in the rich cooking tradition of her people, thousands of miles apart from them. In a scant half hour, while sitting there reading the latest news printing, Catriona Murdoch would be one of many victims in an explosion that would destroy half a block of apartment houses and shops along the river Danube, a final thrust leading the subversive wizard world into full world war. All she had to do was finish her breakfast, because the world could wait until after a good cup of Irish tea.