"Those items may not look protected, but they are," Gideon intoned. "Michael, was it?"

"Yes." Wyatt got to his feet, still holding the crystal, and now he had the advantage of height, but Gideon did not back away. He held out his hand.

Stay on his good side. Wyatt handed the crystal over and - hoping the great effort didn't show - said, "Sorry. Sir."

"I thought you had returned to the Manor with Piper and Paige."

"I did. But Paige came back to get her students, and I came with her, to protect her."

Gideon raised his eyebrows slightly - Wyatt guessed he didn't think a witch without active powers would provide much useful protection to a Charmed One.

Wyatt went on: "I asked to stay - I had an idea I wanted to try out, a way to find out who's doing this. So, Paige took her students to the Manor and I came here. No one told me I wasn't allowed."

"Your 'idea' involved taking a millennia-old crystal?"

"It involved using a millennia-old crystal, yes. I suppose could have tried with one of the sisters' ordinary scrying crystals, but I thought more power might be needed since I'm thinking outside the box a little here."

"What are you trying to do?"

"Track the magic back to its source. I've had some experience with this. Maybe the tracking I've done in the past is not quite the same, but I think the principal will still apply."

He didn't tell Gideon that this "experience" involved enchanting custom-made probes to search the city and detect renegade witches. There wouldn't be any need to involve such remote technology here, though. It would be a little old-fashioned, hands-on magic.

Gideon fingered the crystal in his hand as he considered Wyatt. "I'd rather you not work here unsupervised. You'll forgive me, but I don't know you."

"Leo vouched for me."

"I don't think he did, not exactly. He simply told me the barest information about who you are."

"Talk to Leo. He trusts me. He knows I just want to help."

Unexpectedly, Gideon laid the crystal on one of the tables and pulled out a chair. "Have a seat," he said. "You may work on your idea here. Under my supervision."

Once, when Wyatt was fourteen, he had put serious effort into acquiring Darklighter poison, with Gideon in mind. He had failed, but he took a moment now to wonder if he could pull it off here in the past.

But outwardly, he obediently sat in the chair, pulled the crystal toward him, and tried to concentrate on it. Gideon wandered over to a bookshelf, took down a volume, and began to look through it, or pretend to do so, in between glances at Wyatt.

Wyatt closed his eyes, and resumed his attempt to connect to the object's magic, while letting his mind turn over words of a possible spell. To reveal a witch unknown...

He didn't get very far. Both he and Gideon jumped to attention at the distant sound of hooves, followed by the blaring alarm. Their eyes met.

"The Manor," Wyatt said, and Gideon nodded.

Apparently caring nothing for supervising now, Gideon orbed away in a cloud of purple lights, leaving behind Wyatt, who grabbed the crystal and ran out of the hall and toward the door that led to the Manor. It was open when he reached it, and he walked in on Gideon and Paige already in intense discussion.

"But you can't wait for her," Gideon was saying. "You have to go after the Horseman now."

"By myself? No. I can't vanquish him."

"You don't have to. All you have to do is lead him back to the school, so that at least nobody will be killed."

"The Horseman got out?" Wyatt asked.

"Out through the sunroom," Paige said.

"If you're going to find him, I'll go with you." He held up the crystal to Gideon. "I need to get close to the Horseman for this to work."

"All right. I'll help you, Paige. You, Michael, do what you need to do, but stopping the Horseman takes priority."

Before Wyatt could take Paige's arm - or explain to her what he was talking about with the crystal - Gideon waved a hand and Wyatt found himself carried along in a cloud of purple orb lights. The unusual color aside, traveling with Gideon felt exactly like anyone else's orbs, so why did tendrils of panic spring up and begin to twist deep inside him? Wyatt forcibly stamped the feeling down, so that when they arrived in the alleyway - seconds later, though it felt longer - he was in control, if slightly nauseated.

Paige had arrived alongside them. And the next thing they all saw was the Horseman, which galloped down the alleyway until it reached a crouching thug - and decapitated him. Wyatt threw himself to the ground just to the side of its path, holding out the crystal and wondering how many bones ghostly hooves might break if he misjudged this.

But he did not get trampled. He felt the rush of magical energy pass him by as he muttered the spell he had been mentally tossing around back in the great hall:

To reveal a witch unknown

Let the power enter this stone

Had he the time, he would have refined it, but he was satisfied to see the crystal faintly glow - the brief little light was just barely detectable, nearly drowned out by the blaze from the Magic School door that Gideon had conjured. The Horseman ran through and disappeared, and then the door was gone as well.

"Well, at least we got him back?" Paige said.

Gideon said, "Not soon enough I'm afraid. The death of an innocent means the death of Magic School."

She sighed and pulled out her phone. "I've got to call Darryl, give him a heads up."

"We've got to get back," said Wyatt, who had climbed to his feet, keeping a tight grip on the still-warm crystal.

"We can't just leave him like this."

Wyatt showed her the crystal. "And I may have found a way to detect the culprit, but I've never done this before, so I don't know how long the energy I caught is going to stay in this thing."

"Okay, you're not making any sense," said Paige, who had already dialed. "Darryl!" And she turned away to explain what had happened, leaving Wyatt standing, frustrated, next to the fretting Gideon.

Once she disconnected the call and said that the police, including Darryl, were on their way, Gideon said, "Michael is right. If there's a way to find where this is coming from, we can at least prevent more tragedy."

"All right," Paige said. "I'll be there as soon as I can. But we are going to talk about this 'death of Magic School' business when I get there. Go on."

Wyatt had no good reason to demand that Paige take him back. Gideon couldn't stay behind and deal with the police - he'd be ridiculously incompetent at it. Of course, Wyatt didn't see much point in talking to the police anyway - let Mortals deal with their own. They'd just consider it an unsolved murder forever and that was that. But he doubted that argument would fly with Paige. In short, he had no choice but to endure being enveloped by those purple lights again. And he did, stumbling a little away from Gideon on the landing. He pushed the experience out of his mind as fast as he could.

"When I started this school, I made a promise that the magic within would never harm a soul," Gideon said.

"Why don't you wait to hear what Paige finds out?" Wyatt tried to keep the annoyance out of his voice, but he needed that school to remain open. Once he got back to his future, Gideon could burn the place down for all he cared, but right now, it was the only Elder-controlled realm that he could reasonably hope to have access to.

"It's too late," Gideon said. "The damage has already been done."

"For the moment, I'm going to focus on stopping further damage. It would help if you'd go get Phoebe."

To Wyatt's slight surprise, Gideon nodded at this and orbed away.

Walking toward the sunroom, Wyatt called out, "Piper! Are you okay?"

"Hunky-dory," she answered.

He was concentrating on the crystal as he walked into the sunroom, but looked up at the sound of croaking. The students were standing in a wary semicircle around a toad.

"Anybody else want to try me?" Piper told them.

Wyatt made an appreciative snort of amusement when he noticed Slick was missing. Bodiless and all, Piper looked pretty pleased with herself as well.

"What happened out there?" she asked.

Wyatt stood face to face with her, the students (and toad) behind him. "Somebody got killed. An innocent. Gideon's saying he's shutting the school down." The students behind him murmured in reaction to this news.

"And what have you got there?"

Wyatt had raised the crystal, letting it sway at the end of its worn leather cord. It was beginning to circle.

"This," he told her, "was within inches of the Horseman - maybe the apparition even passed through it. And it captured some of that magical energy. Energy that now wants to return to its source. My own variation on scrying."

"Did you get all this talent from me?"

He couldn't help smile back at her, and at the way the faint glow had returned to the crystal. It was pulling now, as scrying crystals normally pull at a map, but this one was leading him to turn around, toward the group of students.

It wasn't taking him toward Slick, but honestly, Wyatt never thought that idiot could have pulled this off. Wyatt narrowly avoided stepping on the toad as he followed the crystal. Its glow grew stronger and Wyatt nearly lost his grip on the cord as it suddenly yanked itself toward that kid who had been dangling in class - Zachary, Paige had called him.

"Gotcha," Wyatt said.

And then the world went still.

Wyatt had never been frozen before, but he knew from observing his mother's power that its subjects didn't feel the passage of time. Now he knew that to be true. One moment before, he had been in the Manor's sunroom, facing that kid Zachary, the glowing crystal in his hand and his mother's head on a cabinet behind him. The next moment, his mother, completely herself again, head to toe, was standing in front of him. They were in Paige's - Sigmund's - classroom in Magic School, along with the rest of the students, who were talking excitedly while a whole Sigmund tried to settle them down. At some point, the crystal had been removed from Wyatt's hand.

"You've missed a lot," Piper said.

"No kidding. What happened?"

She took a deep breath and launched into it: "Zachary's a telepath who was tapping into others' powers. He tapped into my freezing power and somehow used it to freeze a room full of good witches - don't ask me how, because I can't do it. So he kidnapped me, took me into the school, and Paige and Phoebe came after me, and they got decapitated, too. But we worked out a Power of Three spell to get reunited with our bodies. I told Gideon your crystal had pinpointed Zachary - not to mention the kidnapping - and they had it out. We talked him down. And that was that."

She delivered all this as if she were describing a mildly annoying day at work.

As they began walking together toward the door leading to the Manor, Wyatt asked, "And where's that kid?"

"Oh, at home with his parents, where he wants to be. Just a disgruntled teenager, feeling ignored and maltreated and homesick. Well, and hating being magical."

"He hates being magical, so he powers up and someone gets killed."

"Yeah ... the best that can said about that is that the victim was a wanted murderer, according to Darryl. I guess aside from all teachers and us, the Horseman targeted the guilty? Don't ask me. Not my decision."

I can't believe I got expelled from this place, Wyatt thought.

Aloud, he said, "So, Gideon's shutting the school down."

"No, Paige talked him out of that."

"Good to hear."

"Were you worried about this place for any particular reason?"

"Why, are you thinking about sending your son here?"

"After all this?" Piper shook her head. "Suddenly, I'm more concerned about separating him from his family than raising him as an only child."

They walked the corridor in silence for a minute or so, then Piper said, "So, what is it that you came around for, before all this started?"

"Oh. Right. I was coming to tell you that I was ready to leave."

They had reached the door to the Manor.

"Leave? Seems like you only just got here. And what about-?"

With a tilt of his head, Wyatt communicated that they should continue this conversation in the Manor, away from Magic School and any possible eavesdroppers.

They stepped through and had barely reached the foyer when they both felt the door's disappearance before they turned around and saw it. Piper looked relieved to see the wall returned to normal; Wyatt gritted his teeth to lose that entrance, though he hadn't really expected it to be a permanent fixture.

"What about Chris?" Piper said as they moved into the living room. Leo was there, sitting with little Wyatt.

"What about him?" Leo asked.

Piper continued to address Wyatt: "What about all the stuff he might have done that you were going to check out? Making sure he didn't mess up the future too much."

"These past weeks, I've followed up on all possible leads. Do you know, there was one demon on call, just waiting for Chris to have a chance alone with little Wyatt, without any of the family around, then Chris was going to summon it."

"To do what?" Leo asked.

To scan for "evil," a completely harmless and useless activity. From Chris's notes and from the mouth of the demon himself, Wyatt knew this, but to his parents he said, "Who knows? It couldn't have been anything good."

"None of this is convincing me that the problem is in hand," Piper said.

"I vanquished that demon. I vanquished a lot of Chris's 'demon contacts.' But I saw no evidence anywhere that he made the slightest bit of difference here." Wyatt looked between Piper and Leo and told them something of the real truth that had been on his mind: "I just don't see him being a problem in the future. It'll be like he never existed."

"Uh huh," Piper said, sounding unconvinced. "So, have you worked out a way to get back?"

From his jacket pocket, Wyatt pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to her. "I wrote this - I think it'll work with the Power of Three."

"Oh." She looked at the spell. "Well, why don't we call your aunts right now and send you on your way?"

"You keep it," Wyatt said, deflecting her attempt at a guilt trip. "I'll know where to find you when I need it. After all this, I've changed my mind."

"About Chris?"

"No. I swear to you, Mom, he's nothing to worry about. I mean that I'm not ready to go back yet. There's something I need to do ..." He looked at Leo. "It involves Magic School. I can't tell you what it is; I can only tell you it's important that I do some research there. But I need your help to get in."

In the early morning a couple days after, Leo was waiting at P3's bar when his son arrived. Wyatt had proposed the meeting place and had hung up before Leo could offer to play orb taxi. He had an independent streak, that was for sure, Leo thought.

And apparently he had not much inclination to chat. He didn't sit down, but stood next to Leo's barstool and immediately asked, "Did you talk to Gideon?"

"I did."

"Did you convince him to trust me?"

"Actually, I didn't have to. He brought you up first."

"Why?" There was a faint hint of suspicion in his voice.

"He was very impressed with you. That magic you worked with the crystal - he thought it was creative and," Leo added with an apologetic smile, "nothing he would have expected from a witch without active powers."

"I'm flattered - I guess."

"And he has a job for you, if you're open to it."

Wyatt looked startled. "What kind of job?"

"He said he couldn't tell me. But I brought up that you were interested in doing some research on your own at Magic School, and he seemed open to the idea."

"In exchange for me doing the work."

"Maybe," Leo granted.

"Running errands for Gideon is not what I stayed here to do."

Leo shook his head with a slight chuckle.

"What?" Wyatt asked.

"Oh, it's just - I think I was sitting in this exact same spot with Chris and he told me pretty much the same thing when I tried to assign him a charge."

"Did he? You know, in that case, I'll do it. How do I get to Gideon?"

Leo waved his arm and a door appeared on the wall behind P3's stage. He put a hand on Wyatt's shoulder and said with a smile, "I get the impression you share your mom's distrust of Elders. Try not to give Gideon too hard a time. He's been on our family's side for a long time."

"Don't worry," Wyatt said, moving away from Leo's touch and toward the door. "I'll behave myself."

Leo watched him walk away, and just as Wyatt was shutting the Magic School door behind him, a voice came from P3's entrance.

"Wyatt? Wyatt! Hey, I need to ..."

But Wyatt was gone, and then the door itself vanished. Leo looked to see Phoebe's shoulders sag in disappointment as she stood at the bottom of P3's stairs. She sighed and waved hello, walking over to join him.

"What are you doing here at this hour?" he asked.

"Piper told me you were meeting Wyatt here. I need to talk to him."

"Did you try calling him?"

"Yes, and he hadn't returned my call yet. So, okay, I thought I'd try ambushing him. I'm just kinda anxious to talk to him, you know?"

"Is there a problem?"

"No ... not exactly." She pulled a little red plastic drink stirrer from a dispenser and fiddled with it, not looking Leo in the eye.

"Phoebe?"

She gave him a pained look, almost on the verge of talking, but then shook her head. "I can't, I can't. I need to talk to Wyatt about this."

"Which means it's about the future, and it's about that vision quest of yours."

"Yeah." She seemed almost relieved to admit just that. "And, you know, future consequences and all that." However merited the sentiment, Leo couldn't help but frown slightly at Phoebe pulling out Chris's familiar refrain, but she plowed on: "There's something I saw that I don't really understand. But I feel like I should understand, you know? I have an idea of what it means, and then I think, no, that can't possibly be right ... I don't want to talk about it until I'm sure. And I can't be sure until I talk to Wyatt."

Wyatt stepped into Magic School, and the door Leo had created immediately closed behind him. P3 was gone. Again, he made his way toward the great hall. He hadn't reached it before Gideon materialized out of the shadows.

"Ah, Leo spoke with you then."

"Yes, but he didn't explain what you wanted."

"Come with me. Classes are about to let out, and this is not a matter for students to overhear."

Wyatt followed, and he could soon tell where they were headed: Gideon's office. He was all too familiar with the route and the destination. They did not speak as they walked along, and Wyatt recalled those times, those many times of being "talked to," scolded, berated for his "misdeeds" - that is, for using his powers in ways Gideon wanted to rein in. His parents were often there, and once in a while even they thought Gideon was trying to constrict their son too much. Wyatt would be sent to the office's outer room where he'd hear indistinct voices in discussion, Leo patiently arguing his case, Piper snappish and sarcastic. Most of the time, though - and with increasing concern in the months leading to his expulsion - they backed Gideon as the head of the school.

And Wyatt, when he wasn't explosively arguing back in every case, would sit back and let the adults talk while he imagined ways to make Gideon suffer - ways that became increasingly creative as the years went by. He may not have gotten his hands on Darklighter potion (not before Gideon was out of reach, anyway), but Wyatt had found the imaginary punishments oddly calming. He wondered if the trick would work now.

The office looked much the same. The furniture and decorations had apparently never been changed or even rearranged. After shutting the door behind them, Gideon walked to his desk - which still held the crystal ball Wyatt knew he used to spy on the school. Next to his ornate, high-backed chair, Gideon turned to face Wyatt with a flourish and a serious look. Wyatt regarded him blandly while imagining a fireball igniting Gideon's swept-back hair. Not too creative, but effective all the same. Yes, that still worked.

"That was a fine piece of magic during the recent incident with the Headless Horseman," Gideon said. "Whatever the limitations of your active powers, you showed inventiveness and creative thought."

"I try. What do you want from me?"

"I have a task that may be suited to your skills. It's a simple hunt for a certain object I need."

"It can't be that simple, or you would do it yourself."

"True. It's a matter of some delicacy, one that would be difficult for me, as an Elder, to carry out. And time is an issue as well. This may take some detective work, including in demonic realms, and I have this school to run as well as my other Elder duties."

"What do I get out of this? I'm here from out of town. The Halliwells have been kind, but I have to support myself."

"I'm sure we can make some arrangements to provide for you while-"

"More importantly, I came here to learn. How do I do that if I'm spending all my time on your quest?"

"I'm sure the quest could be a learning experience in itself."

"I want access to Magic School."

"I'm sorry?"

"Not go to classes. I'm way past that. I just want access to books, supplies, a little side room where I can research, make any potions I need. I can't go into demonic realms unprotected. That's how this quest can be a learning experience. I can research while gathering the knowledge and tools I need to carry it out."

"That seems reasonable. I will find you a room to work. An out-of-the-way room, that is. I need to impress upon you the confidential nature of this work. You may speak about it with no one - not even the Halliwells. The only exception - besides myself, of course - will be Sigmund. He can help you find any books or supplies you need."

"Good. All right, just what is this thing?"

Gideon held up his hands toward the ceiling, and from a high shelf a hefty, ancient book floated down and landed in his open palms. He laid it out gently on his desk and with a telekinetic flutter of pages that Wyatt was surprised didn't crumble with age at the breeze, he opened it to a page with illustrations of several weapons.

Gideon pointed at the image of an athame printed on the page's bottom corner. "There it is. You may start your research with this book, but as I already well know, it is not very informative."

Wyatt kept his face carefully blank as he studied the picture; he didn't allow Gideon to see the surprise of recognition. Wyatt knew exactly where to find that athame: twenty-three years in the future, in a weapons cabinet in his quarters at the top of San Francisco's Pyramid.