Wahde's eyes were clear, yet the sight confused her.

She and Charlie had arrived in Casablanca, the greatest city in the Berber world, the previous week, having had to apparate to the border of the Maghreb lest they fall victim to the dark wards. In the past few days they had been unable to locate either of their needles in the great haystack, but she learned even more about the region than she could reasonably pretend to know.

"Do not let your eyes deceive you," she had said on their arrival at the border, a ward that could only be felt as they passed through. "The North has many names, as many places do, yet here the names change because the names have power." They were standing alone in the arid wilderness, and to him she suspected there was nothing at all suspicious about the place. She remembered waving her wand with a spirit detection spell, but finding nothing. I had hoped for a helpful illustration of the point. This is unfortunate.

"They keep calling it different things to keep you from knowing what they mean?" the red-haired wizard guessed. "I guess that's pretty smart. You can't talk about something if you don't know the name. Really, it's hard to think about it. D'you reckon they have any reason for it?"

"The whispers from the Maghreb tell of different things," she had said. "Perhaps it is something greatly complex, and the dark wizards have evil plans, thousands of years in the works. Perhaps it is much simpler; perhaps they are simply ashamed of their past. The Barbary slave trade is a reason not to call it Barbary any longer."

"Is that like the other one that went on south of here?"

"No. There the kings sold men from other tribes, but not from far away. The reign of the whip was long, and they ran out of slaves to sell. The Barbary pirates stopped their raiding when the Europeans destroyed what they believed to be all of the trade and the traders. They were wrong. This was after Secrecy, and the sale went on in secret."

"What happened?"

"The slaves rebelled long ago. Many won their freedom, others were released, and the rest were killed."

Charlie seemed to have no response. He had some idea that Anthony would be in Casablanca, if for no other reason than because the boy was a Londoner and might feel at home in a large city after having been away for long enough. At the same time, the ratio of the area of the city in relation to the area of the Berber world was roughly the same as the ratio of the city and the area in which they could expect to find their target. The city was an obvious choice, but it was only a haystack within a haystack.

Presently, the pair of them were tailing a man who appeared to be a dark wizard in a crowded street. He was as out of place as Charlie, who himself earned more than enough stares, enough that he had considered disguising himself to keep the kid from realizing they were coming, but Wahde had waved away the notion. The city received more than enough international visitors; she doubted anyone would call home about a red-haired wizard, especially not in the magical district.

The dark-haired man of a pale complexion rounded a corner into an alley off the crowded street. The foreign wizard nodded to acknowledge he had seen the movement and followed, taking the same course, while she would go ahead. If he hopes he can escape by turning again, he is mistaken. Mounting the broomstick, she lifted off silently and looked over the buildings at a hover, tall and compact though they were. Their target had not taken off at a run yet, so she pulled ahead and landed in front of him, raising a shield in expectation he would realize his captivity. I can dodge if he uses anything more serious.

To her surprise, the man leaped to the side, seeming to go for a squat basement window, the kind she had not seen at home. As Charlie caught up, he aimed a nonlethal spell at the target, she did not remember its description, but in defiance of what she had known to be possible, the fleeing man succeeded in contorting himself into a flexible, black form as he hit the window, breaking through it.

"Damn," Charlie muttered, perhaps both impressed and disappointed at the same time. "I wonder if he researched that trick just for this purpose."

"He is not a dark wizard."

"A dark wizard would have killed us both, or tried as much," the red-haired wizard continued. "If we were looking for dark wizards, we haven't found any. This was a false lead."

Wahde huffed briefly through her nose. She did not like the idea that she was no closer to finding her brother's killer, but really she knew she was no further away.

"What do you intend to do with Anthony when we find him?" Charlie asked.

"I was about to ask you," she lied.

"I heard Azkaban's a ruin, so he can't go there even if the laws worked out. I think he committed murder and kidnapping in Liberia, so if you've got a wizarding prison-"

"We do. He would most likely go to the Kalahari or Zerzura," she explained curtly, not desirous that he survive long enough to go to either place. Wizarding prisons were scarce the world over, as she understood it, and in many cases multiple countries shared a single one. Execution was more common, what with Secrecy to maintain. Then, there is also the common instance of getting away with it. There is no point to building prisons for dark wizards who are not caught. "Azkaban was the British one, then?"

"Yes, it was. Can't imagine what's going to happen now that it's gone. Ten years ago, most people didn't like the way they did things there, but we couldn't really live without it."

"You already said it was a prison."

"Well, it's more complicated than that. It's not just the inmates getting out and spreading out all over the place, it's the guards. We used nonbeings called dementors to keep the prisoners quiet, and ultimately suppress their ability to do magic. Now that they're out, they're feeding off muggles, well, nonmagical people, and it's hard to catch them doing it because the muggles can't see them. They can't die, we don't have any place to put them, and we end up just having to clean up their messes with memory charms and more than a few cheering charms."

"I have never seen a dementor," she said, peering into the basement window. As expected, their target had vanished. It would not be so easy.

"That's good, I suppose. It may mean we're right about their preference for cold areas. Around here, they'd be limited to mountaintops... well, there's an idea."

"We do not want your problems here," Wadhe muttered, thinking more of the prisoners than the guards. It had long since occurred to her that some would see Africa as a perfect hiding place, apart from standing out in crowds somewhat. If the worst occurred and a fugitive were discovered, he could apparate away, even if surrounded by do-no-magics, because the Secrecy was less defined. His pursuers would be more reticent for their numbers, and for the fact that they had more to lose; she had explained as much to Charlie when they saw their most recent target. As for the guards, she was sure there was something simple the wizards across the sea had not tried yet.

"Most people don't. We have more established relations with the Americans and the Australians anyway, and I have some understanding of their mountain ranges, enough to conclude there might be enough in the right places that we could use."

The witch gave him a look.

"There are dragons there," he explained, looking up from a city map.

"Why do they not bother the do-no-magics? Secrecy would be gone in an afternoon?"

"Mostly they want nothing to do with them; 's always been that way. They're smarter creatures than most people realize; so when the muggles started spreading into their lands, they tried extortion first, must've figured it'd work out for them."

"What changed?" she asked, looking at the map. He appeared to have eliminated a few places, though a few of the markings could mean anything.

"Muggles fought them. They realized the extortion wasn't going to stop, so there was really nothing to do but send every knight they had until the dragon was dead." He set off down the alley, going toward another crowded street. "Eventually, they decided they were better off staying away. For a while it was fine, and they just kept out of sight in the mountains. Muggles didn't stop expanding, so they started needing people like myself to relocate them."

"Where?"

"Well, there are a few places that are still off the beaten path, like Romania. Can't just shove 'em in impossible spaces, it'd sever their contact with the natural world. I don't understand the theory about magical creatures and needing contact with nature, but it's been tested enough times to call it a proven fact; you don't know how many times we've tried to put a troll in a box and forget about him, we always get some kind of citation for that, but old Braintree always says that they don't count if he doesn't see them-"

"How do you keep them from being seen?" she asked, following the red-haired wizard toward what looked to be a pair of identical buildings, white and rectangular with blue windows. In truth, the structures themselves did not impress her, not as much as other things that seemed to be necessary for civilization.

"We've got muggle-repelling charms that keep them out sometimes. I really mean sometimes, every so often you get a contrarian or an impossible bellend who just won't listen to suggestions. I reckon that's how you keep your school hidden, but that's none of my business."

The pair of them walked through the ward boundary that cordoned off the wizarding part of the city through a series of increasingly forceful senses of fear. The dark wards kept most muggles from entering, and the ones who did knew better than to see things they were not supposed to see. The unease could still be felt by magical people as they passed through, but it was easy when they knew the danger was not real. The wards also prevented anyone from seeing in from a distance, but folded space might have been involved with that. Wadhe had never looked up the specifics. We go through much effort to conceal ourselves from the do-no-magics. I wonder if they would hide from us, if they knew we lived among them.

The buildings were easy enough to access, possibly because the nonmagical watchmen assumed Charlie was there on business, though he had a way of acting like he was supposed to be there. The red-haired wizard took one look inside the first one they entered, then turned around.

"Not that one," he muttered.

"Why?!" she asked. "How do you know?!"

"There's a Death Eater in that one; I'm sure I've seen him before. Don't look too closely at them. Might be they're out of their element, but they never go anywhere without backup."

The African witch took him at his word. It seemed like they were looking for dark wizards earlier, but this seemed to mean there was a difference between them and Death Eaters.

"Do we think Anthony is here?"

"He might be. Got to thinking he'd be hiding in plain sight."

"Why?"

"Creating some kind of near-perfect hiding place didn't work. I don't think he'd try the same thing again, 'cause that's what we'd expect. It's your friend, Said who gives it away. He's looking for dark wizards, or someone powerful here, for protection. He'll exchange secrets or something, but the important thing is he has to meet with them somewhere."

"He means to meet them in this part of the city?" Wadhe asked as they passed through another set of security guards.

"The entire region is protected. You said as much yourself. The dark wizards may have made the protections for the magical district, but it's been there for ages and I reckon most of the people there have nothing to do with them."

"So they do business elsewhere." They boarded an elevator, in which the red-haired wizard looked confused for a moment before jamming the highest number.

"Yeah, in the part of the city you wouldn't expect to find wizards. It's the thing you mentioned earlier about fleeing criminals. In the muggle areas, they've got less to lose anyway."

"Charlie."

"Yeah?"

"You say there are Death Eaters one building over."

"I'm almost certain of it."

"Is that a coincidence?" she asked, adjusting to the feeling of the elevator. It was only her second time in a mechanical one. "Perhaps they too are here to do business with the dark wizards."

"Quite possible."

"What do they want?"

"No idea. You'd have to ask one of them."

The elevator dinged.

They emerged in a hallway, with signs of burnished brass mounted to the wall indicating what all was on the top floor.

"We're looking for anything out of place, any kind of subtle-"

Wadhe waved her wand at one of the brass signs, the words twisting into 'Dark Wizard Meeting Room' with an arrow pointing up.

"The dark wizards of the Maghreb are not subtle."

Charlie stared for a moment.

"I suppose not. Keeps the muggles out well enough, I reckon," he said as she waved her wand at the ceiling above the sign. A trap door opened, where it appeared there had not been one and a silver ladder of rope floated down. "Wait a tick, I've seen that one before."

"It is a clever trick," she explained as she checked for anyone watching. The do-no-magics would not be looking for dark wards on the signs they made. She had some idea they would also not notice a missing button on an elevator if the surrounding metal had been repaired, but there were other ways of concealing the real top floor, and there might well be no time to investigate any of them.

They scaled the ladder slowly and carefully, igniting their wands as they reached the top. The decoration of the room was intimidating, to say the least, as it had been set up for some kind of ritual magic, but the red-haired wizard sighed all the same.

"If he's been here we missed him. Wouldn't be any reason for it to be dark in here otherwise."

The witch said nothing. There were a few rituals that required total darkness, to her knowledge, but the place looked and sounded empty enough.

"How do we know he has been here?"

"We don't, but it's not a bad place to look for him or your friend," Charlie explained, proceeding to cast a charm with an incantation that sounded like it would reveal humans. Pointing her wand at the floor revealed a series of red concentric circles and triangles, with some manner of white zig-zags in between the progressively larger shapes. "What the devil is that?"

"I do not know." The runes come from a Bantu tradition. Whoever did this is from the Congo or Uganda- or he has learned it in Uagadou. Her eyes narrowed. "You might be right about Said having come here. The Maghreb has its own school- a school of dark magic. The boys of Barbary do not leave home without good reason."

The wizard appeared to piece together what she was saying.

"He went to a faraway school to diversify the background of whatever kind of dark wizard group meets here, then, and it's not a common thing, then. I take it you've not seen too many of his sort there?" She shook her head. "You can't quite say what this might do, though?" She shook her head again.

"Africa is a big place."

"It's the same back home, really," Charlie started, shaking his head. "People don't realize all the ancient magicks and esoteric spells that can be dredged up and combined in ways I can't begin to understand. I talk about it like I've an idea, but not really, the theory always kind of escaped me." He found what appeared to be a floating podium in the dark as he walked over to it. "Hate to admit it, but I sort of coasted in school. Better'n I had any right to be in Quidditch, doubled down on old Kettleburn's class and graduated before I knew it. Years from now they'll probably think of me and my friends as being in this lost generation, the only people to grow up and leave school without a war on."

Wadhe allowed him to vent as she struggled with the Arabic script on the lengths of papyrus they found on the podium. It was not as if she were entirely unsympathetic, but it was the kind of thing she imagined she would only understand when she had formative years on which to look back.

"It is a dark shield," she interpreted. "It may be able to block most forms of dark magic."

"What- is this ritual thing supposed to enchant something for that purpose? Are they creating a spell?"

She shook her head.

"I do not know." We do not have classes in Arabic. I know it only from books. "I sense, though, that we do not wish to find out."