Livia and Claudia spent more time talking to each other over the next few days than they had in all the time since they'd been separated as children. Alexandra felt talked about more than talked to, but considering how the slightest mention of the wizarding world had once sent Claudia into silent withdrawal, she tried not to be resentful.

There were wizarding day schools in the Chicago area, and Claudia and Archie discussed the logistics of Alexandra living in Chicago during the week and returning on weekends. Alexandra thought this was an attractive idea, until they told her there was absolutely no way she was going to stay in an apartment by herself.

"I swear, I won't throw wild parties," Alexandra said.

"I'm more worried about you burning the place down," Archie said. "Besides, we can't afford it."

Alexandra folded her arms and gave Archie a sour look. Since learning that he was not her stepfather but her brother-in-law, their already awkward relationship had become even more undefined.

"It's probably not even legal to leave a fifteen-year-old unsupervised," Claudia said.

"But…" Alexandra imagined independence and a city to herself, and proximity to Charmbridge Academy if she could find a way to visit her friends —

"Forget it," Claudia and Archie said together.

According to Livia, there was also a small wizarding school in Sheboygan. Not a day school, but a regular boarding school like Charmbridge, though without the prestige or reputation of the Big Four. Livia didn't know much about it, despite it being located not far from Milwaukee, where she had lived for the past six years.

Livia never offered to let Alexandra stay with her while going to school. Alexandra never hinted at the idea, though she was just a little disappointed that it was never even mentioned. She could understand why Livia wouldn't embrace the idea of a younger sister she barely knew staying with her and her husband, especially when she was expecting a child of her own. Alexandra didn't even know if she would want to go to Milwaukee if invited. But since neither she nor Claudia had yet visited their sister's home, or met her husband, she couldn't help wondering if Livia were maintaining a deliberate distance, willing to help her sisters as long as it didn't bring the wizarding world too close to her personal life.

Livia's careful boundaries presented what seemed to Alexandra a barrier as firm as Claudia's denial once had been.

A few days after Alexandra's trip to Chicago, she and Brian shared a sundae at an ice cream shop, following a movie that Brian had loved and Alexandra had found much harder to enjoy than she once would have.

Not everything in the movie had made sense to her. There were jokes she didn't get. Brian was surprised that she didn't know the star, on whom half the girls in his class had a crush.

Alexandra still mostly caught up on current events and popular celebrities and the latest memes and viral videos when she was at home, but year by year, bit by bit, she could see how she might eventually become a foreigner in Larkin Mills.

Now, she feared becoming a stranger to her friends in the wizarding world as well. Anna and David had both been crushed by the news that she really would not be returning to Charmbridge, but although they offered suggestions, encouragement, and promises to stay in touch, Alexandra knew that they, too, would have to move on with their lives, even without her.

When she told Brian, without specifics, about her problems finding a school to attend, he asked, "What's wrong with staying in Larkin Mills?"

Brian had little understanding of Alexandra's dilemma, though she knew he was trying. She had only told him a tiny fraction of everything that had happened in the past four years, and very little about the wizarding world.

She thrust her spoon into her sundae, which remained boringly butterscotch, not transforming into a new flavor with each bite like the ice cream she got from Goody Pruett's.

"I can't study magic here," she said.

"Can't you study magic in your free time?" he asked. "I mean… is it really that important, being able to cast a few more spells? It's not like you can even use magic in the real world, right?"

Alexandra gave him a slow, considering look. He'd been trying very hard, all summer, to be cool with the idea of magic. She knew it still bothered him that she was a witch: not some silly TV character or a Halloween caricature, but a real, magic-wielding witch. And she, for her part, had been cautious in talking about it, remembering how Diana Grimm had threatened to Obliviate him.

But his words only reinforced how different their worlds were now.

"The wizarding world is the 'real world,' Brian. It's just as real as this one. People live there, and they die there. It's not some fantasyland I visit for fun and then come back from by clicking my heels together."

"I didn't mean that." Brian grimaced. "I mean, I know it's real to you."

Alexandra frowned. She wondered how much of what he'd seen he'd convinced himself wasn't real. "Remember last Christmas? Bonnie? That was real. And it's not magic I can learn by studying in my free time."

Brian looked down. His younger sister still walked with a slight limp. Her doctors said her recovery, after being hit by a car and knocked into a coma, was nothing less than miraculous. Alexandra knew they were right, but the "miracle" was mostly Livia's doing.

She stood up. "C'mon. I want to show you something."

Obediently, Brian got up and followed her outside.

They crossed the street and walked several blocks until they stood at the corner of Third Street, facing the three-story Regal Royalty Sweets and Confections warehouse. To most of the inhabitants of Larkin Mills, it was an old, abandoned building, creepy and run-down and left that way for years and years. No one talked about it, and no one ever proposed tearing it down and putting something more useful on the spot. No one knew who owned it. Even vagrants and teenagers looking for trouble left it alone.

"This place?" Brian said.

"Do you trust me, Brian?" Alexandra asked.

His mouth curled uncertainly. "Yes?"

She held out her hand. "Take my hand."

He did. It didn't shake or sweat; he might be apprehensive about whatever she had in mind, but he wasn't scared — not yet.

"Now I want you to close your eyes," she said.

With a sigh, he did.

Alexandra walked forward, leading him by the hand.

"Um, how are we getting past the fence?" Brian asked, sensing they were about to walk into it.

"That's why I said close your eyes and trust me," Alexandra said.

The fence was part of a complex Muggle-Repelling Charm cast on the entire warehouse. With her Witch's Sight, Alexandra could see it for the phantasmal barrier it was. But as long as Brian believed in it, he would be unable to pass through.

He didn't feel it as they walked through it, though, and no one on the street noticed them. Alexandra stopped at the heavy metal front door and said, "You can open your eyes now."

Brian looked around, while Alexandra stared at the lock.

"How —?" he asked, seeing the unbroken fence behind them.

"Shh," Alexandra said. He fell silent.

The first few times Alexandra had tried the lock, she'd failed. It was a strong lock, possibly one with a little magic in it, not like the lock on her erstwhile parents' bedroom door which she had so easily rhymed open as a child. Since then, she had learned the magic of entrance and egress well. She had studied wards and barriers. Few locks stopped her when she had a wand. Getting into the Regal Royalty building was trivial when she could cast a proper Unlocking Charm.

Without a wand, everything was harder. So much harder.

Rhymes sometimes worked, but she was beginning to understand the limitations of doggerel verse. A rhyme rarely worked twice, unless it was carefully matched with all the other elements of a spell, and Alexandra's education in magic theory was inadequate to turn her verses into true spells. Worse, she didn't understand what she was doing when she used doggerel verse. Spells she cast according to the principles she'd learned were congruent with her intuitive feel for magic, even if she couldn't explain this in words. Spells she cast by using clever rhymes and wishing really hard were akin to finger-painting a portrait.

In other words, her teachers had been right. It was a bitter pill to swallow.

But now she had to paint portraits without brushes. Finger-painting was all she had left, at least for now.

She placed her palms on either side of the lock, muttered some ill-formed Latin, and twisted her shoulders with a flourish, as if the motion of her body were pulling at invisible levers connected to the inner workings of the lock.

It clacked, and Alexandra opened the door triumphantly.

"You did that with magic?" Brian asked. He was not particularly impressed. Magic was magic to him; he had no way of knowing that what she'd done was difficult. "Why are we breaking in?" He cleared his throat. "Um, if you're thinking of making out in there —"

"Maybe you're thinking of making out in there." Alexandra pushed him forward. "That's not what I had in mind." Though, she supposed, it wasn't such a terrible idea… No. The only place in the warehouse that was suitable, that wasn't dingy, dusty, and dark, was the third floor "studio" she had created for herself, and that wasn't for fooling around in. It would feel like she was violating her serious place of study and concentration if she turned it into a make-out spot.

It was to the third floor she led Brian, up dark, unlit stairs in which neither of them could see.

"How do you know we won't step in a hole or something?" Brian protested. "Or trip down the stairs, or — heck, Alex, who knows who could be in here?"

"We won't step in a hole. I know the way, and there's no one else in here." No one except Goody Pruett. Alexandra held Brian's hand and led him quickly past the second floor, hoping the portrait wouldn't raise a fuss when she heard their footsteps.

Brian's apprehension was not irrational. Creeping around in a dark, abandoned warehouse was a stupid thing to do, if you weren't a witch and you hadn't made it your place. Alexandra squeezed his hand, not sure how else to reassure him without embarrassing him.

They reached the third floor. Half of it was enclosed offices, dark and forbidding like the rest of the warehouse. The other half was a large open space. Whatever offices or other rooms had once occupied it had been stripped away, leaving a bare wooden floor and rows of windows on three walls, admitting light into the brightest part of the building. Here, Alexandra had brought cushions and blankets to sit on, when she wasn't perched in the throne-like chair in the middle of the room.

The same Muggle-Repelling Charms that left the Regal Royalty Sweets and Confections Warehouse unnoticed in plain sight made it an ideal retreat for Alexandra. It was also the one place in Larkin Mills where she could practice magic without being caught by the Trace that the Confederation put on all juveniles living among Muggles.

In the offices, she'd hidden her books, her magical backpack, her Traveler's Compass, and her other magic items, but she didn't go to retrieve any of these. Brian was looking speculatively at the austere studio, with its cushions and blankets.

"Shh," Alexandra said. "Stay there." She walked away from him, all the way to the windows at the other side of the open space, then turned to face him. His expression was harder to see from here, and she knew with the light behind her, he couldn't see hers at all.

"This is a little bit dangerous," she said.

"Uh huh," Brian said. He didn't move.

Alexandra held up her hands and closed her eyes. She'd spent weeks practicing small magics, trying to work out why it was that she couldn't do anything reliably or consistently or with significant effect without a wand. Her books explained why, of course, but wizards had done magic before wands had become the standard instrument with which to focus one's power, and she suspected that the lack of stories or historical accounts of powerful wizards without wands was the Confederation's usual practice of censoring information about anything they wanted to discourage.

"Wandless magic" existed, but usually only as something unleashed spontaneously under great distress. She knew of no way to study it formally. Alexandra no longer believed that with enough will and practice she could learn to do just as well without a wand. But she had learned that there were things she could do.

Colors danced behind her eyes, colors she could only see in her mind, that didn't exist in the real world. She reached for shapes and sensations that were equally indescribable, and called forth magic by rolling them around in her mind like a rhyme on her tongue. She struggled to hold onto mental glyphs she'd learned to visualize with Invocation Theory, and positioned her body using the forms described in a chapter on "Manifestation Staging." She had spent the last month reading well ahead of her tenth grade curriculum.

It was strange and wonderful when magical theory worked in practice, and very frustrating when it didn't.

A fireball erupted in the middle of the flat, empty space. Brian jumped. "Holy crap!"

The fire blazed red then blue, then it shrank to a flickering haze and winked out. Brian gasped again as he saw that Alexandra's hands were on fire.

Alexandra waved them, with her green eyes aglow. Fire licked around the edges of her hands, and sparks shot from her fingers. She flicked her wrist, and a wave of fire rolled off her palm and struck the floor with a splash of flames. She whipped her hands around, leaving trails of fire in the air, then she clapped and made a burst of flame which she actually felt. It singed the tip of her nose.

It took only a thought to snuff it. The scorch marks remained on the floor, but Alexandra's hands were no longer aflame. She walked back over to Brian, who did not seem thrilled by this demonstration. She held up her hands to show him they were unburned.

"Real magic, Brian," she said.

"I know that," he said, a little angrily. "I thought you're not supposed to do magic at home or you'll get in trouble. Are you going to tell me that's another rule you can break when you feel like it?"

"Only here. They don't know when I'm doing magic here." She didn't specify who "they" were. "Want to see another trick?"

"Not really," Brian said, but Alexandra looked away from him and raised an arm. She opened her hand, and cawed.

Brian started. Then he nearly jumped away from her as Charlie appeared inside the loft. The raven flapped around beating its wings violently before settling on Alexandra's outstretched wrist.

"Pretty bird," Alexandra said.

"Pretty bird," Charlie agreed.

Brian's eyes were wide. "You summoned Charlie from your house?"

"Actually, I cheated. Charlie was just outside the window over there. I knew that. Charlie's my familiar, not my pet."

"Charlie's a raven," Charlie said. Alexandra smiled, her eyes still focused on her familiar.

"Right," Brian said. "That's impressive. But why are you showing me this?"

"Because you want to believe I can just return to being an ordinary girl, that magic is making cards disappear. Or an occasional miracle when you really, really need one. I don't learn this stuff because it's cool or because I'm showing off, Brian. I'm learning it because there are people who've tried to kill me. And things that aren't even people." She finally looked at him. "Do you get it? It's what I am. It's not going away."

"Yeah," Brian said, "I get it."

He took her wrist, the one that wasn't holding Charlie, and pulled her closer to him. She didn't resist. She shooed Charlie away, afraid the raven might decide to peck Brian when he brought his face close to hers.

"You're trying to scare me," Brian said. "You want to make me run away."

"That's not it," Alexandra said.

"Yeah, it is. I freaked out a couple years ago, and you're waiting for me to do the same thing again. Are you going to keep testing me like this?"

"It wasn't a test," Alexandra said, though with a little less certainty.

"I'm sorry I said the wizarding world isn't real," Brian said. "And I won't pretend that magic doesn't weird me out. I really don't want to see all those creatures you talk about. But if you want to break up, just say so. Stop trying to scare me or see if you can make me break up with you."

"I don't want to send you away, Brian. I just don't know what the future's going to be like."

"Who does?" He encircled her with his other arm and kissed her. She kissed him back willingly enough, but when he released her wrist and reached for the bottom of her shirt, she caught his hand and shook her head.

"Okay, you're right, this isn't exactly the most romantic place," Brian said. "But we are alone…"

"Big fat jerk," said Charlie, from a perch on the back of the chair a few yards away.

"Your familiar really doesn't like me," Brian said. "What did I ever do to you, bird?"

"Charlie!" scolded Charlie.

"This is where I do magic," Alexandra said. "I don't want to mix the two. Making out and magic, I mean."

She couldn't tell what he was thinking as he considered that — certainly more than just disappointment. Possibly her demonstration of wizardry, and the way she reserved this spot — as she reserved much of her life — as a place separate from him.

"Okay," he said. "So, if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not hang out here if there's not going to be any making out."

"Troublesome!" Charlie said.

"I'm not being troubleso— why am I talking to a bird?" Brian snapped.

"Bird-brain," Charlie said, but the raven was agitated and took off, flapping around the large studio.

Alexandra felt it too. Charlie was warning her.

"Come on, Charlie." Alexandra held out an arm until Charlie landed on her outstretched wrist. She put her other arm around Brian's waist. "Be good, Charlie. Come on Brian." She tried to appear nonchalant, but her grip on Brian was tight and her mouth was dry and she kept her eyes and ears open. Every nerve tingled as they went downstairs, and Alexandra mumbled responses to Brian while wishing she could tell him to be quiet without freaking him out.

Charlie took off as soon as they exited the warehouse. Brian asked more questions before they went through the fence again, but Alexandra was impatient and told him to close his eyes. He was quieter as they walked quickly back to Sweetmaple Avenue.

In front of his house, he said, "I'm sorry, Alex. Whatever I did."

She shook her head. "It's not you. I'm just worried about a lot of things. And you're right, I shouldn't have taken you to the warehouse just to try to make a point."

"Well, you made it." He shrugged. "See you tomorrow?"

"Yeah. Tell Bonnie I said hi." Bonnie was grounded, and according to Brian, not taking it well. Alexandra saw Mrs. Seabury looking out the front window as she kissed him good-bye. "Tell your mom I said hi, too."

She walked to her house and kept walking. She circled the block. Charlie flew ahead of her, back toward where Alexandra was going.

Someone else was in the Regal Royalty Sweets and Confections warehouse. She'd confronted intruders there without a wand before, and she wasn't going to let anyone take her place away from her.

It was still late afternoon. The street was still busy and the sun was still high, and passersby still didn't look at anyone walking onto the warehouse's lot.

Until earlier that year, the warehouse had been occupied by a hag who stood guard over magic artifacts and other contraband transported by arcane means by the Dark Convention. Because Regal Royalty Sweets and Confections had once been owned by the Pruett family, Livia now held the deed to the property, and had sent a Curse-Breaker to inspect the warehouse and make sure it was purged of all Dark influences. Livia hadn't yet done anything else with the property, which suited Alexandra fine — she hadn't even told her sister the use she was putting it to. But that also meant nothing prevented another hag or some other creature from taking up residence in the old building.

Alexandra was armed with little more than indignation when she went up the stairs again, using the flashlight in her phone to light the way. Charlie waited on the roof.

She stopped on the second floor and opened a door that revealed only a dark hallway lined with equally dark offices. She listened.

It bothered her, the way nervous sweat broke out on her forehead. A few months ago, this darkness had been occupied by a terrible mummified baby summoned by John Manuelito. The almost indestructible Nemesis Spirit had followed her all the way to Charmbridge Academy. It was her confrontation with the thing that caused Larry Albo to lose his fingers and Alexandra to lose her scholarship and her wand.

But the Nemesis Spirit was gone, thrown through the portal into the Lands Below. There was no skittering of dry, bony feet across old, dusty floors.

"Who is that?" called a creaky old voice.

Alexandra walked down the corridor until the old woman could see her from her painted canvas. The light from Alexandra's phone flickered.

"It's me, Alexandra. Has anyone else been in here, Goody Pruett?"

The magical portrait, condemned for the past few decades to hang forgotten and alone in the warehouse, was an old woman forever imprisoned in dull brown and black and white oil paint. She never saw any light that wasn't carried into the darkened interior of the building by someone else.

"Not a soul. Not a hag, nor a ghoul nor a gnoll nor a ghost, not even a rat for all these old ears can hear. When is your sister going to restore this place to its former prosperity, child? I am waiting for her to keep her promise."

"She's working on it. She says there's a lot of paperwork, since she's only been the Pruett heir on paper for years and years." Alexandra didn't bother pointing out that Livia had not promised to restore the Regal Royalty Sweets and Confections warehouse at all; there didn't seem a great likelihood of reopening a wizarding business here in Larkin Mills.

"She could work faster," Goody Pruett said.

"You've been hanging here in the dark for twenty years," Alexandra said. "You can hang a little longer."

The old woman's eyes turned to dark ice beneath her parchment-colored forehead and white mushroom bonnet.

Alexandra had tried to remove the portrait from the wall herself, thinking to at least put it up on the third floor where Goody Pruett could see the sun, but she was not a Pruett and thus the protective charms keeping the portrait affixed to the wall foiled her every attempt.

"So you haven't heard any intruders?" she continued, ignoring the portrait's glare.

"No," Goody Pruett said. "Only you and that boy." Her tone hinted at foul revelry and sin, as if the very sound of Alexandra and Brian's footsteps on the stairs had echoed with licentiousness.

Alexandra didn't miss the tone. She leaned forward, leering as she murmured in response, "He's a Muggle. And we did everything you were imagining."

She didn't know what the old crone was actually imagining, but she knew that pure-blooded bigotry had been embedded in her portrait when it was painted. It was petty to taunt a painting, but Alexandra couldn't deny feeling satisfaction at Goody Pruett's gasp of outrage. The old woman's face wrinkled up like an apple in an oven, but since Alexandra was currently the only person in the world she had to talk to, she fairly swelled with the imprecations she was holding back.

"You would tell me if you heard anyone shuffling around in the dark, or Apparating, wouldn't you?" Alexandra asked.

"Of course," Goody Pruett said tightly. Then she burst out: "I'm going to tell Livia about your illicit activities and using this place to practice magic and… and…"

"Kissing," Alexandra said. "Don't forget to tell her about the kissing."

She left Goody Pruett sputtering in fury, and headed upstairs to her "studio."

A slim, dark figure was standing at the far side of the bare half of the third floor, silhouetted by the sunlight coming from the windows behind it.

Alexandra switched off her phone. She thought she could conjure fire again, though she doubted she could throw it with any accuracy. She remained aware of Charlie sitting on the roof above, now as wary and tense as her, but this intruder didn't look like a hag who might be frightened by a raven. There was something familiar about the outline of the stranger, though —

"Ms. Grimm?" she asked.

"No." The voice was female, but younger than that of Diana Grimm. Alexandra recognized it immediately, though she'd only heard it once before. The woman walked forward until she was close enough for Alexandra to see light on her face and not just at her back. "Were you expecting her?"

"No," Alexandra said. "I wasn't expecting you, either."

The intruder was a strikingly beautiful woman with long dark hair, darker eyes, full lips, sharp brows, and a strong nose. Her complexion suggested mixed European and African or Mediterranean ancestry. She was, Alexandra guessed, in her early to mid-twenties. Her name was Medea, and Alexandra had last seen her on her father's arm, when he had visited her at Charmbridge Academy.

Medea smiled. "I hope you don't mind. I thought we should chat, Alexandra."

"About what?" Alexandra didn't think Medea was a threat, but she didn't feel welcoming. The other witch's presence was an intrusion into her space.

"About your father." Medea looked around, taking in the chair, the blankets, the cushions, and the burn marks on the floor and walls. "He's determined to respect your wishes, Alexandra, but he misses you."

"After a few months? He didn't miss me for the first twelve years of my life." Alexandra scowled. The last person she wanted to talk to about her relationship with her father was his current girlfriend.

"You're being unfair." Medea's cool gaze fell back on Alexandra. "And frankly, don't you think you've overused that line by now?"

"I'm not sure how it's any of your business," Alexandra said, upset that her father had apparently discussed this with Medea.

"You're right, it's not. But I do hate to see Abraham unhappy. Telling him you didn't want to speak to him again? That you'll have nothing to do with him and accept nothing from him? A little extreme, don't you think?"

"I'm not the only daughter he's alienated."

"No," Medea said, "but I don't think he expected such a rejection from you." She hesitated, then smiled sharply, like a severe half-moon. "I understand, this is awkward. But we don't have to be enemies, Alexandra."

"I really hope you didn't come here to tell me you're going to be my stepmother."

Medea's eyebrows angled upwards, then her lips parted and she threw her head back and laughed. Alexandra said nothing. Medea recovered, still shaking her head and chuckling. "I don't think your father is the marrying type, anymore." Sobering, she said, "I brought you a gift."

Now Alexandra's eyebrows rose. "A gift?"

"Abraham has been monitoring what's been happening to you. He hasn't interfered — as you requested — but it took all his self-restraint to stay his hand, after that kangaroo hearing they dragged you and Claudia and Livia through. And then denying you even the opportunity to obtain a new wand. That's simply unacceptable."

Alexandra was very interested in knowing what her father's source of information was, but asking Medea would have betrayed interest in his affairs, as well as giving the other witch a lever into her good graces, which she was not inclined to grant. So she merely said, "I'll get a wand somehow."

In reply, Medea reached for the clasp below her throat holding her robe closed at her collarbone. Her long fingers snatched something tied to the knot and drew forth a wand. It was long and pale, with a reddish tint. She held it out to Alexandra.

Alexandra stared at the wand. "Where did it come from?" It didn't look like a Grundy's Department Store wand.

"Better that you don't ask. It hasn't been matched to you, so it may not serve as well as one that has, but it has no current owner."

"Did my father send you?" Alexandra asked.

"No." Medea's face was catlike and inscrutable. "In fact, he'd be very unhappy if he knew I was here. That's why I waited until you entered this place, since it hinders his scrying just as it does that of the Trace Office."

Alexandra filed away this interesting fact, while staring at the wand still lying in Medea's outstretched hand.

Medea closed her fingers around it. "I won't beg you to take it. Do you want it or not?"

Slowly, Alexandra reached for the wand. "Why are you doing this? Why do you care what I think of you?"

"Oh, Alexandra, I don't." Medea smiled as Alexandra took the wand from her. "But I do care about Abraham, and he cares about you, and so we would both be distressed should something happen to you."

"Uh huh." Alexandra studied the wand, holding it lightly between her fingers and flicking it. There was a horrible cracking sound, and splinters erupted from a wooden plank that popped out of the floor behind Medea and bent almost double. Medea hardly reacted at all.

The wand felt magical, but it did not feel right. It was slippery and sharp and tingly, and the magic inside it didn't feel like an extension of Alexandra's will, as her chimaera-hair wand had. She didn't know much about wandlore, other than what Constance and Forbearance had told her about "turns and humors," but she suspected she would never completely master this wand. Still, it was a wand, and surely with practice she could do something with it.

"What kind of wood is this?" she asked.

"Yew," said Medea. "I couldn't tell you what's in the core."

"If I use it, my father will wonder where I got it."

"If you use it outside this warehouse, the Trace Office is likely to send someone to take it away from you. If you have to use it, in an emergency, then I suspect Abraham will forgive me for putting it in your hands. Hopefully you'll be able to obtain a proper wand soon enough, even if it's by enrolling in a day school. You do realize, you have but to ask — send an owl, send your raven, or whisper it on the wind — and your father will send you anywhere you like? Even overseas. There are many fine wizarding schools in Europe that would admit you. If you wish to stay in this hemisphere, you could go to Aztlán or Witness Stone. If you're feeling truly adventurous, you could go to Alexandria or Damascus or Timbuktu."

"But he didn't suggest you tell me this?" Alexandra said.

"No, Alexandra, he did not." Medea's smile sharpened. "Contrary to the old saying, looking a gift horse in the mouth is often wise. But this gift comes from me."

All the more reason to look the horse in the mouth, Alexandra thought, but she said, "Thank you."

"Do use the wand with care. I suggest not showing it off to your aunt the next time you see her."

No kidding. But Alexandra nodded. Medea turned, walked back to the window, and looked out at the street. "Good-bye, Alexandra."

"Good-bye."

Medea disappeared with a rush of air. Alexandra balanced the wand on one finger and felt it start to spin. She snatched it before it fell to the floor, just as the chair she'd conjured and transformed months ago went spinning through the air and flew through a far window. Alexandra heard it strike the ground outside amidst a shower of broken glass. From above came Charlie's alarmed caws.

"You and I," Alexandra said, gripping the wand, "are not going to be friends."