Alexandra met Pasquale Mercurio the next day in the prison library. They sat together at one of two old, cracked tables, joined by two other people: the weasel-faced witch Alexandra had seen with Mercurio earlier, and a bearded, dark-skinned man with a broad, flat nose, dark eyes, and a suspicious glare that never faded but seemed most intense when turned in Alexandra's direction.
"That was nicely done," Mercurio said to Alexandra. "Of course you realize that Typhon decides before the contest begins whether or not he's going to let you win. For library privileges or other trivial boons, he rarely eats anyone, unless you've annoyed him or you're simply an idiot. But the occasional loser keeps people from pestering him too often."
"He didn't let me win," Alexandra said.
Mercurio shook his head ruefully, with a pitying smile. "I'm sure you are a clever girl, but Typhon is ancient. He probably knows every riddle ever told."
The "library" was just another old building, not much bigger than a couple of their cells, which contained the two tables and some beaten old shelves full of books and scrolls. The books and scrolls were weathered, faded, and mostly on the verge of falling apart from age and repeated handling. As small as the selection was, Alexandra didn't doubt that everything in the library was heavily read; there wasn't much else to do on Eerie Island. She had spent her first hour in the room looking at every single title. Naturally, there was nothing in the way of magical content, instruction, or education. Histories, memoirs, biographies, long-forgotten political treatises, rants about the social issues of wizards living in previous centuries — and, Alexandra was bemused to discover, half a shelf containing the complete works of Jerwig Findlewell. The Darkness That Threatens Us All, Squibs Among Us, The Wicked Will of Witches, Beware Dark Wizards!, and A Call to Crusade.
Also by Jerwig Findlewell: Wand Tips for the Collector, A Collector's Guide to Old World Wand Tips, and Early Hellenic Wand Tips. Apparently, besides warning against modernism and the Dark Convention, her father's old nemesis had been an authority on wand tips.
There were also Muggle books. These were mostly old paperback Westerns and romance novels, but there were a few discarded elementary school textbooks, a microwave oven user's manual, and the third and fifth volumes of the 1943 Encyclopedia Britannica.
There was no librarian. One simply signed one's name in a box of cards kept for each book. Alexandra didn't know what prevented books from disappearing or being destroyed. Like much of the prison, it appeared that prisoners could do what they wanted as long as they didn't do violence to each other or annoy those who ran it.
No one else was in the library this morning, just Alexandra, Pasquale Mercurio, and his two associates. And their Doomguards, of course.
"You all know who our young friend is," Mercurio said to the other two. He turned his smile on Alexandra again. "This is Elisabet Todd. One of the finest potioneers you'll ever meet."
The hard, thin woman nodded minutely, eyes fixed stonily on Alexandra as if she were measuring ingredients in her mind for some fatal concoction.
The other man spoke before Mercurio could. "Cygnus Nero," he said. "I'm a great admirer of your father."
"Really? Why?" Alexandra asked.
Nero clearly didn't expect that question. "Well, he's… very accomplished. And a formidable wizard."
"Cygnus thinks when Abraham Thorn starts his revolution, we will all be freed," Elisabet Todd said.
Alexandra started to tell them she didn't know anything about that, but then remembered that she wanted these people to think she was useful, at least until she figured out what they were up to. "I see."
Elisabet Todd said, "So, the question is, why are you here?"
Alexandra said, "I hexed a Confederation bureaucrat."
"They send juveniles to prison for that nowadays?" asked Cygnus Nero.
"They do when you're the daughter of an 'accomplished' and 'formidable' wizard and rumored to be a member of the Dark Convention," Alexandra said. "Also, I might have almost killed him."
"You speak oddly," said Nero.
"I was raised by Muggles," Alexandra said. "Got a problem with that?"
Nero's nostrils flared. Then he shook his head. "Don't care about Muggles. Not like your friend."
"My friend?" Alexandra asked.
"The Gaunt Man. The tall fellow who's been following you around," said Mercurio.
Alexandra grimaced. "That's what people call him?" One of the benefits of library privileges was that the creepy cowled wizard didn't have them, so she now had another place besides her cell to avoid him.
"That's what Muggles called him. He killed quite a few of them before the Aurors caught him."
Alexandra's eyes widened. The cowled wizard was a serial killer? "He's not my friend," she said. "He'd better not be yours."
"Not at all," said Mercurio. "We have no interest in his vile practices, and speaking for myself, I find Muggles quite entertaining. Why would I want to hurt them?"
Alexandra leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. "So, you wanted to talk to me after I proved I could get something from Typhon or Edna."
The three adults looked at each other.
"First," Mercurio said, "are you with the Dark Convention?"
"It's not like the Dark Convention has a membership card. They don't even have a leader. Not even my father." This was her understanding of the shadowy network of Dark Wizards and malcontent warlocks, practitioners of unapproved magic, and various other Beings who chafed beneath the Confederation's laws. She hoped she wasn't revealing her ignorance to someone who knew better.
Mercurio said, "You know what we mean. Are you affiliated with them? Do you have friends among them? Do you represent your father?"
"Maybe," Alexandra said.
"Maybe you're playing games," Elisabet Todd said. "Maybe you're a little girl pretending to have contacts and influence that you don't."
"Maybe I have no reason to trust you," Alexandra shot back. "You could be snitches for all I know." She started to push her chair back, as if to leave.
All three of them frowned at that.
"What would you say," asked Mercurio, "if I said we have a way of getting out of this place?"
Alexandra stopped moving her chair. "I'd ask why you're still here. Also, are you really sure these things aren't eavesdropping on us?" She gestured at the Doomguards.
"We've tested that, many times," Elisabet Todd snapped. "If Typhon or Edna knew what's said and done in their presence, we would not be here."
Mercurio said smoothly, "Knowing how to get away is not the same as being able to do it. There are… obstacles."
Alexandra couldn't help laughing. "No kidding. That's kind of the point of a prison, right?"
Nero and Todd responded with humorless flat stares, but Mercurio nodded. "Indeed. What I mean is that there are certain obstacles preventing us from executing an otherwise viable departure."
"Obstacles like bars, walls, Doomguards, no wands, and a sphinx and a lamia?" Alexandra said.
Mercurio's smile was forced now. Nero and Todd still listened silently. "Miss Quick, I have been here for almost four years now. Cygnus has been here for seven, and Elisabet, seventeen. We have spent all that time observing, thinking, and planning. We know far more than what you have managed to glean in your few days here."
"What he's saying," said Elisabet Todd, "is that you should shut up and listen. Assuming you have anything to contribute, which I doubt. Cygnus and Pasquale are overly impressed by your father, despite the fact that he's done nothing in all the time he's been the great Enemy of the Confederation except wreck a train and destroy some schools."
"So you've been here since before I was born," Alexandra said to her. "What have you done?"
Shadows thickened around the older witch's features. "I've gotten rid of more than one annoying pest," she said in a low voice. "Despite the Doomguards. You have a smart mouth. You might want to watch what comes out of it."
"Ladies," said Mercurio, "this is not constructive."
Cygnus Nero said, "Let's stop dancing around the maypole. If you have joined your father's cause and are with the Dark Convention, Alexandra Quick, then we want you as an ally. If not, let us not waste each other's time."
Alexandra considered all the things she could say, truthful or otherwise. She wasn't convinced that these three weren't just desperate cons. On the other hand, she might have convinced Typhon, but she still hadn't worked out a way off the island yet. Jumping into the World Away with an ancient monster might be worse than staying on Eerie Island.
"The Thorn Circle watches over me," she said. "As for the Dark Convention, I don't think much of them one way or the other. I'm loyal to my friends."
"Will your father help you?" Nero asked eagerly.
"If he were going to get me out of here, I think he'd already have done it," Alexandra said. "But once I'm out of here, yes, he will." If I ask him, she thought.
Mercurio said, "There are two immediate obstacles to leaving Eerie Island. The first is the Doomguards; we can do practically nothing until we escape them, and without wands, that is difficult. The second problem is getting off the island, which is also difficult without magic."
"But you have solutions to both problems," Alexandra said.
Mercurio smiled. "We do. The problem we do not have a solution for is Typhon and Edna. Getting off the island is one thing. Fleeing them is another. No one knows how formidable they truly are, but I wouldn't like to challenge them even with a wand. We have a plan that could get us on a boat off the island, but if Typhon and Edna pursue us, we'll be lucky if we only drown."
Alexandra almost laughed. It was like discovering someone who had the other half of a puzzle. She allowed a slow smile to stretch across her face.
"You need a distraction," she said. "You were hoping maybe my father, or the Dark Convention, has some way of dealing with the wardens of Eerie Island?"
"Yes," Pasquale Mercurio said.
Alexandra let her smile become a grin, radiating confidence. "If we can get away from here, I can deal with Typhon and Edna."
"You can?" Nero asked.
"You're asking us to just take that on faith?" Elisabet demanded.
"I didn't come here unprepared," Alexandra said. "I am the daughter of Abraham Thorn. He has a plan. And the Dark Convention has known about this prison and its wardens forever. If you want to get past them, you need me. But I have to get outside the walls first."
The other three looked at each other. Alexandra held herself erect, chin arrogantly tilted upward, assuming the role of the Dark sorceress they imagined her to be, while hoping they didn't have some additional test for her. Or that they didn't turn out to be a bunch of losers who had no plan and were only going to get her in worse trouble.
No words passed between the adults, but finally Mercurio nodded.
An old Asian man with a white beard down to his waist shuffled through the door, followed by his Doomguard.
"Let's talk tomorrow," said Mercurio.
"The goblin boat comes every week, but not on a precise schedule," Mercurio told her the next day. "It also comes when there is a new guest, such as yourself. But the only time it can be relied upon to come immediately is when someone dies."
They sat cross-legged in the courtyard playing wizard chess, with their Doomguards standing sentinel behind them. Alexandra didn't know how Pasquale Mercurio had obtained the magical pieces for a wizard chess set, but she assumed he'd had something to bribe Edna with at some point. He was a better player than her, but she still had hopes of rescuing her bishop from between a pair of dagger-wielding pawns.
"Your plan is to escape on the goblin boat?" Alexandra said. "I guess we might be able to overpower the goblins, even without wands." She didn't think she'd feel bad about jumping the goblins who'd dragged her behind their boat across the lake. "But what about the Doomguards?"
"Ah," said Mercurio, moving his rook. It raised an iron-capped mace and smashed one of her knights off his horse. She grimaced at the loss of the piece she hadn't seen threatened. "As I said, the goblin boat comes immediately when someone dies, to remove the remains. The goblins here would mutiny if they had to spend a single night on the island with a deceased wizard. They have a terrible fear of ghosts, you see."
"Okay," Alexandra said. She directed her bishop to smite one of Mercurio's pawns. The pawns in this set were quite belligerent; the bishop prevailed, but was left with his peaked hat askew and his cassock slashed. "So we wait for someone to die?"
"No. We don't wait." Mercurio began using his pawns to wear Alexandra's material down. "That is the solution to both the boat and the Doomguards. Someone has to die."
Alexandra looked around. Since she'd begun hanging out with Pasquale Mercurio, Elisabet Todd, and Cygnus Nero, the Gaunt Man didn't follow her constantly, but she could see him across the courtyard.
She wasn't sure she was willing to murder someone, even a murderer.
Mercurio grinned. "Check." While his pawns had been dragging down her second knight, his queen had moved closer to threaten her king. She could see that this game wasn't going to end well for her.
"What does a Doomguard do when the prisoner it's guarding dies?" she asked.
"It returns to the armory, until it is reassigned." Mercurio nodded. "You begin to see the outlines of the plan."
"I think so." Alexandra was not actually sure she saw it any better than she'd seen his stealthy check of her king. She moved her king, who was immediately confronted by a knight's horse rearing before him. "Even if Elisabet can make a Death Draught, it seems like there are some holes in this plan before we even get to the boat and Typhon and Edna."
"Checkmate," Mercurio said.
Alexandra sighed. Mercurio gathered his set and dropped the pieces into a wooden box, then rose to his feet. "Shall we take a walk?"
"Sure." Alexandra accepted his hand up. There weren't very many places to walk to. As always, the Doomguards followed them.
"Elisabet cannot brew potions," Mercurio said once they were out of the main courtyard and walking along the high wall surrounding the small inner complex that defined their world. "She has no wand. She does, however, possess an impressive knowledge of poisons."
"So your plan is to actually kill someone?"
"Not quite. She'll only be mostly dead."
Alexandra stopped to turn that over in her mind. "She — mostly dead?"
"Keep walking," Mercurio said. Alexandra didn't know why it mattered, since the Doomguards just stopped and then followed again to match their pace, but she did. As they rounded a corner that took them out of sight of the nearest prisoners, he said, "She believes her poison will give her the appearance of death, enough to fool the Doomguards and the goblins."
"How about Typhon and Edna?"
"They don't generally inspect corpses."
"What if they do?"
"Then Typhon will probably eat Elisabet. The plan is not without its risks."
Alexandra snorted. "And nobody has ever tried this before? The goblins would have to be pretty stupid not to think a witch might try to fake her own death."
"Oh, it has been tried. That's why the goblins stab corpses through the heart and then cut off their heads."
Alexandra stopped again. "What's your plan for that?"
"We — that is, Cygnus and myself — will volunteer to carry Elisabet's body to the boat. The goblins don't like to do that themselves, and they can't get a Doomguard to do it once it has been sent back to the armory. Before the goblins begin their grisly task, we will overpower them and steal the boat."
"What about the Doomguards?" Alexandra wasn't sure about the goblins being easy to overpower, but the Doomguards certainly weren't.
"We have a plan for escaping our Doomguards," Mercurio said. "But you must get away from yours on your own." He looked over his shoulder at the two armored golems following them. "Can you do that?"
"Yes," Alexandra said confidently, though she wasn't sure how. "But this relies on all of us making it to the boat at once, with Elisabet in a coffin. And then we have to fight goblins."
"As I said, the plan is not without its risks."
"The plan sounds terrible," Alexandra said.
Mercurio smiled. "I assure you, I have escaped from more impossible situations. Cygnus and I both, in our own ways, are master escape artists. We have been planning this for quite some time. Trust on your part is required. The Doomguards and the goblins are obstacles, but the Doomguards are mindless and do only as commanded. The goblins are lazy and complacent. If it were only them we had to worry about, we would both be long gone. What has kept us on this island, checkmating our every scheme, are its wardens. The accursed sphinx and his lamia wife, we cannot outrun, overpower, or escape. Even had we wands, I am not sure I'd take the chance. They are exceedingly powerful Beings, and I suspect their powers and their traps are even more extensive than we know." He turned to Alexandra and regarded her with an expression that was at once fervent, hopeful, and greedy. "That's where you come in. Tell me, Miss Quick. You say your father will intervene on your behalf. You can call upon assistance from the Dark Convention. How will they secure our escape from those two?"
Alexandra said, "You'll have to trust me."
Mercurio's expression darkened. "Trust you? We're putting our lives in your hands, girl. If you — or your father — don't come through, we all get eaten, or worse."
"Including me," Alexandra said. "So either you trust me or you don't. Just like I'm trusting you'll somehow get past the Doomguards and the goblins."
The wizard didn't seem satisfied by this, but Alexandra didn't think he had any right to object when he was keeping his own part of the plan hidden. Finally, he nodded. "Very well. We're all in this together. You realize, of course, that should you betray us or prove unable to deliver as promised, we will do our very best to make you suffer before we're caught."
Alexandra tried a grin she hadn't used before, one that showed teeth and no mirth. Imagining herself to be the daughter of a Dark Wizard, just as she had when she was in sixth grade, before she'd learned she really was the daughter of a Dark Wizard. "Likewise."
She thought about adding something about crossing the daughter of Abraham Thorn, but she would rather be intimidating in her own right, so she just met Pasquale Mercurio's gaze until he blinked.
"Very well then," he said. "I will tell you when to expect something."
The two of them walked back to the courtyard, their Doomguards clanking along behind. The other prisoners had observed their walk, and Alexandra realized as a few of them waggled their eyebrows at Mercurio that they had gotten the wrong idea. Mercurio grinned and waggled his eyebrows back.
"You —" she hissed.
"Shh," he whispered, running a hand through her hair. "Would you rather they believe we are conspiring to escape?"
He left her at the edge of the tables in the fading sunlight, fuming and trying to ignore Mad Haddie and the Gaunt Man, the one's interest judgmental and the other's creepy.