By the time they got home, the very same tree was in its stand in the living room, waiting to be trimmed after supper. "Are you talking to her about it?" Clark said softly as they both stood there and stared, still holding their suitcases.

Alice nodded ascent, putting the suitcase down so she could take her boots off before they trailed snow all over the floor. After greeting their father and the twins, who were setting the table for supper, they both went downstairs to their rooms.

Alice entered Emma and Nancy's room to find the air mattress already laid out for her and Nancy playing with her Barbie dolls on top of her own bed due to the lack of floor space.

"Did you see the tree?" Nancy asked eagerly.

"Yes I did, and late happy birthday, by the way," Alice said, putting down the suitcase to scoop her sister up in a hug.

"I missed you Sissy," Nancy said. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Emma and Ethan say we can't talk about you-know-what unless Mom and Dad are out of the house, because they can't do that ward thing like you can."

Being reminded of the fact, Alice wove Blue and Red magic again to put one up, sat her sister back onto the bed, and took a seat herself. "And they're right Nancy. I put one up, so you don't have to whisper now."

"Ok," Nancy said brightly. "Since you couldn't be there with us to pick it out, I thought you and Clark would want to see it."

Alice took a deep breath. At least it had been an intentional spell rather than an accidental one. She knew how to speak to or read someone's emotions telepathically, but forcing them to see what she saw through her eyes while miles away? It had to be a spell that the juniors or seniors learned.

"You have to be very careful, Nancy," she warned.

Nancy lost her smile, sensing that she was being serious. "Could something bad happen?"

"What if I was driving instead of Mom," Alice asked, "and I couldn't see the road because you made me have a vision?"

"Oh," Nancy said softly. "Would you crash the car and get hurt?"

"Maybe. What if you accidently put that into someone else's mind and they saw it?"

Her sister squirmed. "Would they crash their car then?"

"Maybe," Alice answered. "What if next time it was a vision of someone doing something with magic, and it was someone that recognized us?"

Nancy's lip began to quiver, and Alice wrapped her baby sister up in a hug before she could start crying. "I know that you don't mean to get into trouble, or cause problems Nancy. You just have to be more careful. You have to remember the rules, and think about what would happen if something you were doing did not go the way you planned."

"But why?" Nancy wanted to know. "If they can just erase someone's memories, wouldn't that work so they didn't remember anything about magic?"

Alice sighed. "They would do that, but they would have to make sure you didn't do it again."

Nancy looked horrified. "Would they break me like they broke Mommy so she couldn't do magic?"

Alice shook her head. "You're too young; they don't do that to kids your age. But you would have to have a teacher with you all the time to watch you."

"So a teacher would move in with us?" Nancy asked carefully.

"No," Alice answered. "For the amount of watching you would need if you can't control your magic and might hurt someone else or yourself, Mom and Dad would have to know about it since the teacher would have to be with you all the time. Because they can't find out about magic, you would have to move out of this house to someplace else. I don't know if you would be able to see Mom and Dad at all or not, but I doubt it."

Nancy's eyes were as big as saucers. "I'll be good," she finally got out. She sat and thought for a moment. "If that did happen, if there was an accident, could I come and live with you and your husband if I couldn't come home? Do you have a house?"

"We live at the school right now, and I don't know if they would let you stay there sweetie," Alice managed to get out. She hoped it would not come to that, as she suspected young children were not allowed to stay at Iris.

Deciding that that was sufficient to address the subject for now, Alice put on a grin and said, "Let's go upstairs, or they'll start eating supper and decorating the tree without us."

Nancy brightened, and on impulse, Alice picked her sister up and flung her sister over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Nancy burst into a fit of giggles as she carried her up the stairs.

...

After a supper of pot roast, they decorated the tree. Alice stood back, watching as her father turned on the tree's lights while the other lights in the room were turned off. To her, there were few things more beautiful than a lit Christmas tree, scattering reflections off the ornaments onto the people she loved. And she missed Hieronymous, wishing he could be standing beside her.

When the lights went back on, the twins were dispatched to the dishes so she and Clark could wrap the presents they had gotten. As they were walking down the stairs, Alice turned around to see their father following them. "I need to talk to you two for a minute," he told them, so they all went into the boys' room.

"What is it Dad?" Clark asked, shutting the door.

"Well, it's about your Uncle Ed," their father started. "Your mother thinks he's on my side of the family, but considering my father's former line of work, I thought I should get it checked out."

Alice gulped, wondering if her two identities were about to collide. Her grandpa on her Dad's side had been involved in Cold War espionage. While he was retired now, he still had his contacts. It might be a good thing Potsdam was arriving tomorrow anyway...

"I asked a friend of my father's if he could check the money trail from your tuition to see what he could find. It was not easy to follow, but it was eventually tracked to Lord Edward Carleton."

Alice's mouth was dry. She should have known her father would be more resistant to the mind altering effects of magic; the military picked Seals for more than brute strength, and then trained them to be resistant mentally as well as physically.

"Now, he is no blood relative of ours. I've not done much work relating to England, but my dad did."

"You think he's been trying to pay back a debt for something Grandpa did, or is acting as a cutout for someone who is?" Clark asked.

"That's exactly what I asked your grandfather, and he said that was accurate but the actual events were still classified," her father answered, and Alice almost sighed in relief.

"Now," her father continued, "it is very generous of him to do all of this for us. He has been footing the bill to send you all to the best schools for years. Be on your best behavior when you're there."

They both said that they would do their best. Their father gave them both a quick hug and left so they could start wrapping their presents.

Alice and Clark gave each other a look that plainly said 'that was a close one.' They would have to tell their grandfather about this when they got to England. It helped her understand why the wizard world frowned on witches and wizards becoming known in the normal world…if they were to remain secret, there had to be as few loose ends as possible to tie up. She guessed that government was one place they relaxed this restriction for the sake of being able to tie up any loose ends that occurred anyway.

It was something that might be more of a bother for Clark than for her. After all, she was Lady Grabiner and not many in the common world would be that inquisitive about her maiden name…as long as they could keep her situation out of the tabloids.

"Nothing to be done about it this second anyway," she whispered to Clark as she left to attend to the gifts.