Having appetites that were quite satisfied, Evergreen and his entourage made their way back to the brick road of Underhill. They followed Professor Woods all the way to the far end of the marketplace, where the only dark building in the market was set. It was a tall building, a tower. It looked exactly like a black rook from a classic chess set. It was intimidating, menacing, and almost… scary. Just above the door was a golden plate of metal upon which the words Dragonite's Wands were engraved.

"I think someone needs a new decorator." Seta grumbled through a shiver.

"That's what people have been saying for years, rabbit." Professor Woods replied with her signature smirk.

They entered through the worn, wooden door and found themselves surrounded by shelves and shelves of small boxes, going up at least 10 stories. In the center of the tower's single, colossal room sat a strange individual; a man wearing dark purple robes with a gray, wrinkled face, and a long, black beard. He wore a dark purple pointed hat upon his head and was fiddling about with some knick-knacks on his table. This must have been the man himself, Draconite. The moment he noticed his visitors' approach, he stopped and looked up.

"I figured it would be a matter of time until we met. Eminent Evergreen Quandary, son of Glinda, Witch of the Quadling Country." he spoke in a whispery voice.

"You know who he is?" Dad asked.

"Of course. The only other individual to have such stormy eyes was the heiress of the House of Marina, Glinda. There is no mistaking that, Master Quandary." Draconite rasped to Dad.

This seemed to satisfy Dad for now. Evergreen was taken aback by how well-known his mom had been when she was alive. He was beginning to realize the gargantuan shoes that she had left for him to fill.

Turning to face Evergreen, he rasped, "so, you are here for your first wand, Young Master Quandary? You don't know this, but you are quite lucky."

"L-lucky, sir? How?"

"When I went to Ilvermorny, we weren't even allowed to handle a wand until we got to school. Then we had to leave it there every time we left on break. This was all because of some stupid, dewy-eyed girl who trusted the wrong person 300 years ago. It was part of MACUSA law until 1965, when laws changed. Remember to be wary of who you trust, Young Master Quandary. With people, there's always more than meets the eye."

Evergreen nodded in affirmation at the old wizard. This seemed to be sound advice, an echo of what the goblin at the bank had told him as well. He thought it especially prudent to be wary, considering the darkness from Oz that seemed to be thirsty for his blood.

"Many students still wait until they get to school to pick up their wand." Draconite continued, as he started picking up random boxes out of the shelves lining the whole inner walls of the tower. "But it is essential that you learn all you can as quickly as possible, so you will find your wand today."

Draconite placed a few boxes on the table between him and Evergreen. He opened the first box and lifted a black stick from the box with a shiny polish covering its surface. It was then handed to Evergreen.

"This one is Myrtle Ebony, Thunderbird feather, 12 inches, unyielding."

Evergreen picked it up, excited. He gave it a wave, and nothing happened.

"I guess that's not it. Try this one. Nine inches, flexible, maple with a core of Thestral hair."

More hesitantly this time, Evergreen gave the wand a wave and was horrified when Draconite's hat suddenly caught fire. Dad and Seta simultaneously yelped in surprise and displeasure at this. The flames were swiftly extinguished by a non-committal wave of Draconite's hand.

"Obviously not. How about this one? It has a core of sasquatch fur, is 11 1/2 inches long, and made of noble fir, slightly yielding."

A wave of that one and Seta turned neon green with a terrified yelp. The bunny was panicking, but Draconite easily turned him platinum again with a single point of his wand. Seeing the green bunny actually brought something akin to a smirk to the old wizard's wrinkled face.

"I think we may need something a little more exotic, perhaps." Draconite mused.

They tried wand after wand, box after box, and nothing seemed to be working for the boy. Evergreen handled some wands that were eight inches long, and others as long as 14. Some were very flexible, some very brittle. Some Ashwood, some mahogany. Nothing worked, and Evergreen was starting to get discouraged. Sure, Mom may have been a super powerful magic user, but maybe he hadn't inherited her powers after all. Dad, for example, had been an excellent athlete in his youth, and Evergreen had the absolute worst hand-eye coordination that either of them had ever seen.

"Young Master Quandary. We are at an impasse. We have tried a great many wands today, but now... I fear that we must look more into the exceptionally rare. Perhaps..." he trailed off as he stepped onto a small carpet, which then floated him up to a large, dark vault on the tower's fifth landing.

Evergreen watched as Draconite searched the vault, retrieving one box. After relocking the vault and floating back down to ground level, he rushed back to the workbench with an excited fire in his eyes. The old wizard opened the box and held it out, indicating for Evergreen to remove the wand nestled inside. It was a medium-sized wand with whitish wood.

He lifted the wand from the box and immediately the bitter cold that had prevailed in the tower dissipated. Where there once was an autumn chill, there now was a tropical, comforting heat. Others noticed this too, and Dad quickly removed his jacket, wiping the sheen off his brow. Ribbons of light began to spew out of the end of the wand: royal blue, forest green, a rich, violet purple, and even a stream of soft, golden light.

"I can't believe it. I mean, I can, but it is just so incredible!" Draconite's raspy voice whispered excitedly.

"What exactly do you f-find incredible? You c-can probably do 100 t-times more magical things than that."

"Though that was an impressive show of magic, it's this wand that is incredible. As you can see, it is albino cypress, 10 3/4 inches, and has slightly yielding flexibility. The amazing part is the double core."

"That's a dual-core wand?" Professor Woods asked breathlessly.

"It is! This wand's core contains both unicorn hair and a peacock feather, meaning that this wand is capable of channeling and amplifying some of the most powerful light magic, if properly used. The unicorn and peacock that donated a hair and feather for the creation of this wand were lifelong friends and were both very old when they did so. Only two feathers and two hairs were successfully enchanted before these animals passed away. One of each is within that wand. The others were used in a wand owned by the incomparable Glinda Marina to open a door to another world."

Evergreen was stunned. This wand was a twin of his mother's, and that filled him with even more warmth than did the lingering tropical temperature that the wand had created. Unicorn, peacock, white cypress. He didn't know anything about wand lore, but he appreciated the excitement and reverence that Professor Woods and Draconite gave his wand.

"It is safe to assume that great deeds will come forth from you and great danger will follow you, Young Master Quandary." Draconite finished with a slight bow, his long, black beard quivering.

Evergreen just continued staring at the wand in his hand. It was all his, and with it, he was determined to work some of the greatest wonders the world had ever seen. That is, provided he continued to study as hard in his new school as he had during his elementary school years.

They handed over three Dragots for the wand and Draconite returned to his table of knick-knacks. He replaced all the wands quickly and simultaneously with an arc-shaped movement of his wand and a whispered depulso maxima and watched as the group left. With Glinda in mind, Draconite whispered, just loud enough for Evergreen to hear, that he would either be their salvation or their undoing.

In a few seconds, they found themselves back in the bright Underhill Marketplace, standing upon the blackened brick road. Evergreen decided to ask Professor Woods about something he had been turning over in his mind.

"The girl that Draconite mentioned, the one who got wands banned… what happened to her?"

"As he said, she trusted the wrong person. She was a witch and not a very skilled one at that. She fell in love with a No-Maj who believed in magic, and that it was all dark and wicked. So, after she told him all about our world, he stole her wand and tried to harm wizards, but it was really his own No-Maj companions he harmed in the process. He was taken to a No-Maj jail and the girl spent a year in a magical jail cell for her blunder. So many memories were modified that day. After that, a law was passed that decreed total wizard/ No-Maj segregation. That's when Underhill and Tututni Settlement of Magic and others were established, and when the wand ceremony began at Ilvermorny. This was repealed when your mom, Dad, and I were still small babies, meaning that your dad and mom were amongst the first witch and No-Maj couples in American history."

This made sense to him and answered quite a few questions. Professor Woods went on to tell him that it had only been a few years after the law was repealed that interracial marriage was legalized in the United States, due to actions in the Civil Rights Movement. Despite being so many years later, Evergreen knew that there was still a lot of rampant racism in the United States. He wondered whether his being mixed with a No-Maj dad and a magical mom would cause some scorn from some of the more 'traditional' groups that Professor Woods had alluded to. It was the No-Majes that had carried out the Salem witch hunts, she reminded them, and even hundreds of years later some wizards still held grudges and prejudice. That explained Professor Habitatio's odd comment as they had left the bookstore earlier. She was just a little older than Dad and Mom, so her conditioning ー and a little prejudice ー probably ran quite deep. Perhaps people of their generation just needed a little more time to adjust.

They walked along the path for a while and Evergreen started to notice that the books, parchment, and potions set were starting to feel a little heavy in his backpack. He was ready for a rest. Dad was carrying all of his school clothes and his telescope in large shopping bags, which kept some of the weight off of Evergreen's back, but it still felt like a lot. It was at that moment that Evergreen's sweet tooth directed his feet toward a large, extremely colorful shop with the words LAUGHING LICORICE'S MAGIC SWEET SHOP painted on the window. There was a painting of a little girl on the window with the sign, which was moving! She kept reaching out and eating each of the letters on the sign in turn, each repopulating immediately, as soon as she swallowed. Evergreen found himself chuckling a little at the unexpected and downright bizarre sight. He put his nose up to the glass and saw large, vanilla cupcakes that looked kind of like cauldrons, something labeled "self-pulling cherry taffy", black, red, green, and purple licorice sticks that were shaped like magic wands, two dinner roll sized cream puffs in a case, beating the tar out of each other, and, under a sign that said "Imports," he saw boxes of something called "Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans" and small, blue containers labeled "Chocolate Frogs."

"Dad. Can we grab something for the road?"

"Let's see what they have."

They went into the candy shop, finding that it was, once again, much bigger on the inside. Whatever spell did that, Evergreen was dying to learn. They grabbed a huge assortment of goods: a box of imported jellybeans, some Chocolate Frogs, Pepper Imps, Toothflossing Stringmints, and a chocolate bar that said it would taste different with every bite.

Dad tried a Pepper Imp as they left, and he actually breathed fire! The flames accidentally singed the front of Professor Woods' robes. This surprised everyone but the professor, who simply smiled and flicked her wand, first at Dad's teeth, putting out the fire and causing them to chatter a little, and then at her own robes, vanishing any evidence of the accident. Everyone agreed, in the end, that it had been funnier than concerning.

They continued until they got to the long hallway with the green fireplaces and the doors. It was there that Professor Woods said that they would be separating because she needed to go back to Ilvermorny. Before leaving, however, she gave Evergreen a ticket that said Ilvermorny Pacific. August 26, 2006. She told him that when the time came to board the train, that he should go to the waiting room of Union Station in Portland. There he would find a Gordian Knot imprinted into the stone in the wall behind the little shop selling cigars and newspapers, and it would lead him to the train.

Evergreen noticed in the hallway between the market and the courtyard that there were some fireplaces painted red and some painted blue. People seemed to appear in the red ones and disappear into the blue ones. Professor Woods took a fistful of the powder above one of the blue ones and stepped inside saying loudly, "Ilvermorny Annex, Mount Greylock, Massachusetts". She then disappeared in a swirl of green flame.

Once she was gone, they continued through the courtyard, where Evergreen noticed Swab Capital, the man he had bumped into before, standing near the door to some kind of bar. He glared at Evergreen the moment he noticed him. Evergreen looked away swiftly and kept walking, drawing nearer to Dad.

They got to the doorway quickly, traversed the cavern's stone stairs, and eventually got to the cave opening. The moment they crossed the bridge, the drawbridge lifted and returned to the mountain's wall, fusing, and disappearing altogether once more, as if it had never been disturbed. Once the three of them got back to the truck, they disembarked once again, heading back home. Evergreen typically viewed his life as a series of 'checkpoints,' key moments that he could look forward to in anticipation and fondly recall when they were done. He knew that this trip had been a checkpoint for him and that the next few weeks until he finally would go to Ilvermorny would pretty much be medieval torture, as far as he was concerned.