The rest of the club fair was fun, but uneventful because of the rules forbidding middle school aged students from doing anything beyond watching. There was a music club that was run by Professor Viola Highmore, who appeared to be a close friend of Professor Park's. There were two sports clubs, for Quidditch and Quodpot, both wizarding sports involving racing on brooms and a startling amount of mid-air violence. There were also clubs for wizard chess and gobstones, the latter of which was a game involving marbles that squirted bad smells at the losers. There was an art club where advanced students could learn to paint moving portraits. There was at least a dozen more clubs, but Evergreen figured he'd have time to explore which one he wanted to join over the next three years.

When they got back to the commons for lunch, Evergreen pulled out a copy of The Art of Defense by Glinda Quadling for a review of the contents. Link asked why he was studying before the school year even started, but Evergreen informed him that he wasn't studying, just rereading, as he already read all of their textbooks cover-to-cover. His mother's book mentioned very important spells like expelliarmus, for disarming, protego for defending, and stupefy, for attacking. With his fork, he mimicked the wand motions required for each, steadfastly ignoring Link beside him, who was pretending to faint at the prospect of "studying for fun."

Sure, the spells may have been a bit above his level, but that didn't mean that he couldn't practice the technical parts and read up on the theory behind them. He just genuinely enjoyed reading the book. It wasn't written like any textbook he was used to; it seemed like his mom had put a little bit of herself into the text so that it would be enjoyable to the reader, yet still educational. He had read each of his books cover-to-cover that summer, but he had read The Art of Defense in particular so many times, that he had nearly all of the charms, curses, spells, incantations, and casting movements committed to memory.

"What's the matter?" Evergreen asked his friend, putting the book into his shoulder bag. "Are you afraid that s-some half-blood wizard wo-would come along to show you up or s-something?"

Link let out a truly amused laugh and locked eyes with Evergreen.

"Nope, I just don't want you turning into some kind of a nerd."

It was Evergreen's turn to laugh. "Too late." he said, laughing.

Lunch was naturally impressive, as all the meals here seemed to be. There were roast beef sandwiches and potato chips, baby back pork ribs with mashed potatoes, BLT's, buffalo chicken wings with ranch and celery, and a few different kinds of fruits and various salads. The Summerhill twins joined them, and the girls did too, after a little while. With the twins' and Glade's surnames, they had been some of the last to participate in the wand ceremony, which was ordered alphabetically, and Andie had wanted to wait for her friends.

They all talked about some of the clubs that they were planning on getting involved in eventually, and Link raved about Professor Park. Evergreen agreed that the witch really had been the G.O.A.T. She was just so flawlessly cool. The topic eventually turned to their families. Link had a little sister, about three years younger than them, the Summerhills were the oldest of five brothers, and Glade had an older half-brother, who had left Ilvermorny the year before. She bragged that her brother was now studying undead creatures, like vampires, zombies, and strange things called inferi, that Evergreen thought he remembered reading about in a book he had considered purchasing from Word for Word. Apparently, inferi were corpses used as puppets by dark wizards. Gross. Amidst all this talk of siblings, Andie and Evergreen shared a lonely glance, and he felt glad to have found a friend that really seemed to understand him. Looking around at his friends, he felt like maybe he had finally found some siblings of his own. Locking eyes with Andie again, he noticed a look of warmth in her eyes and wondered if she was thinking the same thing.

The conversation eventually led back to the Summerhills and their experience with magic. Glade's experiences with magic were all colored through a Euro-American-centric lens, while the Summerhills had had experiences with true ancient American witchcraft, and Link had been exposed to both. Apparently, in the tribe of the Summerhill twins, there was a large focus on meditation, sigils, and potion making. None of the magic they did back home required a wand. In fact, if Evergreen was reading well enough between the lines, they were likely already quite accomplished wizards.

"I r-remember you making sigils in our d-dorm last night." Evergreen piped up.

"That is right. We were making sigils from what the Europeans call runes. You were curious. We did take notice of your interest."

"Can you show m-me how to make them?"

"Evergreen, our magic is very specific, meaning you cannot use anyone else's sigils. You must use your own."

"Like this?"

Evergreen held out a sketch he had made earlier of the star he saw on the vault door at the bank and on mom's old school trunk. He handed it over to Tokala whose face was suddenly stern, while Maza Blaska looked on with giddy anticipation.

"This is a very powerful symbol. Amongst our people, it is considered an image of the purest of magic." Tokala said.

"Really? What does it mean?" Evergreen asked, wide-eyed.

"The giving of life, or rebirth." Maza Blaska replied. "There is no greater magic than that which can sustain life without the use of darkness."

"This symbol came from my mom's family."

"In that case, we would like to teach you how to make sigils with this symbol. It would be our honor." Tokala cut in.

After the conversation, the six all headed back to the Nest. Link strode confidently up to the portrait of the mythical king, whispering the password: "Morgana". The portrait then swung open to let them into the Nest. The group immediately made a beeline for the line of tables up against the far wall next to the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Maza Blaska briefly returned to their dorm room to grab a large, flat, black stone, and a small, round white one. He set them down on the table in front of Evergreen.

"What we are going to show you is actually rather simple, if done right." Tokala said as Evergreen reached out for the flat stone. "First thing is meditation."

Evergreen put the stone down. He knew how to pray, as most suburban raised, No-Maj kids did. He didn't know so much about meditation, though. As he thought this, Tokala pulled a quite small, greenish basin from his robe's inner pocket and laid it on the table. He snapped his fingers and a small flame appeared in the basin. Immediately, a sweet smell was released.

"So Evergreen," Tokala said, "Please close your eyes and focus on your breath."

Evergreen did as he was told and began breathing deeply: in through the nose, out through the mouth. He continued doing this several more times and soon began to feel a strange tickling sensation at the base of his skull. It felt how he would have imagined the feeling of holding up his dad's vibrating Nokia cell phone to his neck. It was an odd buzzing, not enough to set his teeth on edge, but close. His friends all watched in suspense. The Summerhills merely nodded, knowingly.

At first Evergreen saw nothing but blackness and felt acutely aware that his friends were watching him. He began to relax, though and at some point, began to get kind of drowsy, lost in the scent wafting over him from the flame in the basin. Tokala's voice came from someplace in the background, which startled Evergreen at first, totally ruining his focus. He re-focused again, as Tokala softly instructed Evergreen to try and focus on where he felt his magic came from, and upon the feelings that he had experienced when performing any accidental magic in the past. Soon enough, he thought saw in his mind's eye a large, seemingly endless forest.

It was as if he were floating above the forest, weightlessly flying at an alarming pace. Only, he still felt himself sitting in the wooden chair in the Nest, and he still smelled the large, graphite tablet that sat before him. The buzzing in the back of his head continued and even seemed to increase in pitch.

"Evergreen. What do you see?" Tokala's voice cut through the buzzing.

"I see an endless f-forest. Nothing but s-sky and trees."

"Very good. This is your dreamscape. A place where we believe one gets their magic. Mine happens to be a long, winding river."

"What do I do now?"

"Grab the small stone before you and repeat after me: wanzi, nonpa, yamni, topa, zaptan."

Evergreen repeated the words, stumbling and stuttering the first few times, but soon getting it, mimicking the accent Tokala had used, to the best of his ability. He was instructed to open his eyes, repeat the words, and then to place the small stone in the center of the larger, flat one. He opened his eyes and began turning the stone in his hand, almost unconsciously. Neither of the Summerhills told him that this was incorrect, so he just continued the action, which somehow felt natural to him.

Soon enough, all the kids noticed white bands of light spidering out from beneath the white stone. Evergreen continued to repeat the words under his breath, and continued to turn the white stone, both looking at the green flame in the basin and seeing the endless forest in the back of his mind at the same time. The spidering bands began to connect, forming a five-pointed star. He continued the motion until the outer layer of the star expanded out, circling around the star. Eventually, Tokala told him to stop. The sigil was complete.

"How can we tell if it worked?" Andie asked, innocently as she adjusted her glasses.

"Like this. Evergreen, hold up that stone." Link said, with a mischievous glint in his eye.

Evergreen held it up and Link raised his wand. "Stupefy!" With that one word, a blast of red light came from the end of Link's wand and flew right toward the runic stone. It made an impact with the stone but fizzled out of existence. Evergreen didn't feel a thing: not the shock of the blast, nor anything different about the stone in his hand, as it absorbed the spell. How interesting. Evergreen knew that some sigils were used as security measures, per Johanna Erek Wellington's American Magic Through the Ages. Some magic users preferred to use warding spells, but these warding spells had to be supported by blood magic to be truly effective, while rune work did not. However, these sigils were typically the most effective when surrounded by loving friends and family, according to Tokala. He said that it wasn't the best idea to make more than 2 or 3 every few days because of the intense focus and energy that were required to make them. Maza Blaska remarked with an almost haughty look on his face that wizards in the United Kingdom had been trying to replicate their sigils and rune work for centuries but were still quite unsuccessful. To the Brits, it was all just theoretical. It took a certain type of wizard, after all, to make them work.

The young Quandary wizard wondered though, if his mom had known how to make sigils, and, if she hadn't, whether they could have saved her before she was lost. He was sad at the idea that she may not have been as prepared as possible for her fate, which may have led to her downfall. He shook his head at this, realizing at the same moment just how much magic he must have used to make the sigil. He was absolutely exhausted.

When they went to bed that night, Evergreen's mind was buzzing, not from the magic he had performed earlier that day, but from the fact that reality was beginning to finally set in. He had one more night until his magical education would officially begin. He tossed and turned, wondering if he would ever get to sleep. His body was tired, but his brain would not cooperate. His gaze settled on the faint glow at the foot of his bed, from his family's sigil that he had cast there with the clan stone, as Maza Blaska had called the round, white stone that he had used that afternoon. In the end, sleep eventually overtook him.

Rushing, rushing, rushing. There was rushing wind that flew through the little boy's hair and whipped about his face. He saw dark woods flowing beneath him, as if they were a great ocean of greens and blacks. There was only the occasional pin prick of orange light, presumably from small flames, to break up the monotony of the swirling sea of haunting colors. Looking up, he saw that he was being carried. The figure had a black, hairy, primate face with large eyes and a protruding mouth. His arms were slightly longer than his legs and he had large bat-like wings. The figure's face was wild with ferocity and the little boy was afraid.

Suddenly, a large, flaming arrow pierced the wing of the monster. He lost grip on the boy and they both fell. Rushing, rushing, rushing all the way down.

Awaking with a yelp, Evergreen sat up while grabbing his wand, which he had decided to keep under his pillow for his own safety. Sure, he had his sigil to keep him safe, but a defense sigil could not, after all, fight back. Looking around, he realized that he had merely had a bad dream. The Summerhills were awake already, doing what looked like some kind of sunrise prayer that Evergreen didn't recognize. Link was still fast asleep, as evidenced by the sound of sawing logs coming from his adjacent bed.

Looking at the pocket watch Dad had given him, Evergreen noticed that it was around 6:30. It wasn't ridiculously early, however it was still earlier than he would have intended to wake. Still, it was far too late now to try and go back to sleep. He laid back on his bed and twirled his wand in his right hand, brushing its runes lightly with his thumb, producing a simple circus-like melody.

"Evergreen. Are you alright?" Maza Blaska asked.

"Yeah. I'm okay. B-bad dream."