Arius stood at the water's edge beside the blue police box.
He gazed into the shimmering waters, tapped along his cane, and he remained there for a long while, his mind wandering into countless places as the glistening water sent a dim, reflective shine off his goggles.
After a while, when he heard footsteps behind him, he adjusted his hat and turned around—seeing Crowley there, slowing to a stop on the path, crossing his arms, and narrowing his differently-colored eyes at him.
"Is there a reason you're out here?" Crowley inquired.
Arius didn't reply, giving the water another glance and fidgeting with the top of his cane.
Crowley examined him, reading him as thoroughly as Zander often did Alice.
"You weren't kidding about being nervous, I take it," Crowley muttered. "It's so rare to see you care about something enough to stop being an impulsive airhead."
Arius still didn't respond, gently tilting his head as he gazed into the water.
"But… I think Miss Raven Knightingale has noticed," Crowley added, sauntering closer. "She just pulled me aside and asked if I'd seen you… which I hadn't. You still haven't spoken to her, but she seems to want to speak to you."
Arius remained silent.
Crowley wandered to his side, following his trail of vision down to the water, then giving him a peculiar squint.
"What is your obsession with the pond here?" he asked.
Arius sighed heavily, still not replying right away. He took in a deep breath, stared farther across the pond, and adjusted the grasp on his cane.
"Raven… is not what I'm worried about," he said softly.
Crowley's eyes narrowed. "Then what is it?"
Arius didn't face him, gazing across the pond as if he expected to see someone staring back at him from far across.
"Something's been troubling me ever since they told you," he breathed. "Ever since… Alice and Zander told you they'd been marked by Xyler's Shadow Hand."
"Well… naturally," Crowley replied, nodding sideways. "It's troubling news… and it's precisely why I'm staying in the cottage on guard duty."
"It's far more troubling when you dig into it deeper," Arius murmured distantly.
Then, he glanced up, shaking his head once and turning to Crowley.
"Oh—you're right," Arius said suddenly. "I need to see Raven—she'll have exactly what I need. Where is she now?"
"No—jus—hold on." Crowley raised a hand, giving him a firm look. "I can't read your mind, Emmet. What're you on a tirade about? Tell me."
"Oh, don't worry—I'll tell you everything if the hunches actually lead me somewhere," Arius promised, breaking into a brisk stride up the dirt path. "I've got to go find her—bye now!"
Crowley watched him go, folding his arms again and huffing out an agitated breath.
Zander landed harshly—rolling over the cobblestone path.
Wincing and swallowing a grunt, he propped himself upright, kneeling and glancing up—seeing that Alice had already walked considerably far down the path now.
Swearing under his breath—Zander shot to his feet and strode after her, quickening his pace more with every step. Alice was marching toward the nearest building of the American Aisle—a stylish beach-like restaurant, with pink paint, tables lined up in front of it, and a multi-colored canopy hovering overtop of them—and he skidded to a stop and grabbed her just before she could step onto the proper sidewalk.
"Blimey!" Alice gasped, meeting his eyes and shooting him a look. "Where'd you come from? I thought you stayed back—"
"Shut up—we're going, now," Zander stated, turning and staring up the cobblestone path from where they'd come.
The path stretched up the grassy hill they came from, away from the many stores and shops of the Aisle, and it led directly to the isolated stone wall, standing on its own, not appearing to be part of any proper structure at all. It seemed the stone wall only existed here to be one of the Aisle's gateways in and out, nothing more.
And, as Alice and Zander stared up the cobblestone path, squinting at the stone wall in the distance, they both came to the same unsettling realization.
"Um… the tapping thing Jeremiah did… does that work from both sides, or just the Berkshire side?" Alice mumbled uncertainly.
"Hopefully both," Zander replied. "Or else we're trapped here…"
"Well—we'll figure it out when we come back," Alice decided—jerking out of his grasp and marching onto the sidewalk.
"Bloody hell—would you just stop?!" Zander griped as he followed her past the tables fitted with parasols. "This is the stupidest thing we could ever—"
"Zander," Alice said straightly—whipping around and glaring fixedly into him. "People pass through that path all the time, and people come here and shop all the time. I'm sure we can pull somebody aside who knows how to open it if we can't manage it ourselves. Until then—we can just browse an amazing wizard city for a while. What is the harm in that?"
Zander glared at her, inhaling a slow, deep breath and finally forcing himself calm.
"Okay… okay, fine, you're right. I'm just being over…" he paused and sighed, shaking his head and running a hand down his face. "Ahm… I'm just being paranoid."
Alice tilted her head at him, cracking a smirk.
"What were you just gonna say?" she asked.
Zander stared. "I dunno what you mean."
"You were gonna say overprotective," Alice knew. "But then you said paranoid instead."
Zander scoffed and rolled his eyes, marching briskly past her. Alice laughed and followed him past the beach-themed restaurant, both of them walking by a sweets shop, a wand store, and an incredibly-decorated joke shop as they headed deeper into the Aisle.
The two of them ventured down the sidewalk simply sightseeing for a few minutes, watching as crowds of people—many dressed the same way as the Berkshire townspeople—moved up and down the main street and in and out of the countless shops on either side. Music seemed to be echoing from somewhere, and a couple of children were running down the street and waving toy wands at each other, pretending to have a battle. Oil lamps and lanterns hung from many of the shops' entryways, though none of them were lit as of now, and—as they ventured farther, and the distant music grew louder—Alice gasped, her eyes lighting up, beaming and rapidly tugging on Zander's sleeve.
"What?!" he griped.
"I know that song!" Alice grinned. "It's one of the songs Dad plays at the carnival! Listen!"
Zander slowed to a stop, gazing farther down the street and listening to the distant ambiance. It sounded like a song from the 1920s, and now—as he listened more intently—he most assuredly recognized it as well.
"You looked at me, my heart began to pound… you weren't the sorta guy, I thought would stick a-round… hey, but it don't have to be, e-ter-na-lly… my bad, bad angel put the devil in me…!"
"Huh," Zander uttered as they resumed their pace. "Definitely fits the whole 'back in time' vibe of old America… but, granted, so does everything else here."
"I bet a lot of these people don't even see that," Alice speculated. "A lot of wizards don't spend half as much time in the muggle world as we do. This isn't 'back in time' to them. This is just normal life to them."
"Mhm," Zander nodded. "So… what're we doing? D'you wanna look in any of these shops, or what? Because I don't wanna wander too far. We really don't need to risk getting lost here…"
"I'm keeping up with where we're going," Alice told him confidently, raising up on her tippy-toes and squinting across the crowd. "Ooo—but I see a museum down there. That's weird. I don't remember a lot of wizard museums back home."
"There are none back home," Zander grumbled with a laugh. "All right, fine, we'll visit the museum… but we're not going much farther than that, okay?"
"Aye," Alice agreed, breaking into a speed-walk.
"Christ—slow down," Zander complained as he rushed to keep up with her.
The two of them passed by many more groups and shops, and the road seemed to split into a fork, where coutless more witches and wizards wandered either way.
In the center of the fork in the road, where this stretch ended, a huge white building sat, tall and rectangular with green lettering strewn along the top. The entryway was closed, barred off and dark inside, and the letters above it read; DREADNOUGHT.
Alice and Zander walked up to it, surveying the building curiously, and Alice let out a disappointed sigh.
"It's closed," she said, waving loosely at it. "Why would it be closed this time of day…?"
"Got stolen," a man said from behind her.
Alice turned, seeing an older American man wearing a navy overcoat standing there, puffing on a cigar and nodding at the white building.
"That place was the display area for the Wizard Dreadnought," the man explained. "Hell of a piece of history… but it got stolen from the property two years ago."
"What?" Alice muttered.
"Really…?" Zander said, giving the man a double-take. "They stole an entire war ship from here? How…?"
"Well… that's the big question," the man said, exhaling a smoke cloud. "But the bigger question is why. MACUSA's really scratchin' their heads on this one."
"Why is a good question," Zander remarked.
"Eh… my guess is Shadow Hand," the man shrugged. "This was one of the super-dreadnoughts from WWII… got a lot of history. Story is, one of the men in the war was one of us, but he never knew there was a world for us. He just adapted to the no-maj world… and he used his magic to make this dreadnought as formidable as possible when it was out at war. Lot of stories there, too… but, point is, the magic never faded from the ship. Even still… the MACUSA couldn't just leave it out there and let the no-maj military keep using it, so… it was seized and brought here. Stayed here up until a couple of years ago, when it just up and vanished. Shadow Hand are the only people I can think of who'd want a powerful thing like the Wizard Dreadnought."
"That's an amazing story, though," Alice marveled. "That soldier taught himself to use magic all on his own… without a wand, or a school, or anything. That's brilliant."
"Yup… sure is," the man agreed.
"What was his name?" Alice asked curiously. "Do you know…?"
"I think it was… Marty? No… Marvin," the man remembered, waving a finger at her. "Marvin Callihan. That's it. Look him up in the history books. Fascinating guy."
"We will," Zander said. "Thank you, sir."
"Welcome. Take care, now," the man dismissed, waving them off and walking away.
Zander then turned to Alice, seeing that she had a rather thoughtful look strewn across her face.
"What?" he said.
Alice met his eyes and shook her head. "Nothing… just a bit weird."
"What is?"
"That name… Callihan," Alice said. "That was… my mum's last name. Before she married Dad and became an O'Heiden."
Zander squinted at her. "Really?"
Alice nodded.
Zander bit his lip, pondering on this for a second before shaking his head at her. "Well… I doubt if it's the same family. I mean, this guy was part of the American muggle military back in the 30s or 40s."
"Right… except… my mum had some family who moved to America before then," Alice revealed. "But I never learned who, or why…"
Zander stared, his gaze shifting over to the dreadnought building, then back.
"Okay," he muttered in slight disbelief. "Okay, that's… that's definitely weird, then…"
"It'd be cool, wouldn't it?" Alice smirked, waving over at the building. "If I had this little link to history in my family… that'd be pretty amazing."
"Yeah… it honestly would," Zander uttered.
They both paused for a second, glimpsing around and peering down the street to the right, the fork in the road spiraling downhill into another plentiful alley of shops and stores.
Alice then turned to him and smirked.
Zander sighed and nodded sideways. "Okay…"
She tugged his sleeve and pulled him along, and the two of them headed down the right path, moving past groups of people and peering into some of the shop windows. One was a pet store, with many owls and snakes on display, and another was a clothes shop, a pop-up lemonade stand just across from it. They stopped at the lemonade stand and purchased two servings of ice-cold Exploding Lemonade, then headed further down the path, examining everything in sight.
"Okay," Zander said, sipping his beverage and nodding along to the ambiance of music echoing from somewhere unknown. "This is nice."
"Aye," Alice affirmed. "We've gotta come back here with everyone else sometime."
"Yeah," Zander agreed. "But I think Tobias would sink back into his turtle shell, being around all this commotion…"
Alice laughed. "Yeah, he's shy… but he's getting better."
As they ventured down the sidewalk, Zander then slowed to a stop, glancing to his right and peering down a dark, narrow alleyway, squinting into it and spotting movement deeper inside.
Alice wheeled around, seeing that he'd stopped and quickly returning to his side. "Nooo—you said no creepy alleys. No creepy alleys!"
"Alice—that's my father," Zander whisper-yelled, jabbing a finger down the alleyway.
Alice took back, then followed his stare into the darkened alley, narrowing her eyes and trying to see clearly. The alley was as dingy as it was narrow, spiraling tightly between two buildings and seeming to lead into a deeper, seedier area of the American Aisle—and far down the path, they saw two figures standing at the edge of a clearing deep into the alley. Both of them were speaking to one another, one of them grisly and stocky, and the other—unmistakably—was Malachi McAllister, wearing his usual cloak, his blond hair short and neat, and a black trilby hat was placed atop his head.
Alice and Zander both lingered at the edge of the alleyway, hunching slightly closer and leaning forward along the wall, trying their best to listen.
"Has to be next year," they barely heard Malachi say.
"Next year," the grisly man snarled in a low, grating tone. "We've got everything we need to push it along right now!"
"Except a proper distraction," Malachi stated. "There's a reason he is timing this the way he is. While the wizarding world is distracted by a worldwide tournament—we will make all the rest of our final moves."
"Still ruddy stupid ya' ask me," the grisly man growled.
"Well… I don't recall anyone asking you," Malachi replied curtly. "He has the final say, and that's just the way it is."
"Uh-huh… and what about you? Eh?" the grisly man barked. "You taken care of your little personal problems yet?"
Malachi was silent for several seconds following this.
Alice and Zander exchanged glances as they listened from afar.
"No," Malachi eventually replied. "At first, I conceded to wait… but, the more I think it over, the more obvious it seems that waiting for things to naturally align my way simply will not work. No, something more… drastic… might have to go underway."
"Agh—!"
Alice nearly shrieked—she and Zander suddenly ripped back with a powerful yank. Someone jerked them away from the alley—whipping them around and pressing both of them to the wall along the sidewalk, a hand on each of their shoulders.
Now—they found themselves staring into Vance Calloway, his hands clasped onto each of their shoulders viselike, his eyes a sharp and penetrating blue, his brow hardened and pensive, and his left eyebrow harboring a single, jagged scar.
Zander's breath cut thin, and Alice squinted bizarrely at him.
Vance's jaw made a slight twitch, maintaining his grasp firmly on them. His eyes drifted to the side for a long, tense moment, glaring at the end of the alleyway. When nobody emerged from it, he returned his attention to the two students before him, huffing out an irritable cloud of breath.
"That… is Lugosi Alley," he told them, his voice a low, softened rasp. "And you do not go into Lugosi Alley. Ever."
"What… um… why?" Alice breathed thoughtlessly.
Vance gently cocked his head at her. "Because it's nothing but shady business down there… and that shady business includes robbing people of their goods and reselling them, or harvesting the organs of naïve young students who wander in without a second thought. Or worse."
Alice made a face. "Worse…?"
"Oh yeah," Vance nodded. "Yeah—they do worse."
"But my… my, um…" Zander stammered, clearing his throat and trying to force down many sensations of surprise all at once. "My father's in there…"
"Yeah… your father's on my list," Vance replied, pulling them forward by their robes and forcibly escorting them back up the street. "Let's go. Now."
Alice and Zander hardly resisted, despite that Vance dragging them along nearly made them trip over their own feet. The auror continued up the path, tugging and pulling on the students until he eventually reached the front of the white dreadnought building at the fork in the road.
Then—he finally loosened his grasp on them, swatting up the main street and ordering them to keep moving forward.
Alice and Zander did as he said, and the three of them made the long walk back up the road from where they came, leaving the white dreadnought building behind as they did. Eventually, they reached the cobblestone path at the edge of the beach restaurant, and Vance took the lead, marching up the path and approaching the lone stone wall at the top of the hill, the students both close behind him.
The auror stopped there, pulled out his wand, and tapped on the stones the same way Jeremiah had earlier—then the stones began to shift and move, raveling to the side and opening the wall back up, revealing the hallway of the Berkshire bar inside.
Vance turned and pushed the students inside before stepping through himself, and the wall began to close up behind him, the stone turning and flipping until it sealed up completely, the sunlight vanishing from the hallway. Then, he broke into a stride once more, snapping his fingers and motioning for them to follow. He emerged from the hallway, returned to his booth in the corner, and nodded at the bench across from his, sinking back down in his seat and taking a stip of his coffee, which had now gone cold.
Alice and Zander scooted into the bench, glimpsing out the window and seeing a bit more movement on the main road of Berkshire now, though they paid it little mind. Their eyes shifted back over to Vance, waiting for him to speak.
The American auror swallowed the coffee, placed the mug down, intertwined his fingers, and gave them both a long, intense stare.
"I know you have a lot of questions," Vance uttered in his raspy voice, lowering it and peeking over at the bar, seeing that there were still no new customers inside as of now. "I can only answer some… but let me lay out some ground rules first and foremost."
He held up one finger from his interlocked hands.
"Number one," he said, raising his brows and glaring at them seriously. "Do not wander the American Aisle when it's just the two of you. Take a group of people with you if you want—but never when it's just you two. Do I make myself clear?"
Alice and Zander both nodded quietly.
He raised a second finger from his clasped hands.
"Number two," Vance continued. "Places like Lugosi Alley are completely off-limits to all the students from all the schools here this year. Understand?"
Alice and Zander nodded again.
"Okay. And… number three," Vance said, lowering his hands and folding his arms atop the table, glaring into them intently. "Nothing we talk about here travels any farther. Not to your friends. Not to your family. Not even to your father."
His eyes homed in on Zander.
Alice glanced between the two of them, looking concerned.
Zander stared into Vance with a look of perturbation, and Vance examined him, seeming to read his every troubled question off of his face.
"Your father… is a person of interest in the investigations surrounding the Seal of Shadows," Vance informed. "And, since he's an auror himself, that complicates the situation a bit… so, I've resolved to simply keeping an eye on him. For now."
Zander's mouth drifted open, countless questions lingering on the tip of his tongue, and he scarcely knew where to begin.
"Um… what makes him a person of interest?" Alice asked for him.
"Well… namely, the people he's been seen meeting with in that very alley," Vance stated, making a sideways nod over toward the back hall. "People don't go to Lugosi Alley for anything good and wholesome. Malachi McAllister hasn't actually been seen committing a crime, and there's no direct evidence of his involvement with the Seal of Shadows… but his behavior alone is suspicious. Suspicious enough to keep an eye on."
"Doesn't surprise me," Zander mumbled down at the table.
Vance narrowed his eyes at him. "Has he ever told you anything about him being involved with the Seal of Shadows…?"
"No," Zander sighed. "It just doesn't surprise me."
Vance went quiet, Alice frowning and patting her friend on the back.
"Well," Vance spoke up again, pressing his pointer fingers together and aiming them both at Zander. "The complicated thing about him is the fact that he's an auror. All of the people meant to investigate these things are all of the people he works with daily. So… it's absolutely prudent that none of us slip up, and none of us let him know we're onto him. There's a reason I'm not down there, traipsing around Lugosi Alley myself with my detective-inspector badge on my belt. Anything that might tip him off to our suspicions of him is a thing we need to avoid… which means… you can't tell him a single thing we've discussed here. Are we clear?"
"Tch. I never see him," Zander laughed. "And I wouldn't warn him even if I did."
"Well… good," Vance disclosed.
"Ah… I… have a question," Alice murmured, slowly raising her hand. "Why is it okay for us to go to the Aisle as a group, but not when it's just us two? I mean… Zander and I… we can hold our own pretty well."
"I have no doubt about that," Vance replied, folding his arms and leaning back in his seat. "I've read enough to know that you're both exceptional."
Zander blinked at the table, lifting his head and raising his brows at the auror.
"But that's not the issue," Vance added, nodding at either of them. "The issue is… Trocar Crowley informed me that you two have been 'marked' as potential recruits for the Seal of Shadows, which means the shadiest elements lingering in the underbelly of the American Aisle will almost certainly set their sights on you if they catch you traveling alone. Now, none of us have any idea what a recruitment routine for the Shadow Hand entails, but we can all agree that it's probably nothing good… so… best to avoid it. I imagine you don't want to be put in that situation, anyway."
"I already have been… to some degree," Zander muttered. "Wasn't fun."
"Then there ya' go," Vance said.
"Do you know of anyone else who's been 'marked' like us?" Alice wondered.
Vance glimpsed at her, sighing deeply. "Well… a couple of people, and a couple of potentials. There are very few people who are told that they're marked, and then run and tell the MACUSA about it. From where we stand, and from what we can tell… usually… if the Shadow Hand attempts to recruit someone, then… well… they usually succeed."
Alice and Zander both stared at him.
"How do you know?" Zander asked.
"Numbers," Vance said simply. "We've got pictures of one of their meetings now, and the gathering was positively enormous, containing witches and wizards from all walks of life… every country, every religion, every nationality, and every other thing you could think of. Now, you compare that with the very few marked people who come forward to us… and the math is easy. Most people who are marked generally accept their invitation into the Seal of Shadows. If they didn't… then we'd have a lot more people coming to us instead of popping up at hidden wizarding revolution rallies."
"Maybe their initiation involves the Imperius Curse," Alice speculated.
"Maybe," Vance shrugged and nodded. "That would explain their fantastic success rate of recruiting people… but to have that many people bewitched, and staying bewitched during their entire stay in the Shadow Hand? That would be exceptionally difficult to pull off."
Alice grimaced. "What else could it be…?"
"They actually believe it," Zander murmured.
Alice and Vance both stared at him.
Zander sighed again, pondering on his encounter with Mary-Lynn in the lavatory and the chamber, only just remembering everything she had said—and everything Valefor said shortly after.
"They really believe in whatever they're doing," Zander knew. "They honestly think Xyler's way is the right thing to do… and the people they recruit must think the same."
They all fell silent for a moment, Vance stroking along his chin in thought.
"If only we knew what that was," the auror muttered.
"Yeah… I have no idea," Zander said. "They never told me exactly what Xyler's big view on the world is, or whatever his plans are…"
"That's a mystery to us all," Vance surmised. "Big missing piece of the puzzle…"
There was another pause.
"But if I find out," Zander said, his tone strengthening, and his eyes venturing back up to Vance. "If I hear or see anything about it from my father… I'll tell you."
Vance studied him, nodding mildly and releasing a cloud of breath.
"I hope you don't intend to go looking for that evidence," he said softly.
"No," Zander replied. "I won't—but if I stumble upon it anyway, then it's yours."
"I appreciate that," Vance said. "But you don't need to involve yourselves any further. I'm only speaking to you now because you're both a special circumstance in this particular situation. That doesn't mean you need to try harder to be an even bigger part of all this. That's the last thing you need to do right now."
"I know," Zander assured him.
Vance nodded again, leaning back and giving them each a nod. "All right… well… you can go now. I just wanted to clear all of that up with you two."
Alice and Zander nodded, then scooted out of the bench and stood, saying their goodbyes to Vance before quietly strolling out of the Endzone.