"So you really did join the resistance," Alexandra said.

During the Junior Wizarding Decathlon in New Amsterdam, Archibald Mudd had taken a perverse delight in embarrassing her and making her look reckless, deranged, and incompetent. Then she had tricked him, and used him and his magical reporting devices to broadcast the secret of the Deathly Regiment to the entire wizarding world.

Mudd took off his hat and gave her a condescending smile. "You never told her, huh, Abe?"

"Archibald."

Abraham Thorn's warning tone would have intimidated most people, but Archibald Mudd seemed unfazed by it. "Sorry. Abraham. I was always part of the resistance, as you call it, Miss Quick. My old man and yours were tight, back in the day. He raised me to be a muckraking, truth-seeking pain in the ass, and I've secretly been working for your father from the beginning."

Alexandra turned to her father, trying not to let her surprise show.

Abraham Thorn smiled thinly. "Archibald has been quite useful. It's true, Alexandra. His father was one of the original members of the Thorn Circle, and though he was too young at the time, Archibald insisted on joining the cause as soon as he came of age."

Alexandra shook her head. "Why were you such an ass to me, then?"

Mudd rolled his eyes. "For a smart kid, you can be pretty dense. If I were nice to you, do you think the Governor-General would have let me have such unfettered access? Do you think I'd have been able to interview him and his cronies, and in my spare time, wander around the grounds of New Amsterdam Academy, the Arcanum Library, and the Governor-General's mansion?"

"He uncovered quite a few interesting secrets on his own," Abraham Thorn said. "The information he obtained about the Arcanum and the Research Office has been invaluable."

"I also helped you burn down New Amsterdam," Mudd said.

"Yes, Archibald. You are a clever saboteur as well. Do you require more praise?"

Alexandra looked back and forth at her father and the journalist who'd been so aggravating in her few days in New Amsterdam. Her father actually seemed fond of him, which she found even more aggravating.

Mudd grinned at her. "Are you caught up yet? Have you started to realize that there are actors on the stage even when you're not around? You're not the only tool in your father's box, and maybe you're not the sharpest."

"Archibald," her father said warningly again. Behind him, Hela looked down, with something that looked suspiciously like a smile.

"He published a picture of me practically naked!" Alexandra protested.

"Really?" Mudd said. "That's what you're still upset about?"

"That… wasn't entirely necessary," Alexandra's father said with a frown.

"She wasn't entirely naked either. Come on. Embarrassing the Enemy's daughter kept me in Hucksteen's good graces." Mudd gave Alexandra a wink. "And it's not like you didn't make it easy."

She glowered at him, not wanting to sound petulant.

Her father cleared his throat. "Archibald is quite knowledgeable about Confederation politics, but he is also very familiar with the Muggle world. I think you two will work well together if you are quite done sulking, Alexandra. Do I need to make you shake hands as well?"

Mudd held out a hand with a grin. Sullenly, Alexandra shook it.

"Seriously, it wasn't personal," Mudd said. "I was just doing my job."

"I've heard that before," Alexandra said.

Alexandra listened to her father and Archibald Mudd discuss regional politics and key figures in each Confederation Territory, realizing that these were things she actually needed to understand now.

Hela, who had barely said a word since arriving, seemed to be struggling to pay attention.

"New England will never ally with the Dark Convention," Mudd said. "They'd as soon fire up an Inquisition of their own. They're angrier than anyone about the Dark Arts."

"So who were all of Lucilla and Drucilla's customers?" Alexandra muttered, remembering how the Whites had run a thriving business in black market Dark artifacts.

Her father could make even a chuckle sound ominous. "If you would find hypocrisy, look for those who are most vehement in condemning sin. But as Yankees loathe anything associated with the Dark—"

"We should keep shoving the Confederation's darkness in their faces," Mudd said. "Did you see their Governor trying to explain that New England has never participated in the Deathly Regiment? Even the Elect weren't buying it." He laughed with the pleasure of someone else's misfortune. "I think they'll secede when the fault lines get big enough."

"And that is where Alexandra will help," Abraham Thorn said. "We need to know where all the fault lines are."

Alexandra blinked. "Huh? I thought I'm supposed to, like, talk to people."

"That's the cover story," Mudd said. "We're going to tour around the Confederation meeting with dissidents and sympathizers, using your sparkling personality and pretty face to win hearts and minds."

"Oh, was that sarcasm?" Alexandra asked. "I couldn't be sure, over you being so full of yourself."

"I meant literal fault lines," Abraham Thorn said, pointedly ignoring their banter. "Cracks in the world. The relationship between Confederation institutions and these cracks is not coincidental, as you now know. The most prominent locations of otherworldly access are at the schools, government buildings, and banks where the Confederation has built its foundations, but there are many more, and with a complete map, we can more effectively trace the most effective way to disrupt the Confederation. Tear down its concealing spells and repelling wards and Charms. We will break their seals and pry open the cracks for maximum havoc."

Alexandra looked at the map of the Confederation again.

"That havoc isn't just going to affect the wizarding world," she said.

"You still worry about Muggles," her father said. "But Alexandra, they are already affected. You know this. What we do will ultimately protect them from the Confederation."

On the map were a number of gray regions. "What about the Ozarks?" she asked. "And the Indian Territories?"

"They will neither help us nor hinder us, and so are largely irrelevant."

"There are people living there. The Confederation isn't going to just ignore them, are they? I know they're already sending Regiments to the Indian Territories demanding their wizards join them against the Dark Convention."

"They are not our concern."

"If saving people from the Confederation isn't our concern, what is?" asked Alexandra. "I think it's about time you explained the endgame to me."

"The endgame?" her father asked mildly.

"How do we end the Confederation? You told me that we can't just find a villain and smite him. So it's not just a matter of killing Governor-General Hucksteen. Even if we do that, the Confederation will keep sacrificing children. That's what we need to stop, and that means destroying the Accounting Office, the Census Office, Storm King Mountain… all of it!"

"That will require a great deal of killing," her father said.

Alexandra exhaled slowly. "I understand that. It's what you're doing already. But we can't fix things by killing everyone who works for the Confederation, can we? We have to actually… like, change the government. Put people in charge who won't continue the Deathly Regiment. And also won't abuse Muggles and Squibs and, um, elves and goblins—and I really don't know about hags, they still seem pretty sketchy to me, but I guess we should include all Beings?"

Archibald Mudd smiled. "Well. She's finally catching up."

"Be less of a jerk," Alexandra said.

"You are correct, Alexandra," her father said. "The Confederation cannot merely fall. It must be replaced. A new government, one dedicated to all those ideals you mentioned, must stand ready to speak for wizardkind, and defend the American wizarding world against its enemies, who are not merely the Dark Convention. In the chaos of a post-Confederation anarchy, not only the Dark Convention, but wizards from around the world, perceiving a lawless vacuum, would flood in. The Muggle government, to the extent that it's aware of the situation, would understandably react with alarm, having no wizard authorities to cooperate with. The result might be a reaction worse than the Ban from the rest of the wizarding world, and a second wizarding war within, this time between Muggles and wizards. Fully exposing our world to them will inevitably result in conflict."

Alexandra grimaced. She was the one who had exposed their world, or at least, she was the face of their exposure. "So how do we prevent that?"

"By having a replacement for the existing regime ready to assume its responsibilities. The first order of business must be reestablishing a veil of secrecy over the wizarding world. We can never go back to the way it was—Muggles have already seen too much. But we can learn new ways of coexisting with them."

"Who'll be in charge of this replacement government?" Alexandra asked. "You?"

Her father smiled. "That is what Governor-General Hucksteen and the rest of the Confederation believes. The Dark Convention, too, believes my plan is to take over the Confederation. And once, they would have been right." He looked at the map on the wall, and shook his head.

"It cannot be me, Alexandra. I am no Dark Lord, but that is how people see me, and the American wizarding world will not follow a Dark Lord. Not out of any inherent nobility on their part, but because of how they see themselves."

"If that's true, why isn't everyone rebelling against the Deathly Regiment?" Alexandra asked. "How is that any better than kneeling to Voldemort?" She ignored the look Hela gave her at this.

Her father's smile was not rueful or fond now, it was a thing of bitter malice and irony. "Indeed. It is not. And that is why I no longer concern myself with how to reform a people who will not reform themselves. You want to know the endgame, my dear? The endgame is tearing down the Confederation's institutions, breaking their power—which is largely centered on those places in the world where magic once flowed into this world from the World Away, as you and the Ozarkers call it—and unleashing such chaos and calamity upon Hucksteen and his regime that they cannot contain it. The Deathly Regiment will end when all its agencies are destroyed, the hands upon the wheels that grind in its infernal mills severed. And not least of all, when Elias Hucksteen is dead." His eyes blazed and it took all of Alexandra's willpower not to look away or step back. Even Archibald Mudd's smug smile had faded. "I am going to burn the Confederation to the ground, and I will be happy to show those who join me what must be done if they would have peace and order in the aftermath. But I will not be part of that." He rose, and looked down at Alexandra, eyes still full of a long-smoldering rage that Alexandra felt herself, deep in her chest. She suddenly felt closer to and more afraid of her father than ever before. "I bring the fire that will burn away the rot and corruption that afflicts the Confederation. Someone else must bring the salve."

"He really is just going to burn everything down whether or not there's anything to replace it," Alexandra said.

Her father had departed, and Hela had skulked back upstairs. Alone with Alexandra, Mr. Mudd's cockiness had returned.

"Does that bother you?" he asked. "Maybe it's the way things ought to be. Maybe the time for living in separate worlds is done. Let Muggles and wizards sort it out together."

Alexandra thought about Brian, and Claudia and Archie, and the parents of all the Pruett School students who didn't really understand the world their children had entered.

"Someone might take charge who's no better than Hucksteen," she said.

"That's what people say about your father."

"How terrible could he be if he doesn't even want to be in charge?"

"I think he's right. Once, he might have been a great leader, but now, he's a great revolutionary. If he has enough sense to know he shouldn't rule, then we should probably listen to him."

"Okay, but what keeps the Dark Convention from taking over?"

"The good people of the Confederation. Or maybe you. You're the child of destiny, right? The chosen one? Isn't your fate written by the Stars Above?"

"You have no idea what you're talking about. Whatever my destiny is, I'm pretty sure it isn't that."

For once, Mudd seemed to take her words seriously, evaluating her with a sober expression.

She frowned at him. "What's your deal anyway?"

"My deal?"

"Why did you join the Thorn Circle? Because of your father? Where is he?"

"Dead," Mudd said. "Not many of the original Thorn Circle are still alive."

"Oh." Alexandra couldn't bring herself to say "I'm sorry," but Mudd seemed unbothered.

"He married a Muggle and found out just how tolerant all his pureblood friends were. I'm sure that's not the only reason he joined Abe's cause. He loved goring oxes." Mudd put his hat on. "I joined for my father—and my mother, who learned to live in the wizarding world and now has to live outside it. You're not wrong, Miss Quick. We need a plan in place for regime change, and that means a wizarding government that will negotiate with Muggles while reigning in the Dark Convention, who have inconveniently been allied to your father because they want an end to all restraint on their activities."

"But we need them to fight the Confederation."

"You see the problem. Don't kid yourself—a lot of those warlocks would happily do things that make the Deathly Regiment look like a Muggle welfare program. The ones who aren't outright wizard supremacists are anarchists, nihilists, or—you look confused. Do I need to use smaller words?"

Alexandra glared at him. "Keep calling me stupid, Archie, and I'll show off my vocabulary for you. I'm not confused. I'm just thinking. Do you know the prophecy that was made before I was born?"

"Nope. Maybe my father did. He never said anything to me about you or Abe's other kids, except the Whites."

Something about what the Stars Above had told her was bothering her now. Her father wanted her to map all the places where the World Away touched this one. All the places where Indian wizards had once passed between worlds, all the places where the Confederation had built an edifice atop a former ritual ground, and sealed away the magic that had once flowed from the Lands Below or elsewhere… magic, and strange and fell creatures. How her father would make use of these maps was still unclear to her. Talk of "opening the cracks" made her think he just wanted to unleash magical chaos, but that didn't sound like a plan, it sounded like something the Dark Convention would do.

"I'll be back tomorrow," Mudd said. "While you map out these ley lines, I'm going to use our travels around the Confederation for some wizard wireless pirate broadcasts. If we start near Chicago—"

"No," Alexandra said. "We're going to New England."

The reporter frowned. "That's not what your father said."

"He gave us a plan. He didn't say where to start."

"He obviously meant for us to start with people we can influence, not go straight to where you think your sisters are imprisoned."

"Why not New England?" Alexandra demanded. She stood almost nose to nose with him, fists clenched at her sides, trying to use the same intimidating glare that cowed Hela. Mudd was taller than her, and not so easily intimidated, but he did lose his smirk. "My father said they're on the fence right now, and maybe a little extra PR will push the folks who actually think murdering children is bad over to our side, or at least against Hucksteen's side. And if I'm hoping to find out what happened to Lucilla and Drucilla in the meantime—"

"Your father told you he's working on that. Don't you trust him?"

Alexandra continued to glare at him, not sure how to answer that question.

"He made me your chaperone because he wants a grown-up in the room," Mudd said.

"He didn't make you my chaperone," Alexandra said. "I just need an adult who can rent cars and hotel rooms and stuff. That's your only purpose, as far as I'm concerned."

"Sweetheart, your trick with these cracks in the world is awesome and all that, but unless you think you can just open a crack and shove the Confederation into it, my job is at least as important as yours. Lose the attitude and stop being a mouthy little brat and you might learn something about politics when we actually talk to people who think murdering children is bad but who also think their own families being killed is bad. And I know you want to rescue your sisters—assuming they need rescuing—but you charging off to do your own thing is exactly what your father is afraid of, and likely to result in having to rescue all three of you. Which, again, is why I'm supposed to be the adult in the room."

"If we need an adult in the room," Alexandra said, "then it won't be you."

"Say what?"

"We need someone with experience and wisdom? Fine. I have someone else in mind. Someone who's been at this longer than either of us."

"Oh really?" Mudd asked suspiciously. "And who's that?"

"One of the original members of the Thorn Circle." Alexandra gave him a smirk of her own that hid her own uncertainty. If she'll come.

After Mudd Apparated away, Alexandra looked around at the interior of the former warehouse. Hela had repaired most of the damage. Soon, Madam Erdglass would be returning, and presumably so would the students who'd still attend the Pruett School. Alexandra actually missed them—Pete Venker, a brawny farmboy who'd started dating Rachel Ing, a slender, pretty, Asian-American girl from Kenosha, and Helen Xanthopoulos, a sweet but slow girl from a wealthy pureblood family, and Freddy DiStefano, who was a smarmy jerk with an inflated ego but nonetheless, Alexandra had become almost fond of him. Then there were the younger kids, who had seemed so innocent and naive to Alexandra's jaded eyes. She knew that several of them had stopped attending the day school last year, even before the events in New Amsterdam, and she wondered if they even understood that a wizard war was going on. They wouldn't be protected all the time, like those students returning to Charmbridge. Alexandra was not confident about Madam Erdglass's ability to look out for them, even if she was a secret enemy of the Confederation herself.

She walked outside, and found Billy Boggleston holding hands with a girl in a colorful, full-length dress, a headscarf, and a veil.

The two of them jumped, startled, as Alexandra emerged from the building. At first Alexandra was confused that Billy had been able to walk through the Muggle-Repelling charms. Then she did a double-take at the girl in the veil.

"You," she said. "You're dead." She drew her wand.

Hela made a fearful sound and stepped back, not reaching for her own wand.

Billy lunged at her. Alexandra flung him aside with a Spinning Jinx. He hit the ground dizzily, and Alexandra said, "Stay out of this, Billy."

Hela was still backing away, her eyes wide. "Alexandra, I—"

"I warned you," Alexandra said. "I warned you, and you—"

"Leave her alone, Quick!" Billy shouted, lurching to his feet to stagger at her again.

Alexandra rooted his feet in place with a wave of her wand. "Just shut up, Billy. You don't even know what's happening."

"I know you're a bully and a psycho!" Billy said. "I saw what you did to her! Look at her, she's got, like, PT…ADD!"

Hela was indeed shaking, but Alexandra was so indignant at being called a bully by Billy Boggleston that she turned to him instead. "If your brain wasn't boggled by Amortentia, I would so show you what PTSD looks like, you dimwitted troll!"

"I didn't give him Amortentia!" Hela said pleadingly, holding up her hands. "I did not use any magic on him!"

Alexandra shook her head, but Billy, grunting as he tried unsuccessfully to lift his feet, said, "It's true! She didn't charm me or anything!"

Alexandra eyed Hela, then Billy. "Did she tell you what she did before?"

"Yeah," Billy said, nodding. "About the love potion? She told me everything. And about how you're both witches and she was sent here from the land of ice and snow, and she has to obey you or you'll kill her, 'cause you're an evil sorceress and your father is a Dark Lord—"

"That's not how I meant it!" Hela said.

"How did you mean it?" Alexandra asked angrily.

"Leave her alone!" Billy yelled, struggling futilely against the charm holding him in place. "Curse me if you're gonna curse someone!"

Alexandra stared at Billy in disbelief.

"She drugged you with a love potion!" she said. "And then she—"

"Yeah." Billy nodded. "I mean, I was kinda pissed at first. But then I thought…" He looked at Hela. "Well, it was actually kind of hot."

Alexandra continued staring at him, dumbfounded.

Billy said, "So like, she apologized and swore she'd never do it again. I thought you're not supposed to use magic on normal people either, you hippocrat!"

"Hippocrat? Do you mean hypoc—?" Alexandra shook her head. "Are you serious?"

"Of course I'm serious!" Billy continued trying to lift his feet, making him look like he was performing some sort of strange stationary dance.

Alexandra looked at Hela, whose eyes were wide above her veil.

"I swear it is true, on my mother's burnt bones!" Hela said. "I have not bewitched him in any way. I did beg his forgiveness, and he… well, after his anger and confusion passed, he was… kind."

"Kind," Alexandra repeated.

"Let me go!" Billy said. "And stop terrorizing her!"

"I didn't—" Alexandra stopped again. Then she waved her wand, and Billy stumbled, off-balanced by his sudden release. "You're both crazy."

Billy walked over to Hela and put an arm around her.

"What's with the veil?" Alexandra asked.

"I saw pictures in a magazine at the store," Hela said. "I used charms to make this… I look like a Muggle now, yes?"

"Like a Muslim or something."

"So?" Billy demanded. "What are you, Quick, a Muslimphobe?"

"She's not a Muslim!" Alexandra protested.

"Do you wish me to wear something else?" Hela asked.

Alexandra opened her mouth, looked from her to Billy, and shook her head. "Whatever."

"So, are you like, leaving now?" Billy asked.

Alexandra looked at him, and at the Pruett School, and then back at him and Hela. "You're kidding. Are you taking him upstairs again?"

Billy flushed. "What business is it of yours?"

"Oh my God." Alexandra threw her hands up. "You two so deserve each other." She turned away. "Hela, we're leaving tomorrow. And you're going to have to find somewhere else to sleep and boink when the Pruett School reopens." She walked away, flustered and not sure whether it was Billy or Hela she should feel sorry for.