Alexandra waited until after sundown to emerge from the woods and approach the Invisible Bridge. Her wand revealed no one waiting there. She crossed over the bridge to the other side of the valley in one step, and sped back to the hotel.

Hela was sitting in the lobby playing with her phone, but she put it away and stood as soon as Alexandra entered.

"Mrs. Wilborough is leaving," she said. There was no emotion in her voice or expression.

"Why?" Alexandra asked.

Hela shrugged. "She does not believe the Confederation or the Dark Convention has any interest in her, and she has decided not to rejoin us. She wants to go home."

"What about you?"

Hela shrugged again. "I obey your father." She hesitated. "And you."

But mostly my father, Alexandra thought. "I need to speak to Livia."

With Hela dutifully following behind her, Alexandra was intercepted by a man in a tailored dark blue suit that was different from the "fed uniform" all the other federal agents wore. He had shiny cufflinks and a fancy haircut, and the other feds hung back as he approached the two witches.

"Miss Quick," he said. "I'm Trent Rafferty. I'd like a word with you in private, while your father isn't present."

Alexandra looked over her shoulder at Hela, who came closer.

"Okay," Alexandra said, out of curiosity more than anything else. Mr. Rafferty led her to one of the hotel's conference rooms. Hela protested when told to wait outside.

"Private conversation," Alexandra said. "And you're gonna be right outside the door. I don't think I'm in any danger."

Hela nodded reluctantly. "He is just a Muggle."

"No-Maj," Alexandra corrected her.

She went inside and sat at a table with Mr. Rafferty. He tensed slightly when she drew her wand.

"Muffliato," she said. She put her wand away. "That's an anti-eavesdropping spell."

Rafferty relaxed. "I see. You know, the things wizards could do in cooperation with law enforcement—"

"If you're trying to recruit me, I'm really not interested. I mean, it's not that I don't want to help Mug—I mean, No-Majes. But I've got enough problems right now. You know, 'cause of the war."

"Yes," Mr. Rafferty said. "The wizard war. Between the Confederation, which sacrifices children, and the Thorn Circle and the Dark Convention, who are no better than terrorists."

"But my father is on your side."

"Do you really think that?"

Alexandra thought about it. "He won't try to enslave or terrorize you, and he's trying to stop the Deathly Regiment."

"But he will mind-control people and erase memories when it's convenient. Agent Curtis found that quite distressing."

Alexandra wanted to point out that it was Medea who'd done that, but she knew it didn't matter.

"I guess my father might not be everyone's idea of a good guy, but when everyone else is worse, you have to pick a side. What do you want from me, Mr. Rafferty?"

"Help persuading your opposition leaders to cooperate with us, and form closer ties than we currently enjoy with the Confederation."

"Aren't you still, like, allied with the Confederation?"

Rafferty made a noncommittal gesture. "It would be more accurate to say we have diplomatic relations with the Confederation. They are the authorized representatives of the American wizarding community, and we've had an understanding with your people for centuries to preserve the secrecy around your… world."

Alexandra narrowed her eyes. "Did you have an understanding about the Deathly Regiment? Did you know about it?"

Rafferty shook his head. "No. That's caused a lot of upset at the highest levels, which is why we're willing to talk to your father and assist you and your sister—"

"While still maintaining relations with the Confederation?"

He spread his hands. "We can't say what the outcome of your current civil unrest will be, and we'll have to deal with whoever represents the magical community afterwards. We'd like to have the sort of cooperative relationship we've had with the Confederation. Obviously, we have registered very strong objections with the Governor-General's office concerning the Deathly Regiment… and other grievances."

Alexandra snorted. "So how exactly do you want me to help? My father isn't going to replace the Governor-General. He doesn't want the job."

"So he says. Which begs the question, who will?"

"Don't look at me."

Mr. Rafferty smiled. "No offense, Miss Quick, but I don't think anyone imagines a teenager assuming leadership of the wizarding community." His face became more serious. "We were actually hoping you could help us bring Geming Chu around."

Alexandra blinked. "What do you mean, bring him around, and what makes you think I could do that?"

"You are friends with his daughter, aren't you? According to our information, you were roommates with Anna Chu at Charmbridge Academy."

"How do you know all this?"

"The Thorn Circle and the Governor-General's office aren't our only contacts within the wizarding world."

Alexandra thought about that. "Okay, so I still don't see what I'm supposed to do. Mr. Chu is in California, right? He's not a member of the Thorn Circle."

"Exactly. He's an elected representative of your people, leading a secessionist movement to split away from the Confederation, independently of your father and his alliance with the Dark Convention. If his movement is successful, he'll be a viable alternative to Governor-General Hucksteen, and there are a lot of people in our administration interested in helping him accomplish that. But it's… problematic for us to reach out to him directly, given that the Governor-General is not likely to react well to such overtures, and your father is hardly cooperative."

"You… want me to go behind my father's back?"

"Not at all," Rafferty said smoothly. "But your father isn't opposed to Geming Chu, is he? They're both trying to overthrow the Confederation. Your father, however, has been unwilling to tell us what his succession plan is if he succeeds in deposing the Governor-General. We're hoping Congressman Chu would be willing to discuss that, and to take a more liberal outlook towards cooperation with No-Majes."

"I… guess I could talk to him," Alexandra said. "I mean, if I ever get out to California." Anna and her father were fighting the Confederation more directly than she was, she thought.

"I understand you still haven't located your sisters, Lucilla and Drucilla White."

Alexandra was startled by the sudden mention of her sisters. "No. Do you know something about them?"

"We know they were captured by Confederation hit-wizards, at Bangor International Airport."

"Hit-wizards?" Alexandra exclaimed.

"That's what we call them. The wizards they send to capture or kill enemies of the Confederation."

"How do you know? When did this happen? Where did they take them?" Alexandra demanded. She was suspicious of Rafferty, but the possibility of learning something, anything, about her sisters' whereabouts crowded out her other questions.

Rafferty drew a small tablet out of his coat pocket and put it on the table. He tapped the screen, starting a silent video.

Alexandra leaned over to watch the video. It was rather poor quality, like the one she had seen of herself hovering on a broom in New York City, above a confused dragon. This video seemed to have been taken by cameras at an airport departure gate. A bunch of Muggles were sitting or standing around waiting for the next plane, when a small group of men and women moved into the waiting area, all wearing long coats that were unstylish and unseasonable for the summer. They were clearly drawing attention to themselves even as they stood there.

Then, so quickly Alexandra could have missed it if she blinked, two women appeared out thin air. The blonde twins almost fell to the ground.

Alexandra gasped. "Lucy… Dru!"

She could barely make out their faces, but they seemed disoriented. Drucilla actually drew her wand before the Special Inquisitors—or "hit-wizards"—rained a brutal barrage of Stunners on them. Alexandra winced at the blinding bursts of light that pelted the twins at close range. In seconds, they lay motionless on the ground. Alexandra clenched her fists.

Everyone around the wizards was backing away or scattering in a panic. Alexandra could see that some were screaming, and a lady behind a counter was picking up a phone.

Then the Confederation wizards began pointing their wands, and in another blur of spells, the crowd stopped what they were doing, and either stood still or began shuffling aimlessly about.

The wizards did this for almost a full minute. Then they collected Lucilla and Drucilla, and vanished.

The Muggles, left behind, returned to their seats or resumed walking to gates or concessions. Some of them were a bit wobbly on their feet, others looked confused, but it was as if the scene moments ago had never happened.

"They… Obliviated everyone?" Alexandra said. "Right there in the airport, they jumped Lucy and Dru and then Obliviated all the…uh, No-Majes?"

She remembered how Diana Grimm had once animated a mannequin in a department store, back in Larkin Mills. And on another occasion, had Obliviated several Muggles who'd witnessed her using magic in Chicago. It didn't surprise her that Special Inquisitors would abuse their powers and the Statute of Secrecy—but this was so blatant, and on a scale unmatched by anything except perhaps her own stunt in New York, that she was almost shocked by it.

"The only evidence they left behind were these recordings," Rafferty said. "I guess they either didn't know about them, or didn't care."

"Where are they now?" Alexandra asked. "Where did they take Lucilla and Drucilla?"

Mr. Rafferty gave an apologetic shake of his head. "We have made inquiries… objecting to this public display of magic and abuse of No-Maj witnesses. So far we have received only dismissive answers, but we're working some other sources. We have very little leverage at the moment."

"Why didn't you show this to my father?" Alexandra demanded.

Rafferty looked back at her coolly. "We did."

Alexandra opened her mouth, but no words came. She took a couple of deep breaths.

"My father knows?" she asked.

Rafferty nodded.

Alexandra rose and stormed out of the room.

"Alexandra, if you don't calm down, I'm going to ask you to leave." Livia was letting her husband bounce Nicholas on his knee while she confronted Alexandra, who had come raging to their room with Hela in tow.

"But he knows where Lucilla and Drucilla are!" Alexandra glanced quickly at Nicholas, and then with an effort, lowered her voice. "He's known all along!"

"Wait," Livia said. "From what Mr. Rafferty told you, he knows only what we already suspected, that Lucilla and Drucilla were taken by the Special Inquisition. If what that Jumeau woman told you is true, it's somewhere secret and not easily reached even by the Thorn Circle. Just confirming that Lucy and Dru were captured doesn't tell us much."

"But he didn't tell me!" Alexandra said through gritted teeth.

"Possibly because he knew you'd react like this? Without actually knowing anything useful, you'd want to fly off and do something, and likely get yourself captured."

"He should have told me!" Alexandra insisted.

"Have you met our father? He has been known to withhold information at times."

Dr. Farr made a snorting sound. Alexandra and Livia both looked at him for a moment, before turning back to one another.

"In fairness," Livia said, "he's usually not wrong about how it would be received. I'm not saying he's right to decide what we do and don't need to know. And I understand how upsetting this is, Alexandra. But still, I'm not sure I agree that he deceived you."

"I've spent weeks driving around in an RV, meeting people in masks, and co-hosting a stupid wizard wireless show," Alexandra said. "And what's it gotten us? Mr. Mudd's dead, you're in hiding until the war is over, and our sisters are in a dungeon somewhere. It's about time I actually joined the war."

"And what will that accomplish?" Livia asked. "Will you feel better if you get to kill people?"

"Maybe," Alexandra said.

She saw her own face reflected in Livia's glasses. Behind the lenses, her sister's eyes were sad.

Livia put a hand on Alexandra's shoulder. In the calm voice Alexandra imagined her using with her patients, Livia said, "You knew when you joined the Thorn Circle that you'd be taking orders from our father, and that he'd use you as he sees fit, and probably only tell you what he thinks you need to know. And he clearly wants to keep you out of the fighting. If you actually knew where Lucilla and Drucilla are, that would be one thing, but you don't. So please, Alexandra, wait until he returns."

Frustrated, Alexandra stalked over to the door.

"Alexandra?" Livia asked. "What are you going to do?"

"I'll tell you what I'm not going to do. I'm not going to wait for our father to decide whether or not our sisters are valuable enough assets for the war effort."

Livia's mouth opened. Even she seemed surprised by the vehemence in Alexandra's tone. Then Alexandra whirled, and would have slammed the door except that Hela followed after her, catching it and closing it gently behind her.

Alexandra stalked down the hotel corridor towards the entrance. Hela followed silently behind her until they reached the lobby, then asked, "What are you going to do?"

Alexandra turned on her.

"If my father won't help me rescue my sisters, I'll have to find someone who will."

"Your father said—"

"Don't tell me what my father said!" Alexandra snapped.

Hela closed her mouth and looked down.

Alexandra slowly unclenched her fists. "Hela. I'm releasing you."

Hela looked up with a frown. "What do you mean, you're releasing me?"

"You can stop following me around. You're free."

"I am not a house-elf," Hela said.

"No. You're also not a servant. You don't have to obey me or my father. I know I've been hard on you, but, well, you deserved it."

Hela didn't look away this time. Her expression was impossible to read.

"You want to go back to your people, don't you? Go. Just leave Muggles alone."

Alexandra walked out the hotel doors. Hela followed her.

"Where are you going, Alexandra?" Hela asked.

"To the Lands Below," Alexandra said. "To talk to my father."

She didn't care if Muggles saw her as she took a step in her Seven-League Boots and disappeared.

Despite her confident words, following her father to the Lands Below wasn't as easy as she'd hoped.

Standing on the shore of the lake where Abraham Thorn had taken his army of warlocks and Doomguards, Alexandra could still see the crack in the world she had opened.

There was a permanent fog bank now, and under it the water was luminescent. She saw the glow of magic with her Witch's Sight. Hela said that what they'd done was unnatural. Alexandra had warned her father about unpredictable consequences. This stretch of beach was even more barren and empty than in August, as if Muggles were avoiding it completely.

Opening the crack in the world was simple enough. It was something she'd done many times before, and with her father's guidance, she'd even learned to control where it opened, somewhat. But her every attempt to reach the Lands Below failed. She didn't have to step through the crack to know that it wasn't the Lands Below on the other side.

Whatever her father had told her, she realized, reaching the Lands Below still required a sacrifice of some kind. And then, she remembered the guards, human and goblin, that he and Medea had killed. She shuddered. Was that why? And they had planned all along for her to open the way…

She clenched a fist. She didn't have an obol, and she wasn't going to kill anyone. There was one more way. Well, maybe two, but she didn't think running to Dinétah to ask Henry Tsotsie for his help would go over well.

She closed her eyes, and tried to calm her mind. Composing rhymes should have come more easily to her now, but like opening cracks in the world, the magic her teachers had once called "Doggerel verse" was still finicky, idiosyncratic, and unreliable at the best of times.

"By water's shore and fog enshrouded,
Even from my father's sight clouded,
I do not summon, command, or bind you,
Only hope that my call finds you,
Hear me, Quimley, free elf, friend,
The plea that I, Alexandra, send."

The last time she'd tried this, it hadn't worked. Quimley, the former house-elf who resided in the Lands Below with the Generous Ones, hadn't answered her attempt to summon him during the Junior Wizarding Decathlon. She didn't know if he'd been unable or unwilling to come, but she knew he was capable of traveling between the Lands Below and the world above.

Perhaps she was overestimating their friendship. He had helped her—saved her, really—in the Lands Below, and probably faced the wrath of his adoptive tribe to do so. This he had done out of loyalty to her father, who was once a friend to elves. But from what she'd gathered, he'd been abused by the wizards who once owned him. If living with the Generous Ones was preferable, he had no reason to love any wizard. The last favor he'd done for her—finding John Manuelito—had more than paid back any debt he owed to Abraham Thorn.

Even as she glumly pondered this, there was a pop in the air and a wrinkled elf with a missing ear appeared before her, wearing raggedy clothes that were a mixture of Muggle cast-offs and the furs and unidentifiable animal skins that the Generous Ones wore.

"Quimley!" Alexandra fell to her knees to give the elf a hug.

"Daughter of Thorn," said Quimley, wheezing. Alexandra thought he was being a little dramatic—she had been careful not to squeeze him too hard. But she released him and leaned back.

"Thank you for coming," she said. "How have you been?" She looked him over—his scarred scalp, his ragged clothing, including the denim jacket he always wore—unable to tell if he seemed healthier or not. It had been almost two years since she'd seen him last.

Quimley was looking her over too. "Quimley is well. Alexandra Quick is older. Human children grow so quickly." There was a great sadness in his voice as he said this.

"Yeah. A lot's happened since the last time I saw you, Quimley. John Manuelito is dead. I got expelled from Charmbridge. And, um, everyone knows about the Deathly Regiment now, and it's started a wizard war. I've joined the Thorn Circle, to help my father fight the Confederation."

"Quimley knows all these things."

"Really?" Alexandra was surprised and a little relieved.

"As above, so below. Abraham Thorn wages war against the Generous Ones."

"What?" Alexandra exclaimed.

"He and his fellow wizards came to the Lands Below, to declare the Compact with the Confederation broken, and all bargains with the Generous Ones at an end." Quimley paused. "The Generous Ones… did not agree."

"What happened?"

"The Generous Ones are scattered, but not vanquished. They rally the other tribes of the Lands Below, and even the elves in the world above, those not enslaved by the Compact."

Alexandra groaned. "He didn't tell me this."

"Quimley thought he did it for you." Quimley peered at her so intently, for a moment she thought he was trying to read her thoughts. Could elves use Legilimency? She didn't think so… "But Alexandra Quick never told her father about her promise to the Generous Ones, did she?" His brow wrinkled, troubled.

"No." She didn't want to explain to Quimley why she hadn't, that it was a complicated conversation she didn't want to have, involving Max and her own looming mortality, and also the responsibility of knowing what her father would try to do to save her. But it seemed he was taking action anyway. "Did you tell him, Quimley?"

Quimley shook his head. "Though Quimley no longer dwells with the Generous Ones, Quimley is bound by certain compacts as well. Quimley can do nothing against them, nor speak of your bargain. So, Abraham Thorn's vengeance against the Generous Ones is not merely for his daughter's sake."

Alexandra shook her head. "It's not for me. Every seven years the Generous Ones were killing a human child—yes, I know it's because of the Compact the Confederation made with them. Except it turns out it hasn't just been one child every seven years. It's been a child every day. Did you know about that, Quimley?"

Sadly, Quimley nodded. "Every elf knows, daughter of Thorn. The same Compact that binds us, silences us."

Alexandra thought about the horror of that—every house-elf knew that children were being sacrificed every day, and they were forbidden by a magical compact from warning anyone? Not unlike the Unbreakable Oath that bound the members of the Confederation Congress and the Elect who knew about the Deathly Regiment.

"Why?" she asked. "Why did elves ever make a bargain like that in the first place?"

Quimley blinked slowly. "Did Alexandra Quick call Quimley to ask about the Compact?"

"Well, no. I mean, not just that." She took a breath. "I want to rescue my sisters."

"Does Alexandra Quick mean Lucilla White and Drucilla White?"

Alexandra started. "You know them?"

"Quimley knows of them. Quimley knows that they are imprisoned somewhere, and their father seeks the ones responsible. Alexandra Quick has joined her father now, but does not know this?"

"He doesn't exactly tell me everything. And I know he's seeking them, but… I don't think he's doing enough. And that's why I want to go where he and the rest of the Thorn Circle are hiding, in the Lands Below, to demand he do more."

Quimley's long, spindly fingers plucked at the frayed threads around the pockets of his denim jacket. "Why does Abraham Thorn's daughter think demanding things of her father will work better in the Lands Below than in the world above?"

"I—" Alexandra started to reply, that she didn't think her father could blow her off as easily if she followed him to his lair, that she was ready to be treated as an equal member of the Thorn Circle and not just a tool he could ignore when he wasn't using her, and then something else struck her.

"How do you know all this, Quimley?" she asked. "What did you do when my father went to war with the Generous Ones?"

Quimley smiled. It wasn't his usual sad or gentle smile. "Quimley, too, has joined Abraham Thorn's war."

Alexandra stared at the small elf. "You… joined the Thorn Circle?"

Quimley shook his head. "Oh no. Only wizards can be part of Abraham Thorn's Circle."

"Actually, that's not exactly true."

"Quimley is loyal to Abraham Thorn. Always has he been kind to elves, and now he seeks to end the Deathly Regiment, and the Compact."

"I still want to talk to him. Will you take me to him, Quimley?"

"Quimley does not think Abraham Thorn would be happy."

"I'm a member of the Thorn Circle too. Where they go, I should be able to go. If he threatens to punish you—I won't let him."

"Abraham Thorn is not Quimley's master," Quimley said firmly. "Abraham Thorn does not punish Quimley. But Quimley prefers not to displease him."

"Yeah, so do I."

Quimley gave her another long look, then in a tone of resignation, said, "Very well." He extended a thin, bony hand to her. Alexandra took it. He paused when he saw the tattoo on her wrist, and then with a pop, they were in the Lands Below.