Srsly? He sent HER?
I know right?
Watch ur back
No kidding.
Me and Anna talked about coming to LM—we'd both have some po'd rents but u need backup and this is no time for ur I-don't-need-nobody BS
DO NOT COME HERE I will seriously turn ur dork ass into a ferret. I told Anna the same thing. Im not alone, I have backup - you know who.
You feel like he actually has ur back and ur safe?
Didn't say safe.
… u did not threaten to turn Anna into a ferret
"You're not going without me," Hela said.
They had been arguing all the way back to the Pruett School, and now Alexandra faced the other girl angrily. "I don't need you. I can get there by myself."
"By broom? That would be unwise. Whatever protection your father has placed on this town cannot extend that far. The Confederation is probably watching to see if you try to fly away. The Dark Convention may be as well."
"I'm touched by your concern." Alexandra had no intention of flying out of Larkin Mills. But Hela didn't need to know about her Seven-League Boots.
Hela sneered. "My only concern is your father's wrath if I let you fly into a snare. I'm sure he doesn't wish to be forced to rescue you."
"I'm much less likely to be snared if I don't have to drag along someone who can't even be bothered to dress inconspicuously."
"You are not leaving me by myself in this miserable Muggle town, and it is my job as well as yours to hunt down this Accountant." Hela folded her arms. "Your father said we are to work together. If you go without me, I will tell him."
They continued glaring at each other.
Through clenched teeth, Alexandra said, "We can't take the Floo to Chicago. If they're watching anyone who leaves Larkin Mills, they're definitely watching the Floos. They'll be expecting us to fly or Floo away."
"No one will be looking for me. We only need to disguise you."
"Hmm." Alexandra looked Hela up and down.
"What?" Hela demanded.
"You could go to the Goblin Market," Alexandra said.
"To buy a broom? Even if I had the coins…"
"Not a broom." Alexandra smiled, and reached into her magical backpack, withdrawing a pouch filled with Confederation Lions and Eagles. "There's a shop in the Goblin Market called Xanthopoulos Potions." She handed Hela some coins. "Go buy some Polyjuice Potion."
Hela frowned. "Are you planning to disguise yourself as me?"
"Yeah, right. You probably taste like clubbed baby seals." Alexandra shook her head, ignoring Hela's glare. "Just go get the Polyjuice, okay? Maybe buy yourself some plain robes while you're at it."
Hela took the coins. "You would not be planning to run off to Charmbridge by yourself while you send me on a fool's errand?"
"No. I promise. I have something else to do tonight, here in Larkin Mills."
"Very well. You do as you please while I run errands," Hela said sourly. She picked up a canister of Floo Powder and walked over to the large cast iron boiler.
"I intend to," Alexandra said.
She woke up the next morning in Brian's bed again. She'd spent more nights sleeping in his room than her own since returning to Larkin Mills. Once again he had let her in without saying anything about their previous conversation.
When she looked down at his sleeping face, however, he spoke without opening his eyes. "They sold the house."
"What?" Alexandra said.
Brian opened his eyes. "My parents. Someone bought the house. We're leaving."
Alexandra rested her head on his chest. "How soon?"
Brian shrugged. "I guess it depends on whether I go with my mom or my dad. They finally told me they're separating."
"Oh, Brian. I'm sorry."
"My mother is leaving to stay with her parents in Ann Arbor next week. My father is staying in town until his transfer to Chicago goes through. I'd rather stay here with my dad, but I know Mom will think I'm turning on her, too. Sorry, I know you don't care about this."
Alexandra ran a hand through his hair. "I do care."
"Did you talk to your father?"
She hesitated. Of course he'd been thinking about this. "Yes."
"Is he going to help you… find Bonnie's killer?"
Alexandra nodded slowly. "I'll tell you anything you want to know," she said quietly. "But it would be better if you didn't ask."
He stared up at the ceiling. "I wish… I wish I could help somehow."
Her hand slowly closed around a fistful of his blond hair. "Actually, you can." She kissed him, then sat up and reached for her wand. "I need a lock of your hair."
When Alexandra entered the Pruett School, Hela was cooking something in a metal frying pan hovering over a fire in the boiler. She wore only a thin linen shift, as if she'd just gotten up.
"So at least you don't sleep in your furs," Alexandra said.
Hela made a face at her, then yawned. "It is very boring here. I hope you have a plan, because otherwise I will have to find a way to amuse myself."
"You amuse yourself with Muggles and we're going to have a problem."
"Isn't that what you were doing?" Hela asked.
Alexandra narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean?"
Hela floated the sizzling frying pan out of the boiler with her wand. "I tracked you last night after I returned."
"You what?"
"I had nothing better to do. I am supposed to watch over you, and I was curious to see your home." Hela smirked. "But you were not at your home, were you?"
"What were you doing, peeping outside the window?" Alexandra was less outraged by this than by the thought that Hela was able to "track" her.
"Of course not. Once I realized which house you were in, a Revealing Spell told me everything I needed to know. Then I left you to your… amusement."
"Like that's not creepy as hell. Did you get the Polyjuice Potion?"
"Yes." Hela pointed at a small canvas bag on one of the wooden tables that normally served as lunch tables for the Pruett School students. "So what exactly is your plan?"
"I'm going to finish the brew," Alexandra said, "and then we're going to go for a drive."
Alexandra didn't drink the potion immediately, since she didn't want to risk someone seeing a second Brian walking around Larkin Mills. She went home and got Claudia's car instead.
Hela was not impressed when Alexandra drove it through the fence around the Pruett School and parked it in front of the building. Hela was dressed, once again, in a heavy fur jacket. It looked like it might be a different one; Alexandra wasn't sure.
"You want me to ride in a Muggle vehicle?" Hela demanded.
"You insisted on coming with me, you won't broom, and we can't Apparate that far. So we're taking the Automagicka." Alexandra sauntered inside, and Hela followed with a scowl.
Upstairs, Alexandra ladled the Polyjuice Potion from the cauldron in the alchemy lab into a glass flask. As Hela watched, she downed half of it.
Brian's Polyjuice tasted much better than the vile concoction she'd made of Mr. Brown last year. It was salty and sweet, and to Alexandra's relief, did not make her gag and want to retch. As the transformation seized hold of her, she cast a spell on her clothes to turn them into boy jeans and a baseball jersey. Hela watched silently as Alexandra leaned against the table, feeling her legs and arms stretching and becoming heavier, her insides reconfiguring, and her head squeezing itself into a new shape. When she stood to face Hela again, the other girl snorted.
"Is this your boy?"
Alexandra opened and closed her larger, stronger hands, and wondered what it would feel like to put them around Hela's neck. "Yes, Miss Peeping Tom." Brian's voice coming out of her throat was very strange.
"I told you, I did not peep." Hela eyed Alexandra in her male guise. "He is handsomer than you. How much Amortentia did you give him?"
"Gross. Get in the car before I shave your head."
Acrimony sparking between them, they walked downstairs and got into Claudia's car. Alexandra backed it into the street, and gritted her teeth as someone behind her honked at her. "Sorry!" she shouted out the window. She jerked the car forward and took it through town, slouching low in the seat for fear someone would recognize her as Brian.
"Are you sure you know how to operate this vehicle?" Hela asked.
Alexandra gripped the wheel. "Shut up. I've driven mountain trails in Dinétah. This is nothing. Crap!" She slammed on the brakes, as someone stopped short ahead of her at a light. Then she felt her face grow cold as she realized she was sitting behind one of Archie's buddies, in a police cruiser. That was all she needed, to get Brian a traffic ticket. She hadn't even borrowed his driver's license.
The officer drove off when the light turned green. Alexandra let out a sigh of relief and drove on.
The tension increased as they drove out of town onto the Interstate. Alexandra and Hela both looked out the window warily, wondering if Confederation Aurors or Dark Convention warlocks might Apparate in front of them or descend from the sky. Alexandra found herself having to pay more attention to the road, as she didn't have a lot of experience driving on the freeway. But the onramp to the Automagicka was just ahead; she turned onto it, and slowed to a stop in front of the massive iron chain guarded by a huge, blue-skinned troll. He was wearing armor plates on his chest and shoulders, and a spiked helmet, which Alexandra hadn't seen before.
Hela had her wand in her lap, but Alexandra smiled at the troll and tossed an Eagle into the basket by his booth. The troll eyed her suspiciously. She looked like a Muggle, and she was driving a Muggle car. And, she realized with a chill, there was a man in the trollbooth, studying both of them through a pair of large, boxy binoculars that resembled a viewfinder toy Alexandra had had as a child.
"Li-cense," the troll said.
Alexandra gulped. When the Charmbridge Bus or her aunts had taken the Automagicka before, the troll never asked for identification. This was new.
Hela wiggled her wand slightly, and raised her eyebrows.
Alexandra looked up at the dull face of the troll. Trolls were known for being incredibly stupid; did they even know one human from another? It was the wizard in the booth who worried her more. She had one hand on her own wand, while she reached into her pocket with the other.
She didn't have Brian's driver's license. She didn't even have a driver's license herself. All she had was a learner's permit, with her face on it. She handed this to the troll, and muttered, "Confundo."
The troll's dull expression became even duller, if that were possible. Slack-jawed, he blinked at Alexandra's permit. It could have been bright red and said "Enemy of the Confederation" on it.
Evidently neither Brian's face nor Hela's triggered any alarms. The wizard in the booth waved them on, and the troll grabbed the heavy chain and dragged it out of their path. Alexandra stepped on the accelerator and zoomed onto the Automagicka.
They had been driving for half an hour when she began to feel the Polyjuice Potion wearing off. Her skin rippled and she felt her hair twitching and lengthening from her scalp. Turning from a boy back into a girl was almost as strange a sensation as turning into a boy, and it was difficult to maintain control of the car, but the Automagicka didn't really provide places to exit without reentering Muggle roadways. There weren't as many wizarding automobiles as Alexandra had seen on her bus trips to Charmbridge, but there were a few, and as she tried to keep her grip on the wheel while her fingers shrank and turned slender and pale compared to Brian's thicker, more calloused hands, a black van with electric blue lightning pinstriping swerved dangerously close to them. Alexandra caught a glimpse of a pale face with a pointed chin leering at them from the window. She thought she saw spiders crawling over the leering face, and wondered if she was hallucinating as a side effect of the Polyjuice Potion.
The van honked, making a sound like a pipe organ. Alexandra floored the accelerator and pulled ahead of it. Hela muttered something in her own language.
"You try driving while your entire body is transforming," Alexandra said, her voice rising back to its normal pitch.
"Maybe you should have let me drive," Hela said.
"Do you know how to drive?"
"No. Do you?"
"Shut up."
They left the Automagicka at the exit Alexandra recognized from her bus trips. Soon they were climbing up a winding mountain road, which was a lot narrower than she remembered.
"Maybe you should drive more slowly," Hela suggested, after the second time the car's wheels made a distressing sound on a curve. Alexandra glared at her, but slowed down, then winced as a car coming down the hill honked angrily at her because she'd come too close to the center line.
"Maybe you can drive back!" Alexandra snapped.
"I could hardly do worse than you."
"We're here, aren't we?" Alexandra pulled off the two-lane highway, onto a bluff that looked out over a river valley. "The only reason I had to drive at all was to bring you along."
Hela got out of the car and looked across the valley. "Now what?"
"Now, we cross the Invisible Bridge."
The two of them made their way to what appeared to be a sheer cliff overlooking another cliff on the opposite side of the valley. Alexandra unbuttoned the top two buttons of her shirt, pulled her collar away from one shoulder, and let Charlie emerge from her skin.
"That evil thing," Hela said.
"Wicked! Wicked!" said Charlie, and Hela flinched as the raven flapped past her head. She raised her black wand, and Alexandra immediately pointed her wand at Hela.
"Don't even think about it," Alexandra said.
They glared at each other for a moment, and then as Charlie flew out over the valley, Alexandra set foot on the Invisible Bridge, enjoying the momentary look of alarm on Hela's face as she stepped off the cliff into open air. She didn't look back as she continued walking across the bridge. If Hela was afraid to follow her, that was fine—she could just continue on to Charmbridge by herself.
This was, as far as she knew, the only way to reach Charmbridge without flying. Alexandra didn't exactly know how it worked, but the river valley that hid Charmbridge was like the Ozarks, where entire Hollers stayed hidden from Muggle neighbors and towns just over the hill, and one could only enter and leave along certain paths.
When she got to the opposite side, however, she was disappointed to see Hela following, slightly more slowly as she walked across the bridge, but with a defiant expression.
"I feared you were attempting to engineer a fatal calamity," Hela said.
Don't tempt me, Alexandra thought.
They walked through the trees, which were green and lively. Squirrels and chipmunks and birds were abundant. As they made their way along the path that led to Charmbridge, Alexandra felt nostalgia and regret, despite the mixed feelings she had about her time at the school. She'd walked this path many times during the four years she'd been a student here, and now she was returning as not just an expelled former student, but an outlaw and an Enemy of the Confederation. She was everything Dean Grimm and Mr. Grue and all the other teachers had warned her she'd become. All except Ms. Shirtliffe.
Alexandra hoped Ms. Shirtliffe wasn't here yet. It would be weeks before students began to arrive; she was hoping to find little or no staff.
A porcupine scrambled up a tree ahead of them. Alexandra paused, eyeing the porcupine suspiciously.
"Have you never seen a porcupine before?" Hela asked.
"He looks familiar." Alexandra watched the porcupine continue up the tree until it disappeared behind the trunk. Charlie landed in the next tree over, but did not seem alarmed.
"Look, squirrels!" said Hela. "I think they are watching us. And those bluejays look dangerous."
Alexandra glared back at her, and continued walking up the paved path to Charmbridge's front door.
The doors swung open before they set foot on the first step. Alexandra held her wand in one hand, but didn't raise it. Until she saw the large figure standing there.
Beside her, Hela gasped and raised her wand as well. "What is that thing?"
"Well. 'Thing,' indeed. How very rude." Their greeter was green-skinned and female, though as broad-shouldered as any man and deceptively tall, most of her height hidden by the way she hunched over to glower at them from bright yellow eyes. She wore orange and yellow robes and a bright orange bonnet-like hat squashed on top of her enormous skull.
"You've got to be kidding me," Alexandra said.
"What exactly do you mean, Miss Quick?" asked the hag. "Yes, I know who you are. I was told you might pay a visit."
Alexandra and Hela looked at each other, then looked around.
"I'm Sofia," said the hag. "Charmbridge Academy's new groundskeeper."
"What happened to Ms. Fletcher?" Alexandra asked.
"She had an unfortunate accident. I believe it involved a Lethifold."
"Dean Grimm must be out of her mind."
"Why would you say such a thing? Don't you believe in equal employment opportunities for the Differently Empowered?"
"Differently empowered?"
"Being wizard supremacists, you probably assume that a wand is the only legitimate form of magical empowerment. I don't blame you. The Confederation is just beginning to recognize that magic comes in non-traditional and uncarved forms as well…"
"I don't care about any of that!" Alexandra snapped. "I care about kids disappearing, or selling you their wands for shady Dark Artifacts."
Sofia's eyes turned reddish. "I've been very polite, dear, but I don't have to stand here and be insulted by a narrow-minded speciesist, who's also a wanted criminal, trespassing on school grounds."
Alexandra brandished her wand. "Then stand aside. I'm just here for a quick chat, and then I'll be on my way."
Sofia didn't move. "A chat with whom? Most of the staff is gone over the summer."
"That's what I'm counting on. I don't really want to hurt you, but I am an Enemy of the Confederation. In fact, you know what? Petrificus Totalus!"
Sofia lurched forward with frightening speed, despite the Full Body-Bind Spell Alexandra had cast. She had Alexandra by the throat and was lifting her off the ground when she suddenly groaned. Alexandra found herself trapped in the fork of a thick, wooden branch wrapped around her neck, with her feet dangling a foot off the ground. Sofia's face had turned into twisted, knotted wood, along with the rest of her body. With difficulty, Alexandra struggled and pulled herself free. She dropped to the ground and stared at the ugly, misshapen tree now rooted at the foot of Charmbridge's steps.
"You turned her into a tree," she said.
"You're welcome," Hela said.
"I…" Alexandra stared at the tree. She could still make out the hag's features. "Is that transfiguration reversible?"
Hela shrugged. "I don't know."
Alexandra scowled. "I didn't want to kill her!"
"She seemed quite willing to kill you."
Alexandra glared at Hela. Feeling queasy and uncertain, she said, "Come on. And no more permanent transfigurations or curses. I didn't come here to hurt anyone."
"Then you shouldn't have come," Hela said, climbing the steps with her.
"No, you should not have," said another voice, and Alexandra stopped when she entered the front foyer of Charmbridge Academy. It was a great marble entranceway with an arched ceiling. Directly opposite the entrance was a main hallway that led back to the cafeteria and the administrative offices, and to the right and left were corridors into two of the seven wings of Charmbridge's seven-sided architecture. There were also staircases leading up to the second and third floors, where the girls' and boys' dorms were located.
Standing in the center of the marble floor was Alexandra's least favorite teacher at Charmbridge: Glaucus Grue.
The Alchemy teacher was as imposing as always in his heavy black robes and long black beard, looking like a medieval Russian priest. Tall, broad-shouldered, with eyes that were discolored from some long-ago potions mishap, like his blistered, pock-marked face, Mr. Grue glared at Alexandra and Hela with contempt. He held his wand in one hand, and a glass globe full of some brilliant green liquid in the other.
Alexandra forced herself to take a long, slow breath. Mr. Grue had made every one of her years at Charmbridge unpleasant. He'd insulted her regularly from her first day in his class, and he'd never had a kind word for anyone, as far as she could recall.
He had also tried to cure her mother. He was one of the few wizards her aunt Lilith trusted with the secret of Hecate Grimm's transformation. And he had once let Alexandra take an advanced class despite his loathing of her. With the hindsight of a year out of Charmbridge and the passing of many more serious trials than a mean teacher, Alexandra knew Mr. Grue might not be the malevolent ogre he'd become in her mind when she was eleven.
She still seriously disliked him.
"I'm here to speak to a statue," she said, "and then I'll be on my way."
Mr. Grue's hairy black eyebrows lowered over his bright, hostile eyes. "You seem to think you're free to come and go as you please, even though you are no longer a student here." He waved his wand, and Alexandra realized he'd cast some sort of Auror spell—an Age Line or a Slow Line or something like it, in front of her. "What you did to Sofia. How very like you."
Alexandra frowned. Hela had done it, not her, but she supposed like the dragon in New York, she would just have to take the blame.
Mr. Grue looked at Hela. "One of the—" He spoke a word Alexandra couldn't have repeated, or even pronounced. Hela looked startled. "I am surprised to see the company you keep."
Alexandra wasn't sure if this was addressed to her or Hela.
"Can you reverse the transformation on Sofia?" she asked.
"I thought when I'd seen the last of you, I was done undoing the damage you've done," Mr. Grue said. "But like your mother, you're never done, and you always come back."
"I'd love to stand here and exchange insults, Mr. Grue, but not really. Like I said, I'm here to talk to a statue, and then I'll leave. Or you can try to stop me."
Mr. Grue laughed coldly. "I know how highly you rate yourself, girl, but you and this Thule witch are both children. I taught your aunt Diana everything she knows."
"Everything, really? She just stopped learning anything new after you, right? Just like you probably figure I did. Is it because we're female? You always have been kind of a chauvinist pig."
Mr. Grue's scowl grew darker. "You know nothing, Quick."
"I know a lot more than you think I do. Are you really, really sure I'm no match for you? I just beat Ms. Shirtliffe in a duel."
"By cheating." Mr. Grue folded his arms. "These are my grounds. It will not go so well for you here. I'm also not alone." He gestured, and Mr. Hobbes, Mr. Bludgeleg, and Miss Gambola stepped from the back hallway into the foyer behind him. Mr. Hobbes had been Alexandra's Transfigurations teacher, and he carried his cat, Fafnir, in his arms. Mr. Bludgeleg, the short, rotund Magical Physical Education instructor, held a wand in one hand and a Bludger Bat in the other. Miss Gambola, Mr. Bludgeleg's younger assistant teacher, merely folded her arms and regarded Alexandra with a severe, disappointed expression.
"How do the odds look to you now?" Mr. Grue asked.
Alexandra glanced over her shoulder at Hela, who clearly didn't like the odds. She turned back to Mr. Grue.
"I won't fight you," she said.
Mr. Grue snorted. "You won't?"
"I mean, I guess I could challenge you one-on-one, Code Duello. But that's not why I'm here. I didn't come to hurt anyone. And I am sorry about Sofia. Can you transform her back, Mr. Hobbes?"
The white-haired Transfigurations teacher's face scrunched up, as he scratched Fafnir's ears. The cat stared at Alexandra, and little wisps of steam rose from its nostrils. "I think so," Mr. Hobbes said. "It would be easier if I had the wand of the witch who cast that transfiguration."
"Never!" exclaimed Hela.
Alexandra looked at the other teachers, then back at Mr. Grue.
"You know what's happened," she said quietly. "You know how the Confederation has been sacrificing children—Muggles, and occasionally some of their own. Ms. Shirtliffe told me you're going to keep the school open to protect the students. Are you going to protect them? The Muggle-borns and the half-bloods too? From the Dark Convention and the Deathly Regiment?"
"Not to mention your father," Mr. Grue growled.
Alexandra sighed. "I'll do what I can about him." Her gaze hardened. "I'm here to find information about someone who's personally responsible for killing children. That's all I want. To ask a statue some questions, and then we're gone. If you're serious about protecting kids, then you should help me."
"You're an Enemy of the Confederation. Anyone who helps you risks the Confederation's wrath."
"Then don't help me. Just don't get in my way."
They stood motionless, staring each other down.
"Please," Alexandra said.
Mr. Grue continued to glare at her. Finally, he asked, "What statue?"
"The bust of Franklin Percival Brown."
The teacher blinked. "Who?"
"He's behind the cafeteria."
Mr. Grue looked perplexed.
Mr. Bludgeleg said, "I think I know the one. He once complained to me about Clockworks waxing the floors and polishing his pedestal. Insisted elves and students did a better job."
Mr. Grue frowned. "The… plumber?"
"I always did think that statue belonged in the attic," Mr. Hobbes said.
"Ten minutes," Alexandra said. "Let me have ten minutes to talk to him, and then I'll leave. Hela will let you borrow her wand in the meantime to reverse the transformation on Sofia."
"I will not!" Hela said.
Alexandra turned to face Hela.
"You will," she said, "or you'll face all of us."
Hela looked from Alexandra's face to the faces of the Charmbridge teachers behind her, and clenched her teeth.
"Ten minutes," Mr. Grue said. "If you attempt anything else, or refuse to leave after that, we will not duel one-on-one, you and I. My colleagues and I will bind you and deliver you chained and wandless to the Special Inquisition."
Alexandra met Mr. Grue's gaze, and nodded. Without waiting for anyone else to say anything, she walked quickly past him and the other teachers. As she stepped across the invisible line Mr. Grue had cast earlier, she felt something like a heartbeat, or perhaps a clockwork ticking, which continued as she walked.
She left the entrance hall and proceeded down the main hallway she had walked so many times to the Charmbridge cafeteria. She took a left into a small corridor that led to some back storeroom. She and Torvald Krogstad had once ducked into this hallway for a little clandestine make-out session, an embarrassing yet endearing memory that seemed ages ago, rather than just a couple of years.
She found the marble bust sitting where it had been back then, alone and forgotten in a back hallway. Franklin Percival Brown, once Charmbridge's Deputy Assistant Plumber, according to the inscription on the pedestal. Alexandra had always wondered why a Deputy Assistant Plumber got a marble bust, or for that matter, why Charmbridge had had a Deputy Assistant Plumber. But she'd been distracted at the time, and some old staff member had not been that interesting to her.
Then she'd met Franklin Percival Brown, III.
Franklin Percival Brown the elder looked a lot like the FPB who had tormented her and her friends at the Pruett School. His face was not as round and fat, but he'd been a big man with unruly hair and a big beard, and from what Alexandra remembered of the statue's pompous lecturing, an attitude not unlike that of his descendant. What Alexandra didn't know was how much he really had in common with FPB the Third.
"Hello, Mr. Brown," she said to the statue.
The stone eyes blinked. "Hello," said Franklin Percival Brown. "Shouldn't you be in class?"
"It's summer. Classes haven't started yet."
"You seem familiar," the statue said.
Alexandra didn't know how the memories of statues worked. In her time spent with her Artificer sisters, she'd barely scratched the surface of animating paintings and statues and other artifacts imbued with the magical likenesses of deceased people. But she didn't think reminding Brown about the evening she and Torvald had argued in front of him and she'd cast Bubble Gum Charms to cover his eyes and ears would elicit his cooperation, so she lied. "I used to dust and polish you when I was a student here."
Mr. Brown seemed touched. "Really? I am so often forgotten here, and really, this commemorative hallway is a bit lacking in dignity; there is barely any traffic, and none of my illustrious peers are here with me—"
"I was wondering about your illustrious peers," Alexandra said. "You had a pretty important position, didn't you? I mean, you weren't really just a Deputy Assistant Plumber, were you?"
"I am not sure what you mean," Brown's stony voice grated slowly.
Alexandra leaned forward, as if exchanging something in confidence.
"Keeping Charmbridge's toilets unplugged, that isn't really why they commemorated you, is it? But they had to hide the real service you did for the Confederation."
She could not read the statue's expression. Other than his lips and a bit of eye movement, his face was mostly frozen in the likeness that had been captured in stone.
"There are few who appreciated my real duties," Brown said at last.
Alexandra had only been guessing. She couldn't be sure that Franklin Percival Brown, III was following in his grandfather's footsteps. But there was something funny about being both honored and slighted with a marble bust commemorating his position as a Deputy Assistant Plumber, and Alexandra now felt a shudder of satisfaction, and horror, at realizing she'd guessed right.
She smiled and put her hand on Brown's stone cheek.
"We're honoring you now," she said. "We're publicizing the names. We want to make sure everyone in the Accounting Office gets due credit… the credit they've been denied for all these years."
"Really?" the bust rasped slowly. The stone eyes blinked again. "But aren't you a student?"
"I've graduated," Alexandra said. "I'm one of you." Her stomach clenched and she hoped the statue's stone eyes had as much trouble reading her face as she did reading his.
"Will I be relocated to a place more suitable, in the company of my peers who toiled so long in secrecy and obscurity?" asked the statue.
"Oh, I will absolutely make sure you get commemorated as you deserve. But tell me, how did you do your work here at Charmbridge? You couldn't have actually… selected, students, did you?"
"Very rarely. It was mostly a preselection process. I had access to the Registrar's Scroll. In the old days, I could prevent some undesirables from arriving. Of course in the days since then, the entire Confederation has become liberalized and even Charmbridge opened its doors to students who should never have been allowed a wand."
"Your grandson has followed in your footsteps," Alexandra said, fighting the disgust that threatened to steal away her voice.
"Has he, indeed? I never met him, but my son and I were… not close."
For a moment Brown sounded sad. Alexandra kept her hand on the statue's marble cheek, and tried to sound sympathetic. "I'm sure Franklin Percival Brown, III would like to be there for your proper commemoration in the hall of prestigious public servants. But, well, this is a little embarrassing, but I'm having trouble finding him."
"I don't understand."
"You may not be aware, but enemies of the Confederation are everywhere," Alexandra said. "Because of all that liberalizing."
"Yes," said Brown. "It was ever so, but it's only gotten worse since my day…"
"I'm afraid your grandson might be in danger. Possibly he's gone into hiding, being threatened by the forces of darkness and, uh, liberalization. I need to find him and tell him that we're being recognized openly now, and that his grandfather is going to be honored, and we're about to fix all the undesirables. But your family name isn't listed in the Prestigious Pureblood Registry."
"Prestigious Pureblood Registry? I've never heard of such a thing," said Brown, sounding offended.
"They probably kept you off of it. We'll fix that. But could your grandson be hiding at your, um, ancestral home? Or is there somewhere else the Browns would go?"
Franklin Percival Brown was silent for a while. Alexandra feared she might have laid it on too thick. She was making up everything as she went along, and though the statue didn't seem very bright, she was aware that it wouldn't take many questions to start pulling her story apart. She was also aware of a tick-tick-tick still pulsing inside her since she stepped across whatever magical line Mr. Grue had cast.
Finally, Brown said, "We are of humble origins, prestigious though our ancestry may be. We have no ancestral home."
"Oh." Alexandra straightened up and removed her hand from the statue. It wasn't that surprising, but it was disappointing. If Mr. Brown didn't come from a pureblood family with a familial estate or something, she had no idea where else to start looking for him.
"Perhaps…" The gravelly voice sounded distinctly reluctant.
Feeling time running out, Alexandra tried to conceal her impatience. "Yes?"
The sighing of a statue was a ghostly, barely audible sound. "My son married well, into another prestigious pureblood family. If my grandson is in peril, I suppose he might rely upon them." The statue paused. "My daughter-in-law did not approve of me."
"That's very sad." Alexandra didn't have time to hear about Mr. Brown's estrangement from his son and daughter-in-law. "What was her name, sir?"
Again she thought Brown might not answer. Then he said, "Lydia Griffin."
Alexandra had never heard of the Griffins, but she had never cared about pureblood registries. "So the Griffins have an estate? Do you know where?"
"No. But their roots are here in Central Territory."
Alexandra nodded. It wasn't much, but it was a start. "Thank you so much, Mr. Brown."
"When you find my grandson, you must have him come see me. I want him to be present when I am properly commemorated."
"Yeah," Alexandra said. She drew her yew wand. "I've got your commemoration right here, mother fucker."
"What?" Brown exclaimed.
"Confringo!" Spoken with rage she'd been keeping out of her voice until now, Alexandra's Blasting Curse blew the statue apart with an explosive concussion that knocked her off her feet. When she stood, she felt stinging cuts and burns all over her body. Bits of stone shrapnel had shredded her clothing. Only a foot of shattered base remained of Franklin Percival Brown; the rest of the bust lay obliterated on the floor in a wide circle of pulverized stone.
Alexandra wiped at her cheek with the back of her hand, and it came away smeared with blood. She pointed her less violent hickory wand at her face, and said, "Augumenti" to conjure a spray of water to wash the particles of granite dust out of her eyes.
She walked back to the front hallway, knowing that everyone had to have heard the blast. She found the teachers all gathered where she had left them. Hela stood by the door, as if prepared to run out of it at any moment.
Sofia the hag had been restored to flesh and blood, and slouched next to Mr. Grue and Mr. Hobbes. As Alexandra entered the foyer, Sofia gave her a glare of hateful intensity.
"What in Merlin's name did you do, Quick?" Mr. Grue demanded. "You promised—"
Alexandra spread her arms wide, as if to offer herself as a target, holding her wand out, pointed away from all the other teachers. Hela gaped at her, while Mr. Grue scowled and Mr. Hobbes, Mr. Bludgeleg, and Miss Gambola watched her uneasily. Sofia continued to glare.
"I blew up the statue of Mr. Brown," Alexandra said. "Sorry. I kind of lost my temper."
Mr. Grue's mouth opened, but for the first time Alexandra could remember, he was speechless.
Before he could say anything, she said, "Franklin Percival Brown worked for the Accounting Office."
Mr. Bludgeleg's face wrinkled. Miss Gambola turned pale. "What was he doing at Charmbridge?" she asked.
"Good question," Alexandra said. "You and Dean Grimm don't like child-snatching monsters, do you, Mr. Grue?"
Sofia's lips curled back in a snarl. Mr. Grue stared at Alexandra, then said, "Get out."
Alexandra walked past them, forcing herself to remain cool even as she came within arm's length of Sofia. She continued walking out the door, not turning her head to see if Hela followed.
Only when they were in the woods, approaching the Invisible Bridge, did Hela speak first. "So, what did you accomplish besides petty vandalism?"
"I know where to go next," Alexandra said.
"Where is that?" Hela asked.
Alexandra sighed. "The Central Territory Census Office."