"Clutch! Clutch!" In the passenger seat, Henry Tsotsie's fists clenched as the truck shuddered. "You're destroying my truck! Are you trying to hit every single rock on the road?"

"This road is nothing but rocks!" Alexandra protested. She jerked on the gear shift. The truck's engine made a nasty grinding sound before the gears caught, and Alexandra eased it forward again.

Blanca Peak Road was, by Henry Tsotsie's own admission, one of the worst roads to drive in all of Dinétah. Along the seven miles to Lake Como, it was pretty much nothing but boulder-lined switchbacks. The trail was so narrow that if they encountered another vehicle, one of them would have to back up, a task daunting enough to make Alexandra sweat thinking about it. Of course she was already sweating, because the temperature was almost ninety degrees, even at this altitude, and Henry hated turning on the A/C.

So she thought it was pretty unfair for him to be yelling at her about her driving when he was the one who told her to take them up this terrible road.

"AAAH!" Henry yelled, when they hit another rock, this one big enough to make a loud "bang" against the underside of the truck. He grabbed his hat with both hands. "You are a terrible driver!"

"You're a lot more patient when you teach me magic!"

"You're a lot better at learning magic. Rock!"

The truck bounced again and skidded over gravel. Henry groaned.

Eventually, they rolled into the Como Lake valley, and Henry directed her to park the truck not far from a small campsite. They could see several such sites, as late summer was a popular time for hiking the Blanca Peak trail.

He opened the passenger's side door and got out, taking deep breaths. Alexandra slid out on the other side, hopping down from the driver's seat. She wasn't short, at sixteen, but Henry was a tall man and his truck had big tires and an elevated body precisely for navigating terrain like this.

Henry looked around, ran a hand through his long black hair, and set his hat back on his head. He turned to Alexandra.

"A thunderstorm is rolling in," he said. Alexandra didn't ask how he knew that, when the sky was still clear and blue. "I'm going to make sure no one finds themselves in trouble. There are probably a few hikers still up on the mountain."

"I can come with you," Alexandra said.

"No," Henry said. "You and I will go up tomorrow, at dawn. You set up your tent—carefully. There are non-magical folk around." They could see a couple of campers setting up a tent a few hundred yards away. Those hikers must have been the owners of one of the vehicles Alexandra and Henry had passed along the way, as many people gave up trying to drive the trail long before reaching Lake Como.

Alexandra sighed, but nodded. Like her sisters, Lucilla and Drucilla White, with whom she had apprenticed the previous year, Henry Tsotsie had made one of the conditions of teaching her that she do what he told her, without argument. All summer, she had obeyed—mostly.

Stones clattered and rolled, only a yard from where Alexandra stood, and a man rose out of the ground like a phantom. Henry seemed neither surprised nor alarmed, so while Alexandra had instinctively reached for her wand when the other man appeared, she let her hand drop to her side.

She recognized the newcomer as one of Henry's fellow Aurors, though she didn't know his name. Henry was always reluctant to introduce her when they ran into other Indian wizards.

The two men greeted each other in Navajo.

"Be careful, there are non-magical folk around," Alexandra said dryly, glancing over at the far campsite.

The other man looked at her with raised eyebrows. He was older than Henry, and had a paunch. Beneath his hat his hair was turning silver. Unlike the clean-shaven younger man, he also had a beard and a mustache, unusual for Diné.

"Yas Benally," he said, introducing himself. "So, you're Henry's belegana apprentice, huh?"

"I guess." Alexandra was still not entirely sure whether she should take offense to "belegana." Henry never sounded mean when he called her that, but he did mostly use it when he was annoyed with her.

"She's not my apprentice," Henry said.

"So you have some other reason for letting a white girl shack up with you?" Yas asked with a smirk.

"I've been sleeping in a tent," Alexandra said. "All summer."

"Really? You make her sleep outside in a tent?" Now Yas turned to Henry with mock indignation. "That's harsh, my friend."

"It's a magic tent. She's got more furnishings in there than I have in my hogan," Henry said.

"Hmm. So you've been in her tent?" Yas asked.

Henry snapped something in Navajo. Yas laughed. He turned back to Alexandra.

"I'm just teasing you both," he said. "No hard feelings, young lady?"

"Whatever. It's cool." Alexandra tried to banish the sullen expression she was probably showing.

"We have a few tasks to take care of," Henry said. "Making sure no belegana die up on White Shell Mountain, for one." In the distance, they heard a rumble of thunder. He gave Alexandra a very serious look. "Stay here."

She nodded. She recognized the look that told her he meant it. He and Yas were probably on Auror business, or maybe they were going to perform some secret Diné ritual. Henry had taught her a great deal over the last couple of months, but nothing of "Indian magic," and she'd learned not to ask. She knew there were things he would never tell her, let alone show her, because she was a belegana, and she accepted that, even if her curiosity burned.

Henry Tsotsie and Yas Benally walked away, heading toward one of the switchbacks the truck had come around, where they would probably Apparate once out of sight. Alexandra glanced over at the other campers, who didn't seem to be paying any attention to them.

She was tempted to follow Henry and Yas, but recognized that as her old, bad impulse to do whatever she wasn't supposed to. She was curious and she wished Henry actually regarded her as a partner, or at least a sidekick, and not a troublesome teenage girl he'd agreed to mentor for some reason. But she wouldn't violate his trust. She went about setting up her tent, which she sometimes just erected right in the bed of Henry's truck, but now set up a few yards from the water's edge. She went through the motions of erecting poles and driving stakes into the ground, for the benefit of the Muggle campers who might be watching her, though in fact everything happened effortlessly thanks to magic.

In the brief time it took her to do this, clouds began rolling in and the sky turned ashen. It was late afternoon, so Alexandra went into her tent, which was indeed larger than the room she'd once shared with Anna Chu at Charmbridge Academy, magically larger on the inside than the outside, and comfortably furnished with a complete bedroom set, a little alcove with a study desk, and even its own bathroom.

Alexandra pulled down one of the books she studied when not running around Dinétah. As she read, she stroked the tattoo of a snake curled around her left wrist, running almost down to her palm. She felt her skin writhe, and the tattoo came alive, slithering off her arm and coiling on her desk next to her book.

She didn't touch the snake—Nigel would permit himself to be handled, but he could be touchy sometimes. Alexandra now knew that she'd been recklessly handling a deadly Australian brown snake for over two years, before Henry had taken him away from her. She occasionally let Nigel loose, or if he was in a docile mood, kept him coiled around her arm or nestled against her body. Although her connection to Nigel was not as close as what she shared with her other familiar, Charlie, Alexandra could read Nigel's moods. She had probably been doing this unconsciously during the two years she'd thought he was just a harmless brown snake she'd rescued. She never feared being bitten now, but she rarely let Nigel out except when she was alone.

She studied from her alchemy text for over an hour. Henry didn't return, and since he hadn't told her when he would, she decided she should probably go to bed soon. They would be getting up very early the next morning, many hours before dawn.

She gently slid her hand under Nigel, and allowed the snake to slither down her arm, before sinking into her skin and once more becoming a vivid, lifelike tattoo.

She opened her backpack, and took out some of the food she'd brought for herself. Then she ran her fingers over the black raven tattoo on her right shoulder, and stroked the feathers inked into her skin.

"Charlie," she murmured.

The feathers became real beneath her fingers. Her skin twitched and the tattoo fluttered and rose out of her shoulder, becoming a live raven, who hopped to her desk and cawed: "Alexandra!"

Alexandra smiled at her familiar, and held out the treats she'd brought with her. The raven greedily pecked at them, while thunder rumbled outside and the first raindrops pattered against the tent.

Henry awoke her the next morning the way he often did: by sending his Patronus into her tent.

"Alexandra," it said, and Alexandra opened her eyes to see a shimmering silver jackrabbit sitting on her bed atop the blankets she'd kicked off in the summer heat. It glowed, glowed a little brighter, and then disappeared.

Alexandra yawned and dressed, in comfortable clothes that brought back pleasant memories, as Henry had told her to do. She chose her favorite pair of jeans, a long-sleeved blouse the Pritchards had given her last year as a Christmas present, and her Charmbridge Academy robes. She wasn't sure if the Charmbridge robes were really appropriate attire for this hike, as they did evoke familiarity and fond memories, but also loss and regret, and she was, according to Henry, supposed to filter unhappiness out of her mind. But she found even her happiest memories were like that; her favorite times were often tinged with sorrow.

She slid her feet into her JROC boots which had been a gift from Beatrice Hawthorne, and which still fit her after four years, thanks to the same magic that kept them shiny and waterproof. Today, she left behind her Seven-League Boots. They would make the hike easy—trivial, in fact—but that wasn't the point of the hike.

She emerged from her tent in predawn darkness. The rain had stopped during the night, but the ground was still wet. The half moon was bright, and they were far from any city, so the stars shined so sharply and plentifully Alexandra thought she could practically see the Stars Above themselves. She tried to push that thought away.

Henry wore clothes much like he always did: jeans, boots, a checkered shirt, a light jacket, and a Western hat. Alexandra wondered where he'd slept last night. Surely not in the cab of his truck? She didn't ask. He didn't look tired.

"You slept well?" he asked.

Alexandra nodded.

Henry looked over his shoulder at the darkness by the tree line, which began just past the lake. They couldn't see the tents where Muggles were camped, but someone had an electric light on which glowed in the darkness.

"I brought fry bread," he said, holding out a paper bag.

"Thank you." Alexandra reached into the bag and took out a still-hot piece of Indian fry bread. It was one of her favorite things here in Dinétah. She wondered where Henry had gotten it. He could have Apparated down the mountain, but he disliked Apparating as a means of travel. He only used it out of necessity.

As they ate breakfast together, Henry said, "It will be a long hike up the mountain. We need to reach the summit by dawn, but I want you to be mindful, and walk in beauty. Think only good thoughts. This is not about how fast we can ascend the mountain, or reaching a goal. It's about putting everything else out of your mind, so when we stand atop White Shell Mountain and greet the sun in the east, your mind will be at peace and you can truly see the beauty all around you."

Alexandra nodded solemnly. Henry had explained this to her before, but now his words had almost the power of a ritual. He was speaking to her as if she were… not Diné, exactly, but as close as he had come to addressing her as a peer.

It had been very hard to even get to this point, where she understood what he meant by "clear your mind" and "don't think bad thoughts." It still seemed like an impossible task sometimes—how did you not think about something once the thought was in your head? But Henry had told her she didn't have to do it perfectly. She just had to try.

"You're part of this, too, Charlie," Alexandra said, and she pulled her robes and blouse down off her shoulder long enough to free her familiar from the tattoo exposed there. Charlie came to life once more, and flew into the air with a caw.

The two humans began walking. Alexandra had hiked a lot of mountains with Henry this summer, and her legs had become strong and well-muscled. She was still skinny, but not haggard and gaunt the way she had been nearly a year ago, after escaping from Eerie Island. The bruises and exhaustion following the Junior Wizarding Decathlon in New Amsterdam and her flight to Storm King Mountain had faded…

Put that aside, Alex, she told herself. The things she had discovered in Storm King Mountain were not happy thoughts. She inhaled the cold night air—it was so early in the morning she still thought of it as night—and appreciated the scent of the trees around them, as she and Henry walked through the tree line and up the rough, rubble-strewn trail to the top of Mount Blanca, which the Diné called White Shell Mountain, or the Dawn Mountain. It was one of their four sacred mountains, marking the eastern boundary of Dinétah, and the fact that Henry Tsotsie was walking with her to the summit was important, she knew. However frustrating he might find her, and however much he kept himself closed off to her, he had been a generous instructor and mentor, even knowing she was a fugitive, the daughter of the Enemy of the Confederation, and probably a bringer of more trouble to Dinétah whether she meant to or not.

Alexandra took what he told her seriously, and she did her best to walk in beauty. Mount Blanca was beautiful, though they could see little of it while it was so dark.

It was also a Colorado mountain with an elevation of over 14,000 feet, so however hot it had been driving to its base the previous day, its slopes in the pre-dawn were cold, even in summer. Alexandra used a Warming Charm without guilt, as Henry had told her this hike was to be enjoyed and appreciated, not taken on as a challenge; the mountain was not an obstacle to be overcome.

Charlie sometimes ranged ahead of them, gliding through the breezy mountain air currents, but mostly preferred to stay near Alexandra. This high in the mountains was more the domain of eagles than ravens.

It took them over four hours, and they only moved so quickly because they used magic to walk lightly along narrow, precarious trails, bypass boulders, easily climb the steeper ascents, and hop fearlessly past one gap in the rocky footpath that would drop a careless hiker hundreds of feet straight down the mountainside. Alexandra supposed more traditional Navajo would frown on such "cheats," but as Henry had said, this journey was supposed to set her mind at ease, which meant she was being allowed to skip the character-building hardships of hiking to the summit the hard way.

Anyway, she had made harder and more arduous climbs before, without magic, so it wasn't as if she had anything to prove.

She thought about all the happy things she could. Charmbridge Academy—the good times, with her friends, especially Anna. Her sister Julia, and their holidays on Croatoa. Even being dragged along shopping for dresses.

Archie, her brother-in-law who had been the closest thing she'd had to a father figure for most of her life, letting her drive his truck—only in the parking lot of the police station, but it was something—after she got her learner's permit at the beginning of summer.

Kissing Brian, and fumbling makeout sessions the previous summer. Those were more fraught memories, because thinking of Brian brought other, much less welcome ones, but Alexandra allowed the bittersweetness, because how many of her memories did not come with a reminder of consequences or pain?

Her Ozarker friends, the Pritchards, unfailingly kind and generous. And their older brother, Burton—whom Alexandra did not miss nearly as much as Constance and Forbearance and Innocence, but the memory she had of him, and a night by the edge of a creek, summoned a different sort of feeling. Even now, she felt her face growing warm. She didn't look at Henry. She hoped he wouldn't be using Legilimency on her right now.

Henry said nothing. They walked on in silence. As they approached the summit, a tiny, almost anticlimactic little depression in the rock cap at the very top of White Shell Mountain, Alexandra turned her mind to the memory that was the source of her greatest joy, and her greatest pain: Max.

Maximilian King, her brother. It had been over three years since his death. She'd come to terms with it, as best she could. The oversized impression he'd left on her life for the few months she'd known him, her excessive adoration of him while he was alive, her excessive grief when he died, was because he'd come crashing into her life disrupting everything she thought she knew, introduced her to a family and a world so much larger than she'd ever imagined for herself, and then died, leaving her with the bitterest of bittersweet memories.

Max had been, to her thirteen-year-old self, an idol, the big brother she'd never known she had, taken away from her too soon. She still smiled every time she remembered dueling in the woods around Charmbridge, and the evenings when he told her about his sister, Julia, and their enigmatic father.

Alexandra Quick stood atop White Shell Mountain, facing the east as the first sliver of sun cast pink rays against the sky. Lesser mountains seemed to kneel around them, and the air was sharp, cold, and sweet.

Tears ran down Alexandra's face. For perhaps the first time in her life, she wept without shame or feeling weak.

Charlie cawed and landed on a rock outcropping nearby, and Alexandra smiled through her tears.

Yes, Charlie. You too, of course. Charlie was a friend as dear to her as any person, and no catalog of her happiest thoughts would be complete without the raven who had been her companion since she first entered the wizarding world.

Behind her, Henry Tsotsie laid his hands on her shoulders. He might or might not have had some idea what she was thinking about—he knew about her brother, but Max wasn't really something they had talked about—but if he was wondering why she cried when she was supposed to be summoning her happiest thoughts, he didn't comment on this. Instead, he asked gently, "Have you emptied your mind of everything that is not beautiful?"

"Yes," she whispered. Her face was wet, but she didn't wipe at her eyes. She just let the tears fall.

"You know what to do," he said.

She raised her wand. She carried two wands now, but it was almost always the black hickory wand she used, crafted for her by Granny Pritchard, with a core of underwater panther hair, a beast the Indians considered both sacred and dreadful.

She extended the black hickory wand out over the vista that was the whole of the world between White Shell Mountain and the rosy-fingered dawn, and said, "Expecto Patronum!"

Silver mist coalesced around her wand, and then a stream of silver shot out the end of it and gathered in a glowing cloud that intensified as it took solid form.

Charlie called out in recognition, or perhaps awe. Alexandra's Patronus spread wings and took flight, flying far out over the valley below, a shining silver beacon in the darkness that the sun was only beginning to push away.

"Huh," said Henry Tsotsie. "A raven. Ought to've guessed."

"Not a raven," Alexandra said, as her Patronus swooped and rose, illuminating the sky before them, still a brighter light than the slowly emerging sun. "A stormcrow."

In the distance, there was a rumble of thunder, though the clouds from the previous evening had cleared away.

Henry did the driving on the way back. Alexandra didn't mind. She curled up in the passenger's seat of the truck, now that they had finally left Blanca Peak Road behind and hit the highway, and put her feet up on the dashboard, twirling her wand with a self-satisfied smile. She'd been trying to cast the Patronus Charm all summer, but despite Henry's best efforts to teach her, she'd been unable to conjure more than tiny wisps of silver mist until this morning at the top of White Shell Mountain.

She felt very pleased with herself at this breakthrough.

Henry had reverted to his usual taciturn self, but she thought he was pleased too.

"Are you proud of me, Mr. Tsotsie?" she asked. Although he had become "Henry" in her head, she still addressed him as "Mr. Tsotsie." She had spent all summer in Dinétah shadowing him. She still wasn't sure why he'd let her stay. There was a warrant for her arrest in Central Territory, and she hadn't been quite sure where she would go next when she came to Dinétah to retrieve Nigel. Somehow his reluctant (and unsuccessful) lesson in casting the Patronus Charm had resulted in a begrudging offer to let her camp out outside his hogan. And thus she had become his apprentice—although he never called her that.

As an Auror, he was supposed to turn her in. She was a runaway and a fugitive. Yet neither Henry nor any of the other Indian Aurors they met made any effort to do so. Indeed, the other Aurors all seemed to pretend they didn't know who she was, which she supposed was one reason he never actually introduced her.

She was very grateful to him, but she still had the feeling that he understood her a lot better than she understood him.

In answer to her question, Henry said, "You should be proud of yourself. It took you a while, but you manifested a full corporeal Patronus. That's impressive. Very impressive."

Alexandra grinned. "I had a good teacher."

"All right, stop buttering me up, belegana girl."

She laughed. She put her wand away and leaned toward him, resting her chin on one hand, elbow on the divider between their seats. "Can I ask you a question, Mr. Tsotsie?"

He grunted.

"Why don't you have a girlfriend?" she asked.

His mouth tightened.

"A boyfriend?" she suggested.

"You should practice your Occlumency," he said. He had begun teaching her the art of occluding her thoughts. She might not yet be a match for her aunt, Diana Grimm, one of the Governor-General's Special Inquisitors, but she felt like she could at least make it harder to peek into her head.

"I'm not using Occlumency," she said.

"I know."

She gave him another long, considering look.

"I have been helpful this summer, haven't I?" she asked. "I mean, I might not be an Auror, but I helped you banish those chindi by the river, and figure out the curse that was causing Hosteen Nez's dead sheep to walk around, and I was okay as backup when you arrested that belegana warlock, right?"

"You weren't backup. I told you to stay in the truck—"

"But he'd have gotten away without me!"

"I would have caught him."

"I think I could be an Auror, if I wanted to," Alexandra said.

Henry sighed. "You probably could. But you aren't. An Auror."

Alexandra opened her mouth to say something else, but Henry suddenly exclaimed something in Navajo and hit the brakes, hard. Alexandra was thrown against her seatbelt, and when she looked ahead, on the narrow, two-lane highway leading back to New Mexico, she saw a glowing, silver deer standing in the middle of the road.

"That's Billi Tewawina's Patronus," Henry said. He put the truck in park and got out. He didn't tell Alexandra to stay in the truck, so she got out too.

The deer waited for them to approach. When they were close enough to hear its message, the deer said, "A Confederation Regiment is at Orange Rock. They're demanding we join their campaign against the Dark Convention."

"Does that mean… they're drafting you?" Alexandra asked, though she knew the Hopi Auror's Patronus was only relaying a message and that Billi couldn't actually hear her. Henry waved a hand to shush her.

"They're also looking for your apprentice," the deer said. With that, it dissolved like a mirage on the highway.

"She's not my apprentice," Henry said.

The two of them looked at each other.

"I guess it's time for me to go," Alexandra said.

"You could hide," Henry said. "Dinétah is a big place—"

"No," Alexandra said. "I knew this was coming, and you've done enough. You can't harbor a fugitive, not anymore."

"What's your plan?"

Alexandra shrugged. "I have to go home. I need to check on Claudia and Archie. Then I'll figure out where to go next."

"You could be arrested back in Central Territory."

"I could be arrested anywhere. You could have arrested me, but you didn't." Alexandra smiled ruefully, as she walked back to Henry's truck. He didn't stop her as she pulled her magic backpack out of the back of his truck, and opened it to take out her Seven-League Boots. Once she'd put the boots on, she strapped the pack onto her back, and stood again to face the Navajo Auror.

"Thank you, Henry. Thank you for everything."

Before he could stop her, she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly, pressing the side of her face against his chest.

Henry hesitated, then returned her embrace, resting his hands lightly on her shoulders.

"Troublesome belegana girl," he said sadly. "You're right that Dinétah isn't safe any more. But no place is. The Confederation is being pulled apart, and a beast is most dangerous when it's wounded."

Alexandra stepped away from him, blinking rapidly. "I'll go now, so I don't bring more trouble to you."

Henry looked as if he wanted to say something, but Alexandra shook her head. "I'll see you around, Mr. Tsotsie. Be careful."

"You be careful, Alexandra," Henry said. "They really are out to get you."

"I know." With that, Alexandra took a step, in her Seven-League Boots, and instantly was miles away, two steps taking her over the horizon, leaving Henry Tsotsie standing alone on a desert highway with his truck.