"Vile little bitch," the ghostly Governor-General said, glowering hatefully.
"I'm so tired of being called names," Alexandra said, advancing up the stone steps towards him. She only stopped when her father caught her arm.
"You really are a calamity," Hucksteen said. "It's not enough for you to see the world burn. Even in the afterlife you afflict me."
"What are you even talking about?" Alexandra pointed her hickory wand at the ghost. She had never seen a ghost appear right after dying before, and Hucksteen's ghost standing over his still-warm body was creepy.
"Yes, what are you talking about, Elias?" Abraham Thorn's wand was still in his hand, but he addressed his old nemesis as if they were simply resuming the conversation they'd been having before their duel.
Hucksteen drew his sword. His real sword was still scabbarded and lying across his corpse's belly; his ghost had a matching saber, which he now pointed at Alexandra. "It's what this witch has done. I knew there were too many ghosts, but I thought Richard was confused when he blamed her."
"How am I to blame for ghosts?" Alexandra demanded. "If you're trapped here, it's because you're a pathetic loser like all the others. You should have gone to hell!"
Hucksteen's eyes blazed with eerie luminescence. "Then from hell's heart, I stab at thee!"
There was no movement as he lunged. In the blink of an eye he was face to face with Alexandra, with his ghostly sword plunged into her chest.
Despite being startled and feeling a shiver go through her, Alexandra sneered. Ghosts couldn't hurt you. "What's that supposed to—?" The shiver turned into a black, icy chill, and the words froze in her throat.
An instant later, her father cast a Banishing spell, and Hucksteen vanished with a scream of rage. Alexandra was already collapsing. Her father caught her and lowered her to the stone steps. "Alexandra!"
She blinked rapidly. Her entire body was going numb. She was reminded of the cold, malevolent spirits she had encountered in the Lands Beyond. She saw her father as if through a dark fog.
"Hucksteen reached for darker arts than I gave him credit for," he said. "Curse us both for fools."
Alexandra could barely speak, but her father grabbed her right hand and closed his fingers around it. "Alexandra, cast a Wound Relocating Charm."
She looked at him, her eyes wide and frantic. "W-what? No—"
"I can't transfer it from you myself." He spoke calmly, but there was an edge to his words, an undertone she had never heard before: fear. "I need you to cooperate, Alexandra."
Alexandra felt as if she were sinking into a dark, hidden country, a world beyond this one. She simultaneously resisted its pull, and rebelled against what her father suggested. "N-no! I can't—"
"Alexandra!" her father said sternly. "I command it."
She stared at him, feeling her Vow pulling at her as powerfully as the forces trying to drag her to wherever Hucksteen had gone. Whatever he had afflicted her with, she had no doubt, she was going to die. Could her father reverse it? She didn't even know if she could transfer a ghostly wound she couldn't even see. Whatever Hucksteen had done to her wasn't like a normal wound. She wasn't bleeding. There was no cut in her jacket or her flesh.
With her hand still in his, she made widdershins motions with her hickory wand, and forced out the words for the Wound Relocating Charm, a Dark Arts spell she had learned in the Mors Mortis Society when she was twelve. She had not often used it since, and never like this.
Her father rocked back with a grimace on his face, and clutched at his chest. As Alexandra felt her own heartbeat return to normal, her father looked as if he were having a heart attack.
Alexandra made herself sit up. "What have you done? You know a counterspell, right? Let's find Medea and the others. Someone will know healing spells." She rose to her feet, though her knees were still weak. "Father?"
He remained kneeling, one hand clutched to his chest, head bowed. Alexandra put her hands on his shoulders, not understanding what had just happened.
Finally, he lifted his head. "Yes," he said. "Let us… find Medea."
Alexandra was relieved. Until she realized he was struggling to rise.
Wordlessly, she lent him her arm, and he pulled himself slowly to his feet, with his weight bearing down on her. It was almost more than she could bear herself, in her own weakened state.
"What did he do?" she asked. "How could a ghost hurt me… you?"
"Ghost sickness," her father said. "Most think it an old witch's tale… but a sufficiently malevolent spirit… and Hucksteen was malevolent enough and powerful enough to prepare a final dose of vengeance. How like him."
"How do we cure it?" Alexandra looked at the far archway at the top of the amphitheater, which now seemed much further away than it had been moments ago.
"A very… potent curse indeed," her father said. The two of them walked around the shattered, scorched stone shelf ringing the amphitheater. Abraham Thorn seemed to be concentrating very hard on some internal struggle, and now and then the hand he rested on her shoulder pressed down on her, and she locked her knees to keep from wobbling and collapsing beneath him.
"Seriously, we can cure ghost sickness, right?" Alexandra said, as they approached the far arch. "As soon as we're back in Salem, I'll go get Livia—"
"My dear, your faith in Livia is well earned. She is one of the best Healers in the Confederation. But I am certain she knows nothing of these sorts of Dark Arts."
Alexandra was concerned by the pallor of her father's face and how he had to lean on her.
"Can you… transfer it back?" Or to someone else? Though she did not say that last thought aloud.
"No… too late."
Alexandra bit her lip, wondering if he was telling the truth.
They reached the stone archway, and Alexandra paused as her father inspected it, muttering some charms as he waved his wand in front of it.
"Akin to a Portkey," he said. "But to a place outside. I see how Elias used it… By the Stars Above, he could have spoken to Powers, he could have visited Worlds Away, and he used it for…" He stopped and drew a painful breath.
Alexandra stared at him, not able to reconcile this sudden faltering figure with the omnipotent presence of Abraham Thorn.
"Can we return to Salem through it?" she asked.
He nodded and pointed his wand. When he said, "Expecto Patronum!" his voice was almost as firm as always.
His Patronus was a magnificent silver wolf that went bounding through the archway just as Hucksteen's Patronus had.
With what Alexandra realized was a great effort, though the movement was slight, he drew himself up and shrugged her off. The two of them stepped through the archway, leaving Hucksteen's corpse behind.
They stepped into a hellish scene. Flames surrounded them, and the streets were littered with wreckage and bodies. The building in front of them burned red hot, baking them in its heat. Alexandra could see several figures standing in the fiery heart of the inferno, unmoving yet seemingly untouched by the blaze. Doomguards, following no commands now that the wizards who'd commanded them were dead and the building they were guarding was burning to the ground around them.
Abraham Thorn looked around, with sweat running down his face. Alexandra cast a charm to protect them both from the heat. She didn't like seeing the bodies, but it was her father's unsteadiness that truly unsettled her.
Medea appeared out of the smoke and haze, with a bloody slash up her arm and a burn on her cheek.
"Abraham," she said. And after a pregnant pause, "Alexandra. You said little through your Patronus. Where did you go? Most of the Thorn Circle has retreated and dispersed."
"We need a Healer," Alexandra said. "We killed Hucksteen, but he inflicted ghost sickness on my father."
"Ghost sickness?" Medea peered intently at Abraham Thorn. He held out a hand, and she took it. She appeared to also be magically protected from the blazing heat radiating at them.
"We accomplished our mission," Abraham Thorn said. "We must return to the Lands Below."
"You are weak." Medea said this with more wonder than sympathy. The idea of Abraham Thorn being stricken, weakened, seemed as foreign to her as it was to Alexandra.
"I can still take us back," he said. "With help from Alexandra."
"I can't open a crack to the Lands Below," Alexandra said. "Not without—" She stopped as Medea held out a handful of gold coins that looked new and shiny, but gleamed darkly in Alexandra's Witch's Sight.
"Where do you keep getting more obols?" Alexandra asked. Then she looked at the carnage around them again. "Wait—do you make more obols every time you kill someone?"
"Not every time," Medea said. "Perhaps we should discuss this later, Alexandra." She continued to hold her hand out, until Alexandra took a coin from her. It looked like one of the Gringotts coins she'd given to Rathnail.
Her father took a coin also. "Alexandra… take us to the Lands Below. You open the way, and I will take us where we need to go."
Opening yet another crack to the Lands Below which she wasn't sure she could close, in the heart of Salem, was just leaving more trouble behind. But Alexandra obeyed.
They arrived directly back at the sinister stone stronghold in the Lands Below. It was almost empty, but for a few elves and wizards Alexandra didn't recognize. Most of the Thorn Circle had gone with them to Salem, and no one returned with them.
Abraham Thorn drew himself to his full height, and though Alexandra could see how pale and ashen his face was and how stiff his movements were, he carried himself almost normally as he walked across the front room to the stairs, with Alexandra and Medea on either side of him.
Alexandra sensed, by the small movements he made as he ascended the steps and by his labored breathing, what a strain it was for him. That she could see this, even being so close to him, worried her more than she could express. It was weakness of a kind she had never imagined she would see in her father. He was an implacable, unstoppable force. In her mind, he was a Power unto himself, no matter what he said. Yet now he was a man who put one foot in front of the other only through sheer force of will, and Alexandra feared he would collapse climbing the steps, though neither she nor Medea dared to help him, not with wizards and elves watching them.
Two elves waited at the top of the stairs. It was Meenie and Miney.
"Master Thorn," said Meenie.
"Master Thorn?" said Miney. Perhaps he also sensed something amiss.
"Leave me," Thorn said. For a moment Alexandra thought he was addressing all of them. Meenie and Miney shivered at his tone and disappeared.
Medea took his arm, and they walked into his bedroom. It had a grand double bed, a dresser and an armoire, and a vast desk covered with books and scrolls and several elaborate mechanisms Alexandra would have been fascinated by any other time. The bed was freshly made. Medea reached to pull back the covers, but before she could even do so, Abraham Thorn sank onto the bed and stretched out on his back, the full length of it.
Medea and Alexandra exchanged a look over his unmoving form. Alexandra no longer tried to hide her worry. Medea was still calm, but Alexandra could see concern on her face too.
"We must not let the others know," Medea said. "He must appear to be resting only."
"We need to get help!" Alexandra said. "My sister Livia, or—I know! Indian Aurors know how to cure ghost sickness! I can go to Dinétah and bring back—" She stopped, trying to imagine how she would persuade Henry Tsotsie to return with her.
"You will bring back Indian Aurors, who will come with you willingly to the Lands Below to heal the Enemy of the Confederation?" Medea's doubts were uncomfortably close to Alexandra's own thoughts.
"We can take him to Dinétah—"
"No," her father said. His voice was barely more than a whisper. Alexandra and Medea both looked down at him.
"Abraham," Medea said. "What shall we do?"
"We need to get you a Healer who can cure ghost sickness," Alexandra said. "I'll bring back Livia—"
"No," her father said again.
"Or an Indian Healer," Alexandra said.
"No. They cannot help. This is… my battle to fight."
"You can't fight it by yourself. Father, please listen to me."
"Medea is right. We cannot allow anyone else, even in the Thorn Circle, to know. Promise you will tell no one, Alexandra."
Alexandra clenched her fists. She wanted to argue, to refuse, but she felt the weight of her Vow.
"I promise," she said. "But you have daughters who still need you. And the wizard war isn't over yet. It's not your time. Please, let me get help."
"Alexandra, my dear, my youngest." He reached for her, and she leaned over him until his hand touched her cheek. "It is too late."
She shook her head. She didn't want to cry in front of Medea. "It can't be. You're the most powerful wizard in the world." This is my fault!
"I have done almost everything I set out to do, Alexandra." He looked over to Medea. "We will make our final preparations."
Medea nodded solemnly.
"You can't just lie down and die!" Alexandra blinked away tears. "It doesn't have to be like this. Let's go to Dinétah, and have you healed. Let's finish undoing the Deathly Regiment together. You're being prideful and—"
"Enough, daughter," her father said. "Cease arguing with me."
Alexandra bowed her head, but her eyes burned. Anger and helplessness smoldered there.
"I have one final task for you, Alexandra."
"Father." Her tone was pleading.
His hand was still on her cheek. It felt cold, yet there was warmth in his voice. "I was going to spare you having to do this by yourself. But alas, the Stars Above had other plans. I have seen what you are capable of. Your ability to open the World Away, and break the seals holding back the Lands Below, and your talent for destruction—don't be ashamed of it! You can go where you will, and you can do anything, my dear. I have more faith in you than anyone else in this world."
For a moment, Alexandra's heart swelled, just a little. Despite everything, despite the destruction they'd wreaked and her father dying before her, those words felt like she had finally earned something she hadn't known how badly she'd wanted.
More faith in you than anyone else in this world. Even Medea…
Then fear and grief and anger came rushing back. "Father," she repeated. "Please—"
He put his fingers over her lips, silencing her.
"It's time," he said. "This is my last command to you, Alexandra. It will have to be you who destroys Charmbridge Academy."