Alexandra didn't see much of the interior of Brigitte Jumeau's mansion. There was a grand parlor with a chandelier the size of a car, and red and gold divans, and about a dozen Aurors, or Inquisitors, or Justicars, or whatever they called them in Louisiana. Alexandra was surrounded immediately. They took Marcelius out of her arms and clapped iron shackles around her neck and wrists. While they tried to remove her wand or anything else she might be carrying, the Chief Justicar cradled her nephew in her arms and woke him with a murmured incantation.
"Where's your wand, witch?" asked one of the Justicars, after their spells found nothing but the clothes on her back.
"Wands," said another. "She has more than one."
"Broken, burned, and scattered to the four corners of the earth," Alexandra said. "It's not like I thought you'd let me keep them, or hold onto them for me. So I destroyed them."
"You're lying," one of the Justicars said. They were all but one of them men, and all but one of them as dark-skinned as Brigitte Jumeau.
Alexandra said nothing, while Jumeau spoke to her nephew in a hushed voice. It looked to Alexandra like the little boy was confused, excited, and frightened. He cast a glance in Alexandra's direction and pointed at her, but Alexandra couldn't tell what he was saying.
"We should strip her," one of the Justicars said. "She could be using some secret charm taught to her by her father to conceal them on her person."
"I'm not," Alexandra said. She was less dismayed than she should have been at the prospect of being stripped, though she wondered what they would make of her tattoos. She was reserving all her energy for whatever happened after this—after she found out whether the Chief Justicar would keep her word, and if she did, what would happen when they went to The Castle.
Jumeau handed her nephew off to a woman in a traditional black witch's dress, who hustled the boy out of the room. She turned and strode over to Alexandra, easily and confidently. She seemed to be in a pleasant mood now that Alexandra was in chains and her nephew was returned.
"She is not carrying any wands or other… trinkets," Jumeau said. "You will be stripped where you are going, but that will be the least of your worries."
With a mouth gone very dry, Alexandra said, "And my sister?"
"I have made the arrangements," Jumeau said. "Did you doubt that I would keep my promise? The contract I signed in blood guaranteed it, though my word should have been enough for you."
"I like things in writing," Alexandra said.
"Do you? Well, you have it. Take her away." Jumeau gestured, and Alexandra was Apparated away along with the Justicars.
They arrived in front of a small circular keep made of stone, sitting on top of a hill surrounded by forestland. It was bitterly cold and windy, and the trees were brown and gold. Leaves blew in the wind. Alexandra saw nothing else before they hustled her through a heavy wooden door into a little tower that was obviously too small to be a prison.
She thought it might be a wizard-space inside, but the interior was no larger than the exterior; just a small circular stone room with no windows and no other exits. Its only features were a pedestal built into the wall opposite the door, and two large squares in the center of the chamber. One was black marble, the other white, embedded in the dull slate tiles surrounding them.
A man in dark blue and silver robes stood by the pedestal with his wand, while the Justicars on either side of Alexandra dragged her over to the black square and told her to stand still. The ones who hadn't been grabbing her had their wands out and pointed at her.
The wizard by the pedestal was doing something with his hand, but though Alexandra was curious, it was more important for her to know whether her desperate plan would turn out to be more than a mad, reckless scheme to consign herself to imprisonment for the rest of her life. She was not really looking at the pedestal, the Justicars, the wizard, or the stone slabs at her feet. She was looking with her Witch's Sight, and what she saw brought a small smile to her face.
The nearest Justicar narrowed his eyes. "Why are you smiling? You're never going to leave The Castle, you know. No one can violate the magical laws under which it was constructed. One in, one out. No other way."
"I'm sure you're right," Alexandra said. She looked at the two cracks in the world glowing beneath them, running from deep in the earth. This stone keep had been built on their convergence. "If I'm going in, that means my sister is coming out."
She eyed the Justicars, looking for some telltale sign that Jumeau would doublecross her after all, or that they had sinister plans of their own. There was not much she could do about this part. She had less confidence in Jumeau's good faith than in her plan to get out again, but if anything happened to Drucilla after being released, Alexandra could only hope their father would live up to his reputation for vengeance… and allow her back into his good graces to participate in it.
The Justicars seemed nonplussed by Alexandra's calm demeanor. And then she felt herself grow faint. Literally. It was as if she were fading out of existence, her body turning weightless and transparent.
At her feet, the black square was turning white, and next to her, the white square was turning black. A ghostly figure appeared next to her. At first it was too translucent to make out features, and then as Alexandra faded, the other figure grew more solid. Just before Alexandra disappeared completely, she saw Drucilla. Hollow-eyed, much thinner, her hair hanging slack and frayed around her shoulders, Drucilla wore a plain cotton robe and faded slippers and nothing else, not even chains like those hanging on Alexandra. Drucilla looked around wildly, and for an instant, their eyes met. Alexandra tried to smile, as Drucilla's eyes widened in horror and her mouth opened, and then she was gone.
Alexandra arrived standing on a black square, next to an empty white square, in a room that looked almost identical to the one she'd just left, complete with a wizard in blue and silver robes and a wand standing next to a stone pedestal.
There were three other men in the room. One pointed a wand and made the chains drop off her. No sooner was Alexandra rubbing her wrists, with a sense of relief, than the other one pointed his wand and cast a jinx that vanished her coat and other clothes from her body.
"What the hell?" Alexandra exclaimed, trying to cover herself as she backed away from them. Naked, she pressed her back against the stone wall and glared while three of the men smirked. The wizard by the pedestal was still doing something with his wand and seemingly paying no attention to Alexandra.
The other three wizards laughed. "So you're the Enemy's youngest daughter," said one. "You don't look so scary."
Alexandra glared, not trusting herself to speak. She was still trying to get a sense of where she was. The most important thing was what she saw with her Witch's Sight—an immense crack in the world, as large as the one under Eerie Island, vibrant and so brilliant it amazed her that such tears in the fabric of the world went unseen by everyone else. It seemed to run through this place as if The Castle had been built upon on it deliberately. It probably had been, though the wizard architects and geomancers who chose this site might not have seen the power here as clearly as Alexandra did.
I can open it, she thought. She should have felt triumphant, but there was an oppressive air of malice and gloom that fell upon her almost immediately, as if she had fallen into a pit of despair that made a mockery of her plans. There was no point, there was no hope, she was never getting out of here alive, certainly not with Lucilla.
"Lucilla," she said.
"Oh, the other one," one of the wizards said. All three of them laughed unpleasantly. The nearest one, a pale, sickly-thin man with a pock-marked face and long, stringy brown hair, walked over to her. "We let them play a little game to decide who would go and who would stay."
That laughter again. It turned Alexandra's stomach. She glared up at the man, still trying to cover her nakedness with her hands. "I want to see my sister. And clothes."
"You're a prisoner. You think you make demands here?" He put a finger under her chin.
Alexandra gritted her teeth. She knew who she'd have Nigel bite first. "What about the International Prisons, Châteaus, Towers, and Dungeon Guild's Code of Ethical Conduct?"
The guard smirked, but to Alexandra's relief, he backed away.
One of the other men tossed a cotton robe at her. Alexandra turned her back on them as she pulled it over herself. Her heart was heavy and she was feeling more and more hopeless about her prospects.
"Come," said one of the other men. He was an elderly wizard with dark skin and gray hair. His skin hung around his eyes and neck in bags, and like the stringy-haired man, he looked profoundly unhealthy. He snapped his fingers at Alexandra as if she were a dog, while holding a wand in his other hand.
Alexandra came, trying to avoid even brushing against the man who'd touched her. The third man, who was tall and broad-shouldered and looked younger and less sick and weathered than the other two, grabbed her arm, though so far she had been nothing but compliant. The stones were cold under her feet. "Do I get shoes?" she asked.
"Your cell will have what you need," said the older, dark-skinned man. "Which ain't much."
They passed through a door into a stone corridor. There was light at the end of it, but Alexandra stopped and gasped in horror when she saw what was waiting for them between the door and the other end.
A dark, wraith-like figure in black, with its face concealed beneath a hood. Its hands hung at its sides, scabrous and gray. The despair and hopelessness Alexandra had been feeling since her arrival intensified.
"Dementors," she said, barely able to force the word out. "You have Dementors here?"
"They replaced the Doomguards," the older wizard said. "Gov'nor said they needed the Doomguards elsewhere."
The stringy-haired wizard gave her a shove, forcing her to stagger forward, closer to the Dementor. Her remaining defiance almost faded. What a fool she'd been. Pathetic. Careless. She'd never saved anyone. Her life was a waste. Her friends had always told her what a terrible friend she was, and probably had never liked her anyway. She had been nothing but a burden to her family, and her father was relieved not to have to deal with her anymore.
The Dementor seemed to swell before her, as if drinking in her despair. Then, slowly, it turned around and glided ahead of them. Alexandra was trying to hold back sobs as the wizards behind her steered her along.
"Merlin, I hate those things," said the big, broad-shouldered man. "Never thought I'd miss Doomguards."
"You get used to 'em," said the dark-skinned man to Alexandra's left, with a shrug that spoke of futility and weariness.
"You've been here too long," said the big man.
"You ain't lyin'," said the older man, whom Alexandra mentally named Gloomy. "You will be too."
The stringy-haired wizard gave his unpleasant laugh again. "Of course, if you don't like jailer duty, you could always go join the Regiments."
They reached the end of the corridor, preceded by the Dementor, and turned left. Alexandra's knees nearly buckled as she saw another corridor lined with cells, and even more Dementors drifting back and forth.
"You get a cell of your very own," said the man Alexandra had named Stringy-Hair. "But you said you wanted to see your sister first?"
"Yes," Alexandra said, that thought enough to momentarily burn through the haze of gloom and despair.
"Heard you pulled some strings with the Chief Justicar," said Gloomy. "Gov'nor-General didn't like that."
"The Governor-General can drink bobotuber pus," Alexandra said.
The three men laughed. The Dementor paused and turned its head slightly, as if the laughter offended it.
"There are… rules," said Stringy-Hair. "But you know, things happen. Especially when the Confederation is under the Ban, which means there are no inspectors from the International Prisons, Châteaus, Towers, and Dungeon Guild visiting anymore." His hand slipped from Alexandra's shoulder to her neck, where it squeezed lightly. Her skin crawled, but she was already too full of despair for this to bother her overmuch.
"Yeah," said Gloomy. "Terrible shame when prisoners try their luck with the Dementors."
"What… what do you mean?" Alexandra asked.
They walked past several cell doors. There were small barred openings in each, and light shone through them, but Alexandra had so far not heard any noise, no voices, no one calling out. Not like when she'd arrived at Eerie Island.
They stopped in front of a cell that had no light within. Alexandra supposed this was her cell, but Stringy-Hair said, "Like I said, we let the Whites play a game to see who would stay and who would leave. They didn't want to play."
Alexandra felt something even more terrible than the despair already filling her rise up as Gloomy opened the door. In the light that fell through, there was a figure sitting on the cold stone floor of the cell, knees curled up to her chest.
"Lucilla!" Alexandra exclaimed. Not caring what the men might do, she rushed forward and fell to her knees in front of her sister.
Lucilla was barely recognizable. Her blonde hair, which she had once styled in curls or waves or elegant updos, hung limply around a head that was like a skull with skin stretched over it. Her eyes were empty, her face gray, her lips almost blue. Her expression was that of a corpse, and even when Alexandra shook her, she only blinked dully.
"Lucilla, it's me, Alexandra! Don't you recognize me?"
Lucilla's blank, dead eyes turned to her, and then looked away again.
Tears spilled down Alexandra's cheeks. "Drucilla's free." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "I'm going to free you too." She ignored the laughter of the men behind her.
Lucilla's expression didn't change.
"Lucy," Alexandra said. Horror turned the feeling in her stomach to nausea. For a moment, she thought she would retch.
This wasn't just the depression that must overwhelm everyone who was trapped here in The Castle with Dementors. There was something empty and dead in Lucilla, evident even without Witch's Sight. Alexandra's shoulders shook. Despair unlike anything she'd ever felt before seized her, and she might have given up right then, surrendered completely to her grief, except at that moment, Stringy-Hair laughed.
"One got to leave," he said. "But first she watched her sister receive the Dementor's Kiss." He laughed again.
Alexandra shook.
"Come on, little girl. Or we just might arrange for you to get Kissed too," said Stringy-Hair.
Clenching her teeth, Alexandra closed her eyes, so she could better see the crack in the world and nothing else.
She'd meant to have a better plan. She'd meant to scope out this prison, bide her time, and conspire with Lucilla before making their escape together. She'd hoped to have time to prepare and focus.
She needed to focus before opening the World Away, or anything could happen. After months of practice with her father, the best they'd been able to contrive for her were rituals that were more intuition and improvisation than spells. And at best, with focus, preparation, and a wand, she could sometimes control the opening and closing of the World Away and how long she spent there… sometimes.
This time, she didn't prepare or focus at all. She reached for the crack that The Castle sat upon and threw herself into it with every bit of her magic, willing it to split open and swallow the world. She didn't care what happened or where she went, as long as it was away.
The guards squawked and cried out in panic as unearthly colors bathed the cell, and the walls around them twisted into impossible angles. For a moment Alexandra saw every Dementor in The Castle as if she had x-ray vision. When she blinked, they were gone, and she grabbed Lucilla by the hair. She'd meant to grab her arm, but her grip was too weak and she didn't want to let the guards stop her. She dragged Lucilla with her into the World Away.
