YES OF COURSE IM STILL IN DETROIT WHERE R U?
Why u always capslocking at me?
…CAUSE U KEEP DISAPPEARNG N MAKING US THINK UR DEAD!
You should know better I always come back
Come to Detroit then!
Ok
… srsly?
Yeah
Did u get the caddy back?
Trashed, minus tires n stereo. I can't believe u left it in Indy
Alexandra walked along the Detroit waterfront, which was crowded despite the cold temperatures. All winter, the Great Lakes had been vortexes of storms and rumors about monsters, and with the dawn of a rare sunny day, and the abatement of stormy weather, people were turning out in large numbers, with dogs and children.
Alexandra wore a wool cap and kept a scarf wrapped around the lower half of her face, both to keep warm and to avoid being recognized. She still couldn't believe there were ordinary people out in the Muggle world who now recognized her face, but the last thing she wanted was for some Internet nerd to point her out in the crowd as "That dragon girl."
It was March 22, and she was seventeen.
She kept her hands buried in her jacket pockets. Her hickory wand purred, in the little space she'd made that wasn't actually large enough to fit a wand. Her other wand, her mother's wand, was quiet, tucked down her shirt in another magically hidden pocket. Her birthday made her think of her mother, and she wished she could show Hecate her wand, even if she wouldn't recognize it. Or Alexandra.
There were a lot of people, so when Alexandra saw a teenage boy in a big puffy jacket leaning against a railing and looking out across the river, she had to walk up to him before she was sure she recognized him.
"David," she said.
David turned, and he grinned. "Alex. You're in incognito mode."
"Yeah." She smiled under her scarf. "You're growing your hair out."
"Detroit's a lot colder than Cali." He ran a hand over his head. The two of them looked at each other, and then they both went for a hug simultaneously.
Alexandra leaned her head against his cheek and sniffled. He patted her shoulder.
"If you say something about me being a girl, I'm gonna hex you so hard," she said.
"No, you're not." His own voice sounded strained, but he was smiling when they stepped apart, still clasping each other by the arms. "So, happy birthday."
"Thanks." She looked down. "I wanted to go to Charmbridge…"
"To see your mom?" David nodded. "You ain't the only one who can't do things 'cause of the war."
"I know." She didn't know exactly where David was staying right now, only that he hadn't returned home, and that his parents were still a sensitive topic.
"You know like everyone was afraid you were dead again, right? You drop out of sight, no texts, no owls, unreachable for weeks…"
"I've already heard it from everyone," Alexandra said.
Claudia had been frantic. Julia, making her way to the payphone on Croatoa nearly every day in the hopes that eventually, Alexandra would answer her phone again, had nearly had a breakdown when she finally did. Livia had been stern, and angry at their father. Anna had left anxious messages, but said she knew Alexandra was somewhere with her father, especially after she heard about the Goblin Market.
"Were you seriously in the Lands Below?" David asked.
"No, David, I totally made that up. I've actually just been hanging out in Larkin Mills."
He squinted at her.
"I'm joking. I was seriously in the Lands Below."
"You blew up the Goblin Market."
"Yeah."
"After you nearly burned down Chicago."
"This was different? I mean, I made sure we didn't burn down Chicago this time." She smiled through her scarf, but he couldn't see it, and he wasn't smiling.
"Alex, you know what the Dark Convention has been doing to No-Majes, including here in Detroit?"
"I've heard. My father is trying to restrain them—"
"Bullshit. He uses them, and then looks the other way when they're off committing magical crimes against Muggles. MACUSA's trying to help, but there ain't enough of 'em and they're still fighting the Confederation."
Alexandra nodded. "I know."
David paused. Perhaps he'd expected more argument.
"So what's he gonna do about it?" he asked at last. "I mean, what's your old man's plan?"
"I don't know exactly myself, and if I did, I probably couldn't tell you."
They walked along the river then, and Alexandra told David everything that had happened. They sat on a park bench overlooking the river as she explained her Unbreakable Vow.
He shook his head incredulously. "You're outta your mind. Did you tell your sisters about this?"
"No. I haven't even told Anna. And please don't. I will tell her, but not over the phone or by owl. It is kind of hard to explain."
"No shit. An Unbreakable Vow? He could make you do anything!"
"Yeah, that's the point."
"I don't get it."
She sighed. "I don't really expect you to. Look, David. For years I've wondered if I could trust him. I've had all these unanswered questions, and I know he's probably going to keep secrets from me forever. And it's just so hard to wonder—if I was supposed to die. If it was supposed to be me." She stared across the water. She had learned not to always feel weak when she showed emotions, but it was still uncomfortable for her, and she knew it would disturb David too.
"So your solution is to say go ahead, do whatever you want to me?" David demanded.
"Yes." She turned and looked at him seriously, her bright green eyes the only thing he could see between her scarf and her cap. "I mean, he could do whatever he wants to me anyway. But this way, we both know it was my choice, and we also know, whatever happens to me, it was also his choice."
"I don't get it," David repeated.
"It's okay. You don't have to."
"What if he orders you to, like, seduce some dude and sleep with him?"
"Don't be gross."
"Or kill Anna's dad?"
"He wouldn't do that."
"You said yourself you don't know what his plan is!"
"He wouldn't do that because he knows I'd disobey," Alexandra said.
David looked away. "Jesus, Alex."
They sat there on the bench for a while, and Alexandra muttered a Warming Charm to keep her butt from getting cold.
"Anna thinks you have a death wish," David said at last.
Alexandra frowned.
"So what are you gonna do?" he asked. "It's nice to see you, but you didn't come here to help me protect No-Majes."
"No. I'm on my way to see Lucilla and Drucilla. My father let me leave to go see the people I care about."
"That doesn't sound ominous at all."
"I was in the Lands Below! He knew I couldn't stay there forever. So yeah, I am talking to everyone before… before our next big thing."
"Your next big thing," David said slowly.
"David, I have to tell you something."
"You've always been in love with me? I already knew that."
He grinned at her. Alexandra stared at him. Then they both laughed.
When David stopped laughing, Alexandra said, "I can't tell you exactly what, or when, but sometime soon, I'm going to send you a message. Maybe by text, or maybe by Patronus… it depends."
"Uh huh," David said, with a wrinkled brow.
"The message will be, 'Alexandra Committee'. When you see it… get to Charmbridge, if you can. Because they'll need your help. Getting out."
David's eyes slowly widened. "Oh, shit."
"I'll do what I can," Alexandra said. "But I will be doing my father's bidding."
Alexandra stood next to her father as they watched the Blacksburg Magery Institute burn. She was thinking about all the dead mages; she was pretty sure he was thinking about the school.
She hadn't been allowed to join the fighting, and she wasn't really unhappy about that. Abraham Thorn had not joined in the direct assault either. While he summoned storms, Alexandra cracked open the World Away, and the chaos that followed swept across the entirety of what had once been the BMI campus.
Warlocks came out of the woods and hills in scores when Abraham Thorn put out the call. Now they battled with Regimental officers and BMI staff and students. They'd given as much warning as they could and the opportunity for safe passage out, but Alexandra could see the curses and the flames, hear the howls and the hissing in the air. Ghosts flew in agitation through the whirling storm of destruction. Even the trees groaned and lashed out at anything that came near. Maybe most of the students made it out. Maybe.
Not the older ones in Stormcrow uniforms mustering on brooms to fight Dark Convention warlocks in the air. Trying to defend their school, and falling out of the sky.
She knew her father didn't enjoy seeing his alma mater destroyed. She wondered if he'd saved Charmbridge for last for her sake, or some other reason. Whatever he was feeling now, she hoped she'd be able to endure it when it was Charmbridge's turn.
"Those kids could have been Max," she said quietly. Those kids were her age.
"Maximilian would have been standing by our side," her father said.
"Or fighting with our forces," said Medea from behind them. Alexandra had been trying to pretend Medea wasn't there. Since their confrontation weeks ago, they had barely spoken a word to each other.
"I understand what you are saying, Alexandra," her father said. "You cannot know how heavy my heart is. I am doing nothing that isn't necessary."
"I know we're weakening the Confederation by destroying all the places that kept the Lands Below locked away," Alexandra said. "But they still have Accountants. The Deathly Regiment—"
"The Dark Convention doesn't care about the Deathly Regiment," said Medea. "They care only about destroying the Confederation. We need them. Destroy the Confederation, and we end the Deathly Regiment."
Alexandra kept her thoughts about that to herself, but her father put a hand on her shoulder.
"The Confederation is weakened, each time we destroy the places they control."
Alexandra watched the battle, and thought of Angelique Devereaux fleeing from Baleswood, and all the students running into the streets of Manhattan the first time the Thorn Circle had struck New Amsterdam… Had that pushed Harriet Isingrim over the edge, seeing her school destroyed by the same man who'd killed her father and her uncle?
"We're weakening the Confederation so the Dark Convention can become stronger," Alexandra said. "And every place we destroy lets more creatures from the Lands Below back here. You told me we'd end the Deathly Regiment. This still doesn't feel like that."
"Soon," her father said. "In fact, it will be our next endeavor."
Alexandra turned to her father, eager for the first time in a long while. "Destroying the Deathly Regiment? When? How?"
"Do you remember what you proposed before we destroyed the Goblin Market?"
Alexandra's eyes glittered. "Killing Hucksteen? Yes."
Her father nodded. "I've been reliably informed that the Governor-General is leaving New Amsterdam for the first time since the war began. He will be meeting with most of the remaining Territorial Governors. Ostensibly a war council, but I believe also to shore up his support. The Elect are not happy about how the war is going. It's possible the Governors could call for the election of a new Governor-General."
"The Governor-General is meeting a bunch of other Governors? Won't they have a million bodyguards and probably an entire Regiment there?"
"Indeed." Abraham Thorn smiled grimly. "They're going to meet in Salem. The fact that they refused to meet him in New Amsterdam is another sign of his weakened position. I expect he'll still win a no-confidence vote, but his grip is slipping."
"Isn't that good?"
"Yes, but we don't want the Confederation to elect a new Governor-General. We're going to eliminate the Governor-General and all his would-be replacements."
"Wait… you mean, kill the other Governors too?"
"Normally we could not hope to get them all. But I have a plan, using your special gift. Together, Alexandra, we're going to eliminate the leadership of the Confederation."
Alexandra hated Governor-General Hucksteen. He'd persecuted her and all her sisters, just because they were Abraham Thorn's daughters, and he'd sicced Richard Raspire on them. He'd made it personal.
She wasn't sure about planning a multiple murder, though. War was one thing, but assassinating a bunch of people she didn't know?
"Do you have qualms, daughter?" her father asked.
Alexandra looked across the fields that had once been parade grounds, and the smoking ruins of a building she'd walked through when she'd been here with Mage-General Flint. She pressed her lips together, and shook her head. "No, Father. No qualms."
Salem was a small town that before the wizard war had celebrated its infamous association with witches. Julia had once told her that the Muggles all pretended not to believe in witches, but she was pretty sure that many of them knew better.
Now, more of them knew better, and the town had a grim atmosphere, even on this sunny April day. Alexandra sat in a coffee shop drinking overpriced bottled water and eating a croissant as she watched Muggles walk past.
Thanks to Medea's magic, Alexandra looked five years older, with blue eyes and blonde hair. Her brief glimpse in her mirror had hardly needed its magical enhancement; Medea thought it was amusing to turn Alexandra into a stunning beauty that all the passersby would gawk at.
Alexandra didn't like it, and suspected it was a subtle dig at her naturally plain appearance. She made the unfriendliest face she could and had still been approached twice in the time since she'd first sat down in the coffee shop.
How is this inconspicuous? she thought angrily. But when a man in rumpled, out-of-date clothes casually walked past, and his gaze fell on her, Alexandra smiled at him, and the man smiled back in spite of himself.
She knew the look of a wizard trying to fit in among Muggles. The man was almost certainly one of the Aurors or Special Inquisitors who were now all over Salem.
The Governor-General and eight Governors were meeting in a mansion that dated back to the beginning of the Confederation. It was a block from the Salem Witch's Academy, hidden in a neighborhood that only wizards could see.
Julia had loved her school, at least until her senior year, when the stigma of being Abraham Thorn's daughter had left her shunned and abandoned by friends. Even after that traumatic year, though, Julia still spoke fondly of it, and the town, where unlike her Salem Traditionalist classmates, she had enjoyed going out amongst Muggles.
She was going to be heartbroken when it was destroyed.
Alexandra watched the ill-dressed wizard walk away. A young man sat down across the table from her, and said, "Hi there. I've gotta ask—"
"Confundus," Alexandra said.
She got up and walked outside, leaving the man sitting at the table with a befuddled expression. She put on sunglasses and a hat and began walking towards her destination.
Along the main street through Salem was a crack in the world so wide and so bright, it was hard to believe that even Muggles didn't see it, let alone wizards. Alexandra followed it until it flowed into the wizard neighborhood, which was very obvious to her but which the other Muggles on the street walked past, oblivious. She spotted at least half a dozen men and women with that same out of place look and style of dress, slouching in a bus stop, at a table in front of a cafe, or just pacing across the street. One Auror hadn't even bothered to take off her red vest. They were so obvious that Alexandra thought the contempt towards Muggles was deliberate. Not many Muggles seemed to notice them.
Her father had warned her that Aurors could put obvious distractions in plain sight too. The ones she could see probably hid the ones she couldn't. Any of the "Muggles" walking or driving by might be Special Inquisitors.
All of them would be scrutinizing her with Foe-Glasses and Sneakoscopes. If Medea's charms worked, she would appear to be just another Muggle.
From the wizarding neighborhood, flames rose into the sky. All the wizards turned around, and one Disapparated in plain sight.
Alexandra kept walking.
Salem Witch's Academy would be on fire now. She hoped the faculty and students did as her father said and evacuated. He'd promised to put trustworthy people in charge of the attack on the academy, to give the residents every opportunity to evacuate.
Alexandra didn't have to enter the wizard neighborhood. The crack in the world ran through it, and she could still see it beneath her feet. On her right was a brick wall that appeared to separate old residences on the other side from the newer, urban neighborhood she walked through.
Someone came running at her. She supposed even if she gave every appearance of being a Muggle, the Governor-General's men couldn't be completely stupid. She was close to the mansion where all the Governors were meeting, and a block away, Salem Witch's Academy was burning. They weren't taking any chances. But they were too late.
Alexandra opened the crack in the world as Abraham Thorn, Medea, and six other Thorn Circle wizards Apparated onto the street. She didn't watch to see what happened to the Aurors. They were doing their duty, but they were serving the Governor-General and the Confederation.
Muggles shouted and cars honked as the street erupted with streams of light spiraling out of the breach manifesting in the middle of traffic. Abraham Thorn cast a spell to surround all of them in a bubble, and the movement of cars, Muggles, even leaves blowing in the wind, slowed down around them. They walked into the glowing crack and the World Away.
It was blindingly bright. Alexandra could see just afterimage-like outlines of white dunes around them, and knew it was only her father's spell that kept them from being baked and blinded.
"Keep going," he said, not just to her, and they kept trekking through what seemed to be an endless desert waste. They'd only been here for minutes, and through the protective charm they were already sweating profusely. The air was suffocatingly hot. Alexandra began to feel lost. For a moment she almost panicked when her face literally seemed to be melting, until she realized the disguise Medea had put on her was slipping off.
"You can bring us where we need to go, Alexandra," her father said.
"Yes," she gasped.
She was less confident than either of them sounded, until they stepped back into Salem. It was like walking from day into night, summer into winter. They all blinked as they stood in a hallway lined with suits of armor. They were immediately confronted by four Aurors in heavy black and red robes.
The Aurors died in an explosion of green light from Killing Curses. Three wizards dashed forward towards the double doors at the end of the hallway, even as Alexandra and her father called out, "Doomguards!"
The suits of armor moved with a speed that surprised everyone except Alexandra. One man lost his head while the other one managed to raise his wand and cast a hex that punched a hole through the Doomguard that stabbed him. The Doomguard with the hole through its torso remained standing. The wizard with the sword through his did not.
Alexandra cast a Deadweight Charm at the nearest Doomguard. It slowed down, but still attacked a witch in front of her, cleaving through her Shield Spell and her wrist. She screamed as her hand, still clutching her wand, fell to the floor, while her arm spurted blood. Medea cast a Blasting Curse that knocked the Doomguard back just in time to prevent it from decapitating the other witch with its backstroke.
The other Thorn Circle wizards threw hexes and Levitation Spells at the deadly golems, pushing them back and blasting bits of metal off of them. One tried a Disarming Spell, which had no effect; the Doomguard's grip on its sword was too powerful. Alexandra saved him when she yelled "Caedarus!" and almost knocked it off its feet with a green sphere of light that hit it like a wrecking ball.
Her father had been carefully tracing lines in the air and pointing at each Doomguard in turn. Alexandra wondered what he was up to, until he spoke words that sounded like German or Russian to her ears, and a rush of wind filled the corridors. The Doomguards all fell apart, as if every weld and bolt that held them together had come undone.
Everyone gaped at the disassembled piles of metal littering the floor. Iwan grabbed the shrieking woman whose severed wrist was spurting blood, and cast a spell to stop the bleeding.
"We don't have time for skirmishes," Abraham Thorn said, stepping over a breastplate and helmet. He leveled his wand and blew the far doors apart. Alexandra joined the others in deflecting the volley of curses and hexes that came flying at them, and followed her father as he strode through the onslaught into an enormous ballroom. Lined up against the far wall were six men, two women, and Governor-General Hucksteen.
"All your security measures, and what good did they do us?" demanded an elderly wizard wearing red velvet with ruffles and a feathered hat, like some portrait of an ancient English king. He seemed to be addressing the Governor-General, whose cold blue eyes were fixed on Abraham Thorn.
"You can't escape!" said one of the female Governors, sounding desperate. "There are the strongest Anti-Apparition Wards on this house, and an entire Regiment outside by now—"
"Avada Kedavra!" said Medea. The other Governors immediately cast Blasting Curses and Spinning Jinxes and a Transfiguration at her, but the Thorn Circle wizards blocked those spells as Medea's Killing Curse struck the other witch. She fell dead to the floor without a sound.
Hexes and curses went flying again, but it was obvious to Alexandra that these Territorial Governors had not risen to their positions with their dueling skills, and her father had hand-picked the wizards who accompanied him on this mission. Without their protective wards or their bodyguards, the Governors were falling quickly.
Medea tried to cast another Killing Curse, but Governor-General Hucksteen threw a Blasting Curse at her. It nearly knocked her out, even through her Shield Spell. He said "Protego!" and as Abraham Thorn cast a curse that flared and burned against the Governor-General's own Shield Spell, he traced a rectangle in the air with his wand. A door appeared.
The entire room trembled. Alexandra looked up and saw a monstrous face materializing out of the grand, arched ceiling, like a mirage taking solid form. Vaguely leonine, with glowing red eyes and enormous fangs, it made her think of an Oriental dragon and also of Typhon. She yelled a warning just before it lunged straight down, its enormous head trailed by a long, feathered, serpentine body, and one of the Thorn Circle wizards disappeared in its maw.
Hucksteen was stepping through the door he'd just conjured. Alexandra said, "He's getting away!"
Her father conjured a great silvery blade in the air which sliced into the flesh of the beast that had suddenly emerged from the ceiling above, drawing blood but not severing its long, truck-thick neck. The ballroom was a smoking, hazy battlezone of bodies and shattered furniture and lighting and fires of various colors, some burning in the air.
Alexandra crossed the room in one step, and stepped through the door after Hucksteen.
"Alexandra!" yelled her father.
She found herself in a stone amphitheater, where the light was dim and the sky was gray and sunless. She didn't recognize it, though it resembled pictures of ruins she'd seen from Rome or Greece. It seemed to be an ancient, abandoned place, and felt like and unlike her trips to the World Away.
A quarter of the way around the periphery of the amphitheater, Governor-General Hucksteen was making his way unhurriedly to the far side, where another archway stood. Behind Alexandra, the door she'd stepped through remained standing impossibly and anachronistically erect on the bare stone.
Alexandra cast a swarm of golden hornets after the Governor-General. He spun around, and made them all vanish with a flick of his wand.
"Little girl," he said, "who do you think you are? Do you think you're going to kill me?"
"That's the idea," Alexandra said. "Barak!"
Hucksteen cast a Shield Spell in the same instant. Alexandra's lightning flashed against it without touching him. Hucksteen flicked his wand, and a rope appeared out of nowhere, wrapped around Alexandra's ankles, and yanked her off her feet.
She tumbled down the steps of the amphitheater, hitting each one painfully. When she stopped tumbling, she tried to get up, despite the bruises and the knocks to her head, but another rope whipped through the air and wrapped around her neck. She gagged and struggled as it yanked her from behind and she landed flat on her back. She heard Hucksteen say something, and her wand went flying from her hand. She grabbed at the rope around her neck and tried to pull it free, but she could barely breathe. She tried to reach for a crack in the world, a way to get away to the World Away, but there were none.
A heavy foot came down on her chest and Alexandra gasped out the last air in her lungs as Hucksteen planted a boot on her and put his weight on it. Her ribs felt like they would crack.
Her vision was black around the edges and little pinpricks of light obscured Hucksteen's face.
"I discovered this place when I was younger, and no one else can follow me, once I've closed the door," Hucksteen said. "Your father isn't going to save you."
He leaned forward, and pain almost made Alexandra black out. She wheezed, trying to suck air into lungs that couldn't draw breath. When he raised his wand, she forced herself to look into his eyes, waiting for his curse. Instead, he said, "Expecto Patronum!"
A silver fox, small and lithe, materialized from the light streaming out of his wand. It regarded Hucksteen and Alexandra with a narrow, fox-like stare, then disappeared through the far archway with a flick of its tail.
"I'll see to all of Abraham's spawn," he said. "You've done me one favor—you've eliminated the Governors who were obstructing me. No more special privileges for the Kings, and I'll find the Whites and the Pruetts, no matter how cleverly they hide. I'll even find a way to reach across the Atlantic, Ban or no Ban."
He sounded calm, but there was madness in his eyes. Alexandra could barely breathe. Her hand grasped his boot, trying to reach her other wand.
Hucksteen's weight suddenly lifted off of her, and he went flying through the air. She didn't see exactly what happened, but she desperately rolled onto her side, coughing. She forced her head up and saw Hucksteen had somehow managed to alight on his feet at the bottom of the amphitheater, an improbably graceful feat for a man built like a sack of pumpkins.
Footsteps echoed above Alexandra. She almost cried when she heard her father's voice. "Elias."
Elias Hucksteen glared hatefully upwards, past Alexandra.
"How?" he snarled, more angry than afraid. "You're not a Dark Lord, Abraham. No matter what your followers say, you're still just a man. You can't be here!"
"I would think, after all this time, you'd have learned not to underestimate me." Abraham Thorn's voice was almost pleasant, as if he were conversing with an old friend. "Or my daughter." He descended to the steps above Alexandra and stood over her. "You do remember that I was there when you discovered this place? Did you think I just didn't notice you suddenly becoming close-lipped and wanting to leave?"
"You knew about it, all this time," Hucksteen said, through his teeth.
"It was your good fortune you didn't try to flee this way last time. I would have had you then."
Hucksteen shook his head. "And you sent your daughter after me this time? I'd have thought that beneath even you."
"You are the least worthy man in all the world to speak of things beneath me, Elias. But no, I didn't send her. Alexandra acted precipitously." Abraham Thorn looked down at her, and a smile touched his lips. "She has a habit of doing that."
"He said… he said he… going to do something… to the Kings… and all your other children." Alexandra's words came out between gasps. "He sent his Patronus…" She wanted very badly to get up, to stand next to her father, or at least not lie here on the stone steps as if she were about to take a nap, but even with the rope no longer wrapped around her neck and Hucksteen no longer standing on her chest, her head was light and spiked with pain and her body didn't want to move.
"Did he?" Abraham Thorn's voice became hard and menacing. She'd heard this tone before, and for once she was glad to hear it. He stepped carefully around her. "Still making everything personal, Elias. That was always your greatest mistake."
"My mistake?" Hucksteen's voice matched Abraham Thorn's cool menace with red hot rage. "I made things personal? YOU TOOK MY DAUGHTER!"
Abraham Thorn shook his head. "You tried to take my daughter," he said quietly, his voice still cold and hard. "And then you took my wife, and you've continued your vindictive crusade for years. But I tell you now, Elias, as I told you then, that I had nothing to do with what happened to Jezebel."
"LIAR!" Hucksteen bellowed. "Only a fool would believe a house-elf did something like that of its own volition!"
"You are the greatest of fools, Elias, and I am long past caring what you believe." Alexandra's father had descended a few more steps, so he was positioned between her and the Governor-General. "I swore vengeance the first time you attacked my family, and now that debt has increased tenfold. But thanks to Alexandra, I finally have the opportunity to kill you face to face. It's more than I dared dream."
"You can keep dreaming," Hucksteen said. "Your little whore of a daughter isn't the only one who's got a knack for surviving murder attempts. And you must have forgotten which of us is the better duelist."
Abraham Thorn laughed. "You mean when we were in the ROC? That was a very long time ago, Elias. Since then I've become one of the most feared wizards in the world, and you've become a fat bureaucrat. Really, trying to goad me by slandering my daughter? You're desperate, old man."
"I'll do more than slander them, all of them, after I kill you."
Abraham Thorn's smile was pure, carnal hate. "You can try."
An explosion of light erupted between the two wizards. Alexandra didn't recognize the spells they cast, but where they clashed in mid-air, the collision burned like a small sun.
She managed to plant her boots on the ground and rise unsteadily to her feet. Elias Hucksteen and Abraham Thorn were locked in place with magic pouring out of their wands and lashing the air around them, though neither one was touched. Curses and hexes spun away like small sparks, potent enough to burn holes in the stone steps of the amphitheater. Alexandra raised her arms and saw a protective glow that must have been placed there by her father.
The stones around Abraham Thorn's feet shattered in a circle that spread up and down the amphitheater. Cracks ran through the steps as if they had suddenly been struck by an earthquake or an invisible hammer, and then they flew at Hucksteen in a storm of jagged fragments. The burning sun between them flashed out and Hucksteen cast a ring of blue flames around himself that ignited the chunks of stone, and the stone at his feet, and spread outward, burning dust and stone fragments as it expanded, until Abraham Thorn had to back away before it. He Apparated. The circle of blue flames kept expanding, followed by another one, and another, rippling concentric rings of fire that kept spreading with Hucksteen at their center. Alexandra saw the outermost one rushing at her. With an effort, she took two steps that carried her all the way to the top of the amphitheater and its paired arches.
My wand! She could sense it, somewhere nearby, growling in that low way that made her always aware of it, but she couldn't see whether it was about to be consumed by the rings of blue fire Hucksteen was casting off of himself. Overhead, winds howled like a miniature cyclone trapped between the amphitheater and the starless sky.
Shakily, she drew her concealed yew wand. She couldn't see her father, but a shower of burning red-gold meteors came blazing from the unnatural sky above, out of the hurricane winds and crashing into the floor of the amphitheater where Hucksteen stood. Or had been standing—he disappeared, leaving behind smoking craters in the ground and flickering blue flames that guttered and died.
Incandescent red and purple streams of light criss-crossed the amphitheater. Alexandra saw her father standing on the top level, halfway around the circle from her. Then Hucksteen appeared, closer to her, and a spell exploded between them and she was once more thrown off her feet and down the steps. She landed four levels down, bruised and bleeding. She was getting very tired of this.
She had thought herself a pretty good duelist, but watching her father and Governor-General Hucksteen go at each other was forcing her to reevaluate what "good" meant.
The entire amphitheater shook. The air suddenly turned sickly and greasy, and she felt a sensation like spiders crawling on her skin, but when she looked at her arms, she saw nothing. Something inhuman—surely neither Hucksteen nor her father—screamed at a deafening volume.
She Summoned her other wand to her. It came flying out of the rubble by the edge of the amphitheater, and she snatched it out of the air just as a fireball exploded mere feet from her. It singed her ear and cheek and shoulder.
"Protego!" she said, casting the Shield Spell with her hickory wand, and finally turned around.
A golden multi-headed hydra was attacking her father. Some heads spit fire, others spit acid, others were trying to wrap themselves around him, held back by a protective force that slowly contracted as they squeezed. Behind the hydra, Governor-General Hucksteen was red-faced, and blood trickled down his forehead and cheeks. His eyes were bloodshot and all his concentration was on Abraham Thorn. He waved his wand as if the hydra were an orchestra and he its conductor.
Alexandra's hands trembled. Both of her wands growled. She pointed her hickory wand. She thought about the threats, about Anna, about Claudia, and Bonnie and all the other children who had died for the Deathly Regiment. Slowly, she lowered the hickory wand and raised the yew wand instead.
"Avada Kedavra!"
The green flash from the yew wand flew through the charged air with a rush of wind, through the golden hydra's half-solid body, and through the Shield Spell around Governor-General Hucksteen. For one moment, his face registered a look of shock and fury. Then he crumpled wordlessly, collapsing onto his back and lying still, without a twitch or sound.
The hydra didn't disappear, but its heads lost their focus on Alexandra's father and began looking around, as if in confusion, and in the next moment, they all went flying off in a spray of blood as a Cutting Charm unlike any Alexandra had seen before, a dozen shimmering disks conjured all at once, decapitated them all. The hydra did not so much die as dissolve, but where it dissolved it left behind a puddle of ichor that sizzled against the stones. Alexandra's father stood in the middle of an acrid cloud, glowing faintly with an aura that prevented a single drop of blood or wisp of smoke from touching him.
He looked down at Governor-General Hucksteen's corpse, then turned his head to look down at Alexandra, who had not moved after casting her Killing Curse. Her arm was still raised as it had been when she'd pointed her wand at the Governor-General.
Her father's face was stone, like his eyes. Alexandra slowly lowered her arm.
"Um," she said. "Sorry?"
His eyes remained fixed on her.
Alexandra lowered her head, and waited.
He descended the steps. "You should not have done that."
"I know." She could think of a lot of reasons why she shouldn't have done that, and wasn't sure which one he meant.
He laid a hand on her shoulder.
"I lied," she said.
"Excuse me?"
She lifted her chin to meet his gaze. "I'm not sorry."
His expression was still stony, but his eyes were troubled.
"Is it over?" she asked. "Will the Deathly Regiment end now?"
He gave her a thin-lipped smile. "I told you before, the Governor-General was not the source of all evil in the Confederation."
"But we've…" She swallowed. "I killed him. And you killed all the other Governors. The Thorn Circle has been killing Accountants for months! What else will it take?"
"Not much more. Hucksteen was not the Confederation. But with him gone, the Confederation will be rudderless, and I mean to keep it that way."
Alexandra, looking past her father with widening eyes, whispered again, "What else will it take?"
Her father spun around, and both of them stared at Governor-General Hucksteen. Or rather, his ghost.