Eventually, someone pulled Alexandra away from where she had fallen to her knees to cradle Anna. She didn't say anything as Anna's father walked slowly to his daughter's body, like a man walking to his own execution. His lieutenants surrounded him, and then he and Anna were both hidden from sight.

Alexandra's aunt led her away and set her on a broom.

Her father lay dying. Constance was almost mortally wounded. And Innocence was gone. All this had been a terrible ache in Alexandra's chest and a constant sting in her eyes. But none of it prepared her for losing Anna.

The despair that had followed Maximilian's death was something she had suffered and eventually, slowly, left behind, though never the sense of loss. Now, pain and grief came crashing down on her, and without the distraction of fighting for her own life, it threatened to swallow her. Alexandra hardly remembered flying back to the main encampment with Diana. All she could think about was that Anna was dead, she was never coming back, Alexandra had not been there…

A hand gently touched her shoulder. Alexandra expected it to be Diana, but it was Livia. This confused her. Alexandra looked around, wondering if she'd become so out of it that she'd left Charmbridge behind entirely, somehow traveling back to the Chicago area in her fugue. But she was still sitting on a chair someone had conjured, just outside the medical tent, surrounded by MACUSA wizards and JROC cadets and Charmbridge staff and busy elves.

"Livia," Alexandra said.

"I was summoned," Livia said. "MACUSA needed Healers."

Alexandra nodded, as if this meant anything to her.

"I'm so sorry, Alexandra. About Anna." Livia's eyes were moist behind her glasses.

Alexandra closed her eyes. The grief welled up, a black wave engulfing her.

"Where is Father?" Livia asked. "Did the Thorn Circle do this?"

"Our father is in the Lands Below," Alexandra said.

"That place." Livia spoke as if she still didn't believe it was real.

Alexandra wanted to tell Livia. She couldn't tell Livia. She thought about breaking her Vow. Maybe if she brought Livia back and Livia could heal their father, he would release her from her promise. Maybe it didn't matter.

She took another breath, and tried to remember what she was doing. Did she still have anything to do? She'd fulfilled her father's last command. That was what had caused all of this.

She shook her head. "He… has a plan." She didn't know exactly what it was, but surely Abraham Thorn didn't intend to just lie down and die.

Livia wrung her hands, confused and distraught. "Do you want to see your friends?"

Alexandra took several slow, deep breaths. "Do they know? About Anna?"

"Yes. I believe Dean Grimm told them."

Alexandra thought of Constance, Forbearance, David, and Sonja being told about Anna, while still grieving for Innocence. She hadn't been there, of course. She was out here, wallowing in her own grief. Her legs felt too treacherous to stand. Even her face didn't feel like it was under her control.

Silently, Livia offered Alexandra her hand and helped her to her feet. She gave Alexandra's hand a squeeze. It was a tiny comfort.

Alexandra entered the medical tent again, to find her friends.

After the last of the Charmbridge students were taken away, Alexandra left before anyone could ask her where she was going to go or what she was going to do.

She went to the one place where neither the Confederation nor anyone else could find her—the seven-gabled house in New England where the Whites remained hidden.

Lucilla and Drucilla welcomed her, and when Alexandra began staying in her room, they left her alone. Drucilla made a few attempts to talk to her, but eventually she stopped. Every morning and evening she knocked on Alexandra's door and left food for her on a covered platter on the floor outside. Some days, Alexandra managed to drag herself out of bed to eat, but not much else.

But her mind was still active. Though the black well of grief had mostly given way to a gray fog, she found she could not simply sleep all day and let the world pass her by even if she wanted to.

She listened to the news on the Wizard Wireless, which sometimes carried the Confederation News Network, and sometimes stations taken over by the MACUSA or pirate broadcasters.

Across California, Cascadia, Deseret, Central Territory, and Texarcana, the Confederation was pushed out, as much by defection and secession as by MACUSA Regiments. Both sides had taken heavy casualties at the Battle of Charmbridge, with no clear victor, but it had hastened the rejection of Confederation authority in Central Territory. Even the Elect in other Territories were shaken by the Confederation Air Force attacking the last of the Big Four schools.

That wasn't exactly what had happened, of course, but Alexandra didn't care what propaganda the MACUSA spread.

Louisiana and Florida were effectively independent Territories, likely to rejoin either the Confederation or the MACUSA, whoever won the war. Yukon was trying to be ignored, as were the Indian Nations. Everyone was fighting the Dark Convention, and the Thorn Circle had become strangely quiet.

Occasionally, late at night, Alexandra snuck into the library. She didn't feel like studying magic, but the Whites had a sizable literature collection as well. Old novels, poetry, and plays, including Muggle works. She started reading Shakespeare.

She ignored the house's occasional attempts to trick her, even when she accidentally found herself trapped in a closet with no doors. The house stopped trying to do that after she used a Blasting Curse to free herself.

Drucilla just left food for her the next day as usual, and did not mention the smoking hole down the hall.

It was Lucilla who caught her late one night, when she made one of her library excursions. Unable to sleep, bored with flicking sparks from her wand and making them dance, and fighting the urge to conjure Fiendfyre just to see if she could contain it, Alexandra emerged from her room, shuffled down the hall to the library, and paused when she saw a light within.

More tricks from the house? Or was it being helpful for once? Alexandra entered, and stopped when she saw Lucilla sitting in a stuffed chair, reading a book, with Tiger in her lap.

Lucilla smiled at her. "I heard there was a mouse in the house."

Tiger watched Alexandra warily.

If Alexandra had barely spoken to Drucilla lately, she had not spoken to Lucilla at all. Confronted with Lucilla's pleasant smile, and an expression that was both intelligent and yet missing something that had once been there, Alexandra felt guilty. Guilty for many reasons, and letting herself feel guilt allowed other feelings to bubble up, so she shoved them all back under the gray indifference she'd thrown over her feelings like a blanket for these past few weeks. "Hello, Lucilla."

"You're very sad," Lucilla said.

From anyone else, that would have provoked a sarcastic response, but Alexandra just nodded.

"So is Dru," Lucilla said. "She's sad when she talks to me. She thinks I'm not all here. I am, and I'm not."

This was just making Alexandra sadder too, so she said, "I'm sorry to disturb you. Good night, Lucilla."

She turned to go, but was arrested by Lucilla's voice. "Sit down and talk to me, little sister."

It wasn't exactly phrased like a request, but her tone did not make it sound like a command. Alexandra hesitated, then turned back around and sat down in a chair across from her.

Lucilla closed the book and set it on the end table next to her. She ran a hand over Tiger's fur. The cat purred, but didn't take its eyes off of Alexandra.

"Are you going to stay here for the rest of your life?" Lucilla asked.

"Do you want me to leave?" Alexandra asked.

"You know better, Alexandra."

"Then I guess I'll stay here until you do."

"You are welcome to stay here as long as you like. But I… lost much of myself." Lucilla's expression was suddenly vacant, and then it sharpened again. "I can take care of myself, though Dru thinks I can't, but it's true that I'm not always sure who I am anymore or what I'm meant to do. Do you feel that way?"

"I don't know," Alexandra said. She didn't want to discuss her feelings.

"I think you have to decide whether you're broken or not," Lucilla said.

Alexandra frowned and remained silent.

"Drucilla has become overly protective of both of us," Lucilla said. "She knows you shouldn't be shut up in a room all day, but she doesn't want you to go back out into the war."

This gnawed at Alexandra. Part of her no longer cared, thought she'd done enough. But she didn't know the fate of her father, and by now even David and the Pritchards and her other sisters had all lost contact with her. They might think she was dead again. She supposed this was pretty terrible of her.

And the wizard war wasn't over. She knew that from listening to the Wizard Wireless. She hoped the MACUSA would be able to end the Deathly Regiment, but the Confederation was still out there. What had happened to tearing it all down?

Let my father do it. Let them do it. Let someone else do it.

"Drucilla still goes out sometimes," Lucilla said. "She's always the cautious one, but we need things."

Alexandra sat up straighter. "She should have told me." And realized immediately that perhaps Drucilla would have, if she'd ever answered the knocking on her door.

If Lucilla was thinking the same thing, she didn't say it, just smiled gently. "Don't worry. She's very careful. I think I was the reckless one. That ghost who shows up now and then… was he really my lover?" She wrinkled her nose.

"I thought I banished him," Alexandra said.

"Dru did too. But you know, this house collects spirits of all kinds. They're very hard to get rid of permanently. Anyway, Dru received an owl while she was out. She has been deliberating over whether to share it with you."

"An owl? From who?"

"Well, that's the question. It was addressed to her, but I think it was really meant for you. Neither of us know who it's from."

"I don't understand," Alexandra said.

Lucilla reached between the pages of her book, and withdrew a folded piece of paper. She handed it to Alexandra.

"I'm pretty sure Dru would have given it to you soon," Lucilla said. "She was just trying to decide whether she needed to pound on your door harder. But I don't sleep much nowadays, so…" She shrugged.

Alexandra took the letter and unfolded it. It was very brief, written in a dark, elegant, cursive script:

"Where oh where is his most troublesome daughter, wonders her father."

Alexandra curled the paper in her hands.

"Father wants me back," she said, though she knew the message hadn't been written by her father. "It's time for me to rejoin the war."

Lucilla's calm face showed concern. "Must you?"

Alexandra rose to her feet, walked over to Lucilla, and took her hand.

"Tell Dru not to worry so much about me," she said.

"You're going to leave without even saying good-bye," Lucilla said.

"I'll be back." Alexandra kissed Lucilla on the cheek, and retrieved her pack from her room. The house didn't even try to stop her as she left.

The first thing Alexandra did, after leaving the seven-gabled house, was try to speak to her father through her magic mirror. The mirror didn't even ripple or cloud over, just continued to show her her own false reflection. She hadn't seen the sun in too long. Her hair had gotten longer, and her skin had gotten paler. She was probably as skinny as she'd been since escaping Eerie Island, the muscle tone she'd acquired the previous summer long gone. In the mirror, she looked like a pretty, ethereal ghost, the sort of girl who died of "consumption" in the old books she'd been reading.

She crossed the river and charged her phone at a Muggle coffee shop. She deleted the many messages she'd received. She called Claudia and listened to her sister berate her, without arguing or talking back.

Brian didn't respond to her texts. She hoped it meant he was in class, and not blocking or ignoring her.

When she texted David, he called her back directly.

"Where are you?" he asked.

"You know better than to ask that. Feds, remember?"

David uttered a few curses for the feds, then said, "Where've you been? I thought we talked about you disappearing and not telling anyone if you're alive or dead."

Alexandra didn't answer for so long that David filled in the silence. His voice became low and accusing. "You weren't even at the funerals."

Alexandra closed her eyes and almost choked on the lump in her throat. "I… couldn't."

"Okay," David said. There was another long silence. Then he said, "After Max died, you kinda went crazy. Didn't tell nobody what you were planning, and we know how that turned out."

"I'm not trying to steal a Time-Turner, David. I know I can't bring her back." It was almost unbearably painful to say this, but she forced the words out.

"So why are you finally calling?"

"How are Constance and Forbearance? And Sonja?"

"Constance and Forbearance are with their family. Sonja's with the Charmbridge students who can't return home. There's a few of 'em. The teachers and your sister set something up. And yeah, they all know she's preggo now. I wish I'd seen Dean Grimm's face when she heard that."

In spite of herself, Alexandra laughed. It hurt and her face immediately twisted into a rictus of grief.

"So are you back in the game or what?" David asked.

"The game?"

"You know what I mean. The war don't stop 'cause people die, Alex. Don't think I ain't feelin' it too. But we ain't done."

"No," Alexandra said, "we're not."

"We need you."

"Who's we? Nobody needs me anymore."

"Bullshit. Aside from your friends and your sisters? There's about seven hundred elves who need you."

"Say what?"

"That's how many have been displaced so far by the war—and by the Thorn Circle. You were right about the Charmbridge elves, but turns out, they're just a fraction of all the elves you and your old man have set free, and they've started showin' up here. We don't know what to do with 'em. They ain't soldiers. They just wanna shine shoes and mend uniforms and bring everyone breakfast." David sounded frustrated. "It's like they can't unlearn how to be slaves."

"What am I supposed to do about them?"

"They all worship your father. And apparently a lot of 'em think you had something to do with them being freed. I think…" David paused. "I think they don't belong here. That's what some of 'em say. What you keep calling the World Away, they call the Other Side. This ain't their world."

"Are you saying I should… send them all back to the World Away? What if they don't want to go?"

"That's why we need you. They'll talk to you. You're—" David pitched his voice so it sounded high yet solemn, a fair imitation of an elf. "—A daughter of Thorn."

"Livia's a daughter of Thorn too."

"Yeah, they follow her around too. She's teachin' some of 'em to be, like, medics. But she don't know about this World Away stuff."

"Elves don't tell me much either. I've asked."

"Maybe they can't tell you much. Maybe you and your father are the only ones who can figure out how this… Compact works."

Me and my father. Alexandra wondered what her father was doing right now. What were Medea and the rest of the Thorn Circle doing?

"How is Mr. Chu?" she asked.

"How do you think?"

There was a long silence. When David spoke again, his tone was less harsh. "He's dealing. Still in charge. I don't talk to him much. I don't think he blames you."

Alexandra stared off into the distance, looking out over the river, still holding the phone to her ear. A submarine slowly churned through the water towards the naval base just out of sight.

"Don't blame yourself, Alex," David said. "We all—"

"I'll talk to you later, David." Alexandra disconnected and turned her phone off.

Alexandra returned to Salem, since it was close to the Whites' house. As she had suspected, the crack she and her father had opened to the Lands Below was still there. It was invisible to Muggles, even at night, but it ran through the town and Alexandra didn't think it would always require Witch's Sight for someone to stumble through—from either direction.

Salem was full of ghosts. Aurors and Regimental Officers and some who had once been her father's allies. Everyone who had died here when the Thorn Circle had come to kill the Governor-General.

Alexandra wanted to blame it on the crack to the Lands Below, but she feared it had nothing to do with that, that Hucksteen had been right to blame her. As she walked into the ruins of what had once been the Salem Witch's Academy, ghosts recognized her and began following her. They shouted insults and accusations at her. Even after she threatened to Banish them, they threatened to go tell the Aurors she was here.

"I can't put you to rest!" she yelled. She was in the ruins of the wizarding part of Salem now. Wizards had begun rebuilding, but where she stood, where the Thorn Circle had struck, there was nothing but charred rubble that still smelled like smoke.

"You can!" An elderly wizard in fancy robes pointed an accusing finger at her, and she realized he had been one of the Governors they had cornered in that great room. She was probably standing where he'd died. "Your death will set us free!"

"Says who?" Alexandra asked. "Did the Most Deathly Power tell you that? Or do you just believe what you want to believe, from rumors of a prophecy you heard third hand? Everyone who thinks killing me will solve their problems has been wrong."

"Well," said a witch Alexandra recognized as a former Thorn Circle member. "We can hardly know that, since you're still alive."

Alexandra laughed bitterly. "So all I have to do is die." She shook a fist at the ghostly assembly. "Begone. Or else." She shook her wand in her other hand, and embers glowed anew in the rubble at her feet.

The spirits gathered around her formed a cold, hostile wall, and having experienced Hucksteen's sword in her chest, she was ready to carry out her threat if any of them came closer. But they didn't. Instead, they faded, leaving behind a lingering chill in the air. Alexandra knew some of them probably would go snitch on her, but she didn't care. She forced open the split in the world that had brought her here and stepped through, into the Lands Below.

The other side of the crack in the world that had opened in Salem was a fissure in one of the rocky red cliffs surrounding the Thorn Circle's redoubt in the Lands Below. Alexandra walked out into the open as if she had stepped through a doorway. She surprised a band of Lagaru, who immediately screamed rabbit-like screams and rained arrows and javelins down on her. She deflected these with a Shield Spell and scattered the Lagaru with swarms of golden hornets and a cloud of thorns. She called down a lightning bolt for good measure, and they high-tailed it away from her in all directions.

Once, Maximilian and I had to trade lives to come and go here, she thought. Even their father hadn't known how to reach the Lands Below, yet alone return from it. Now she traveled between worlds almost as easily as she stepped between Territories in her Seven-League Boots, and creatures that had once been fearsome and terrifying to her were annoyances. How had she learned so much, and gained so little?

She had intended the lightning bolt to announce her arrival as much as scare away the Lagaru, and it worked. The encampment was not as empty as last time. Witches and wizards, goblins and hags, and a small band of furry canine-headed beings, all gathered to watch her as she strode up to her father's keep. She spotted no elves among the group outside, but she did pause when she saw a small, furry rabbit-person following at the heels of a big bearded wizard in shabby, threadbare robes that looked as if they had once been fine and expensive. The Lagaru, when it caught her gaze, bared its sharp, jagged teeth at her. It was carrying a teapot.

Alexandra shook her head. There was a story there, but it wasn't her concern. She knocked on the door with the eye in it. The eye didn't even open before the door did. Alexandra walked inside, and was confronted immediately by Oren.

"Your father is not seeing visitors," he said. Behind him, a slovenly boy Alexandra's age and a fat witch with a big black witch's hat who wasn't much older appeared to be his new sidekicks. She wondered what had happened to the other ones. Had they been killed at Salem? Were they elsewhere here in the Lands Below? Had they deserted the Thorn Circle and gone back to the world above?

That was another story she didn't really care about. She ignored Oren and walked for the stairs.

Oren cleared his throat and followed her. The teenage boy and the other witch looked nervous as they trailed after, as if they were worried about being called upon to stop her.

Oren repeated, "Your father is not seeing visitors."

Alexandra whirled on him. He jumped and took a step back.

"Oren, did I ever apologize for tying you up and making you look like an idiot?" she asked.

Oren turned red. "No, you did not."

"Then don't make me do it again." She ran her fingers over her hickory wand, while she felt the other one growling in its hidden sheath under her shirt. Oren turned redder, and his younger accomplices looked more nervous.

Alexandra proceeded up the stairs, letting alarm spells tell Medea and her father she was coming.

Quimley greeted her at the top of the stairs.

"Abraham Thorn is sleeping," Quimley said in a low voice. "His daughter should not disturb him."

"I won't disturb him. But I want to see him," Alexandra said. "He sent for me."

"Did he?" Alexandra heard the voice before she saw the speaker. Medea slunk out of the shadows and gave Quimley a small smile. "It's all right, Quimley. You know Abraham's daughter is always welcome here."

"Yes, Miss Medea," Quimley said. Alexandra could read nothing in the elf's voice. "Quimley only returned because Alexandra Quick is here. Quimley goes now."

"Quimley, wait—" Alexandra said, but Quimley was gone.

Medea studied her, in that feral way that always put Alexandra on the defensive.

"What is Quimley doing, when he's not here?" Alexandra asked.

"He is doing your father's business. As is the rest of the Thorn Circle. We all continue to carry out his wishes."

Alexandra didn't miss the jab in that comment. "I carried out my father's wishes. He didn't give me any more commands after the last one."

"That would have been hard, when you didn't return."

"Is he awake?"

Medea pursed her lips. "No. He sleeps still. He fights the curse that would kill him."

"Have you gone to the Indian Nations and asked their Healers? Have you gone to Livia? Have you looked for other Healers who might know about this kind of Dark Magic?"

"There is no cure, Alexandra."

Alexandra's voice rose. "How do you know that?"

Medea stepped closer, her eyes as cold as Alexandra's were hot.

"Why are you here, child? If you want to try again to persuade your father to let you bring Livia or some Indian shaman here, you're wasting your time."

"I'll let him tell me that."

The two of them stood almost nose to nose, eyes locked, for several seconds. Then Medea stepped back, and gestured towards the door to the same room where they had taken Abraham Thorn last time.

He was lying in the same bed, under the covers. His head was on a pillow, and Alexandra could see only a loose shirt under the blankets. His face was still ash gray. She had to watch him for a long time before she was certain he was still breathing.

"Father," she said.

He didn't answer her.

"He sleeps," Medea said. "I would not suggest waking him."

"He has to wake up eventually."

"One hopes, yes. But in the meantime, he battles the ghost sickness on his own, and you remain bound not to tell anyone of his condition."

"I know what I'm bound to do," Alexandra said, through gritted teeth. "But why did he send for me then?"

Medea arched an eyebrow. "Did he?"

Alexandra found her coy smugness infuriating. "You wrote that he was wondering where I am! I assume that came from him—unless you're the one who summoned me back."

Medea's face showed an unfamiliar expression: confusion. "I wrote what?"

"The owl. The note sent to my sister. 'Where oh where is his most troublesome daughter, wonders her father.'"

If Medea was feigning ignorance, she was very convincing. "I know nothing of this. Abraham wakes rarely, and he did not send for you. I'm sure he would be happy to see you when he wakes again. But I can't say when that will be."

Alexandra said slowly, "You… didn't write a note. Or send an owl for me?"

Medea shook her head. "I am intrigued by this mystery, but frankly I have more important things to do. If you would like to sit by your father's bedside and wait, I won't stop you. But the business of the Thorn Circle is not over."

"What is the business of the Thorn Circle now?"

"The same as it ever was. Making the world burn, until the old is replaced by the new."

Alexandra studied her father's face, and his almost imperceptible breathing. She walked to the side of his bed, self-conscious with Medea standing there watching her, and put a hand on his cheek since she couldn't reach his hands under the covers. His skin was cool to the touch.

"Father," she said. "Please wake, and be well again. For your daughters. Please wake and tell me I can bring help. Please."

She stood there for a long time, and Medea waited with her, patient and silent.

Eventually Alexandra stepped away from him, and turned to Medea once more.

"What exactly is there still to burn?" she asked.

"Are you asking out of curiosity, or because you want to help?"

"Maybe both."

"Ah." Medea smiled. "I am not going to indulge your curiosity. If you want to help, on the other hand…"

"Who's issuing orders, since my father is asleep and no one but us and Quimley know that?"

"I continue to carry out Abraham's wishes."

"Do you?"

Medea sighed. "You may stay as long as you like, Alexandra." Her gaze rested on Abraham Thorn for a moment. Then she turned and sauntered out of the room.

Alexandra was conscious of the quiet here, and the darkness, and her father's deathlike stillness. Speaking in the now darkened room, she said, "I don't understand who wanted me to think you wanted me here. But I did come. I don't know what else I can do, Father. I… don't trust her. I won't stay and take her orders."

She fell silent. Outside, she could hear almost no movement, even in the other parts of her father's redoubt, and none from outside.

"If you want me," she said, "call for me. I'll come. Even if I am your most troublesome daughter."

She waited again, hoping for some sign from him, a word, even a noise. But he remained as deathlike as before.

Alexandra turned and left. She didn't see Medea or Quimley on her way out, and no one spoke to her or tried to stop her.

Not far from the town where Alexandra and Hela had found Franklin Percival Brown was a village that until recently had been small and invisible, tucked away like Mahomachi and New Amsterdam and the Salem Witches' Academy, connected to Muggle streets and neighborhoods and yet hidden from their sight.

Now, it was a field headquarters for the MACUSA, and when Alexandra walked up the road to the biggest house in the village, it was lined with tents of every color packed along either side of the main street. Besides wizards, she saw goblins, elves, Clockworks, an occasional ghost or ghoul visible through an upper-story window, and sitting on the porch of one old house, a pair of fox-headed men in loose, ill-fitting robes. They were both smoking pipes. One of them turned his gleaming yellow-eyed gaze on Alexandra as she walked past. His fox's tail swished behind him, nimbly avoiding the rockers of his chair.

The tents weren't all housing MACUSA officers. There were wizards of many Cultures here, and once Alexandra would have been fascinated by what looked like an impromptu Goblin Market. There was a similar seedy air despite the pastoral surroundings. Witches and wizards sat at tables drinking Firewhiskey and playing Snap'Em and Wizard Poker. Through the flap of one tent, Alexandra saw a hag spinning a roulette wheel. A village establishment with a sign marking it as a grocery store seemed to have a party going on inside.

Nowhere did Alexandra see any Majokai or Chinese wizards, until she got closer to the big house at the center of the village. Here it was less raucous and there were more uniformed MACUSA officers around. Alexandra almost stopped in her tracks when a lizard man crossed the street in front of her. The lizard man wore only a leather breechcloth and many bracelets, necklaces, gold and silver rings around his tail, and feathers and polished stones fixed to the top of his skull.

The lizard man did not glance at her but continued walking through an iron gate, unchallenged by either of the uniformed wizards guarding it.

When Alexandra reached the big house, most of the MACUSA sentries were Chinese. And there were more elves… so many elves. Running up and down the walkway and the stairs in and out of the house, dashing up and down the street on innumerable errands, or sitting on the lawn stitching uniforms, polishing boots, mending chairs, plates, sections of fence, garden hoses, lanterns, spears, an old refrigerator, and a disassembled diesel truck engine. The grounds were thick with elves. There were even elves on the roof and sitting on tree branches.

Humans and elves alike recognized Alexandra. No one stopped her as she walked into the house. Some of the elves began following her, and she wasn't sure whether to start questioning them or shoo them away. Instead she asked them, "Can you tell me where to find David Washington?"

Their eyes all lit up with recognition. The nearest pair bobbed their heads.

"David is in the ASPEW Office," said one. He bounced on his toes and for a moment Alexandra thought he was going to take her hand to lead her there, but he settled for bounding a few paces ahead, looking back to make sure she was following. She did, accompanied by a dozen more elves. None of the witches and wizards spoke to her, though she heard whispered conversations as she passed by.

The "ASPEW Office" had once been a spare bedroom in this mansion, small and cramped with slanted ceilings. Now it was filled with a desk, several chairs, three bookcases, and two couches. An ancient personal computer that was probably older than Alexandra sat on the desk. Neither it nor any of the electric lights were on.

Elves packed the room, crowded onto couches, atop the bookcases, and everywhere except the two chairs occupied by humans. One was an elderly witch with thick makeup and curled black hair whom Alexandra didn't recognize, and the other was David. Both of them had thick books piled on the desk next to them. They appeared to be a mixture of magical theory texts and magelaw volumes. The witch was reading through the book in front of her, tracing her spot with one finger while she peered through a pair of spectacles. David's head was down on the desk. He sat up quickly when the elf who had brought Alexandra in said, "David! David! Alexandra Thorn is here!"

The elves had all been muttering to each other in low voices, but a hush fell over them as all eyes fixed on Alexandra.

She cleared her throat. "Alexandra Quick, if you don't mind. I'm not ashamed of my father's name, but I have my own."

"Yes, Alexandra Quick!" said the elves in a chorus.

David rose to his feet. His hair had grown out more. He was wearing a red sports jacket over a blue t-shirt. He blinked at Alexandra for a couple of long, painful moments, and then pulled her into a hug.

As she hugged him back, the elves whispered to themselves. She overheard one of them saying, "David and Alexandra Quick is lovers!"

"What? No!" She stepped away from David. "We're just friends! Hugging doesn't mean we're lovers!" She glared at David as if this were his fault.

He looked abashed. "They're, uh… overly interested in my love life, like someone else I know." He shook his head and turned to the woman, who had put down her spectacles to wait patiently for the two teens to acknowledge her. "Alex, this is Gloria Brandywine, Esquire, formerly the President of ASPEW and Senior Partner at Brandywine, Marshall, Specter, and Creed."

Ms. Brandywine held out a small, bony hand. "Pleased to meet you, Ms. Quick. No need to belabor introductions—your reputation precedes you."

Alexandra shook the woman's hand. "If you're not the President of ASPEW anymore, who is?"

"Technically no one, given that ASPEW was declared seditious and outlawed within the Confederation."

"Oh," Alexandra said. "And… your contribution to the war is to keep ASPEW running?"

Ms. Brandywine's face folded into stern disappointment. "Ms. Quick, you know better than most the horrors of the Deathly Regiment, but I hope you don't think, as so many MACUSA representatives do, that the centuries-long enslavement of elves is a triviality to be addressed only after we wizards have fixed our own problems? Because this is one of our problems, and I would argue, a proximal cause of the wizard war."

"Okay," Alexandra said. "No, I don't think that." She turned to David. "You asked me to come. Is this what you wanted me for?" She gestured at the room full of books and elves. She wondered where Bran and Poe were right now.

"Nah," David said. "I don't see you bein' a wyrm while the war's still on."

Alexandra smiled at the familiar term Charmbridge students used for students who spent all their time with their noses in books, studying… students like Anna… She looked away and blinked rapidly, wishing there was somewhere to look where there wasn't an elf staring back at her. When she could speak again, she asked, "Then what am I supposed to do? I see there are a whole lot of free elves here. What does MACUSA plan to do with them?" She noted that none of the elves winced at being called free.

"Yeah, that's kinda the problem," David said. "MACUSA don't know what to do with 'em, and we're afraid if we let 'em just hang around, they'll end up becoming bound again."

"It is elveses nature to serve," one elf said. This provoked muttering among the elves, and a frown from David.

"It is elves' nature to be helpful," Ms. Brandywine said. "Though I'm not sure 'nature' is the right word when ancient magical compacts are involved. I think had we never brought elves to this side, some of them might be considerably less helpful."

"Yeah," Alexandra said. "I've met unhelpful elves."

A shiver went through the elves in the room.

"You," Ms. Brandywine said, "have broken many seals to the Lands Below, and I understand you are also able to open portals to the Other Side, and have even passed through the Veil itself and returned?"

Alexandra nodded. "Yes. I've done all that."

Ms. Brandywine's eyes widened a little. She glanced at David, then continued. "The Compact, which was copied and recopied down through the centuries, depends on the Lands Below being closed and elves staying on this side. By opening those places you are breaking the Compacts that keep so many elves bound. For now, it leaves them free and without purpose, but eventually, they will seek out a place for themselves in this world. Or elsewhere. I believe many elves in this world might eventually come to resent how they were brought here and kept in bondage, even if the evidence points to a contract willingly entered into, ages ago. Mr. Washington is distressed at how… subservient elves appear to be, but I do not believe this is their natural condition."

"So you're saying someday elves might want to get revenge for being enslaved?" Alexandra glanced at David, and then at the elves.

"We doesn't want revenge," one elf protested.

"David says we should want justice, not vengeance," said another.

"What's justice?" Alexandra asked. "And how come they just call you David?"

"I told 'em to," David said. "And Ms. Brandywine and I have been tryin' to figure out what justice might look like for elves. It's a hard problem. I mean, it's hard in the No-Maj world too."

"And what is it you think I can do, besides freeing them?" Alexandra asked.

"I think they need to leave this world behind," Ms. Brandywine said.

"What?" Alexandra looked around at the assembled elves, who were all listening to the conversation with rapt attention.

"They came from the other side," Ms. Brandywine said. "Your so-called World Away."

"I've told them about it," David said. "And the ones who aren't still desperate to become house-elves again, they agree."

"This is what you want?" Alexandra asked the elves. "To leave this world behind and go to the World Away? Is that really where you came from?"

"We doesn't remember," said an elf who looked old enough that if any elf could remember, it would be her. "But we know tales since the oldest days."

"Tales remembered in our bones," whispered another elf, a brawny little fellow wearing what looked like a makeshift blacksmith's apron. His head was squat and he had tufts of wiry black hair thrusting unevenly around the crown of his skull, and Alexandra wasn't certain whether the shape of his skull was a natural deformity or the result of some mishap or worse.

"David says we should have a place of our own," said an elf sitting on top of one of the bookshelves.

"A homeland," David said.

"Okay, wait a minute," Alexandra said. "None of you know what you're talking about."

Everyone—David, Gloria Brandywine, and several dozen elves—blinked at her.

"First of all," Alexandra said, "the World Away isn't exactly one place. I can't promise I can send you back to… wherever you came from. Second, from what I've seen, some of those places are already inhabited."

"Maybe by our kin," said an elf who looked like a wizened, pink-skinned baby.

"Or maybe by things that eat elves," Alexandra said. "Or maybe your kin won't exactly welcome you back. I've met some of your kin in the Lands Below. They aren't nice, to either of our kind." She turned on David. "You don't know anything about the World Away! What are you doing, filling their heads with nonsense about an elf homeland? What makes you think I can just open a door and send them all there?"

"We saw you do that, Alex," said a small elf perched on a stack of books piled on one of the chairs. He wore a frayed wool cap and discarded bits of clothing that had once been Charmbridge uniforms.

Alexandra immediately recognized him, and the elf sitting next to him. "Bran and Poe!" How had she missed the two of them? The room was filled with elves, so they had blended in with the rest. She stepped towards them, wanting to scoop them into a hug, then paused. They hadn't greeted her when she entered—maybe they were mad at her.

"Alexandra Quick can open the World Away," Poe said. "And we knows from talking to Em what else Alex can do."

Alexandra sighed and shook her head. "Every time I've done those things, I've been winging it and hoping it turns out all right. Even when I helped Charmbridge evacuate. I needed your help then."

"Yes," Bran said. "And you will have our help again."

"I don't see how this works at all."

"Well, maybe I kin help clarify it a bit," said a deep voice behind her. It was a soft Ozarker drawl, but when Alexandra spun around, she didn't recognize the tall, broad-shouldered man filling the doorway, though there was a certain resemblance, aside from his obvious Ozarker garb. He wore a checkered shirt beneath overalls and suspenders, and held a wide straw hat dangling from one hand. His other hand was empty.

He had a neat, reddish-brown beard and bright blue eyes, which fairly twinkled in his otherwise taciturn face. "Miss Quick," he said, "I have heard a patch 'bout you." He held out his free hand. "Able Pritchard. Right pleased to finally make your 'quaintance. I hain't seen you since you was a bairn."