Wizard-Dueling

Alexandra wanted very much to tell Anna about Maximilian. She knew she could trust her friend not to tell anyone else. But this wasn't just her secret – it was also her brother's.

Maximilian did start treating them no more harshly than he did the other new wands in JROC, and increasingly, he hardly shouted at Alexandra at all. But she found herself not liking it when he caught her holding her wand incorrectly, or handling her broom with less precision than the other JROC mages, and so she put more effort into doing it right. And even Adelaide and Beatrice complimented her on her uniform.

In the week leading up to Thanksgiving, everything seemed peaceful, though members of the Mors Mortis Society still gave her dark looks in the hallways. Alexandra was less worried about herself than about other kids who might have offended John Manuelito or Sue Fox. She waited each morning for Tomo to come down to the cafeteria, and she even kept an eye on Stuart and Torvald, who often bore the marks of curses they inflicted on one another in their games of hexem.

Darla and Angelique began sitting together in the cafeteria again, much to Alexandra's amazement. She finally cornered Darla's roommate after Transfiguration class one day, and asked her, “Why haven't you turned Darla in?”

“We signed that contract! I don't want to be cursed,” Angelique whispered. “And besides,” she added, not meeting Alexandra's eyes, “she'd be expelled, for good.”

“She should be.”

“So why haven't you turned her in?” Angelique countered.

“It wasn't my familiar she almost killed. I can't believe you're still talking to her!”

Angelique frowned. “She was scared,” she said quietly. “They – you know who I'm talking about – they were going to do things to her, or to her familiar, if she didn't bring them someone else's. That doesn't make it right, and I'm still angry at her. But...” The other girl looked away, biting her lip.

“But what?” Alexandra demanded.

“She's my friend,” Angelique whispered. “And I'm worried about her.”

Alexandra stared at her, and found herself unable to come up with a rebuttal.

“I hope you're worried about Honey, too,” she muttered, and walked away.

Alexandra thought that Angelique had reason to worry about Darla. Darla was spending less time with her classmates, and hardly spoke to Alexandra and her friends at all. Other than Angelique, Darla's peers now seemed to be almost entirely Mors Mortis Society members, and Alexandra saw her mostly hanging around with John Manuelito, Wayne Reeves, and Tony Masterson, laughing at their jokes as if they were a constant source of wicked amusement.

The company she kept, and her infamous attempt to cast a Killing Curse, had given Darla a reputation, and Alexandra was beginning to think she enjoyed it. Alexandra herself was still regarded with suspicion and even fear by many students (something she was beginning to take more notice of, after Maximilian's warning about how their father's reputation would affect them), and though she'd denied it to her friends, there were moments when she enjoyed the way she made other kids nervous. But after seeing the sheer terror she'd inspired in Tomo Matsuzaka, she enjoyed her “Dark” reputation much less. The fact that Darla now seemed to be embracing hers puzzled Alexandra.

Darla isn't my problem, she told herself. It wasn't as if they'd ever really been friends. And she resolved to stop worrying about Darla Dearborn.

“Quick,” Maximilian called out on Wednesday afternoon, the day before Thanksgiving. The JROC students had just been dismissed by Colonel Shirtliffe, and Alexandra and Anna had almost reached the exit from the gymnasium. Anna stiffened, but Alexandra turned, with a neutral expression. She hadn't really had a chance to speak to her brother since the previous week, outside of JROC drills. They didn't have any classes together, and seventh graders (other than Darla) didn't usually hang out with upperclassmen.

Maximilian spoke in a casual tone, unlike his usual bark. “If you're interested in applying some of that wandwork we've been practicing, a few of us are going to get together this afternoon for some dueling practice.”

“Dueling practice?” Alexandra's eyes lit up.

“Strictly voluntary,” he added, as Anna stared at Alexandra, and then at Maximilian.

“Yes!” Alexandra replied eagerly, and then noticed Anna's look. “Umm, I mean...”

“You can come too if you like, Chu,” Maximilian said, sounding more like the contemptuous, condescending JROC officer they were used to.

“No, thanks,” Anna muttered.

“No, thanks, sir, or no, thanks, corporal!” he snapped.

“Yes, sir. No, thank you, sir,” Anna responded, through clenched teeth, and turned around and stomped away.

“Stop being a jerk!” Alexandra hissed.

Maximilian smirked. “Stop being a jerk, sir!” he whispered, and then gave her one of his heavy claps on the shoulder that nearly knocked her sideways. While she glared at him, he gave her a wink, and then rejoined his fellow Stormcrows. All of them snickered as they walked away, but Alexandra saw Martin wink at her as well.

“You're actually going to go?” Anna asked incredulously, back in their room, as they were changing out of their uniforms.

“They'll teach us dueling. Real dueling, not that pretend stuff we did on Halloween!”

Anna was completely unmoved by Alexandra's enthusiasm. “You mean that pretend stuff you did when Darla threw a pretend Killing Curse at you?”

Alexandra sighed. “Wouldn't you like to get something useful out of JROC?”

“No!” Anna exclaimed. “I'd like to get out of JROC! And you're actually going to go somewhere with Maximilian King, who made you fly into a tree? And Martin Nguyen, who's probably the reason Darla has gone crazy?”

Alexandra frowned. She almost started to defend Maximilian, and then realized that she couldn't blame Anna for thinking she was nuts.

“Beatrice will be there, too,” she said.

“Oh, that makes me feel better! Like she wouldn't stand there laughing if the boys decide to tie you to a tree and summon a Hodag to eat you?”

“Summon a...?” Alexandra squinted at her friend. “Okay, aren't you being a little bit ridiculous?”

“Right, I'm always being ridiculous when I tell you you shouldn't do something you've already decided to do,” Anna fumed. “Until afterwards, when it turns out I was right!” As Alexandra stared at her, Anna pulled on her weather-proof red cloak over her robes. “Go ahead and have fun with the Stormcrows. I'm going to the aviary to send a letter to my parents.” She stalked out.

“Don't you think she's being a little ridiculous, Charlie?” Alexandra asked. She held out her hand, and Charlie flapped across the room and landed on her wrist.

“Troublesome,” said the raven.

Alexandra stared at the bird. “Oh no,” she groaned. “Don't you dare call me that!”

“Troublesome vexes, Troublesome woes,” recited the raven.

“Who taught you that?” she demanded angrily.

Charlie made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snicker.

“I was going to take you outside with me,” Alexandra said, “but if you're going to insult me, you can stay here in your cage.”

“Alexandra,” cooed her familiar.

“Hah.” She snorted, but allowed Charlie to remain perched on her shoulder as she walked out of the residential wing where Delta Delta Kappa Tau hall was located, and made her way to one of Charmbridge's back entrances, to the lawns and athletic fields outside.

She found Maximilian, Martin, and Beatrice all sitting by a sandpit where older students sometimes played Horseshoes & Hand Grenades. They had brooms leaning against the wooden rails around the pit. Alexandra frowned, realizing she didn't have a broom of her own. She walked over to the older teens, feeling a bit self-conscious. She had rarely seen any of the Stormcrows out of uniform. Now, Maximilian and Martin wore rough brown leather dusters over their pants and plain shirts, while Beatrice was wearing heavy outdoor robes. They all had on flying boots. Alexandra was the only one dressed like a Muggle, in her jeans and windbreaker.

Martin grinned. “Troublesome brought her raven.”

“You don't get to call me that,” Alexandra snapped.

Martin raised an eyebrow. “I thought the whole school called you that.”

Alexandra glared at him. Mage-Corporal Nguyen had not bullied and berated her in JROC the way Maximilian had, but he was always smirking and making condescending remarks, and she hadn't forgotten his cruel treatment of Darla. She didn't like him at all – until recently, she would have said she disliked him more than any other Stormcrow except Maximilian. She was still undecided about Max.

“Don't pick on her, Martin,” admonished Beatrice. “That's her brother's job.”

Alexandra and the three BMI students stared at each other. She couldn't read any of their expressions. Finally, Maximilian broke the silence. “Come on. Let's fly.” He picked up his broom.

Charlie cawed, and Alexandra tilted her head to the side to avoid the raven's flapping wings. “I don't have a broom,” she pointed out.

Maximilian leveled his broom and swung one leg over it, while Martin and Beatrice did the same. “My broom can carry two easily enough,” he told her. And when Alexandra gave him a skeptical look, he raised an eyebrow. “What? I'm an excellent flier.”

She frowned, and got onto the broom behind him. She slid her arms around his waist, and he rose quickly, with the other two Stormcrows and Charlie following.

“Where are we going” Alexandra asked.

“How about the Glade?” suggested Martin.

“Can't bring seventh graders to the Glade,” Beatrice replied, which of course made Alexandra much more interested in going there, but Maximilian nodded.

“Down in the valley,” he decided. “It's out of sight of the school, even from students with telescopes.”

Alexandra thought students, at least underclass students, weren't supposed to leave school grounds either, but she wasn't about to bring this up. She held onto Maximilian as he skimmed low above the treetops, heading in the same direction she had raced with him the day she'd flown into a tree. She looked over her shoulder, and saw Charlie flapping hard to keep up with them.

“Come on, Charlie, you slowpoke!” Alexandra called. Charlie cawed indignantly.

“Not many wizards have a raven familiar,” Maximilian commented.

“I know.” Alexandra watched the trees rushing past below them. “Because supposedly they're Dark. You don't believe that, do you?”

“No.” He shook his head. Then, in a quieter voice she could barely hear as they reached the edge of the forest and hurtled out over the wide valley beyond, he said, “Father has a raven, too.”

“I know.”

He turned his head to look at her over his shoulder, and then looked ahead again, and leaned forward. They plummeted at a breathtakingly sharp angle, so it seemed that Alexandra was looking almost straight down at the murky river wending its way through the brown and gold trees at the bottom of the valley. Her stomach seemed to leap upwards, and she instinctively tightened her grip around her brother's waist, but she was exhilarated, not scared, and she laughed out loud. Maximilian flattened out just above the treetops, so quickly that his boots tore leaves and twigs loose in their wake, and Alexandra's stomach was now doing flip-flops. She heard Charlie screaming above them, and then Maximilian zipped around the trees in a descending spiral that brought them to a graveled riverbank, and braked hard enough that without the broom's Cushioning Charms, the broomstick would have left bruises on them both.

“Show-off!” snorted Beatrice, as she and Martin descended towards them at a more reasonable speed. Maximilian and Alexandra looked at each other, and they were both grinning. Then they both looked serious again and turned to wait for the other two Blacksburg students to land. Charlie fluttered down out of the sky and landed on Alexandra's shoulder.

“So are we really going to practice dueling?” Alexandra asked.

“No,” answered Martin, getting off his broom. “Actually, we're just going to use you for target practice. Start running.”

“Hah, hah,” Alexandra scoffed, while Charlie squawked at him. Her eyes darted briefly in Maximilian's direction, and then away again. She knew Martin was joking, but after almost being lured to her death several times last year, and being Crucioed only a week before, it wasn't that funny. She was suddenly hearing Anna's voice in her ears again, warning her about what the Stormcrows might be up to: “I'm always being ridiculous, until it turns out I was right!”

“Yes, we're going to practice dueling,” Maximilian told her. “But not formal dueling, like you'll learn in a dueling club. Real wizard-dueling.”

“What's that?” Alexandra asked.

“Dueling without all the bowing and timeouts and rules about what spells you can throw,” said Martin.

“We do still restrain ourselves,” Beatrice said. “We don't want to actually hurt each other.”

“Much,” Martin added, with a wink.

Alexandra was intrigued now, though it sounded like nothing more than a rougher game of hexem. She watched as Maximilian, Martin, and Beatrice each took up a position approximately a dozen paces apart, at three points of an imaginary triangle. Maximilian was closest to the river, with his back to the water. He gestured at Alexandra. “You stay out of the way, and just watch. Don't interfere!”

“Okay,” she said. She stood by a large rock, a few yards from him.

The three older students each held their wands at the ready, and seemed to be waiting for some common signal. They looked at each other, and Maximilian and Beatrice nodded. “Go!” they all yelled together, and suddenly the late-afternoon shadows in the valley were banished by flashes of red and blue and yellow light, as the three Stormcrows waved their wands back and forth, shouting hexes and jinxes that went sizzling and zinging through the air at each other. They stood their ground for a few seconds, and then Beatrice dived and rolled to avoid a flash of fire from Maximilian's wand, while Martin backed away towards the trees as he tried to block one hex after another being directed at him by the other two. Some went wild, and some narrowly missed him as he ducked and weaved.

Maximilian didn't move, just kept throwing hexes at his friends, and whipped his wand about to block their return fire. One stray bolt struck the rock near Alexandra's head, showering her with stone fragments. She jumped, and then crouched lower. Martin yowled in frustration when Beatrice caught him with a Leg-Locker Curse and he toppled onto his side. He tried to Petrify her, but she rolled out of the way and threw a Severing Charm at the tree over his head. As a branch fell across him, she spun about just in time to catch a Stunning Spell right in the chest. She toppled backwards and her head hit the ground hard enough to send gravel flying. Maximilian smiled triumphantly, and walked over to check on his groaning friends.

Alexandra had watched the entire duel with an open mouth. Although they hadn't thrown any truly deadly spells, the jets of flame and the flying tree branches were definitely capable of causing injury. She knew they'd never be allowed to toss spells like that in Charmbridge's Dueling Club.

“That was so cool!” she breathed, standing up and walking over to join Maximilian.

“Cool?” Maximilian looked at her and raised an eyebrow. Beatrice accepted a hand from him, and was rising slowly to her feet.

“Ready for another round?” Maximilian asked them.

“Yeah, let me just take this damned Leg-Locker Curse off,” Martin grumbled, pushing the tree branch off.

Alexandra's eyes were wide as she watched them all take up positions a second time. Once more, they all began throwing curses at once, and as before, Maximilian stayed rooted in place, while Martin and Beatrice began what Ms. Shirtliffe called 'tactical maneuvers.' This time the two of them concentrated their fire on Maximilian, forcing him to block more, and a bright orange fireball from Beatrice's wand nearly singed his eyebrows off. She had her wand pointed directly at him for a moment, while his was too low, pointing at the ground, and she grinned as the incantation for another jinx formed on her lips. Then a sheet of gravel suddenly flew out from under her as Maximilian gestured, taking her feet with her. She landed hard on her back, Maximilian whipped his wand around and hurled a curse Alexandra had never heard before that caught Martin right in the face, and then turned to hit Beatrice with another Stunning Charm before she could stand up. This time, she collapsed and didn't move.

“Wow!” Alexandra exclaimed. She stared at Maximilian, who was cool and untouched.

“Grmmln Mrx whynd harfto sqmlsh mmeem fush?” Martin mumbled unintelligibly, with his hands over his face. It looked as if his skin were dripping.

“Check on Bea,” Maximilian ordered, and walked over to help Martin.

Alexandra ran to the fallen girl's side. Beatrice was unconscious, but groaned and opened her eyes when Alexandra shook her shoulder gently.

“You all right?” Alexandra asked.

“Fabulous,” Beatrice gasped. She took a deep breath. “Stunning Spells hurt, in case you didn't know.”

“Some spells hurt worse,” Alexandra muttered, while Beatrice struggled to a sitting position. “I thought you had him for a moment.”

“So did I.” The other girl sighed. “But Max usually wins, even when it's two against one. He's very good.”

Alexandra nodded.

“You want to try, Alexandra?” Maximilian asked. She looked up at him. She wasn't used to him calling her “Alexandra” instead of “Quick.”

Martin's face was still looking a little soft and misshapen, and he was moving his jaw as if trying to make it work properly again.

“Okay.” She wondered how much this was going to hurt, but she didn't hesitate.

Maximilian smiled wryly. “You're not ready for no spells barred. We'll start with some basics.”

She glanced at Martin and Beatrice – they were now wrestling over a camera, as Beatrice was trying to snap a picture of Martin's doughy, squashed face, and he was trying to prevent her – and then she turned her attention to Maximilian's lessons.

He spent the next half hour showing Alexandra how to stand, and how to loosen her wrist just enough to keep her wand ready to flip in any direction, while holding her fingers tightly enough to avoid losing control of it. Then he allowed her to cast the few jinxes she knew at him, while he did nothing in return, merely blocked everything she threw. She tried catching him by surprise, but it was hopeless.

“Now block,” he commanded. “Stupefy!” The red beam of light flashed by her head and she waved her wand at it, a split-second after it had already passed her by.

“Too slow,” he snapped. “Stupefy!” This time it hit her in the chest even as she was moving her wand to block it. She staggered backwards, and her body went numb from her hip to her neck, but she knew he'd hit her with only a fraction of what he could have. Grimacing, she tried to block the next one, and actually succeeded. She beamed, and then he zapped her in the head.

She saw red and blacked out. When she opened her eyes again, the side of her head hurt. Beatrice was holding her up, brushing gravel off of her face.

“Smile!” said Martin, and a flash blinded her as he took a picture of her, sitting on the ground, dazed and battered.

She glowered at him, and then looked at her brother. “Again.”

Maximilian laughed. “Not tonight. It's almost dark.” In fact, down in the valley, they could barely see the last rays of sunlight reflecting off the cliffs above them. “Besides, if we bring you back any more bruised, Colonel Shirtliffe will think we dragged you out into the woods and beat you.”

Maximilian put a hand on her shoulder as they walked back over to their brooms. “Not bad, though,” he commented.

Alexandra received a letter from her mother on Thanksgiving Day; owls, unlike the Post Office, didn't stop working on holidays. She gave the owl a treat, and it hooted and flew back out the window of her room. As she walked down to the cafeteria for dinner, she unwrapped the string around the letter, wondering just how her mother addressed letters to her. She'd never seen a postal address for Charmbridge Academy, but she knew her mother wasn't sending owls.

As usual, Claudia Green mostly wrote about mundane details – bothersome administrators and patients at the hospital where she worked, Archie's fishing trip, and the unusually dry weather in Larkin Mills this fall. But at the bottom of the letter, she concluded:

“Lastly, I think you'll be pleased about this, Alex: we're finally moving out of this apartment, and guess where we're moving to? They've just finished rebuilding our house, and after struggling with the insurance company for almost a year, we've finally received our settlement. You know that Archie wasn't eager to keep our old property – financial details you wouldn't be interested in, but it will mean a larger mortgage than we had before. But I finally talked him into it. So, when you come home for Christmas, you'll be coming back to 207 Sweetmaple Avenue. I hope you're as happy as I am!”

Alexandra was indeed surprised at her reaction to the thought of going back home – even if it wouldn't really be the same house. She swallowed, and then cleared her throat as she saw Maximilian in the corridor ahead of her. She was almost never homesick, and never admitted it when she was.

“What's that?” he asked, pointing at the paper in her hand.

“Letter from home,” she replied, as if it were nothing particularly interesting. She tucked it into her pants pocket as she stood in front of him.

They were both in uniform, even though there had been no classes today. Wearing uniforms to the Thanksgiving feast was optional for the JROC, but most of them chose to do so. Alexandra, after thinking it over, had agreed to let Beatrice Hawthorne and Charlotte Barker, one of the Charmbridge JROC's ninth graders, help her assemble a proper dress uniform. Now she felt a little silly. But Maximilian, she had to admit, looked magnificent. The Stormcrows' dress uniforms had ominous black crows bearing lightning bolts blazoned on their chests, and they moved.

“Not bad,” he commented, looking her over. He adjusted a cord looped around her shoulder. “You're starting to look like a proper wand, Quick.” He smiled at her when she gave him a sour look, then let the smile drop for a moment. “This is the first Thanksgiving I've ever been away from home,” he admitted.

“Really? Isn't Blacksburg a boarding school, like Charmbridge?”

He nodded. “But my family lives nearby, so I always get released to go home over Thanksgiving weekend.”

“Oh.” She found herself thinking of home again.

As if reading her mind, her brother looked down at her and asked, “Your parents... you said you have a stepfather. Is he kind to you? Has your mother taken good care of you?”

“Yeah, sure.” She shrugged. “They don't know I'm a witch. But they're okay, I guess, for Muggles.”

“How can they not know you're a witch?”

“I'm not allowed to use magic when I go home,” she muttered. She heard the Boggart speaking in her mother's voice again: “Do you really think I don't know what you are?”

“But still, they ought to know. I mean, what do they think you're learning all year?”

She shrugged again. “Muggle stuff, I guess.”

He frowned. “It's not right, having to pretend to be a Muggle when you're not at school.”

“You're not one of those fanatics who thinks Muggles are inferior, are you?”

“Of course Muggles are inferior. They can't do magic,” Maximilian replied, as if he were simply stating an obvious fact. When he noticed her scowl, he added, “But it's not their fault. I don't have anything against them.”

Alexandra didn't find that answer very satisfying, but decided not to start arguing with him.

“Want to go flying on Saturday?” he asked.

“With Martin and Beatrice?”

“No. Just us.” He regarded her seriously. “I thought I might teach you how to turn faster and brake harder, and what to do if you're about to lose control of your broom.”

She looked back at him, with an equally serious expression. “Only if you promise there won't be any collisions with trees.”

His cheek twitched, as if he were trying not to wince. Then he noticed Alexandra struggling to keep a straight face.

“If there are, it won't be my fault.” He smiled slightly.

She smiled back. “Okay.”

They walked into the cafeteria, which had been converted into a banquet hall for Thanksgiving, and was now decorated with pumpkins, squashes, and multicolored ears of corn growing from magical mini-cornfields planted right where the serving lines were normally located. These produced fresh, hot popcorn when shaken. The Clockwork servers were gone; house-elves prepared the Thanksgiving feast, a tradition they looked forward to as much as the students did, despite protests from ASPEW.

Many eyes turned in their direction as Maximilian and Alexandra walked into the cafeteria together. He looked down at her, and whispered, “See you Saturday.”

She nodded, and walked over to join her friends at the table where most of the seventh graders sat, while Maximilian joined his fellow BMI students.

“Well, ain't you decked fine!” declared Constance, as Alexandra sat down.

“Ain't seen macaroni like that since the Regiment visited the Ozarks for the last Jubilee,” agreed Forbearance.

“Yeah, you look great,” Anna said sullenly. She was the only JROC student who wasn't in uniform, and she had left their room in disgust when Charlotte and Beatrice came to help Alexandra put hers together.

“Thanks,” Alexandra replied.

“Max looks pretty good, too,” giggled Angelique. Alexandra rolled her eyes. Darla had once again gone home for Thanksgiving weekend, and Angelique almost seemed more cheerful.

Dean Grimm gave a brief speech, before the house-elves began materializing food on their tables, and everyone stuffed themselves on turkey, ham, duck, deer, rabbit, and pheasant, accompanied by potatoes, corn, yams, greens, biscuits and bread, and a hundred other treats.

It was a splendid feast, and even Anna relaxed and stopped looking so resentful. David had begun telling the other girls how Muggles celebrated Thanksgiving.

“'Course that's just the fairy tale version people like better than the real story, just like here,” David concluded.

“How do you mean?” asked Constance.

“Never mind,” David grumbled, catching the looks Alexandra and Anna were exchanging. “Let's just give thanks to the Indians who ain't here because white people killed them off.”

Angelique looked uncomfortable. Constance and Forbearance looked more so.

“How about giving thanks to the house-elves while you're at it?” Alexandra suggested. “Is that your third helping?”

He flushed, and didn't bring up Indians again. Despite his sullenness, the rest of the feast passed pleasantly enough, with Constance and Forbearance asking more innocuous questions about Muggle holiday traditions. David became enthusiastic once more as he described NFL football to the Ozarkers. He seemed to be trying to engage Angelique's interest as well, but she looked bored.

Everyone shuffled slowly back to their rooms when the feast was over. Alexandra was regretting wearing her uniform now; she felt as if she'd been squeezed into it. She unwrapped a handkerchief full of stuffing and dumped it onto her desk. Charlie made an eager sound, and fluttered down to the desk to begin gobbling the crumbs. Alexandra looked in Nigel's cage, and sighed. “Sorry, Nigel. I thought about bringing you some Cockroach Clusters, but I don't think snakes like chocolate.”

Nigel stuck his tongue out indifferently.

“Did Max ask you to wear a uniform to the feast tonight?” Anna asked. She had been quiet all evening.

“No. I just felt like it,” Alexandra replied. She shrugged off her jacket, and put a hand over her mouth to cover a burp.

Anna frowned at her. “We're only in JROC because Dean Grimm made us,” she said. “You're letting Max bully you, aren't you?”

“No,” Alexandra insisted, annoyed. “He's really not that bad, Anna.”

Anna stared at her. “Not that bad?” Her voice had an unfortunate habit of rising to a squeaky pitch when she was upset. “He's worse than Larry Albo!”

Alexandra sighed. She was tired, and she didn't want to argue with Anna. “Whatever.” She peeled off her clothes and pulled on the baggy long-sleeved shirt she wore to bed. She ignored Anna's incredulous look as she hung her uniform carefully in the closet, and then brushed her teeth before going to bed.

Maximilian's flying lesson was much better than anything they'd done in JROC. Without him shouting at her and making her fly in rigid patterns, she was able to relax and push herself more. They took their brooms down into the valley again, because Maximilian still wasn't supposed to be taking younger students out flying without adult supervision. In fact, younger students weren't supposed to fly beyond school grounds at all; they were both risking serious trouble if they were caught. But that didn't bother Alexandra, and it didn't seem to bother Maximilian. He challenged her to a race again – this time flying above the trees – and beat her easily. By that afternoon, she was able to duplicate a few of his maneuvers, but the difference between growing up as a wizard, and being introduced to brooms and magic at age eleven, was obvious.

Sitting on a rock by the river, eating leftovers from Thursday's feast, they heard the rumble of a distant motor. Along the 'Muggle' side of the valley, separated from Charmbridge Academy by the Invisible Bridge, there was a two-lane highway, and cars and trucks occasionally passed by in both directions. Alexandra didn't even know exactly where they'd be coming from or going to. She'd heard Muggle hikers sometimes came down into the valley, too, which was why it was off-limits to students, but that didn't stop a lot of juniors and seniors from sneaking down here.

“I want to practice dueling again,” she said.

Maximilian smiled. “Okay. Not today, though.”

“You promised you'd teach me all the magic you know.”

“I can't teach you everything I know in a few days. I had to go to school for six years, and you will, too.”

“But you know spells most eleventh graders don't.” She studied him. “Did he teach you any magic?”

He chewed his turkey on a roll, looking out across the river. “Maybe a few charms,” he admitted.

She and Maximilian hadn't talked much about their father. She was curious about him, but he insisted he really didn't know him much better than she did – he had only met him a few times since he was little. She asked him about everything she'd read about Abraham Thorn – his alliance with the Dark Convention, his trip to Britain to meet with Lord Voldemort, the Thorn Circle's attempted assassination of Governor-General Hucksteen.

“He's not evil, Alexandra.” Maximilian sighed, and stretched out on his back by the riverbank, though it was cold now, even with the sun overhead. He held a hand up to shade his eyes. “He's not a Dark wizard, like they say. He probably does have ties to the Dark Convention – he knows a lot of people. Not everyone in the Dark Convention is a curse-monger or a poisoner. Some of them just hate the Confederation. Enemies of your enemy, you know?”

“Why is he an enemy of the Confederation?”

“Politics.”

She frowned. “Politics” seemed like an awfully poor excuse to become the most wanted wizard in the Confederation.

“Why did he get married and divorced so many times, and have so many kids and then never see them?”

Maximilian frowned and sat up. “He does see us, when he can,” he said seriously, looking at her. “You'll get to meet him, Alexandra. I'm sure he wants to see you.”

“Maybe not,” she replied. “I'm just a half-blood, after all. Maybe he never even expected me to be a witch.”

“How could any daughter of Abraham Thorn not be a witch?” Maximilian scoffed. He shook his head. “Alexandra, I can't answer all the questions you have about him. Only he can. I'm sure he will, someday.” He rose to his feet. “Come on, we should get back.”

“I want to fly some more,” she said. “And learn some more hexes.”

“Soon,” he promised. “Not today.”

She studied his face. “You have a meeting tonight, don't you?”

He looked back at her gravely. “It's better if we don't talk about that.”

“What are they having you do now?” she asked quietly.

He shook his head. “Stop worrying.” He held his hand out. “Accio broom!” His broom flew into his hand.

Her eyes widened. “Teach me that!”

“I didn't start learning Summoning Charms until tenth grade. I'll start teaching you – another day – but it won't do you any good if you aren't learning the basics in your Charms class.”

“I'm doing fine in class,” she grumbled. “But we're just studying Ringing Charms and Sticking and Unsticking Charms.” Why the teachers acted surprised that for the last week, kids were being glued to walls and floors, and hallways were echoing with the pealing of bells, all over school, she had no idea. She'd had her own feet stuck to the floor several times a day, but she'd gotten good at quickly Unsticking herself.

“Like I said, you need to learn the basics.” They got on their brooms. “We've got SPAWNs in a month. I hope you're studying hard for them.”

“Every day,” she replied, rolling her eyes. The Standardized Practical Assessment of Wizarding kNowledge was given to every student in the Confederation twice a year. Some kids made quite a big deal over them; since Alexandra's parents would never see her results, she was happy as long as she didn't look bad, or get put back in remedial classes, as had happened after her first SPAWN.

When they landed back in front of the gym, after taking a circuitous route that made it seem as if they'd just been flying around the school, Alexandra spotted Darla outside. She was raking leaves with the Clockworks, something Alexandra had had to do last year as part of her own detention. Right now, though, Darla was staring at her and Maximilian. Alexandra smiled and gave a mock-cheerful wave. Darla turned back to the Clockworks she was supervising.

“You really aren't doing anything... bad, are you, Max?” Alexandra asked quietly, as they put their brooms away.

He looked at her, and shook his head. “Nothing for you to worry about, Alexandra.”

“Alex,” she said.

He raised his eyebrows, puzzled.

“I guess if I can call you Max, you can call me Alex, right?”

He studied her a moment, then smiled slowly. “Right.”

“But not in public.”

“Right, in public you're still a hexed-up new wand, Quick.” He grinned at her, and then patted her cheek, and Alexandra knew he was doing it just to embarrass her. She glowered at him, without really feeling much anger, as he walked away, waving over his shoulder. When she turned around, she saw Darla still staring at her. Alexandra snorted, and went inside to find Anna and the Pritchards.