Wizards in the New World

Maximilian insisted on waiting until they returned to Charmbridge Academy before he would tell her more.

“That was too easy, back at Blacksburg,” he told her. “They knew who we were. If they didn't pull us aside for inquisition then, I'll wager it's because someone is waiting for us in Chicago.”

As they emerged from 'underhill,' and Lake Michigan appeared out their window, Alexandra wrapped her locket in a small bundle, and tied it to Charlie's leg.

“Stop fussing, Charlie,” she soothed, as Charlie complained, and pecked at the bundle. “It's not like I'm making you deliver mail.” She ran her fingertips over Charlie's head and neck, and lightly stroked the raven's wings. “Just find me once I get out of the Wizardrail station.”

“I've never had a familiar,” Maximilian commented, looking at the raven. “But I must admit, that's a clever bird.”

“Wicked clever,” Charlie croaked.

“As clever as Hagar, I'll bet,” Alexandra agreed. She waited until the train was rolling through downtown Chicago, and then opened the window of their compartment. “See you later, Charlie!” She held the bird out the window, and Charlie took off with a loud caw. Minutes later, they pulled into the Chicago Wizardrail station.

After disembarking from the Roanoke Underhill, they passed the row of Portkey booths again. Alexandra saw a wizard in a red Auror's uniform step out of one of them. There was a line formed in front of the booths, though not as long as the line waiting to pass through a squad of Aurors to board the trains. A witch in expensive robes was finally permitted to walk into one of the Portkey booths, and when the door opened again, she was gone.

“If Portkeys can just teleport you cross-country, why did we have to take a train?” Alexandra asked.

“You're using Muggle words again,” Maximilian grumbled. “Portkeys are horribly expensive. They're hard to make, and they burn out quickly. There are also other problems with using them.” He glanced down at her. “You could ask Lucilla and Drucilla about that, sometime, when you meet them. They're Artificers and they work at a Portkey workshop now, I think.”

Alexandra nodded. She really did want to meet her other sisters, too. But she had no time to think about this; no sooner had they passed the lines of waiting passengers than they were greeted by a familiar woman with long black hair, wearing a sharp, business-like pants suit, looking as if she'd wandered into the Wizardrail station from one of the surrounding Muggle office buildings.

“Ms. Grimm,” Maximilian greeted her, in a perfectly polite tone.

“What a surprise,” Alexandra drawled, in a slightly less polite tone.

Diana Grimm smiled. “Maximilian, Alexandra, how nice to see you again. I hope you had a pleasant vacation?”

“We saw my father,” Alexandra told her. “He bought me an expensive robe and said he was sorry for missing my first twelve birthdays. That's it. For the most wanted wizard in the Confederation, he's kind of a deadbeat. He didn't tell us anything about his evil plans to take over the world. So can we go?”

Maximilian was making a strangled sound, but Ms. Grimm looked amused. “Not quite so fast, Miss Quick, but I appreciate your desire to get this out of the way.” She gestured, with one hand, for the two teens to precede her. “Shall we?”

Maximilian and Alexandra both sighed, and followed her.

Ms. Grimm made Alexandra wait alone in an empty room with nothing but a table and two chairs, for nearly half an hour. It was just like on a TV cop show, Alexandra thought. Assuming she was being watched, she folded her arms, tapped her foot, and acted impatient and bored, which was very easy. She wondered if Maximilian was getting the same treatment.

Finally, the Special Inquisitor entered, with two cans of soda. She offered one to Alexandra. “I'm sorry for keeping you waiting,” she apologized smoothly. “With all the extra security put in place, as a result of certain occurrences in Roanoke, I find myself doing a dozen things at once lately.”

“Uh huh,” Alexandra replied, opening the soda can. “You're just trying to sweat me, treating me like a suspect, to see if I break.”

Ms. Grimm arched an eyebrow, in an uncanny imitation of her sister. “I think you watch too much Muggle television, Alexandra.”

Alexandra sipped the soda. Then she looked down at it, frowning. What if it contained Veritaserum? True, Ms. Grimm had handed her a sealed can, but surely it wouldn't be hard to use magic...

“Worried that I put something in your drink?” Ms. Grimm asked. “You are fond of drama.”

“You're the one making me and my brother sit here and answer stupid questions.”

“I haven't actually asked any questions yet,” Ms. Grimm pointed out, in a dry tone. “But let's get to it, shall we?”

Her questions were straightforward, and while she repeated herself several times, and kept asking for details that Alexandra suspected were intended to trip her up in a lie, the woman appeared to be treating it all as a routine matter, and did not seem particularly suspicious.

Alexandra and Maximilian had already agreed on what they would tell any WJD interrogators. Maximilian had told her to tell the truth, unless she absolutely had to lie.

She admitted to meeting her father in disguise at the Cotillion. The Special Inquisitor took out what looked like a glass picture frame without a picture, and demanded a description of the wizard whose appearance Abraham Thorn had borrowed. Alexandra complied, and the long-haired blond man's face appeared in the glass, the picture slowly becoming more accurate and lifelike as she added details. Ms. Grimm had an odd expression now, and began questioning Alexandra's description.

“Are you sure this is him?” Grimm demanded, when the picture looked exactly like the man Alexandra had seen.

“Yes!” Alexandra insisted, annoyed.

Ms. Grimm stared at her thoughtfully, then put the frame back into a small satchel she was carrying. Their conversation turned to Alexandra's visit to the Thorn crypt. Here, Alexandra left out only the details of what she'd overheard; she and Maximilian had agreed on their own version of what he and his father had spoken about.

“Do you know anything about the Mors Mortis Society, Alexandra?” Ms. Grimm asked abruptly.

Maximilian had warned her that this might come up, too, and that there was no point lying about it.

“Yes,” Alexandra replied. “I'm sure Max already told you that I was invited to join them. I quit after a few meetings because they're all a bunch of creeps.” She narrowed her eyes at the Special Inquisitor. “I know you have Max infiltrating them to collect information on the Dark Convention, which is really stupid – first of all, because those losers wouldn't know any real Dark wizards, and second, because you've got no business making a high school student go undercover.”

Ms. Grimm looked at her sharply for a few seconds, then nodded.

“We expected Maximilian would tell you something,” she said. “I assure you, we won't allow any harm to come to him.”

Yeah, right, Alexandra thought.

Ms. Grimm stood up, and said, “I appreciate your cooperation, Miss Quick.”

Alexandra thought the interrogation was over, but as she got up, Grimm paused, and asked her, “Where's Charlie?”

Alexandra started; it was the first question that had caught her by surprise.

“I saw how Aurors treated people with 'Dark' familiars in Blacksburg,” she replied bitterly. “I wasn't going to let you take Charlie away.”

Ms. Grimm gave her a reassuring smile. “We wouldn't have taken your familiar away, Alexandra.”

“Well, that's a relief. Good thing I totally trust you. I won't worry about it at all next time, then.”

Grimm waved a hand, ignoring the sarcasm. “Your brother should be waiting for you outside. Until next time, Alexandra.”

“Yeah, looking forward to it.”

She thought she'd been a pretty convincing angry teenage girl.

“Muffliato,” Maximilian muttered, with his hand in his pocket, as Alexandra rejoined him outside the Wizardrail station.

“Do you think she bought it?” Alexandra asked, a little nervously.

“Oh, she's suspicious,” Maximilian replied. “But yes, I think she bought it. It's not hard to believe that our father is just a remote figure who occasionally appears to remind us that he's still alive and looking out for us.”

Alexandra nodded. That wasn't hard to believe at all. “It still seemed... a little easy.”

“You'll learn to think like them, Alex,” Maximilian said. “And then you'll see how the game is played, by our father, and by the Office of Special Inquisitions. They could interrogate us more thoroughly, every time, with Legilimency and Veritaserum. They know our father does visit us sometimes, and they're hoping he'll get careless. If he knows we're having every bit of information squeezed out of us after each time we see him, he'll always be cautious. So as long as we play mostly dumb and innocent, but not too dumb and not too innocent –”

Alexandra nodded. She looked up at her brother. “You know about me being the Secret-Keeper for the Thorn Circle, right?”

He nodded grimly. “Father shouldn't have done that.”

She ignored that. “Wouldn't you be protected from Legilimency and Veritaserum, then? If you're one of the Thorn Circle? Unless I give you up...”

“I talked to him about that.” Maximilian's mouth was set in a firm line. “We can't be sure, until it's tested, which hopefully it won't be.” He glanced sideways at her. “But since I wasn't part of the Circle when the Fidelius Charm was cast – Father isn't quite zealous enough to recruit three-year-olds – he doesn't think it will protect me.”

Alexandra frowned. That made sense, she supposed. “But Ms. Grimm made me describe Zachary,” she confessed. “Isn't that going to be a problem for him? I had to reveal his identity.”

Maximilian laughed. “Do you think that was his real name? Or that our father was the only one using Polyjuice Potion that night?”

She blinked. “But –”

He smirked. “Zachary Stanton is the Chief of Roanoke's Auror Authority. The other Aurors probably thought their boss was being quite bold, dancing with you. Now they're wondering how Abraham Thorn managed to literally dance right under their noses, pretending to be him.” Maximilian's eyes gleamed, with a trace of malice. “Considering what happened to the Governor and his men afterwards, I'll wager Mr. Stanton will be looking for a new job soon.”

Alexandra's mouth fell open, and then she shook her head, as they found the Charmbridge bus waiting for them outside the Wizardrail station.

They couldn't talk on the bus – Maximilian was joined by Martin and Pierce and Adelaide. Alexandra wished she had Anna or someone else to talk to, but none of her friends were coming in to Chicago at this time. She saw Janet Jackson and Sonja Rackham, who waved to her nervously from another booth. They didn't invite her to join them, though, so she sat alone amidst the other younger students, while Maximilian and the other Stormcrows sat up front again.

Charlie appeared outside, flapping against her window, and she quickly opened it, over Mrs. Speaks's protests. Other students were staring at her now. She ignored them as she let Charlie in and closed the window.

“Good bird,” she whispered, untying the bundled locket from around Charlie's leg. “Don't worry, you get a treat tonight.”

When they arrived back at Charmbridge, she found that Anna had arrived earlier that day, and was already unpacked.

“I would have sent you a letter, but Jingwei wouldn't have made it to Roanoke and back before school started,” Anna told her, giving Alexandra a hug. “I hope you don't spend the summer there.”

“If I do, we'll just have to figure out how to use telephones,” Alexandra replied. She hadn't actually called anyone from Roanoke, as her cell phone never seemed to work at Croatoa, but she assumed it would if she went to a Muggle town.

The Pritchards were also happy to see her, especially Constance, who seemed relieved to be handing Nigel's cage back over to her. “Nigel's an ornery critter,” she complained. “Hissed like to slay me when I tried to take him out. Had to just toss him his food, and used my wand to clean his cage best I could.”

Alexandra was quite surprised. “Nigel's harmless,” she insisted. She reached into the cage, and took out the brown snake. Nigel coiled docilely around her hands, and flicked his tongue at her.

“That's as may be, but I didn't fancy gettin' snakebit none, harmless or not,” the Ozarker witch replied, eyeing the snake warily.

Alexandra thanked Constance for taking care of Nigel, and returned to her room.

“Maybe you just don't trust other people,” Alexandra said, resting her chin on her hands, as she regarded the snake through the bars of his cage. Nigel was now coiled up around his magically heated rock, and did not seem to be paying her any attention. “I guess I wouldn't blame you.”

She was mostly talking to herself, she knew. Nigel couldn't understand her, like Charlie did, and snakes didn't recognize people anyway. But still, she felt a bond with the reptile – the shared memory of writhing helplessly on a cold stone floor, tortured by John Manuelito's wand. And that wasn't something she could have explained to Constance.

Two days passed before Alexandra and Maximilian could do more than whisper to each other in the hallways. She knew that in the final months of school, all the eleventh graders would be preparing for the Junior SPAWN. It was only 'practice' for the final SPAWN every wizarding student needed to take to graduate, but it was taken very seriously by students and teachers alike, more seriously than the end-of-year SPAWNs Alexandra and other underclass students would also be taking.

Maximilian had brought a Wand-Ready ™ SPAWN Study Guide with him when they met in the back of the library, beneath a window currently charmed to look like they were surrounded by an Amazonian rain forest. He swept his wand in a semi-circle and cast his Muffliato spell, then leaned back in his chair with a sigh.

“So when is the next MMS meeting?” Alexandra asked, without preamble.

He frowned at her thoughtfully. “Friday night.”

“What are you doing?”

He shook his head. “You don't need to know everything, Alex.” His expression was troubled.

She studied him, then sighed. “Fine. Tell me about your mission. Your real mission, and why you're doing our father's bidding.”

They heard footsteps, and Maximilian pushed himself forward, setting the front legs of his chair back on the floor. Mrs. Minder walked past, sweeping misplaced books back where they belonged with a wave of her wand. She smiled and nodded to the two students. Alexandra knew the librarian would give Maximilian one of her solemn lectures about proper library behavior if she caught him leaning back in his chair like that. They waited until she was gone, and then Maximilian clasped his hands together in front of him and leaned forward, lowering his voice despite the Muffliato spell he'd already cast.

“Underneath Charmbridge,” he whispered, “is a gateway to the Lands Below. I already know where it is. But I haven't figured out how to go through it. John Manuelito knows how, I'm pretty sure. He's the one the Dark Convention has been grooming, more than anyone else in the Mors Mortis Society. He already knows a lot of their secrets.”

“Why do you want to go to the Lands Below?” Alexandra asked. “And what are they?”

Maximilian took a deep breath. “America is an old land, Alex. The New World is just as ancient as the Old World, and just as full of secrets. But when European wizards came here, they wanted everything to be just like it was in the Old World. The problem is, back in Europe, wizards had been there for thousands of years. They controlled all the magic. They'd gotten rid of anything that could oppose them, long ago.”

“But there were wizards here already.”

Maximilian nodded. “The Indians, yes. And other beings as well. The Indians had their own way of coexisting with other magical beings. Our kind has never been very good at coexisting, though.”

Alexandra frowned, and waited for him to continue.

“At first, there were wizard wars, between the Colonials and the Indians,” Maximilian went on. “We fought just like the Muggles did. They haven't talked much about that in your Wizard Social Studies class, have they?”

Alexandra shook her head. Mrs. Middle's lectures on early wizarding America focused on how wizards had secretly protected Muggle colonists from dangerous magical beasts, and the persecution of witches during the Muggle Panics of the seventeenth century, and the establishment of the first wizarding schools in America, at New Amsterdam and Salem. Indians were barely mentioned at all.

Maximilian nodded. “The Indians didn't use wands. That put them at a disadvantage when it came to fighting us directly. But they had other ways of performing magic, and they could call on the powers that dwell in this land, and at first, the war went badly for us.”

“Us?” Alexandra retorted. “I'm not sure I'm not on their side.”

“I'm talking about the past, Alex.” Maximilian gave her a sardonic smile. “Today, the Confederation is all one big happy family of many cultures. Didn't they tell you that in your Wizard Social Studies class?”

“Yeah,” she replied. She remembered David being even more skeptical than her of their cheery lessons on unity and multiculturalism.

“Anyway,” Maximilian continued, “the Lands Below are where many of those powers dwell. Beneath the earth, in a sort of other-place where humans normally don't go, there are other races.”

“Aren't there places like that in Europe, too?” Alexandra was eager to show off her knowledge. “Like fairy mounds? Or Hades?” She had read plenty of mythology – until now, she had assumed it was only myth.

“Maybe. If there are, wizards sealed them off long ago.” Maximilian shrugged. “But Indian wizards didn't do that. They could travel through the Lands Below, and treat with the beings who dwell there. When Colonial and Indian wizards battled, Colonials usually won. But they couldn't find all of the Indians' places of power. They couldn't stop the Indians from cursing them, they couldn't capture their wizards, and they couldn't keep the beings who dwelled in the Lands Below from hunting Muggles and wizards alike. It probably took thousands of years for wizards in the Old World to master it. The New World was just as big and just as ancient, and full of enemies using magic Old World wizards didn't understand.”

“Why not just make peace with the Indians, and figure out a way to get along? I mean, shouldn't we share our magic, and then we'd both be better off...” Alexandra's voice trailed off, as Maximilian laughed, without humor.

“When have people ever done that, Alex? Might as well ask why Muggles don't just stop going to war, and why wizards don't just stop practicing Dark Arts.”

She frowned, and held her tongue, waiting for Maximilian to get to the point.

“What I've told you so far,” Maximilian said, “isn't exactly secret, though it's only a few historians who know the details. Most everyone else in the Confederation prefers the happy version we learn in school: that after a few misunderstandings, Colonials and Indians agreed to live apart. The Indians have their own Territories that are governed by the Confederation, but we don't bother them much as long as they don't let anything get loose into our Territories, or endanger the secrecy of the wizarding world.”

“Indians live on reservations in the Muggle world, too,” Alexandra mused. “I don't think they have to stay there, but I guess a lot of them do.”

Maximilian nodded. “That figures. So, what gets left out is that we cut them off at the knees, by sending wizards to the Lands Below, and making a treaty with the beings who dwell there. They gave the Colonials all the places where Indians did their magic, all the places where Indian wizards could come and go between this world and that one, and they let our wizards seal those places. After that, it was easy for the Confederation to take over the land above.”

Alexandra shook her head. “Why would these 'powers' make a treaty with the Colonials instead of the Indians? Who are they? What did they – we – give them?”

“That,” said Maximilian seriously, “is one of the greatest secrets of the Confederation. And it's what Father wants to find out.”

Alexandra looked at her brother, thoughts awhirl. “Okay...” She frowned. “He wants you to go to the Lands Below, and do what? Find out what kind of deal the Confederation made with the people who live there?”

“I doubt they're 'people,' but yes. And tell them that he can offer a better one,” Maximilian answered quietly.

Her eyes widened. “How is he going to do that?” she whispered.

Maximilian smiled. “If I knew the answer to that...” His smile faded. “I probably wouldn't like it, and neither would you.”

She shook her head. “What does all this have to do with the Dark Convention? And you said there's a gate to the Lands Below under Charmbridge?”

“Charmbridge Academy wasn't built here at random.” Her brother looked around, noticing that students were beginning to leave as library closing time approached. “This was probably once one of the Indians' places of power. And there is a passageway here to the Lands Below, one that was sealed like all the others. But there are ways to get through them, despite the Confederation's attempts to close them forever. I just have to find a way.” He looked back at his sister. “The Dark Convention knows how, because it's one of the things they study, that makes them so dangerous in the eyes of the Confederation.”

“I thought our father has allies in the Dark Convention,” she replied in an equally quiet voice. “Why doesn't he just ask them?”

“The Dark Convention isn't like the Confederation, with Governors and Territories and departments.” Maximilian shook his head. “It's a collection of everyone who doesn't like living under the Confederation. That includes crazy Radicalists, Dark wizards, unrecognized Cultures... and a lot of Indians.” He sat up slowly in his chair. “The Mors Mortis Society has existed at Charmbridge Academy for a long time. Father believes certain secrets have been handed down from one generation to the next, by wizards in the Dark Convention who know about that sealed gate. Unfortunately, he's been unsuccessful at finding out who himself. And he can't come here personally – believe me, the Auror Authority would know if Abraham Thorn actually set foot in Charmbridge Academy.”

“And the WJD hasn't arrested John yet because...?”

Maximilian smiled thinly. “I think I've almost convinced them that the MMS is entirely made up of posers, with no real connection to the Dark Convention. Either that, or I've convinced them that I don't have a future in undercover work.” He shrugged. “They never told me about the gate to the Lands Below, of course. I think what they really want to know is whether the Dark Convention has a way of opening it.”

Alexandra leaned back, and folded her arms. She stared at the table in front of her, thinking, for a long time, until the lights dimmed, and they heard Mrs. Minder's voice throughout the library, announcing that it was time for all students to leave the premises. Then she looked up at Maximilian.

“This sounds crazy, stupid, and dangerous,” she declared. “There's like a dozen different bad things that could happen to you, and you don't have any idea what you're going to do, do you? Why are you doing this, Max?”

He stared at her grimly. “Because my name is Thorn. One way or the other, I will make that name one that I and all my sisters can bear without shame. If I fail Father, maybe I'll succeed at what the WJD wants. But if I accomplish what Father wants, we may have the key to undoing the Confederation.”

“And you're so sure that what our father wants will be better than the Confederation?”

“Better for our family. Probably better for a lot of families. Certainly better for the Indians and a lot of other Cultures who are just barely tolerated.”

None of this was clear to Alexandra. But she didn't want her brother to tell her she just didn't understand. She had too much to think about.

“We'd better go,” he mouthed, as he saw Mrs. Minder coming towards them with a stern expression.

She nodded, and the two of them rose from their table, pushed their chairs in, and nodded politely to the librarian as they exited the library.

In the hallway outside, Maximilian looked down at her, with an expression of weariness tinged with relief. “Now I've told you everything,” he said softly. “Everything I know. I swear.”

“Okay,” she replied. “I believe you.”

He smiled, and put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it. “Good night, Alexandra.” And he leaned forward and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, before walking off to the junior boys' dorms.

Alexandra stood in the hallway, watching him go, thinking about the burden their father had put on her brother's shoulders, and how Abraham Thorn had persuaded his sixteen-year-old son to join a cause he probably didn't really understand much better than she did.

And she was also thinking about how she could help him. Because she knew something Maximilian didn't. She knew how to get to the Lands Below.