Akingbade pressed his thumb into the warm wax and let the seal bite. The map on the far wall pulsed with slow lights. Red for hostile. Amber for undecided. A thin chain of blue beads that once ringed Europe had gone out four months ago and stayed dark.
"Status," he said.
The clerk at the side table shuffled notes that were already straight. "Detentions confirmed across the bloc. Total personnel affected… one thousand nine hundred and eighty three, sir. We have no access to the detainees, no diplomatic pouch and no travel windows."
"Two thousand," he corrected. His voice scratched. "Not one thousand. We round up when we count losses. Read the list."
She obeyed. Names, departments and empty positions.
He stared at the blue beads that were not there. North and east of the continent belonged to the other side now. Their seals flowed on roads his couriers once used. Their customs burned his writs. His own idea had turned the knife. Cut the lanes, starve them, force their hand to open talks. Instead, the markets shut and never opened again. Trade bans did not affect them.
A runner slid in, "Sir, fresh birds from Madrid and Ottawa."
He broke the seals. The news did not change. Spain held. The Americans still spoke the language of committees and patience. Canada waited in Canada's own way. Mexico stayed in the room but watched the door. South Africa had split. Some conclaves still wrote their minutes under the ICW crest. Others did not.
"Warehouses?" He did not look up.
"Another loss in Valencia. Reserves at Ronda have been emptied. Pens at Toulouse burned. Creatures were gone in most cases. Lists enclosed of missing eggs, hides, and cores. The signatures on the wards show an expert's touch. They dismantled the wards and reconstructed them to flag our personnel as hostile. We lost sixty eight experts."
He rubbed a knuckle along his jaw. "Who are they?"
The clerk risked a glance at the great map. "Sir… China and India still register as unaffiliated. The Egyptian cities send silence. Israel writes on other matters and a word on their political standing. The Arab Nomads in the desert answers follow. The islands of Java and Bali send polite notes and no stance. Japan tilts a little more each week."
He nodded once. The list tasted like ash. Neutral did not mean friendly. It meant watching.
Dumbledore had been their public face in Europe. According to the Prophet, he was sent to Azkaban. The other side waved the fact like a banner. Albus had liked banners. He had also liked secrets. There was nothing useful to salvage from either.
Akingbade crossed to the shelves and pulled a ledger bound in cracked green leather. House catalogues. Private holdings. Places the Confederation never touched because it was wise to leave the old dragons on their hoards. It was the main reason many of Grindelwald's Generals were roaming free. Black, Diablo, Nacht, he traced the names.
House Black. The record on their branches read like a warning charm. Deep practice in dark and black craft. Vaults of grimoires that turned even his senior censors quiet. Portugal's House Diablo with its bloodline 'experiments' and the strange folding craft they called spatial art. Most of the members were killed in one of their attempts to open a gate to a hell plane, and he couldn't be happier if the rest would follow. House Nacht with ritual work that ran like iron nails through oak. He thought of Germany's old circle of stones and the way the night hummed there if you stood still and listened. Then Egypt, the old cities with clean names. Memphis. Thebes. Amarna. Dynasties that never wrote to the Confederation unless they chose to. The ledgers did not say who ruled in those houses now. It was not clear if the names belonged to sons or to the same men who once spoke to pharaohs. It was Egyptian Magicals who taught the world to split a soul. The ledgers did not say that either. They did not need to.
He closed the book and let it thud.
"We have one card left," he said. He did not dress it up. 'Dirty as a gutter and twice as useful.' He thought and felt the sting of what he was planning. He was going to betray the Magical World and put them under the mercy of Muggles to gain control.
The clerk's quill hovered. "Muggles."
He looked at the ceiling where the ward lattice glowed faintly like old honey. "Do not say it like a curse. The governments know we exist. They have known for a long time. They recruit from the fringe of our schools. They test in basements. They put charms on clipboards and call it research. They fail because no one opens the old rooms to them. Without our ancient heritage, a wand is a stick. Without mentors, a graduate is a child with a firework."
"You plan to work with them?" The clerk said, flat and certain.
He walked back to the map. Put a finger on London and dragged it west across the ocean. "I want leverage and time. The other side has both, for now. If we bring the right ministers into the right rooms, we split their council tables. We make them ask questions that the other side will not answer. We remind them that we are aware, and if they do not want magical problems, they should work with us."
The clerk's mouth pinched. "Sir, the Pact."
"Sixteen hundreds," he said. "Kings and councils and a promise that we would keep apart. We kept it when the world was small. The world is not small anymore. They have wards on river fortresses and glass towers. We knew their locations. Vauxhall Cross. Wellington Barracks. Rooms where their guards sign oaths." That was only Britain. He moved his finger south towards the continent. "There were more, and we need them now. They ran their own circles under our noses, and we let them until now."
Silence took the office. The runner, forgotten by both of them, shifted his weight and made the floor creak. Outside, a distant lift chimed and then jammed on a higher floor where the stone had moved again.
Akingbade drew out a plain sheet and wrote a single line.
Contingency Meridian.
He sanded the ink, folded the sheet, and pressed the green seal again. The wax cooled under his thumb.
"Send this to the New York office," he said. "Hand to hand. If they ask for a second copy, there is none."
The runner took the order and left at a near trot.
The clerk spoke to fill the space. "Sir… if we step into that river, we will not step out again. The countries that still carry our crest will expect us to put theirs first. The countries that left will say we have proved their fear."
He put the ledger back on its shelf. "I am not searching for fair. I am searching for a purchase. We climb out of this, or we go under. That is all." He paused. "I need a list of every private house still in our column that owns a library worth the name. I will not ask for their secrets. I will ask for their counsel."
She nodded and moved at once. The scratch of ink steadied the room.
He went to the window slit. He could taste dust in the air. He sat back and turned his gaze to the ICW crest, a council that called itself supreme and now could not buy passage on a safe road.
He let the next order stand in his mouth until it did not taste of pride. "Invite the ambassadors from Spain, Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Three days from now. I will show them what we still control."
"What is that, sir?"
"Law, records and protocol. The things that keep a world from breaking."
He faced the map again. The blue beads would not return because he wanted them to. They would return when the other side felt they could. Or when he made them understand that a split world costs more than a joined one. The second path would take cunning and patience. Perhaps a little help from the very people the Confederation was created against.
He blew out a slow breath. "Prepare a second file," he said. "If we must speak to Muggle ministers, we speak on our terms."
The clerk's quill paused. "And if they say no."
"Then we learn how to live in the dark and stop pretending we are above some moral lines."
--
Corvus stood over the long slate bench and watched Rookwood work. The ex Unspeakable had the vials in a strict grid. Left column for squib lines. Right column for matched wizard lines. Labels were neat. Cool air from a rune plate kept the blood fresh. The Nest was quiet enough that the tick of a brass timer marked every second.
"Markers are holding," Rookwood said without looking up. "The squib samples from House Volkov show the same dormant sectors as the British ones. Different bloodlines. Same inactive sectors."
Corvus made a note. The patterns were there. Whole stretches that should have sung with magic were asleep. He tapped the corner of the parchment. "We keep pairing different bloodlines. We need to identify the cause. Send for two more lots from Krafft and Nacht holdings. Let the Druids work on them and the Muggle patterns."
--
The timer rang. Rookwood reset it and bent to a viewing charm. Across the lab, a scry plate sizzled and drew a thin line of light that curved like a river on a map. Wards were reacting to the awakening nature. Corvus felt it in his bones before the glyphs finished drawing. It was the first call of Imbolc.
Messages came in waves. Owls, elf pops, green fire in a shallow bowl. Reports, short and clipped, from every place that had chosen their side. Corvus read and moved. He opened a window and let the current pass through the room. Clean, cold air bit his cheeks.
Scotland lit first. Circles on wet heather. Torches in iron brackets. Ritual masters in plain wool, hands bare to the weather. They turned the land wards until the wind pulled straight through the stones and carried the smoke from east to west. Lambs were the blood price there. Their innocent blood went to the array lines, and the lines answered. The air lost its stale taste.
Across the North Sea, covens on the Frisian coast set bowls of salt and milk on black sand. The chant was low and without flourish. The wind rose and pulled the rot out of the marsh and harbour. In Prague, the circles were chalked on old flagstone. In Lisbon, the small conclaves used river water and lemon leaves. In the steppes near Omsk, antlered masks and plain knives. In Ulaanbaatar, three dozen masters from allied tribes ringed a stone cairn and let the wards breathe as if the city were a living chest. Every site had paid the blood price. Chickens. Goats. A stag on the Baikal shore. The price is paid and named.
From the Atlantic edge to Vladivostok, the pattern held. Wards opened and vented. Old grime lifted. Magic came through like a cold front and left behind a sky without haze. No summons was sent to the states that still adhered to the ICW. Their ley lines stayed dull. Their magic was stained.
Imbolc was the time for Purification, and the new faction was gifting their magic to nature, with hundreds of rituals conducted as the first signs of spring began to appear. The earth itself took a breath after the corruption of decades. At last, Mother Magic was free.
--
Rookwood set his palm on the bench. He frowned. "Feel that?"
Corvus nodded. The lab itself had changed pitch. The hum in the stone was a note higher. He walked to a shelf and pressed his thumb to a thin glass disk. The aether meter brightened by a ring. "Cleaner," he said. "Not stronger, but more ...Pure."
Dispatches kept coming. Goblin forges in the Erzgebirge flared white for a breath and then settled to a steady blue. Centaur bands near the Urals sent word that star paths no longer pulled sideways. House elves in a dozen towns reported that binding oaths felt less sticky on the tongue. Corvus underlined each field note and moved to the next.
By night, the first ritual closed. Imbolc had taken the dust and given back a clear floor. Spells cast in its wake formed tighter circles. Wand motions needed less force. Even the silence had a different weight. Corvus set two matched vials under the lens again. The same dead sectors looked thinner now. He did not say it aloud. He wrote it in the margin. Possible lift in dormancy. Verify with a second run.
--
Spring pressed forward. Word went out for Ostara, and the lines warmed to the answer. This time, more hands joined. Not only witches and wizards. Goblins stepped into the outer rings with hammer heads held high. Centaurs set their hooves at the quarter points. House elves came with bowls of bread and salt and set them at each gate. The land felt them and opened.
From Caithness to Galicia, from the Black Forest to the White Sea, circles filled. In Norway, they set green boughs on the snow and burned last year's straw. In Silesia, the Ritual Masters chalked clean circles on coal dust. In the Kazakh plains, they used mare's milk and rye. In the taiga, a line of elders walked to a frozen stream, opened a vein on a rabbit's neck, spoke thanks, and watched the water carry the price under the ice. The hides and bones were kept for tools and food. Nothing wasted. The act was simple and exact.
At each site, the spring lines were drawn from east to west and back again until the pull balanced. The chants were not grand. Short phrases. Old words. The point was not power. It was a measure. Balance in, balance out. Where the ICW still held sway, the wards stayed shut. Where their allies had fallen back, the air stayed stale. Elsewhere, the breath of the land evened.
In the Nest, the aether meter rose another ring. The rune plates on the benches glowed steadily. Rookwood's hands shook once as he cast a viewing charm. He cursed under his breath and cast again. "Same pair, same prep. Different response."
Corvus leaned in. The dormant sectors were still there, but the edges looked more lively. He could almost see a seam that had not been there a month ago. Not open. Not yet. A seam all the same. He felt the urge to push. He did not. Measure first. He wrote another note. Repeat with matched cousins from the Krafft line. Compare after the equinox only.
Rookwood turned from the bench. "The ban on ritual and dark magic was the cause for the decay in Magic," he said, voice flat. "We let it rot and fester in the ley lines for decades. Then we blamed the Muggleborns for the smell."
"It is better now," Corvus said. He did not smile. He did not allow himself even a nod. He only wrote another list. Samples to pull. Houses to pair. Sites to revisit after the next rite.
Night came again. Ostara closed with quiet bells and low drums. In every allied country, the last bowls were lifted. The blood was buried with salt. The ground was tamped flat. Children carried the last greens to the door lintels. The air in the lab settled to its new note.
Corvus capped the final vial of the day and set it in the right hand rack. "Log it," he said. "Then sleep. At dawn, we start the relative runs. I want Krafft, Volkov, Greengrass, and Nacht by noon."
Rookwood gave a tired nod. The brass timer clicked into the next hour. Somewhere in the far east, a circle opened and closed for the last time that night. The ward held, the world felt a fraction cleaner. That was enough for now.