Alexandra Quick and the Thorn Circle

Murder in the Woods

"How could you let him take her?" Alexandra screamed at Dean Grimm, who was now leaning against Dean Price while Mrs. Murphy fussed over her, applying burn-healing paste to her chest. A dozen other members of the staff and faculty were gathered around, including Mr. Thiel. Someone had unpetrified him, and now he was glowering alternately at Ms. Grimm and Alexandra.

"He would have killed her before any of us could have uttered a word to stop him," replied Ms. Grimm. "Now stop screaming, Miss Quick."

"What is he going to do with her? Why aren't you chasing him? Why are you all standing around like idiots?" she shouted.

"That will be enough, Miss Quick! I assure you, we are doing everything we possibly can." Ms. Grimm waved the school healer aside. "That's fine, Jean." She advanced on Alexandra, and caught her chin in her hand and forced her to look up. Dean Grimm's gray eyes were not cold, now - they were gleaming and furious.

"You," she hissed, "are acting like a child! A hysterical, shrieking child! You are doing your friend absolutely no good by carrying on in this manner, so control yourself and act like a witch!"

Quivering, Alexandra closed her mouth, and met the Dean's gaze, though it was taking all her self-control to hold back both tears and more shouting.

"Good," Grimm whispered, and released her.

"Please," Alexandra said, her voice trembling. "This is my fault. We have to save her."

"Yes," Grimm said.

Thiel cleared his throat. "Excuse me, Dean Grimm, but I'm taking charge now. Effective immediately, all staff and faculty will answer to me."

Ms. Grimm turned to face him.

"When senior Justice Department wizards arrive, I will discuss with them the measures to be taken," Grimm said coldly. "In the meantime, you will stay out of the way and be quiet."

Thiel bristled. "As the WDJ agent in charge -"

"- it will be very embarrassing if your superiors find out that you were rendered ineffectual by a pair of twelve year-olds," Grimm said, with a sharp smile. "That wouldn't bode well for the future career of an ambitious young WDJ agent, would it? So if you'd like that little detail to be conveniently left out of my sister's report, you'll be silent and do as I say."

Thiel closed his mouth, though if wizards could shoot curses from their eyes with a thought, Ms. Grimm would have dropped dead on the spot.

"I want you to take Miss Quick to her room," she said to Thiel. "And see to it that she doesn't leave, because I assure you she'll try. I hope you can manage that."

Both Alexandra and Mr. Thiel were glaring at the Dean now.

"Please," Alexandra forced herself to say. "I want to help."

"You've done quite enough already, Miss Quick. Now go with Mr. Thiel. Stay in your room. We will get Miss Chu back. Mr. Journey will probably drop her off unharmed once he's made good his escape. He has no reason to harm her."

The Dean turned away and began speaking to the other adults. Thiel put a rough hand on Alexandra's shoulder. "Let's go," he snapped, pushing her forward.

She slapped his hand away, and went. Her shoulder was hurting now, from where Journey had grabbed it.

The main corridor was littered with Clockwork parts. There were piles of metal limbs and heads, and gears and sprockets and wires and rods scattered across the floor. Alexandra stopped suddenly, and stooped to pick up Anna's wand.

"Give me that!" Thiel snapped, and snatched it out of her hand. "In fact, give me your wand too!"

"Mr. Journey has it," she said, glaring back at him hatefully.

"Too bad," Thiel said, and gave her another push forward. She wanted to slug him, but instead she kept walking.

"So you're like an undercover agent?" she asked, as they rounded the corner at the entranceway. "Working for the Wizard Justice Department?" She looked out the open doors through which Journey had so recently flown, but Thiel gave her another push.

"Yes," he said. "And more than once I've wished I could just let Journey do away with you."

"If you knew all this time that Mr. Journey was trying to kill me, why didn't you just arrest him?"

He just grunted and gave her another shove forward. Her hatred for Thiel now matched her hatred for Ms. Grimm.

The warlock at the entrance to Delta Delta Kappa Tau hall was awake now. "You are out past curfew, young lady!" he said to Alexandra. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"

In reply, she snarled something that would normally have been worth a week's detention all by itself. The warlock looked shocked, while Thiel just snorted. They got to her room, and she opened the door. She stopped in the doorway when it looked like Thiel was going to follow her.

"You are not coming into my room!" she said.

"I'm not taking my eyes off you, Quick," he replied.

"Are you going to watch me undress?" she demanded. "Or go to the bathroom? These rooms are girls only! School rules."

Thiel scowled, and looked over her shoulder into the room she shared with Anna. Charlie sat on the windowsill, and cawed a greeting. Thiel looked at the window suspiciously.

"We're on the second floor," Alexandra said with exasperation. "What am I going to do, jump out? Without a wand?"

Thiel pointed his wand into the room and muttered a few charms. He seemed to be satisfied after a moment.

"Fine," he said. "But I'm going to be right outside, and if I hear anything, I will come in."

She slammed the door in his face, and threw herself on her bed and buried her face in her pillow. Charlie fluttered over and landed on her shoulder.

She only allowed herself a few moments of despair and self-pity, and then sat up and began thinking.

"He wanted me," she said to Charlie. "Why did he want me?"

Charlie's offered only a head tilt in response.

"Because I am Abraham Thorn's daughter!" she whispered. "And Ms. Grimm knew that."

Charlie cawed, but had no further comment. From the next room, Alexandra heard Angelique groan, "Alexandra, shut that bird up!"

Alexandra ignored her. She'd certainly been woken up often enough by Honey's foul-mouthed morning greetings.

She knew she had to find Anna somehow. That was two problems: how to get out of her room, and how to track Journey. The third problem, of what she'd do when she caught up to them, was something she put aside to think about when she got that far. She got up to use the bathroom, and washed her face.

"You're looking peaked, dear," said the mirror. "Shouldn't you be in bed?"

"No," Alexandra replied. "Not while Anna's missing." And that gave her an idea. She looked into the mirror, and closed her eyes. She'd mostly abandoned rhyming spells, but she wasn't really helpless without her wand, was she?

"Mirror, mirror, please don't scold,
It's all my fault, so I've been told,
But Mr. Journey took Anna, she's out there,
Won't you please show me where?"

She opened her eyes and gazed hopefully at her reflection.

The mirror sighed. "I really wish I could help, dear. But I'm not that sort of mirror."

Alexandra shouted in frustration and pounded the mirror with her fist. It made a little shriek as it cracked, and the skin over her knuckles split open. Wincing, she held her hand under cold water. Droplets of blood spattered against the sink and then washed down the drain.

"You can really be quite a horrible little brat!" said the mirror, sounding brittle.

"Quick, what's going on in there?" demanded Thiel from outside, and he opened the door.

Alexandra glared at him. He looked at her bleeding hand and her hair in disarray. "Throwing a tantrum, are you?" he sneered. "That'll help."

"Get out!" she yelled at him. He snorted and closed the door, while Darla and Angelique both shouted from the next room, "Alexandra, it's five o'clock in the morning!"

She had never felt so helpless, or guilty. She walked over to the window and leaned against the sill, looking out onto the grounds of Charmbridge Academy, and the woods beyond, which in the pre-dawn darkness could be seen only as a jagged shadowy line of trees silhouetted against the sky.

She didn't see any adults out there, no lights, no search parties. There was no rescue squad from the Wizard Justice Department. As far as she could tell, the adults were doing nothing. Maybe they were just hoping Ms. Grimm was right, and that Mr. Journey would simply let Anna go. She hoped that was true. She still didn't understand anything that had just happened, but it was hard to believe the easy-going, anti-authoritarian groundskeeper she'd known all year had suddenly turned into a kidnapper and would-be murderer.

"He said he wanted me, not her," she murmured. "He won't hurt her, will he, Charlie?"

Charlie made a soft trilling sound, but she knew the raven didn't know any better than she did. And then Charlie suddenly squawked loudly, and Alexandra saw a dark shape flapping its way towards her window.

It was a crow.

Charlie screeched as the other bird landed on the sill. It was smaller than Charlie, but it had a threatening presence. It turned its head one way and then the other, regarding Alexandra with beady black eyes, and then it slowly raised one leg, and she saw that there was a note clutched in its talons. She reached out and snatched it from the bird. It cawed, and launched itself from the windowsill, flapping back into the sky.

"Blast it, Quick!" snarled Thiel out in the corridor.

Alexandra pushed her chair up against the door and wedged it against the doorknob. "If you come in again, I'll throw a real temper tantrum!" she yelled. "Why don't you just petrify me since you're such a powerful secret agent wizard? You know how that spell works, right? It'll look really good to your superiors that you had to curse a sixth-grader!"

She heard Thiel utter a non-magical curse, but he didn't try to come in.

She opened the note. It was a handwritten scrawl.

Starshine,
Come to where you and Blossom camped out that night in the woods. Make sure you're alone, if you don't want anything bad to happen to her. I know how resourceful you are. You'll figure out a way.

It didn't surprise Alexandra that Journey had known what she and Anna were up to that night. That he expected her to escape her minders for Anna's sake infuriated her. How dare he threaten Anna because he wanted her, for reasons she still couldn't fathom? And underneath that anger was anger at herself.

"But I'm afraid what happens to your friend now is your responsibility," Journey had said.

"All right then," she said to Charlie. "Let's go rescue Anna."

Charlie squawked in protest, not sounding nearly as confident as she did.

Darla, looking sleepy and annoyed in a lacy chemise, opened the door from her room to the bathroom that joined the two bedrooms, and glared at her. "Alexandra, if you don't shut Charlie up -"

Alexandra turned. Charlie was on her shoulder, and her hand was still dripping blood, and she gave Darla a look of such ferocity that the other girl instantly turned white, and took a step backwards.

"Close the door," Alexandra said, and Darla did.

She looked out the window again. It was still an hour or so before sunrise. The grounds were dark.

"Shush, Charlie," she whispered, as she climbed up onto the windowsill and crouched there.

When she was seven, she had jumped off the roof of her house. The second floor dorm windows were actually a bit higher than that; Charmbridge had high ceilings, and the ground outside was not level with the first floor. It was a daunting height. It was an impossible height to jump, without the aid of magic.

Alexandra closed her eyes, and prayed with all her might that "doggerel verse" was not as worthless as her teachers claimed.

"I can't fly, but I won't fear,
I know that I can jump from here,
Let me land on the ground down there,
As lightly as if I walked on air."

And she stepped off the ledge.

For a moment, she seemed to hover in the air, and then, as Charlie came diving after her with a shriek, she plummeted like a rock.

Unlike Charlie, she didn't make a sound, even when she hit the ground and heard something snap in her ankle. The impact knocked all the breath out of her, and a jolt ran from the base of her compressed spine all the way up to the back of her head. She nearly blacked out, and it was several seconds before she could see anything but stars.

She felt bruised and sore all over, but her leg hurt most of all. And when she stood, the pain almost made her pass out again.

"It hurts, Charlie!" she gasped.

The raven could do nothing but cluck. She looked up and saw her window, the only one on her floor with light coming out of it. She didn't think it would be long before Thiel would check on her again, and when she didn't answer... She hobbled forward, hissing with each step.

Afterwards, Alexandra barely remembered walking across the fields and into the woods on a broken ankle. It all blurred together in a haze of pain. She wished she had a broom, and even thought about trying to break into the gymnasium from the outside, or sending Charlie to fetch David or the Pritchards, or even alerting Ms. Grimm and hoping the Dean could do something. But, wisely or not, she discarded all of these ideas, as too impractical, too time-consuming, or too risky. She went into the woods alone except for Charlie.

When she reached the spot just out of sight of the academy where she and Anna had camped, that snowy night in late February, she found a carpet lying on the ground. Without even thinking about it, she collapsed onto it, letting out a small cry of relief. Her ankle felt like it was on fire, and her leg had been trembling violently with each step. She didn't think she could have walked much further.

The carpet lifted off. Alexandra grabbed its edges, but it seemed to be obeying commands from elsewhere, and shot off through the trees, never quite rising above the treetops. Charlie's talons dug into her shoulder and the raven flapped its wings to retain its balance as they tilted and swerved. It might have been either a thrilling or a nausea-inducing ride, but Alexandra was too preoccupied with pain and worry to notice much else.

Eventually, the carpet slowed down. They were still in the woods, but Alexandra didn't know how far they had traveled. The sun hadn't risen above the horizon yet, but the sky in the east was pale and cloudy, so she could see two figures standing by a tree as the carpet descended to the ground.

One figure, she realized as the carpet gently settled down, was actually tied to the tree. Anna was bound by ropes to a tree that was several times thicker than her, and there was a gag in her mouth as well. She looked terrified.

"Why?" Alexandra asked, as she slowly rose to her feet, and then nearly fell over. "Why did you do this?"

Mr. Journey was standing next to Anna, but he closed the distance between them in three long strides.

"Accio wand!" he said, pointing his wand at her.

Nothing happened, and Alexandra said angrily, "You have my wand!"

He nodded. "Just making sure. You're a clever girl, Starshine. Clever and resourceful, tricky as your father. Wouldn't put it past you to have brought Blossom's wand or someone else's -"

"Her name is Anna!" Alexandra shouted. "And my name isn't Starshine! It's Alexandra! Alexandra Thorn!"

This set off a cacophony of cawing and screeching in the trees around them. They were surrounded by crows, Alexandra realized. Charlie screeched defiance at the other birds. Journey took a step back from her, and regarded her seriously, as if for the first time.

"Yes," he said. He nodded. He reached out and seized her arm, but though his grip was tight, it wasn't rough. He was supporting her as much as he was holding onto her. "We're going to take a ride on the carpet together now, Alexandra. You can sit back down, take the weight off your ankle. Looks like you broke it, is that right? I can do something about the pain."

There was something about the way he was speaking, almost a nervousness in his voice. Alexandra looked into his eyes, and an understanding settled over her, like a chill seeping into her skin.

"Wait," she said quietly. "Let me say good-bye to Anna. Please."

He hesitated, and looked at her suspiciously.

"I don't have any more tricks," she said, feeling all the pain and fatigue of this night weighing down on her.

"All right," he nodded. It was strange, how suddenly she was the one who was calm, and he was the one who was nervous. He held onto her, as she limped over to where Anna struggled futilely against her ropes. She was almost grateful, as Mr. Journey helped her keep the weight off her broken ankle.

Anna was staring at her. Her eyes were as wide and terrified as she'd ever seen them. She shook her head and made strangled sounds through her gag.

Alexandra forced herself to smile.

"It's all right, Anna," she said. "It'll be all right." She reached up and laid the back of her hand against Anna's tear-stained cheek. "Ssh."

Anna stopped struggling, but she was still trembling violently.

"I'm going to leave Charlie here to bring help," she said. She looked over her shoulder at Mr. Journey. "Is that all right?" He nodded.

Anna was shaking her head again, but Alexandra repeated: "Ssh." And she leaned forward, to kiss her friend on the cheek. "It'll be all right, Anna," she whispered. "I promise."

Anna made muffled sobbing sounds. More tears were running down her face. Alexandra said to Charlie, "Stay here with Anna. All right, Charlie? I need you to stay with Anna. Make sure they find her."

Charlie squawked in protest.

"Charlie!" Alexandra stared at the bird. Finally, the raven fluttered off her shoulder and landed on Anna's, looking back at Alexandra reproachfully.

Mr. Journey began pulling Alexandra back towards the flying carpet.

"Don't worry, Anna," she said, one more time. "It will be all right."

She knew Anna didn't believe her. She was good at lying, but not to her friends.

She sat down on the carpet. They began rising into the air. Journey said, "Put your hands behind your back." She complied, and didn't struggle as he summoned ropes with his wand which bound her wrists tightly behind her, and then more ropes to wrap around her, binding her arms to her body.

"You must think I'm very dangerous," she said calmly.

He held his wand over her ankle. It had swollen up to several times its normal size. "Don't make this difficult, Starshine," he said. He murmured another charm.

"I'm not," she said. "Thank you," she added, as the pain receded in her ankle, though the swelling didn't go down. "But please don't call me Starshine. I have a name."

He looked at her, and nodded. He waved his wand, and more ropes appeared around her ankles. She winced but didn't say anything as they constricted around the swelling. He loosened them a little.

There was just a thin bright line edging over the horizon as they ascended above the trees. "Your father is a very dangerous man," he said. "And I should never have underestimated his daughter."

"Indeed," said a familiar, dry voice. "But everyone else has, Ben, so don't feel too badly."

Ms. Grimm was on a broom, and from mere yards away she sent a hex hissing through the air. Journey brought up his wand just in time to deflect most of it, but the flash and the impact nearly knocked him off the carpet. He yelped, and Alexandra brought her knees up to her chest and then straightened her legs with a savage kick, trying to push him the rest of the way over the edge. She screamed in pain as the force of the kick made the broken bones in her ankle grind together. He grunted, grabbed Alexandra by the neck with his free hand, and tried to jinx Grimm's broom with the other, waving his wand in a complicated gesture that forced her to grab hold of her broom with both hands.

Alexandra was twisting and struggling with all her might now. She tried to knee Journey in the side, and to bite his wrist. He was surprisingly strong, despite his age. He snarled the incantation for another hex and sent it flying at the Dean, who had regained control of her broom but now had to dodge the hex, and then he shook Alexandra by the neck so hard that she was dizzy and unable to move for several seconds. The carpet rocketed skyward, and in the corner of her eye she saw a blur that she thought was Ms. Grimm, in pursuit.

A fireball scorched past them, singing the edges of the carpet. They banked and nearly rolled. Alexandra didn't know why they didn't simply fall off, but they didn't. They did drop rapidly, skimming so close to the trees that she could hear branches snapping as the carpet plowed through the uppermost boughs. She screamed, hoping Ms. Grimm would be able to follow them, giving her a target to aim for, and was pleased when another bolt of red light shot out of the pale sky above. Journey still had his hand around her throat and he squeezed, making an angry sound. Alexandra gagged, and went limp. She was hoping he would think she'd blacked out. He eased his grip, but didn't remove his hand, and his fingers were still dug into the flesh around her throat.

"Ben!" Ms. Grimm called. "Please. By all the stars above, this is madness! Even if you kill the girl, even if you escape, you'll only return to a life as a fugitive! A traitor, hunted by the Thorn Circle and the Confederation alike, with the blood of a child on your hands!"

"Would you surrender yourself to Hucksteen and his goons, Lilith?" replied Journey. And then he roared, "Nex cornicis!"

The woods came alive. A horde of black-winged birds erupted out of the treetops, shrieking and cawing and flapping. They streamed through the air to converge on a figure Alexandra could only see for a moment before she was engulfed by the murderous flock. Then there was only a furious storm of black feathers and slashing talons and stabbing beaks. Alexandra shuddered, but the din soon faded as Journey propelled the flying carpet onward, leaving the crows and their victim behind.

He pointed his wand at her face. Where ropes had streamed out of it before, now it produced a strip of cloth that wrapped around her head and filled her mouth. She fought the urge to gag, and had to breathe through her nose. She felt cracks appearing in the calmness that had settled over her, but steadied her breathing with an effort.

Why doesn't he just kill me? she wondered. Because she knew that was what he intended to do. But he could have done it right then. He could have used a curse, or he could have strangled her, or he could have simply dropped her from high above the trees.

"I am sorry about this, Star - Alexandra," he said, as they skimmed over the treetops. "It's your father's fault, really. He used you to safeguard us. What was he thinking, using his own daughter like that? Of course he never asked our opinion. That was always his way. Better to ask forgiveness than permission, he always said. Well, it's not so amusing when the consequences are on someone else's head, is it?"

If she hadn't been gagged, Alexandra might have told him that he wasn't making very much sense. But she was gagged and helpless, so she just listened, trying to make as much sense of it as she could. Mr. Journey glanced at her, and seemed to sense her confusion.

"I know, this is all confusing to you, isn't it?"

She nodded.

"I'm sorry," he sighed, and she wished he'd quit saying that. "It's very complicated, Alexandra. The people who joined the Thorn Circle, they were young and idealistic. They thought the Confederation was becoming as bad as the Dark wizards it was supposed to be fighting, and they had to do whatever it took to bring down the system. Of course they became the enemy." He sighed. "After they failed to kill the Governor-General, they had to go into hiding. And if Confederation wizards captured one of them, that would lead them to the rest. Your father came up with a solution."

He looked to the east, where the sun was rising, and began guiding the carpet back down into the trees.

"There's a powerful spell called a Fidelius Charm. It allows a secret to be hidden inside a living person, and stay protected there, from anyone and anything that might reveal it. Even the most powerful magic can't discover it. Even those who know it can't speak of it, not even under torture. The only way it can ever be revealed is if the one person it got hidden in reveals it." Journey looked at her. "You're the Secret-Keeper for the Thorn Circle, Alexandra."

She stared at him, while they descended through the trees towards the ground.

"Your father did that, right after you were born. Just a little baby, and he made you the Secret-Keeper for the most important secret in the world, at least the way the Governor-General sees it. So it's his fault, you understand?"

They settled on the ground without even a bump. Journey was looking off into the distance, though there wasn't much distance to see as it was all obscured by trees now. Alexandra thought about kicking or head-butting him, but she was tired and sore all over, and she knew it wouldn't do any good. She took a deep breath, with difficulty, and wondered why Mr. Journey was telling her all this. Not that she wasn't grateful. She just didn't understand why he bothered.

Journey finally looked at her again. She was surprised at how sad he looked.

"They had good intentions, Starshine - sorry, Alexandra. They really did." He sighed. "Anyway... the problem with making you the Secret-Keeper was that once the Governor-General found out about you, well, it was just a matter of time before he'd make you give up any information you had. Oh, don't get me wrong. I know you wouldn't on purpose. But you're just a girl. You wouldn't have a choice. He'd bide his time and wait until you learned something on your own, as you'd have to sooner or later. And then you'd tell him."

He rose slowly to his feet. "Without you, no one can ever find the Thorn Circle, Alexandra. As long as they stay hidden, they're safe. Heck, Grimm and Thiel as much as knew about me, but because of the Fidelius Charm -" He paused. "Now, see, even I can't actually tell you who I am, not straight out."

He reached into his pocket. "Don't think your father left you unprotected. He put another charm on you, as powerful as the first. His own invention. A Circle of Protection, he called it. Can't remember how the incantation went, exactly, but 'While the circle is unbroken,' any murderer who raised his hand against you would be struck down himself. We watched him place the circle around your little wrist, before he sent you off with your mother."

Alexandra's eyes went wide as she saw what he pulled from his pocket: her gold bracelet! She had thought it had melted in the fire that burned down her house, but there it was, in Journey's hand. But it was broken. He had severed the gold band, so it dangled in two disjoint halves held together by the thin latch that closed it originally. "Took quite a jinx to break the circle itself. Powerful piece of magic."

He looked at her apologetically. "I couldn't try to kill you directly, because of the charmed bracelet, you see? It wouldn't protect you from accidents, or critters, but I never figured on you being such a danged persistent survivor! And then, even after I got the charm away from you and broke it -" he shook the bracelet. "Lilith made it hard to get at you. Her and Thiel. They're as bad as your father, you know. They were using you as bait, pretty much knowing what I was up to. Thiel just wanted to get to the rest of the Circle. His only interest in keeping you alive was making sure you could reveal anything you found out about me, or your father, or the Thorn Circle."

It was all very interesting, and Alexandra realized that just now, she didn't really care.

Why are you talking so much? she wondered, but she couldn't say it. But as if he'd heard her, Journey sighed heavily again, and then put a hand under her arm and gently lifted her to her feet.

Sunlight was now filtering through the treetops. She could see the woods around her, and hear birds chirping. She didn't hear any crows. She hoped Anna was all right and that Charlie had already led some other grown-up to her. Ms. Grimm couldn't have come after her alone, could she?

Journey had his wand pointed at her.

"I'm sorry, Starshine," he whispered. "Close your eyes."

She looked back at him, and her green eyes glittered. She wouldn't close them. She met his gaze, and his was the one that wavered.

"Close your eyes!" he repeated. He tried to make it a demand, but it sounded more like a plea.

She shook her head, not letting her eyes leave his.

Cold laughter filled the air. "You can't do it!" It was Ms. Grimm's voice.

Journey spun around, and Grimm blasted him off his feet with a wave of her wand, and then blasted his wand out of his hand. He lay on the ground, dazed.

"All those crude murder attempts," Ms. Grimm said contemptuously, "using tricks and artifacts and beasts, but when it comes to killing a child in cold blood, you couldn't do it, could you, Ben?"

The Dean looked quite a bit worse for wear. Her clothes were ripped and shredded, her hair looked as if hundreds of birds had been trying to pull out strands to use in their nests, and she had scratches and gouges on her face, arms, legs, and everywhere else where skin was visible. There was a nasty gash above her eye, one ear looked badly torn, and she was bleeding everywhere. But she still looked regal and victorious. Alexandra admired her as much as she had ever hated her in that moment.

Journey was holding something he'd pulled out of his belt. Alexandra recognized it immediately: a revolver.

She knew guns. Her stepfather had made sure she recognized them and knew how dangerous they were at a very young age. Despite all her other mischief, the one thing she had never tried to do was get her hands on Archie's service revolver.

With her gag filling her mouth, Alexandra couldn't gasp, she could only choke. Journey fired the gun and Grimm fell, with a surprised expression.

Journey rose unsteadily to his feet. The smell of gunpowder burned Alexandra's nostrils, and he pressed the still-hot barrel against her chest, directly over her heart.

"Good gods, Ben!" Ms. Grimm was lying on the ground, clutching her side. Blood was bubbling around her fingers. "How low can you sink? Using Muggle instruments of murder?"

"I'm sorry, Starshine," Journey whispered, looking into Alexandra's eyes.

"Ben," gasped Grimm. "Don't! Please - listen to me! You mustn't!"

He pulled the trigger.

There was bang that made Alexandra's eardrums feel like they had popped. She was knocked flat on her back. She lay there, stunned and in shock.

Am I dead? she wondered. She could still see the leaves above her head, and smell gunpowder and hot metal. And if I'm not, shouldn't being shot hurt more?

She raised her head, so she was actually looking at her feet. Mr. Journey was standing over her with the most oddly startled look on his face.

Blood was spreading across his chest, soaking through his shirt, and the center of the stain was directly over his heart. The revolver tumbled out of his fingers, he looked down at Alexandra one last time, with a questioning look as if he expected her to explain what had just happened, and then he collapsed to the ground.

Alexandra couldn't move, and she couldn't take her eyes away from the sight. She stared at Mr. Journey, lying lifeless at her feet with his eyes open and empty, until Ms. Grimm dragged herself to Alexandra's side, and sat up next to her, and turned her around.

"Don't look," she said. "You don't need to see this. It's all right now, Alexandra. It will be all right."

Ms. Grimm was pale, covered with leaves and blood and feathers. Alexandra could see that one arm was hanging limply and her side was soaked with glistening red blood, but she somehow managed to look composed. Alexandra closed her eyes and leaned her head against the Dean's shoulder, and didn't mind when she felt the woman stroke her hair gently with her good hand.