"Ardere Periphera!"
Julien didn't wait for Wolfgang to finish his little speech. He struck first.
The spell was one he had created himself—with more than a little help from the Magical Resonance Library, but it still counted. Inspired by Grindelwald.
It wasn't a direct attack. It threw up a controllable ring of fire around the enemy, boxing them in, eating up the oxygen, and forcing them to pick between choking or burning.
Call it dark magic if you wanted—Julien wouldn't agree. He'd given them a choice, after all.
Silver-white flames exploded from his wand tip and raced across the flagstones, forming a perfect burning circle that trapped Wolfgang and his two companions dead center.
These weren't ordinary red flames. They were alchemically refined silver-white, carrying a purifying heat that hit wizards hooked on otherworldly energy especially hard.
"Dermis Trahere!"
Wolfgang swung his bone wand. Sickly green light smashed into the silver flames with a screech like nails on a chalkboard.
At the same time his two younger companions—Julien could see them clearly now, barely older than him—raised their wands and whispered an ancient, almost chanting incantation.
"Nox Eminus!"
Darkness poured from their wand tips. It didn't just block light; it devoured it. The silver ring of flames began shrinking, chewed away by invisible mouths.
Julien felt his own magic being sucked backward. These two young dark wizards were using a spell that carried a strange resonance, like branches splitting from the same root.
"New tricks?" Julien gritted his teeth against the draining pull. "Lunar Shadow Council crash course?"
"A gift from the Council," Wolfgang snarled, pushing forward through the shrinking flames. The green glow on his bone wand flared brighter. "No slow, boring study required. Just… accept it. How about it? Want to try? Hogwarts is outdated."
His eyes had gone unnatural in the green light—pupils blown wide, irises cloudy, like two glass beads left soaking too long.
It was obvious. Even Wolfgang had been "filled" with something. Not magic. Something far more… alien.
Julien changed tactics. If the flame barrier wouldn't hold…
"Fluxus Inversus!"
His wand traced a spiral instead of a circle. The leftover silver flames twisted inward, forming a spinning vortex that pulled everything toward its center.
Spinning. Leaping. Never stopping.
The white flames dragged in Wolfgang's dark energy and his companions' spells, turning their own power against them and wrapping them inside the upward surge.
Wolfgang let out a furious roar. His bone wand vibrated wildly in the vortex, the thorny mark writhing like it was alive. The two younger dark wizards went deathly pale. Their spells snapped off and the backlash dropped them to their knees.
"You—" Wolfgang's scar twisted. "How the hell do you know these spells?"
"You don't need to know," Julien answered, voice hoarse from the heavy magic burn. "But your darkness makes excellent fuel."
Just as the standoff dragged on, Wolfgang played his last card. His left hand dipped into his cloak and pulled out a badge—withered thorns wrapped around a crescent moon.
With a vicious grin he crushed it. "Don't get cocky. You're alone."
Space tore open. Not the clean travel of a Portkey—this was violent, brutal.
Three more figures spilled out of the rift—more dark wizards, more bone wands, more cloudy eyes.
Julien's vortex shattered instantly. The shockwave slammed him backward into the cold stone wall. His wand stayed in his grip, but most of his magic was already spent.
Five enemies now fanned out around him. Green light from the bone wands wove together into a net.
"Anima Exanimare!" Wolfgang roared, raising his wand. "Say goodbye to your body—"
A black-purple wave of light rolled straight at Julien.
Before it even touched him, a wave of weakness bloomed inside his chest, like something was being ripped out and swallowed. All joy vanished. He started to doubt he even existed.
"Expecto Patronum!"
The Patronus Charm was the only thing Julien could think of. Silver light exploded from his wand, forming a massive shield in front of him. At the same time a silver raven burst out and circled him gracefully.
The suffocating despair vanished instantly. Warmth flooded back into his body.
"Palus Submersum!"
A muddy yellow beam shot in from the mouth of the alley—not at Wolfgang, but at the ground beneath his feet.
The flagstones turned to liquid mud. Wolfgang and the others sank suddenly, the swamp swallowing them up to their knees.
Wolfgang roared and tried to leap free, but a second golden beam slammed into his knee and dropped him face-first into the muck.
"Cassian Thorne," Julien panted, watching the figure in the gray overcoat step into the alley. "You always show up at the most… dramatic moments."
Cassian's monocle glinted in the green light, the tiny astrolabe embedded in the lens spinning fast. His wand—a plain, unadorned ebony—pointed at Wolfgang, gathering an energy Julien couldn't identify.
Cassian gave Julien a small nod. His voice was calm, like he was commenting on the weather. "Wolfgang, that badge you just crushed sent out a signal louder than your screaming."
"The Department of Mysteries prepared special spatial markers just for the Lunar Shadow Council," Cassian explained to Julien. "They won't escape like last time."
Wolfgang clawed his way out of the sinking ground. The green light on his bone wand had dimmed, but the madness in his eyes burned hotter. "Thorne! You always—you always ruin everything!"
"It's my job," Cassian said, tracing a complex pattern with his wand. "And yours… is to disappear."
"Obscurum Dissipare!"
"Lux Judicium!"
Cassian cast two spells in quick succession—or really one compound curse. Golden light exploded into existence.
It wasn't a beam. It was a net—a glowing web woven from pure magic that covered the entire alley. Wolfgang tried to block it with his bone wand, but the net wasn't attacking him. It was attacking the thing attached to him.
The foreign presence that had filled him let out a silent scream inside the golden web. Wolfgang's body deflated like a punctured balloon. The cloudy film over his eyes slowly cleared—then filled with real, human terror.
"No—the Council promised me—power!"
"The Council's so-called promises," Cassian said as he stepped closer, voice low, "were never gifts. They were loans. And now it's time to collect."
The golden net tightened. Wolfgang let out one final wail—a sound that carried two voices: his own, and something far older and emptier. Then silence.
He collapsed to the ground. The bone wand rolled from his fingers. The thorny mark on it withered rapidly, like a vine drained of all life.