Chapter Text
Newt’s suitcase snapped open again with a loud, impudent clack, like it had a personality and absolutely no manners. Newt didn’t even bother lifting his head; he just extended an arm and slammed it shut with that exhausted little motion that clearly meant “please, for once in your life, behave.”
Jacob, meanwhile, looked much better after dinner—though honestly, it might’ve been Queenie, because the way he gazed at her definitely had nothing to do with the food.
Queenie chatted about her job, her voice airy and musical as she made a tiny spoon levitate and twirl lazily between her fingers. “It’s not glamorous, you know? I make coffee all day, fix leaky pipes, clean enchanted bathrooms… Tina’s the smart one in the family.”
And then—because Jacob thought something without saying it—she caught it right away.
“Yes… we’re orphans. Dragon pox.”
Jacob opened his mouth to apologize, but Queenie smiled before he could get the words out.
“Aww, you’re a sweetheart.”
Jacob tried to ask her—very politely—to stop reading his mind, but the words came out so stuttered and nervous that Queenie only laughed softly, delighted. Jacob looked like his soul was melting straight out of his body.
Across the table, Newt and Tina sat facing each other in the kind of awkward, brittle silence that happens when two people can’t decide if they should apologize or dive under the table to escape the moment entirely.
Queenie cut that silence with an innocent little comment aimed at Tina, “I’m not flirting.”
Tina sighed. “I’m just saying—don’t get too attached. We’re going to have to obliviate him.” She glanced at Jacob, uncomfortable but honest. “It’s nothing personal.”
Jacob instantly went pale again, sweat popping back up on his forehead, but he still tried to keep up with Queenie, who watched him with growing concern.
“Oh, honey, are you feeling alright?”
Newt shot to his feet so fast the chair slid back on its own to avoid tipping. “Miss Goldstein… I think Mr. Kowalski should lie down. And… well, you and I need to be up early. The niffler isn’t going to—”
“What’s a niffler?” Queenie asked.
Evanthe groaned. “Don’t even ask.”
Tina stood up and guided the two men toward the hallway.
Evanthe stayed with Queenie in the dining room. The brief hush that settled when the others vanished didn’t last long; Queenie let out a tiny, amused sigh. “I’m not flirting,” she repeated, as if Evanthe had doubted her.
Evanthe lifted an eyebrow, gentle but unconvinced. “Whatever you say.”
Queenie let out a soft, tinkling laugh that filled the room. “He’s just so sweet…”
Evanthe crossed her arms, leaning against the table. “Just be careful. Tina’s nerves are already shredded, and Scamander isn’t exactly helping.”
“Oh, Eva, you’re always so protective,” Queenie said, giving her a warm look that slid right through all of Evanthe’s defenses, as always.
Evanthe made a face.
Queenie opened her mouth for a sparkling little joke, but paused when she heard the bedroom door close. “Let’s sit. Tina’s about to come unload everything on us.”
Evanthe nodded. “I know.”
And she was right.
From the table, Evanthe heard everything in the bedroom as if the air were just a very thin wall.
Tina entered with floating mugs of hot chocolate balanced on a conjured tray, her blue printed pajamas shifting with her tense steps. Jacob stared at her like he was witnessing magic for the very first time—which, in fairness, he was—while trying to understand the spellbook he was holding upside down. Newt lay on his side pretending to sleep in the least convincing way possible.
When Tina set a mug beside him and he didn’t move at all, Jacob tried to get his attention.
“Uh… Mr. Scamander… look… chocolate…”
Nothing.
Tina, exasperated, cut him off sharply, “The bathroom is at the end of the hall on the right.”
Jacob thanked her a dozen times.
And when Tina stepped out, Jacob caught a glimpse of Queenie in the adjoining room wearing a rather… revealing robe. The poor man nearly dropped his mug.
Evanthe heard all of it from the dining table, caught between secondhand embarrassment and pure fond amusement. Yep. This was going to be a long night.
Tina stomped back into the dining room, jaw tight. Queenie smiled like everything was perfectly normal, flicking her wand to straighten dishes that were already straight. Evanthe glanced up just as Tina exhaled sharply. “That man—Newt—has been trouble from the first minute. The moment I saw him, he was already in a mess. And then the niffler, and the murtlap, and people yelling at him in the street, and Jacob…” She let out a long, defeated sigh. “I can’t do this. I really can’t.”
Queenie stopped organizing things. “You worry too much.”
“Excuse me?” Tina said, hurt. “I’m trying to stop us from getting arrested. I’m trying to get my job back—the job I worked so hard to earn.”
Evanthe stepped in before the tension could rise any further. “Tina, no one’s saying you’re wrong. But you’re taking all of this on alone.”
Tina lowered her eyes. “If I don’t do it, who will?”
Evanthe exchanged a look with Queenie—the same one they shared whenever Tina went into soldier mode.
“We will,” Evanthe said softly but firmly.
“You have yourself… and you also have us. Let us help.”
Tina blinked, surprised for a moment. Then she finally sat down, exhausted, letting a bit of that crushing weight slide off her shoulders.
Queenie smiled and took her hand lovingly. “And tomorrow… we’ll figure out what to do with your problematic magizoologist.”
Evanthe let out a small sigh and a crooked smile. “Tomorrow won’t be calmer, will it?”
Both sisters looked at her with the same expression. “No,” they said in unison.
Evanthe dropped her face into her hands. “Great. Perfect. Love my life. Love my job,” she muttered sarcastically.
Evanthe had barely taken a sip of her tea when her wand began to vibrate against the wooden table—not a gentle pulse, not a delicate tremble, but the sharp, unmistakable rattle of an Auror-grade emergency alert.
The three women froze. Queenie whispered first, “Oh… that’s not the friendly kind of buzz.”
Tina straightened instantly, tension snapping through her shoulders like a whip.
Evanthe didn’t need to look. She knew exactly what urgency level that vibration belonged to. “President Picquery,” she muttered, exhaling through her nose. “Of course.”
Queenie winced sympathetically. “Sweetheart, they really don’t care about normal people’s sleep schedules, huh?”
“Clearly not,” Evanthe said, pushing her chair back and standing. “These meetings always happen in the middle of the night. I swear they do it on purpose.”
Tina snorted—a tired, humorless sound. “Oh, how I love the government service.”
The wand buzzed again. Harsher. Evanthe grabbed it. “I’ve gotta go. Now.”
Queenie touched her arm as she passed, her eyes warm with a soft worry that always slipped under Evanthe’s ribs more easily than she liked. “Be safe, okay?”
Evanthe gave her a small, crooked smile. “I'm an auror, I have to be.”
Tina walked her to the fireplace. “Send word if you need backup.”
“Let’s hope I don’t,” Evanthe muttered, stepping into the whirl of emerald flames. “MACUSA Atrium.”
The apartment vanished.
Evanthe stumbled out of the receiving grate onto polished marble, brushing soot from her cloak with a single irritated swipe. The Atrium was half-lit, the late-night hush broken by hurried footsteps echoing from every direction. She wasn’t the only one summoned.
Three other department heads appeared from different fireplaces almost at the same moment, all wearing the same done with everything expression she had.
Luanne Calloway—tall, sharp-eyed—flicked ash from her sleeves. “Another emergency meeting? Merlin’s beard, Picquery sleeps even less than we do.”
Marianne Waldron—petite, terrifyingly efficient—grumbled, “I had just sat down to dinner. Literally. First bite.”
Walter Earlnight arrived with his tie crooked and his hair looking personally victimized. “I was in the bath.”
Evanthe blinked. “Really?”
“Warm water and everything,” Walter said, deeply offended by fate. “Dragged out like a criminal.”
They all shared a collective, miserable sigh as they marched—quickly—toward the central lift. Other officials were rushing in from all sides: department directors, legal officers, foreign envoys, security heads. A whole parade of authority, all cranky, all exhausted.
Luanne rubbed her eyes. “I swear Picquery schedules these at ungodly hours just to see who complains first.”
Evanthe snorted. “If she does, it’s working.”
They reached the elevator just as a group of Swiss and French delegates squeezed in behind them, out of breath and muttering in their native languages. The doors slammed shut.
Walter glanced at the descending numbers. “Basement fifty-seven? That’s… serious.”
“As if the wand vibration wasn’t enough?” Marianne muttered.
The elevator plunged deep beneath Manhattan, each passing floor taking them farther from the mundane world above.
By the time the doors opened, the air had turned heavy—thick with expectation. Stone. Steel. No windows. No sound unless allowed. The kind of place built for decisions that could fracture alliances.
Evanthe split from the group, heading straight for the largest door: The Pentacle Chamber.
When she stepped inside, her breath caught. Just slightly.
The room was massive—circular, cathedral-like. Towering walls carved with ancient runes sloped inward as if listening. Every seat was filled: MACUSA department heads, envoys from England, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands. The air vibrated with restrained fear.
Evanthe breathed in. Alright. Here we go.
When the final department heads slipped into their places, the chamber fell into a heavy, humming silence.
Morry sat to her right, stiff as a board, the weight of representing the Department of Magical Creatures clearly turning him into a broomstick. Evanthe pretended not to notice. She had her own posture to maintain—steady, composed, nearly invisible.
The benches of foreign delegates rustled with unease.
The English delegate folded his hands like he was preparing for impact.
Picquery reached the central podium. A soft chime echoed through the room as the floating magical display above activated.
A ghostly projection shimmered to life: Senator Henry Shaw Jr. Pale blue. Rotating slowly. Suspended like a martyr in stained glass. Not comforting. Not even close.
Picquery lifted her chin. “Thank you all for arriving on such short notice.”
A dry ripple of laughter spread through the American officials.
“Let us begin,” she said. All conversation died.
Eberstadt—the Swiss delegate—stood first. Rigid. Stern. Beard trimmed with mathematical precision.
“This,” he said, slicing the air toward the hologram, “is exactly what we feared. A public figure. A No-Maj. A senator. Killed in broad daylight before hundreds of witnesses. A magical attack. An uncontrolled magical attack.”
Uneasy murmurs swept the room.
The French delegate whispered harshly to her aide. The English representative pressed his fingertips together, already calculating.
Eberstadt pressed on, voice rising like a prosecutor delivering a damning verdict. “And now New York is crawling with aurors, the No-Maj government is restless, the press circles like vultures. Madam Picquery, this situation is no longer local. It is—”
He paused, “—a global threat. One your government was warned about months ago.”
Dewey stiffened beside Evanthe.
Picquery’s eyes narrowed to razor-sharp slits. “Are you implying negligence on the part of the MACUSA?”
“Implying?” Eberstadt barked. “I’m stating it plainly. This—whatever creature caused that destruction—was allowed to roam unchecked. Ignored. Left to escalate until it took the life of a man whose death cannot go unnoticed.”
Graves tilted his head slightly. His voice was a quiet, sharpened blade. “You assume much.”
“I assume only what the facts support,” Eberstadt snapped. “Something is tearing through your city. If the No-Majs discover the truth—” Again, he pointed toward the projection. “—we all face the consequences.”
The murmurs intensified. Someone coughed nervously.
Evanthe clenched her jaw. She hated politics. Every sentence was a weapon. Every accusation a lit match hovering above dragon powder.
Picquery’s voice landed like winter steel. “Do not lecture me about consequences, Herr Eberstadt. Not when your ministry allowed Gellert Grindelwald to escape.”
Silence. A single word could have dropped a chandelier.
Evanthe winced. Morry forgot to breathe. Graves didn’t blink, but something sharp flickered behind his eyes.
The English delegate muttered, “Well. That escalated.”
Eberstadt flushed scarlet. “That is not relevant—”
“It is entirely relevant,” Picquery said. “You will not accuse my administration of incompetence when your own ministry’s failure unleashed the greatest threat to modern wizardkind.”
Eberstadt sputtered. “You—! That—! Grindelwald was—!”
Picquery lifted her hand. “Enough.”
Magic hummed warningly through the chamber—low, vibrating, almost like the floor was growling. Evanthe stayed perfectly still, heartbeat steady but hard. Something was off about Graves. More than usual. Too coiled, too alert. Like he was waiting for someone to slip.
She didn’t like it.
The doors slammed open. Hard. Every head snapped toward the entrance.
Tina Goldstein nearly skidded into the chamber, breathless, hair slightly mussed—as though she’d sprinted across half of MACUSA. Which, knowing her, she probably had.
Evanthe felt tension ripple outward, a wave of static before a storm.
Tina froze under the weight of a hundred stares. “Miss Goldstein,” Picquery said, voice cold enough to freeze glass, “I trust you have an extraordinary reason for disrupting this assembly.”
Tina swallowed hard, then stepped forward, her voice steadying even as Evanthe saw the tremor in her chest. “Yes… I do. Madam President, yesterday a wizard arrived in New York with this case. It contains magical creatures. Some of them have escaped.”
The chamber went still. Painfully still. The kind of stillness right before mass panic. Evanthe felt her stomach plunge.
Picquery’s eyes sharpened. “Yesterday? You have known for twenty-four hours that an unregistered wizard released magical creatures in New York… and you inform us only after a man has been murdered?”
Tina blanched. “Someone has been murdered?”
A whisper of shock swept through the room. Before anyone could answer, Tina marched to the center, slapped the case—its latch clicked—and the entire chamber jolted as Newt Scamander burst out of it. Followed by a wildly confused Jacob Kowalski.
The British emissary stood abruptly, squinting like he was trying to determine whether this was a hallucination brought on by exhaustion. “Scamander?”
Newt snapped the case shut with the guilty reflex of someone caught mid-crime. “Hello, sir,” he said, voice cracking just a little. “Minister.”
Before the British representative could continue, Momolu Wotorson—a senior liaison from the Ghanaian Ministry with an impressive presence—leaned forward, brows shooting up. “Theseus Scamander? The war hero?”
Evanthe’s head jerked toward him on instinct—she didn’t know who “Theseus” was, but apparently Newt had a brother important enough to stop the entire chamber cold. Momolu caught her stare and offered a tiny shrug, as if to say You didn’t know? Well, now you do.
“No,” the British emissary corrected, dry as dust. “This is the younger brother. And what, exactly, is he doing in New York?”
Newt cleared his throat, eyes darting everywhere but the podium. “I, er… came to purchase an Appaloosa puffskein, sir.”
An avalanche of disbelief rolled through the foreign benches.
“Of course you did,” the British emissary muttered. “And what are you actually doing here?”
Before Newt could stumble his way through another questionable answer, Picquery shifted her attention like a spotlight snapping on Tina.
“Goldstein,” she said sharply, chin lifting toward Jacob, “who is he?”
Tina straightened, shoulders square even as her voice wavered. “This is Jacob Kowalski, Madam President. A No-Maj who was bitten by one of Mr. Scamander’s creatures.”
The room detonated.
“A No-Maj?”
“Bitten?”
“And they didn’t obliviate him?”
“What are they thinking—?”
Dozens of whispers rose like angry wasps.
Jacob went bone-white. Newt didn’t hear any of it. His gaze was locked on the spectral image of Senator Shaw floating above them—his face frozen in death, wounds illuminated in cold blue light. Newt’s eyes widened. He stepped closer without realizing he was moving.
“By Merlin’s beard…”
Madam Ya Zhou’s icy voice cut across the chamber. “Mr. Scamander, do you know which of your creatures is responsible?”
Newt blinked, stunned. “This… this wasn’t done by any creature. Don’t pretend you don’t know. Look at the marks.”
The hologram rotated slowly. Close-up on Shaw’s face. Close-up on Newt’s expression—fear, confusion, certainty all tangled together.
“This was done by an Obscurus.”
The chamber erupted. Gasps. Shouts. A French envoy swore. Someone from the Portuguese delegation nearly fainted. Even seasoned aurors exchanged horrified looks. Graves alone remained utterly still.
Picquery’s voice sliced the air. “You have gone too far, Mr. Scamander. There are no obscurials in North America. Graves—confiscate that case.”
The case tore out of Newt’s grip and flew straight into Graves’s waiting hand. Newt reacted instantly, wand raised—
Evanthe’s lungs froze— Too late.
A barrage of spells struck like a storm breaking all at once. Newt, Tina, and Jacob were slammed to their knees, pinned by shimmering magical force. Newt’s wand jerked violently from his hand and sailed directly into Graves’s palm.
“Please—please don’t harm those creatures,” Newt begged, voice cracking with raw fear. “You don’t understand. There’s nothing dangerous in there. Nothing.”
Picquery’s jaw tightened. “We will be the judge of that.” She nodded toward the aurors forming up behind them—hard-faced, unyielding. “Take them to the cells.”
Graves stood, gripping the case as if it were a weapon ready to be unsheathed. His eyes lingered on Tina—cold, calculating, wrong in a way Evanthe couldn’t name but felt like a bruise forming under her ribs.
The aurors dragged the trio away.
Newt shouted as he fought against invisible restraints, desperation scraping through every word. “Please! Don’t hurt them! They’re not dangerous—none of them are! Please, don’t hurt my creatures! PLEASE!”
His voice echoed long after the doors slammed shut.
When the door shut behind them, the silence left behind felt suffocating. Evanthe stood smoothly, forcing her voice into calm professionalism despite the ache twisting inside her.
“Madam President,” she said, “Director Morry and I can examine the case and confirm whether any of the creatures pose a threat. With your permission, we’ll begin immediately.”
Picquery nodded sharply. “Do so, Carrow. Quickly.” Evanthe bowed her head and followed Morry.
The case had been placed in a warded antechamber—nothing extreme, just enchantments to prevent tampering. Morry was already reciting half the procedural checklist under his breath. Evanthe barely listened; her mind was racing ahead.
“Eva” he sighed, pushing open the door, “this is going to be a long night. We’ll need—”
“Dewey,” she interrupted, smiling sweetly even as her thoughts roared, “I’m just going to run to the bathroom first. One moment.”
He nodded, completely unsuspecting, and stepped ahead of her to pass her. Evanthe glanced up at the ceiling and thought, Some Head Auror, huh. She raised her wand toward the back of Dewey’s neck and murmured,
“Sorry, Dewey.” With a flick of her wrist, she cast a Confundus Charm.
Dewey stopped dead in his tracks, turned around, and when he saw Evanthe, he smiled. He gave her a casual greeting and then walked off in the opposite direction down the hallway. Evanthe slipped into the room where Newt’s suitcase was, grabbed it, and headed out. The moment she was back in the hallway, she broke into a run, sprinting down the empty corridor toward the elevator.
Tina. Newt. And Jacob. There was no way in hell she was letting them be dragged into the cells.