Chapter 35

"It's getting stranger and stranger," I muttered, watching as the corpses of the Fomorians began to disappear right before my eyes. Or rather, their bodies started turning into a mist, unnaturally drifting forward.

Towards the ruins, of course.

But that aside, the very fact of their bodies vanishing was the strangest thing. They weren't ghosts or anything like that — they were fully material beings. With such a blatant violation of magical laws, my eye was starting to twitch. At least their clothes and weapons remained in place, or else my twitch would have become anything but metaphorical.

"Agreed. I'm not even sure if I should reveal their existence at all. Researchers would wring the soul out of me..." Winnie grimaced, poking a still-not-evaporated part of one of the Fomorian bodies with a twig she'd picked up.

And I already know which of my acquaintances would use their friendship with me to be the first to do it.

"Is this crossover with the magical world common knowledge?" I asked, using a slicing spell to cut off the remaining hand of one of the creatures... But it didn't help. It only started evaporating faster, from the fingers up to the shoulder.

Trying to bottle a piece of their flesh — which felt unremarkable except for some toughness — was also a failure. Even in an airtight space, the evaporation didn't stop... although the mist stayed inside.

Well, at least that's something.

I'll try giving part of it to Verberg, and the rest to my mentor. Who else but her could deal with this kind of supernatural nonsense, even by magical standards?

"Not going to take a sample?" I asked.

"What's the point? You've clearly got people to send it to, and you can handle it yourself in your free time. That's something I don't have in abundance, and I don't see any benefit in it. It's all, what do you call it... Right, fundamental research. Important, but useless to a half-blood," the Irishwoman replied, once again showing that nature had generously endowed her with brains.

That settled it.

I'd include her in our group of like-minded individuals. Both the Muggle and magical worlds were spiraling into chaos, and I needed more smart people around me. As practice — and canon — shows, it's better to have fewer resources but more brains, rather than the other way around.

Money comes and goes, but brains... I'd love to say the same, but it doesn't work out that way.

"Let's move on then. The faster we find out what's going on, the faster we'll know what to do."

"Don't state the obvious, German," she waved dismissively, trailing after me.

"Sometimes people need even that to understand, Celt," I retorted, keeping up our weak imitation of banter. The situation was tense for both of us, and to avoid descending into gloom, we kept each other entertained like this.

"Why 'Celt' all of a sudden?"

"I've spent quite a bit of time with history books, and I can confidently say that Irish wizards have the fewest differences from their ancestors," I enlightened my companion, modestly leaving out the fact that a significant part of my information came not from books, but from my mentor's half-time grumbling.

Unfortunately, well-documented history stops at the threshold of about a thousand years ago. There were the world-famous Founders, and before them... a dark forest. The Dark Ages. Or the truly ancient wizards, like Archimedes, Aristotle, and Plato.

Yes, yes, nothing stopped those gentlemen from dabbling in magical sciences, which weren't widely advertised to the general public, as well as Muggle ones.

"Hm? Well, maybe. Some of our old-timers probably lived back then too. Especially considering they're druids."

"As far as I know, the maximum age a body can last, even with magic, is about seven hundred years. After that, the body gets so saturated with magic that new magic simply stops affecting it."

"I'm joking, geez," she looked at me with a teasing smirk.

"Jokes aside, we're not Muggles, after all, to dismiss the impossible."

"Poor Muggles. They'd be better off not talking to you. They'd probably lock you up in that... uh, what's it called... where they treat the mentally ill?" Her still somewhat childish face showed an endearing struggle to find the right word. "Psychiatric hospital, that's it."

"...Did you notice?" I asked casually.

"That crow's been staring at us for about five minutes now," she responded cautiously, turning slightly while holding her wand at the ready.

"Secans on the count of three," I whispered, and after getting a barely noticeable nod, I continued, "One... two... three, Secans!" Almost in sync, two slicing spells shot towards the suspicious bird.

Maybe we were being paranoid and the animal had nothing to do with it, but... the legendary saying, "better safe than sorry," couldn't have been more appropriate here.

"Cawww!" To our surprise, though the bird fell to the ground, it wasn't hit by the spell. "Horrible! Killing in the dead of night! Horrible!"

"Either we've just encountered a deranged Animagus…"

"Or this really is a sentient crow," Winnie finished for me, our expressions uncannily similar at that moment.

And no, this wasn't a case of parroting, which crows are supposedly capable of. Its words were far too coherent. And the crow confirmed my suspicions almost immediately:

"Horrible! Such rudeness and disgrace!" the feathered creature continued to grumble, taking flight again to perch on a branch.

"Listen, you voyeuristic crow, you're the last one to talk! Feathery stalker!" Winnie clearly wasn't planning to stop there, but I did it for her. With a very loud and very pointed cough.

"I assume you are a familiar?" I asked neutrally, giving Winnie a warning glance.

Had it been just a regular familiar, I wouldn't have stopped her — intelligent beings have a tendency to spill more than they should in moments like these — but what I was looking at... Bloody hell. I'd seen this kind of bond before... or rather, this level of it.

Not that it's a huge deal — Dumbledore likely has a similar connection with his pet phoenix, and he's far from one of the ancient horrors that roam the magical world.

What unnerved me the most was the familiar itself, with as much magic as a full-grown, powerful wizard, for Merlin's sake! Now that we'd forced the crow to drop its disguise as an ordinary bird with our spells, I could see it clearly.

Oh, and Winnie had gone pale. She noticed it too.

"Sharp eyes, German!" it responded, or at least it seemed that way.

"Why are you here, watching us?" I directly asked the question that interested me the most. No point in playing polite with a crow, after all. Plus, it's in my nature to display Teutonic bluntness.

"Guests! Caw! Suddenly appear! Gone, caw, then here!" flapping its wings, which seemed to serve as a replacement for human gestures, the black-feathered bird spoke rapidly.

"So, your master is intrigued by our sudden appearance?" I probed.

"Guests! Caw! Rare!"

"Does this place belong to your master?"

"Caw?" The bird fell silent for about half a dozen seconds. "No! No! Caw! Mistress watches over this place, caw!"

"Then, are we allowed to be here?"

"Guests can stay, caw!" the bird informed me, much to my relief. "Caw, I just keep watch! Caw!" it added immediately.

"Then..." An idea started forming in my head, something that might make things easier for me. "Perhaps it would be more convenient for you not to roost on branches like a silent assassin?" Speaking elegantly in the Irish style wasn't easy for me, but I think I managed. "And instead, observe us up close, from my shoulder?"

"Tr-r-icky, German?" the bird — or whatever it was — asked. It was hard to tell.

"That's the Roman's specialty, dear bran," I replied with the most honest expression I could muster. All that practice in front of the mirror didn't go to waste.

"You're right!" the crow cawed, and before I could blink, it was beside me. For a moment, I thought it had teleported or Apparated. But no, it was just so stealthy against the backdrop of the surrounding darkness... Wait. Since when had the twilight deepened into almost full night? We couldn't have been here for three hours already, could we?

...I was getting distracted when I had such a perfect source of information right here. And from the looks of it, one who was quite susceptible to flattery! This was a jackpot, no less.

"Would you kindly tell us about this place, esteemed familiar?" I glanced at the proud, now fluffed-up bird perched comfortably on my shoulder.

Now all I needed was to lose an eye, get another raven, and I'd be well on my way to becoming an Allfather and lord of the Æsir.

"Smart German, caw! But dumb question! This is Erin, of course." Somehow, the bird managed to make me question my own intelligence with just a single look.

"And more specifically? It's clear we're on the Emerald Isle, not Azkaban." I finally couldn't hold back a snort. I could keep a straight face in front of the mirror, but with a crow, that was a first. Azkaban, by the way, like the island it was located on, also existed in the magical world. "This place, as far as I know, isn't just any ordinary forest."

The crow was silent for a moment, shuffling its talons.

"Cursed land! Caw!" it finally declared, flapping its wings. "The king of the Fomorians lived here, caw!"

"But didn't they live across the ocean? Or the sea," Winnie joined the conversation, clearly knowing the legends of her homeland better than I did.

"Correct! Caw! The third son of Indech decided to settle here! There was a great battle, caw!" the bird generously explained, confirming my suspicions about who might be its mistress.