Chapter Summaries

Tom reached Herpo the Foul’s island and entered his cavernous palace, where he challenged Herpo’s claim to godhood. Herpo became fascinated with Tom and summoned him through a portal, offering to grant his ambitions in exchange for loyalty.

• Tom arrived at the barren island and followed Herpo the Foul’s servant to the palace.
• Herpo’s servant warned Tom that the living beings lining the palace avenue had been turned into trophies.
• Tom entered the cavern and used his Lucky Coin to claim that fate favored him.
• After Tom accidentally answered in Parseltongue, Herpo’s serpents surrounded him and wrapped his servant in venomous snakes.
• Tom asked Herpo whether he considered himself a god, provoking Herpo into wild laughter and a display of power.
• Herpo appeared as a face of black mist, invited Tom through a portal, and promised to grant his ambitions in return for loyalty.

Tom stepped through Herpo’s portal into hell after trusting the gold coin’s laurel side to decide his fate. A month after Tom and Nelson parted, Pythia discovered Nelson’s vast automated tower and the Colossus he was building, then saw his anger and worry over Tom’s choice.

• Tom flicked the gold coin before the portal, and it landed with the laurel pattern facing up as the hidden watchers observed.
• Pythia entered Nelson’s silver castle and explored its tower, where automated machines mined ore, forged parts, and assembled Mayflies.
• Pythia saw the vast workshop and the enormous Colossus Nelson was building, then suffered a vision and a piercing headache.
• Nelson handed Pythia a handkerchief while concealing his distress, and told her to wipe her sweat.
• Tom picked up the coin, declared that fate was on his side, and stepped through the doorway to hell.

Nelson helped Pythia recover the memories she had suppressed, and she gave him those memories despite her fear of facing them. At Herpo the Foul’s temple, Tom regained clarity and declared that prophecy was the magic he was best at.

• Tom resisted the mist inside Herpo the Foul’s lair and considered what he was best at.
• Nelson offered Pythia enchanted tea that restored her memories of a young man, a dead girl, and the events that led him toward becoming an evil dragon.
• Pythia confronted the memories and grasped Nelson’s hand as he reached for her.
• Pythia told Nelson that Herpo the Foul had sought to drag the god from his altar, then passed her memories to him.
• Tom heard Nelson through the Small Silver Ball, saw the temple gates clearly, and declared that prophecy was his strongest magic.

Tom entered Herpo the Foul’s temple and used Nelson’s guidance and his own predictions to convince Herpo that he was a prophet. The temple illusion shattered as the volcano erupted on the island, leaving Tom alive amid the destruction with the Lucky Coin in his hand.

• Tom ignored Herpo the Foul’s venomous snakes and praised his imagined destiny as a ruler destined to unite the world.
• Nelson warned Tom that Herpo’s darkness was spreading across the peninsula and urged him to mislead Herpo’s research while keeping their communication open.
• Herpo tested Tom with visions and threats, then took the Lucky Coin and demanded proof that Tom could predict the future.
• Tom claimed that a volcano on his island would erupt, and Nelson’s connection returned just as the eruption began.
• The temple illusion shattered, revealing the island’s real destruction as lava surged from the volcano and Tom turned the coin to Laurel’s side.

Tom survived the volcanic destruction of Herpo the Foul’s settlement, while Nelson explained to Pythia how Herpo’s fear of fate shaped his power and exposed a weakness. Herpo returned to the island and ordered Tom to rebuild his palace.

• Tom stood beneath the collapsing castle as Herpo the Foul handed him the restored apple, and the wall crushed him while the shattered window protected him.
• After the eruption, Tom appeared unharmed in the opening where the castle window had been, as the island’s people gathered among the ruins.
• Nelson told Pythia that her prophecies revealed fate while Herpo’s curses imposed death, and he identified Herpo’s fear of fate as a weakness they could exploit.
• Nelson explained that Herpo had sent Pythia to the volcano because he mistook its sulfurous steam for the Lost Mist, which had arisen through her connection to fate and Limbo.
• Herpo returned on a dragon, ordered the Wizards to rebuild the island and commanded Tom to reconstruct his palace.

Professor Binns’s newly appearing book chronicled Herpo the Foul’s devastation of Ancient Greece and Nelson’s journey with Pythia to find Andros the Invincible. Nelson and Pythia escaped a living forest and discovered that Andros’s city-state was empty, leaving them to investigate its disappearance.

• Professor Binns showed McGonagall the history book whose pages were appearing, and asked her to bring Dumbledore to the library.
• The book described Herpo the Foul’s magic shrouding the Balkan Peninsula in darkness and Nelson and Pythia’s search for Andros the Invincible.
• Nelson and Pythia encountered a forest of animated trees that dragged their horse underground, and Nelson Apparated them to a nearby city-state.
• Nelson found the city-state empty and marked it on his map, then decided he and Pythia would investigate the next day.

Nelson and Pythia investigated a deserted mountain city-state, where they found evidence of Herpo the Foul’s past battle with Andros. A strange vine dragged Nelson into a pit, leaving Pythia alone until she encountered the bloodied, overgrown Andros, who was shocked to find her alive.

• Nelson showed Pythia a map of the underground routes his Mayflies had explored and explained that they had found no trace of his missing scouts near the city-state.
• Nelson examined bloodied, mutated branches and concluded that Herpo the Foul had fought Andros there about six months earlier, after which the residents had likely evacuated in an orderly fashion.
• A black vine sprang from Nelson’s pit, hooked his ankle, and dragged him underground while Pythia watched helplessly.
• Pythia tried to flee the city but mistook the hairy, blood-covered Andros for a monster and blasted him before running away.
• Andros caught up with Pythia, identified himself, and exclaimed that she had survived in the Temple of the Sun God.

Nelson confronted Andros after Andros drugged Pythia, then questioned him about her supposed death and Delphi’s destruction. Andros fled underground with Pythia as monsters gathered on the horizon, leaving Nelson to consider the contradictions in their accounts.

• Andros drugged Pythia during their reunion, but Nelson returned and held him at Wand-point.
• Andros broke free when he heard a baby crying from Nelson’s Small Silver Ball, believing Nelson had found and endangered the hidden children.
• Andros told Nelson that Pythia had drowned thirteen years earlier after Herpo the Foul returned from a shipwreck with her body and Kaurien’s.
• Andros claimed Herpo the Foul had destroyed Delphi and told him it was already a land of death, contradicting what Nelson had learned.
• As monsters gathered in the clouds, Andros seized Pythia and escaped underground, vowing to avenge the child.

Nelson confronted Herpo the Foul’s dragon while protecting the underground city-state Andros had built for its people. After rescuing a newborn girl from a swallowed piece of luminous ore, Nelson used it and the Mayflies to spear the dragon in the mouth, leaving the battle unresolved.

• Herpo the Foul’s dragon attacked the mountaintop, and Nelson used a barrier to block its breath while weighing whether to abandon the city-state below.
• Nelson remembered how Andros had moved the residents into a vast underground refuge carved inside the mountain.
• Nelson was caught in Andros’s vines, freed himself with the Mayflies, and reassured a frightened family that he was Andros’s friend.
• Nelson saved the family’s newborn daughter by making her cough up a sharp piece of luminous ore that had nearly choked her.
• Nelson hurled the ore, reinforced by the Mayflies, through the dragon’s breath and into its roaring mouth.

Delphi and Vance carried out their plan to make Tom fear fate by confronting him with an apparent Death Omen, but their clash left Delphi gravely poisoned and Tom wounded. In Berlin, Grindelwald’s attack triggered a strange change in Tom’s memories, leaving him with contradictory recollections and a sense that someone was missing.

• Nelson killed the cursed Dragon, then clashed with Herpo the Foul while Delphi declared himself Tom’s Death Omen.
• Delphi recalled that he and Vance had planned for Vance to delay Tom’s judgment while Delphi created an opponent that would make Tom fear fate.
• Vance attached a Great Silver Sphere to Tom, but Tom destroyed the mayflies in his arm and struck Delphi with a poisonous spell.
• Delphi used Fiendfyre and the silver device to purge the poison, then wounded Tom’s throat and made him sense death magic on Delphi.
• Tom fled beneath the clouds, while Delphi judged that his attempt to frighten Tom had worked.
• In Berlin, Grindelwald’s flames burned Tom as he stood still, and Tom noticed new scars around his neck and felt his memories breaking into contradictions.

Dumbledore and Grindelwald exploited a weakness in Herpo the Foul, while Grindelwald revealed how he used a Time-Turner and Limbo to preserve clues from altered history. At Nelsonz, Professor Zhangjia recruited Binns and Hogwo to enter Limbo and carry on the mission against McGonagall.

• Dumbledore and Grindelwald trapped Herpo the Foul and helped the gathered wizards land a serious attack as his strength faltered.
• Grindelwald explained to Peeves-Shao how he had learned of Grindelwald's time magic, used prophecy and the Time-Turner, and preserved his past through their Blood Malediction.
• Peeves-Shao joined hands with Grindelwald and saw McGonagall's fatal neck wound as an altered, hazy version of events.
• Professor Zhangjia told Binns that Limbo might hold the key to defeating McGonagall and invited him to continue the thousand-year-old mission.
• Hogwo revealed that he had been listening, then agreed to accompany Professor Zhangjia into Limbo after being urged to help protect Nelsonz's children.

Andro discovered that Nelson’s soul was being sustained by Tom’s dark magic and learned how Tom had brought her back from death. When Tom threatened the Underground City-State, Andro used a colossal construct to lift the entire city and offered to carry its residents to safety.

• Andros examined Nelson in Limbo, discovered the spells binding her soul to her body, and pieced together how Tom had spent eighteen years keeping her alive.
• White Fog warned Cao Ningli that Tom was gathering the island’s Dementors and offered three days to find a way to protect the city-state.
• Andro told Derosus that Tom had found the Underground City-State and would soon attack it.
• Derosus asked Andro to rescue the children while the residents stayed behind to delay Tom, but Andro proposed moving the whole city instead.
• Andro summoned three enormous metal fingers beneath the city, lifted it, and offered to take its willing residents somewhere safe.

Nelson arrived at a refugee settlement being hauled north through the darkness, where an old bard sang of Hermes Trismegistus as the people’s savior. Nelson disputed the legend’s account of a single god, then left after promising to return with fruit.

• An old bard sang that Hermes Trismegistus had protected the refugees and was leading their moving city-states north toward sunlight.
• Nelson, a blond newcomer, corrected the bard’s description of the eagle and listened as the settlement distributed its midday meal.
• The bard explained that Hermes Trismegistus had three forms, while Nelson privately recognized the name as a shared pen name used by Wizards.
• Nelson said the city-states had been saved by the people working together and explained that they were traveling north to escape the dark clouds.
• The bard and the gathered refugees rebuked Nelson for insulting their benefactor, and Nelson apologized before leaving and promising to bring cherries.

Nelson planned to separate from Andros’s refugee convoy after guiding it toward Larissa and the Thracians, while he headed north to Teichmon. He then used the connection left by Herpo the Foul’s magic on Pythia to confront him, and Herpo panicked and demanded The Seer.

• Nelson warned Andros that the convoy had to move faster and outlined a route northeast through Larissa and Strymon Gorge toward the Thracians.
• Nelson rejected Andros’s suggestion to seize land and explained that Larissa’s surviving Wizards could be allies, while the other routes led into traps or Herpo the Foul’s defenses.
• Nelson told Andros that he would leave for Teichmon, then gave him a leaf that would reveal its message at the right place.
• Andros continued taking in refugees from destroyed city-states and organized their labor, while Nelson went to the Underground City-State to see Pythia.
• Herpo the Foul probed Nelson through the magic on Pythia, but Nelson sent his voice through the remaining Mayflies in Herpo’s body and challenged him to come to Teichmon.
• Herpo the Foul severed the connection in fear, threatened Nelson over Pythia, and rushed out to demand that his servant bring him The Seer.

Tom convinced Herpo the Foul that he was a prophet and advised him to stop pursuing Nelson, while Herpo ordered Tom to prove his loyalty. As The Caravan turned northeast, Nelson left after Andros’s companion challenged his identity, leaving the travelers to protect themselves.

• Tom used a prophecy about Nelson and Herpo’s stolen treasure to win Herpo’s trust and reinforce his belief that Nelson was Kaurien returned from the dead.
• Tom urged Herpo to stop chasing Nelson and instead wait in a trapped canyon city-state for him to arrive; Herpo sent Tom to prove his loyalty.
• On The Caravan, an old companion accused Andros of trusting Nelson despite Pythia’s death and demanded that Nelson be questioned or exiled.
• Andros revealed that Nelson had already left, and The Caravan changed course toward the northeast.
• The old companion asked who would protect them, and Andros said they would protect themselves on the safer route.

Andros killed Labini after discovering he had become Herpo the Foul’s servant, then led the wizards aboard a giant carrying their city-states toward the northeastern horizon. Herpo learned of Labini’s death and planned to pursue Nelson while sending servants to intercept the fleeing Greeks.

• Andros revealed that he knew Labini had betrayed them and strangled him with vines before piercing his chest and binding the escaping soul in a cage formed from vines and Patronus magic.
• Andros told the gathered wizards that Labini had dealt with a spy and that Hermes had left, then ordered everyone to flee day and night without stopping.
• A silver skeletal giant carrying a mountain emerged from underground and blasted a passage through the mountains with a Chinese Fireball, allowing it to carry the city-states northeast.
• Tom told Herpo the Foul that Labini had died and that Hermes had gone to Teichmon, while privately suspecting Nelson had arranged Labini’s death to conceal information.
• Herpo the Foul ordered Tom to prepare at Teichmon and sent servants to intercept the fleeing Greeks while he focused on stopping Hermes.

McGonagall and Professor Binns traveled aboard the Hogwarts Express through a corrupted Limbo, where Binns explained that Herpo the Foul was turning discarded memories into Dementors. Meanwhile, Grindelwald and Dumbledore saw Herpo recognize Nagini’s Blood Malediction, and Aberforth attacked him with Nelson’s picture frame.

• McGonagall escaped the Lost Mist with Professor Binns and boarded the Hogwarts Express before the mist could drag her away.
• The train carried McGonagall and Binns through Limbo, where they saw discarded memories consumed and transformed into Dementors.
• Professor Binns explained that Herpo the Foul had overturned Limbo and was preparing an army to attack the living.
• McGonagall read an ancient account describing a coming battle at Stemon Canyon as the train neared its destination.
• Herpo recognized Nagini’s blood and used her Blood Malediction to anchor his memories and protect his past.
• Grindelwald urged the others to stop Herpo, and Aberforth struck at him with Nelson’s picture frame.

Aberforth trapped Herpo the Foul inside Melissa’s painting, but Herpo had already removed Nagini’s Blood Malediction and left her with his memories. Dumbledore and Grindelwald prepared to enter those memories, hoping to learn how Nelson could defeat Herpo in the past.

• Aberforth used the painting frame to trap Herpo the Foul and survived his attack thanks to armor hidden beneath his coat.
• Dumbledore and Grindelwald examined the painting and saw Melissa’s hatred struggling against Herpo, while the enchanted armor complained and reassembled itself.
• Aberforth proposed launching the painting into space, but Grindelwald and Ivy Darwin explained that Herpo could recover there and the plan would not work.
• Dumbledore discovered that Nagini had lost her magic after Herpo removed her Blood Malediction, leaving her with Herpo’s memories.
• Nagini agreed to let Dumbledore inspect those memories, and Grindelwald insisted on joining because they might reveal how Nelson could defeat Herpo.

As Dumbledore and Grindelwald entered Nagini’s memories, McGonagall and Professor Binns witnessed the Mayflies sacrifice themselves to trap Herpo the Foul between the Veil and the living world. The train reached the City of Deathly Silence, where Herpo waited for a traveler carrying a coffin-like box.

• Dumbledore prepared Nagini to face the Blood Malediction’s memories, but Grindelwald entered the Pensieve first and took Dumbledore with him.
• McGonagall and Professor Binns saw a chain of dead Mayflies stretched across Limbo and learned that the creatures had chosen to sacrifice themselves.
• The Mayflies transformed into a train and bound Herpo the Foul to Ludwig’s passage through the Veil, leaving Herpo trapped by fate.
• Professor Binns recognized the Order of the Garter medal on Nelson’s Wand and laughed at the joke hidden in their history.
• McGonagall and Professor Binns arrived at the City of Deathly Silence, where Herpo the Foul awaited a traveler carrying a coffin-like box.

Nelson faced Herpo the Foul’s trap and the first mass casting of the Killing Curse, while Dumbledore and Grindelwald watched the memory unfold. Nelson survived by redirecting the curse’s harm through a loyalty contract to Pythia, who was already dead and immune to death.

• Nelson dodged Herpo the Foul’s ambush and confronted him outside Teichmon City-State, carrying a wooden crate on his back.
• Herpo the Foul revealed that he had created Avada Kedavra and ordered his enslaved wizards to cast it together against Nelson.
• Dumbledore and Grindelwald watched the attack from within the memory, and Grindelwald urged Dumbledore to study Nelson’s spellcasting.
• Nelson activated the contract magic linking him to Pythia, causing the Killing Curse’s harm to pass to her instead.
• The curse could not kill Pythia because she was already dead.