The Operation Continues

The carriage landed on the platform in front of the Confederation Headquarters building, and the three of them hurried into the hall, crossed the corridor, and took the elevator down to the third basement level, where the Institute of Ancient Magic was located.

Cassandra stood in the center of a laboratory. In front of her was a massive stone worktable, with the Silver Compass, several pages of handwritten calculations, and an enlarged printed rune scan of Node Seven spread across it.

Nasser stood beside her, holding a Portable Rune Analyzer. The waveforms on its screen pulsed steadily.

"You're here." Cassandra did not look up. Her finger drew a line across one of the calculation sheets on the table. "I've calculated the precise coordinates of the Hexagon Center. Forty-three degrees seventeen minutes north, two degrees eleven minutes east. It's in France's Occitanie Region, about forty-one kilometers north of Carcassonne, on the southern foothills of the Montagne Noire. There's a forest-covered stretch of hills there, with no Muggle settlements and no known magical facilities."

"But Cohen knew it was there, didn't he?" Kingsley said.

"Cohen didn't just know it was there. He went there." Cassandra took a photograph from a drawer beneath the worktable and pushed it in front of Vivi. "This was one of Cohen's personal effects seized from the Carcassonne stronghold. The photograph was taken in the summer of 1991."

Vivi picked up the photograph.

Cohen looked much younger than the face she had seen in Node Seven's water, around his early thirties. He wore a simple white shirt and held a hiking staff, his expression calm and focused.

Only part of the limestone behind him showed in the photograph, but faint marks, partly hidden by moss, could just be made out on the rock face.

"This piece of limestone