Departure

Anne closed the manuscript, her quill held between her fingers.

"I'll prepare a rune-breaking contingency plan. If the Stone Ring's rune system belonged to the same framework as the Hexagon Center, my plan can be used directly."

Cassandra hung the Silver Compass at her waist, then hung the Basalt Compass beside it.

"Nasser and I will go together. The Analyzer needs real-time calibration on-site, and the Silver Compass and Basalt Compass have to work at the same time to precisely locate the Stone Ring's weak points in the magical flow. If that person really has been waiting for us inside the Stone Ring for nine thousand years, we should give him an answer—not trying to become him like Cohen did, not trying to use him like The Ashwinder Party did, but simply standing there and telling him we've come."

Hagrid walked out of the guest room off the corridor, the Pink Old Umbrella tucked under his arm, his beard already combed neat.

"I'll get the carriage ready. Jotunheimen is in Norway, much farther than the Jordan Valley. The Thestrals will need to land and rest once along the way. I'll bring enough feed and Storm Lanterns. We won't lose too much time on the road."

Kingsley sent an encrypted message from Confederation Headquarters. He had just returned there from the Black Forest.

"The preliminary results of the internal investigation are in. The missing duty clerk was named Ellis McPhee, thirty-two years old, from Britain, and he worked in the communications room at Confederation Headquarters for four years. His communication records show that over the past six months, he regularly contacted an unregistered Two-way mirror number. The calls were all very short, no more than two minutes each, but they were frequent—three times a week on average. The Technical Group is