The delegates then spend the next few days trying to determine what the obligations of each party are, as well as what standards to adopt to determine the scale of violations, even as the Muggles above them prepare for battle.

  However, the urgency of the situation ended up compelling them to limit the scope of the agreement to magical containment and secrecy maintenance.

  When Vincent and the children are all sitting at the same table as Alejandra and Nurcan on that day, after legal review ended:

  “It seems like the others are a little too hung up on defining the scope of the hazards and how to deal with these, especially the Russians, to see that a lasting magical peace requires more than just clear protocols for what happens if secrecy is breached!” Alejandra rants and pants in front of the couple, just as steam is about to come out of her ears.

  “And Vaidi pushed so hard to get clauses for Lithuania that it’s not even funny anymore!” Vincent laments. “She treated Lithuania almost as if the Sejm still existed. And acted as if she was Poland-Lithuania’s Grand Chancellor, and not like a Russian delegate!”

  During the Reign of Terror, Alejandra and Vaidi being thrust into the halls of power so young were symptomatic of the magical world’s chronic lack of interest in public administration. They were covered relentlessly by magical media Europe-wide, and Vaidi even more so, ever since the Anointment Motion passed on July 1, 1793, Alejandra following suit a year later, Nurcan gets flashbacks of these gossip columns that somehow made it as far as Karakalem, upon listening to the lament.

  “To be fair, perhaps letting go of the other trappings that could help Prussia rebuild its magical infrastructure and have the Prussian delegate negotiate a separate agreement with the Bab-I Humayun to this effect was perhaps the best way to get an agreement ready in time!” Nurcan responds to the other two while her children complain. “The Qajars had ulterior motives in requesting Vaidi’s presence here, but it could serve the Ottoman Empire, too. That’s why I played along with Vaidi and the Qajars!”

  “We can’t play outside here!” Yusuf whines in front of his parents.

  “The outside world is too dangerous: you wouldn’t want to blow up this place because you accidentally blew up a powder keg!” Nurcan sermons her children. “But today, the treaty will be ratified, and we will return home!”

  Alejandra turns to Nurcan. “You can’t exactly blame Vaidi: Lithuania is the Russian region that has the highest risks for the maintenance of magical secrecy, and the Qajars wanted to speak to someone who feels the heat!”

  Firouz sets the record straight when he approaches the couple’s table. “Pakrantiev, in Kyiv, didn’t feel the urgency as Vaidi did!”

  All the delegates are now assembled in front of a table where the text of the Tilsit Accord sits, written on enchanted Upper Hungarian vellum paper. Where all parties agree on not deploying wizards on Muggle battlefields, with a clearly defined scope, and graduated punishments should any country breach it.

  Such as immediate extradition for any wizard caught fighting in Muggle uniforms, and, depending on circumstances, life imprisonment or death.

  Here, delegates sign in alphabetical order of French name of their countries of origin, while omitting the word “Empire” in the cases of the Ottomans and Qajars. So the Austrian delegate starts signing it while the metallic noises of arms above them are painful reminders of why they even negotiated the accord in the first place.

  Then come Alejandra, then the French delegates, and the Ottoman ones, all signing with the same phoenix feather quill. And the Ottoman delegates sign, with the male delegate signing first and Nurcan second.

  And, of course, the Prussian delegate, Firouz and the other one, and, finally, the Russian ones, Vaidi signing last.

  “Now that the signing ceremony is done, the time has come to exchange gifts!” Alejandra signals before each party checks against their manifests of diplomatic gifts.

  The other Ottoman delegate unfurls a list of manifests about which lot of 9 gifts is given to whom, which Nurcan reads. So while everyone receives a copy of the Risale-I Nizam-I Cedid, as well as a magical map showing in real time potential breaches of the Accord on the battlefield, a hil’at (honor robe), an engraved Year IX Charleville 1777 musket, four enchanted milestones connected to the system of maps, the final gift is then dependent on the recipient. A flying carpet for everyone but the Qajars, who will receive its equivalent in velvet silk instead.

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  And then the receipt of these gifts begins: from the Prussians, a necklace made with yellow amber beads, from the Austrians, a coffee set made in Augarten porcelain, of which Nurcan has one set, from the French, a déjeuner set from Sèvres, from the Russians, a seal box in grey-green Kalkan jasper. All these items are given to everyone at the table, and had spells cast on these to make them unbreakable.

  “Poor Prussians; this starts to look far too much like Muggle diplomatic gifts…” Isabella sighs, upon receipt of the items, while Firouz hands her an enchanted scroll of sacred calligraphy, before doing the same to Nurcan.

  “My turn, I guess…” Nurcan sighs while whipping out the French-language copies of the Risale-I Nizam-I Cedid the Bab-I Humayun earmarked before the trip.

  So Nurcan gives French-language copies of the Risale-I Nizam-I Cedid, one for each person. Yet, no one suspects that it might change Muggle statecraft forever. Except maybe Nurcan or Alejandra.

  Speaking of which, Alejandra gifts her a book about the mechanisms of social control, written in French, too.

  “Thank you!” Nurcan takes Alejandra’s book and puts it into her stack of gifts.

  With Vaidi being the guest receiving the final copy of the Risale available for gifting, she’s left wondering how does that compare to the gifts she received from the other delegations. However, touching the Risale makes her get a flashback of something she didn’t do.

  Why is it that the Risale makes me remember some Impossible Assignment at Hogwarts during the TT? I never did any assignment that could possibly have been called such there! Vaidi’s memories then turn to her final year at Beauxbatons with Alejandra in History of Magic.

  But when the stack of gifts is put into the horse pocket, whose magic is there to protect its contents, Nurcan herds the children and Vincent as well.

  “Time to return home to this forest!” Nurcan tells the family.

  “I can’t believe that you got such luxury goods!” Vincent examines the objects as they appear in the horse pocket. “These are dishes just like those at court, to say nothing of this… seal box!”

  “I know how expensive a coffee set or a déjeuner one from Augarten or Sèvres is to Muggles… and, just because someone more favorable to yeniceris is on the throne, by safety precaution, please, upon return home, the dishes and the seal box must not leave the cabin until further notice, and kept hidden, too!”

  “Yeniceris, yeniceris! Why do you think yeniceris would come to us back in the Surmene forest?” Vincent asks her, with his own face getting red.

  “I feel we’d be in even greater danger if we tried to move to Prussia, because Muggle deserters would be everywhere, and we can forget about Russia!”

  Selling one of these sets to some ayan around my parents’ area would give my parents dignity for a while, let alone the seal box. However, it would be insulting to everyone else if I sold off these items that quickly. Yet, the scholarly materials could be handed over to Karakalem without it causing much of a diplomatic issue, Nurcan struggles against the temptation to sell off any of these items. That, even though it might, ironically, strengthen the cover I told my parents in my youth. But, for some reason, I think it would not be a good idea to do it. While the Prussian amber necklace may not be worth as much as the rest to Muggles, its real value is in its medical use, Nurcan starts ruminating as the family stands in front of the fireplace.

  Alejandra then waves the wand at the text of the Accord. “Geminio!”

  After the copies of the Tilsit Accord are distributed to the various delegations, the Russian delegation teleports away from Tilsit first, and back to Vilnius.

  That said, the Ottoman copy is under the hands of the other Ottoman delegate, who goes to the ley line node before them to return to the Bab-I Humayun in Istanbul.

  Once their turn to go through the chimney arrives, after the departure of the Austrians and French, Nurcan gets a scoop of Floo powder ready:

  “Forest of Surmene!”

  Nurcan then takes off any jewels from her, such as the grand chelengk and the amber necklace, and puts them into her horse pocket.

  When they step into the chimney, the family finds itself back to the Forest of Surmene, where, months ago, they went to their hiding spot. However, upon arriving to the bonfire at the base of the Pontic Alps:

  “The fog is not there today, so we need to hide behind trees to use Multicorfors and then wait for nightfall to take off!” Nurcan then turns to the children. “Now’s your time to play outside!”

  “Finally! Playtime!” Yusuf lets out a sigh of relief while the family retreats into the woods, waiting for the fog, or nightfall.

  The children start playing, for a few minutes at a time, as soon as the family stops to catch their breath. But as the family goes deeper into the woods, the fog seemingly takes forever to set in, as they trek away from the main road.

  Once they reach a spot in the dense hazelnut forest where the parents can use magic without Muggles seeing them, and draw their wands:

  “Multicorfors!”

  Here they look as they no longer wear what they used to wear in Istanbul or Tilsit, but rather the clothes they would have worn in the village of Nurcan’s parents.

  By then they spend the next few hours going deeper into the woods, slowed to a crawl, waiting for night to fall before whipping the carpet out of the horse pocket.

  Vincent, used to flying carpet trips among the fog to get food and sell analgesic potions from and to Surmene, is the one flying the carpet for their return home.

  Which forces him to fly close to the tree line, but not too high above it. However, his experience of the area makes it easier for him to fly back home than he used to.

  When the family finally makes it back to the cabin, back from Tilsit, they land the carpet. Once that is done, the children are put to bed, and the horse pocket, safely stored:

  “Je t’aime…” Vincent then proceeds to kiss Nurcan.