"How long will it burn?" Freya asked, tone unchanged.
Regulus watched her a moment longer before turning back to the island. The Fiendfyre still raged, but the worst of it had passed.
"Not long. Fiendfyre eats what it can eat, then dies. There wasn't much on that island to begin with. A few buildings, some rock. It'll starve soon enough."
Freya nodded and said nothing more.
They hovered in silence, watching the flames shrink in the distance. Ten minutes or so later, the Fiendfyre went out.
There was no gradual fade. It simply vanished, as if something had reached in and pulled the fire from existence. One moment the island blazed. The next, nothing.
What remained was a blackened husk.
Regulus studied what was left.
He'd learned something from this release. The slide from total control to total chaos had been brief, but in those few seconds, he'd felt the Fiendfyre shift. How it swelled. How it fractured. How it slipped his grip.
The awareness was faint, imprecise, but real. If he tried again, he probably still couldn't contain it.
But he could do better. Delay the break a little longer.
He pulled his gaze back. "Let's go."
They flew to the ship. It turned and began the journey home.
He and Freya stayed at the bow. Neither made an effort at conversation. They just stood there, watching the sea, the sky, the occasional dolphin keeping pace with the hull.
Sleek grey-blue shapes wove alongside the ship, arcing out of the water and slicing back under, trailing white spray.
Peaceful, almost.
Halfway through the return trip, the ship stopped. Regulus knew Freya had done it.
Here it comes, he thought. Time to lay the cards down.
The buildup had been long enough. Every card worth showing had been shown.
The blue flames had appeared again, unconcealed this time. Not just for him, but in full view of those Abyssal Whispers operatives.
His own strength had been proven further. The second form of the Decomposition Curse. The unchecked devastation of Fiendfyre. All demonstrated.
From resisting Mental Erosion, to the changes in Bellatrix, to this battle. It had to be enough by now.
Regulus had spent days wondering what role Freya actually played in all of this.
A guide?
A test?
Or simply a quest-giver, an NPC delivering the next plot beat?
He'd considered it many times, run through the possibilities, but never asked. He just watched. Waited. Let things unfold.
Call it curiosity. He wanted to see how Freya would play it, wanted to see where all the foreshadowing would land.
But regardless of her role, the days spent together had taught him something: this witch was real.
She wasn't some hollow instrument carrying out orders.
She had her own thoughts, her own judgment. She'd asked him twice whether he had questions for her. She'd shown him the blue flames from the very first day, even if only for a flash. She'd mentioned "that person" in conversation, her voice carrying complicated weight.
Freya had never intended to hide everything.
Maybe she simply couldn't volunteer it. Some constraint, some condition.
Regulus turned to look at her, his gaze sharp and direct, as if he could see through her eyes to the person who'd arranged all of this.
He thought about what he'd learned of Freya over these days. This witch was nothing like she appeared on the surface.
On the surface: a striking, efficient combat elite. Few words. Clean execution. All business.
But spend enough time with her, and the other side showed through. The eye-rolls. Bumping him with her broomstick. The way her gaze slid sideways when she felt caught out.
She'd accepted a task from that person. Bring him here. Put him through this.
But she clearly had ideas of her own.
Not sabotage. Not reluctance. More like... she didn't want to follow the script exactly. She wanted to do it her way, leave her own mark on the process.
That small rebellion made her feel more real to him.
Freya reached into her robes and drew out a pendant. Silver, its surface etched with intricate runes.
A tap of her wand, a murmured incantation, and the pendant opened. From inside, she withdrew a scroll.
It expanded as it emerged, growing until it was roughly the length and thickness of a forearm.
A yellowed sheet of parchment, its edges worn with age, was tied shut with a thin cord whose loose end swayed gently in the sea breeze.
This had to be the maritime document. Regulus gave it a glance. Unremarkable.
Nothing like the ancient-relic fantasy he might have imagined.
"Regulus, you've figured it out, haven't you?"
He dropped his gaze for a moment, glanced at the document, then looked up at her again.
He didn't say a word. Just smiled and nodded.
Freya didn't roll her eyes this time, but her expression came alive.
She looked at this boy. They hadn't known each other long, yet it felt like much longer.
The truth was, she'd known about him far longer than they'd been acquainted.
That person had told her, years ago. That someone like this would come. When he'd appear. What he'd be like.
She stopped hesitating and held the document out to him.
"This has been with the Eisenhardt family for thirty years. Before that person... before his defeat, he gave it to my father for safekeeping. Father only passed it to me this year."
Something stirred in Regulus.
Thirty years. Longer than he'd expected. He'd assumed he'd been seen after his birth, at the earliest. This pushed the timeline back further.
But it made sense.
He'd arrived in this world, which meant this world was real.
He wasn't some outsider, some foreign variable the world hadn't accounted for. He was simply part of it, born like anyone else, growing like anyone else, moving toward whatever came next.
Thirty years ago, long before he existed, everything had already been seen.
Regulus suspected the timeline went back even further.
The Eisenhardt family had publicly refused Grindelwald at the height of his power, never aligning with him. Everyone knew that.
But now the picture looked different. That had been a facade.
The reality was that the Eisenhardts and Grindelwald were far closer than the outside world knew or imagined.
Why else would a task concerning him be entrusted to an Eisenhardt?
And Freya. Why did she know Protego Diabolica?
The thoughts circled once and he let them go. Still pointless.
He took the document but didn't open it. Instead, he looked at Freya with that faint smile. "Have you read it?"
Her expression shifted. Something like a pout. She'd wanted to, obviously, but hadn't been allowed.
She shook her head. Said nothing.
"Do you want to?"
More movement in her face. She still didn't speak, just looked at him. Held his gaze. Waiting.
Regulus found that amusing.
Without another word, he stepped sideways, closing the distance between them.
Less than half a meter now. Close enough to catch a faint, cool scent from her.
He unrolled the document between them.
Inside was a map, crudely drawn, almost aggressively so.
A few curved lines sketched a coastline. Small dots marked island positions. A dashed border enclosed one region, with a handful of blurred letters scrawled beside it.
Barely recognizable as the Baltic Sea.