Abel sat at his desk.
The wand lay on a wooden stand he'd carved for this purpose, elevated, stable, catching the light from the desk lamp. The crack was worse than he'd thought. Not a single hairline anymore but a branching fracture, three micro-fissures radiating outward from the main split, each one a stress point where the wood's magical integrity had failed under the hellfire's load.
Pine body, Pegasus feather core. A temporary wand built with whatever materials I couldn't find during my time in the MCU. It was never meant to handle this kind of power. The Patronus strained it. The hellfire nearly destroyed it.
He held his left hand over the desk and conjured a small, controlled flame. Not hellfire. Just ordinary fire, clean and manageable. With his right hand, he used a pair of fine tweezers to hold a sliver of silver the size of a fingernail over the flame.
The silver liquefied. Abel guided the molten droplet with his magic, drawing it into an impossibly thin wire, finer than a human hair, and fed it into the first micro-fissure. The silver seeped into the crack like water into a root, filling the space between the separated wood fibers, binding them together with metallic reinforcement.
Slow work. Delicate. One tremor, one moment of lost concentration, and the silver would pool in the wrong place and ruin the wand's internal channel.
Abel worked for three hours.
When he finished, the wand looked almost the same. The cracks were sealed, the silver barely visible, thin metallic veins running along the shaft like scars on skin. The wand's function was restored, but its structural limit hadn't changed. The fractures would reopen, wider than before.
A repaired bone is stronger at the break point but weaker everywhere else. Same principle. This wand has one more serious fight in it. Maybe two, if I'm careful. After that, it's done.
The new wand can't wait any longer. I have the oak heartwood. I need the dragon heartstring. The Ancient One promised to help after the Blackheart crisis. The crisis isn't over yet, but the Earth Demon is dead, and that changes the equation.
Abel set the wand back on its stand and leaned back in his chair.
Seventeen years old. He'd turned seventeen a few months ago, not long after the Latveria mission, and the birthday had passed without ceremony. Theresa had baked a cake. Sean had shown up with a terrible gift. Abel had smiled and eaten cake and pretended to be a normal teenager for one evening.
Seventeen. In my previous life, seventeen was fourth year at Hogwarts. I was learning about the Triwizard Tournament, worrying about OWLs, sneaking into the Restricted Section with borrowed Invisibility Cloaks. Normal teenage wizard problems.
In this life, at seventeen, I've fought a cult serving Dormammu, saved Tony Stark from an armored maniac, negotiated with the literal Devil, and killed a fallen angel with hellfire I accidentally discovered I could wield.
Different lives. Same age. Funny how that works.
His phone buzzed. A text from Sean.
Sean: bro u alive?? havent heard from u in like 4 days
Abel: Alive. Busy with summer stuff. Dinner at my place this week?
Sean: THERESA COOKING??
Abel: Obviously.
Sean: im there. also did u see the news about the harlem thing? that green monster destroyed like 6 blocks. wild
Abel: Saw it.
Sean: sometimes i think we live in a comic book lol
Abel: You have no idea.
He set the phone down and looked at the wand one more time.
One fight left in you. Make it count.
Then he pulled out his notebook, opened it to the page labeled BLACKHEART, and started writing.
Two of three lieutenants eliminated. Aerokon by Ghost Rider and the earth Demon by Abel. One remaining: the Water Demon. Blackheart himself still at large, still searching for a Contract that was now in Kamar-Taj's vault. Johnny Blaze still hunting, still desperate, his girlfriend Roxanne still in danger.
The endgame is approaching. Blackheart is running out of pawns. When he gets desperate, he'll make a move. And when he does, we need to be ready.
Abel closed the notebook.
Before coming home, he'd stopped at the late-night bakery three blocks from the apartment. Theresa's favorite dessert, the one she'd never been able to replicate despite being a Michelin-level chef. A peace offering for the days he'd been absent. She'd been asleep when he arrived, so he'd left it in the fridge with a note.
Mephisto threatened her. That threat is still active, even with his promise. The word of a devil is binding, but devils are creative about loopholes.
Abel reached into his enchanted bag and pulled out a natural white crystal he'd been carrying since before the subway meeting. Flawless quartz, palm-sized, sourced through Tony's connections. He set it on the desk beside the repaired wand and picked up a miniature file.
The protection amulet. A shield for an ordinary person. A warning system. A lifeline. Ancient runes, etched into crystal, powered by Abel's own magic. In his previous life, he'd made one of these for Dumbledore's Army and the Order of the Phoenix. That amulet had saved three lives during the Battle of Hogwarts.
This one would save one life. The only one that mattered.
He began polishing the crystal's surface, preparing it for the inscriptions. The work was delicate. Each stroke removed microns of material, shaping the crystal into a perfect circle.
When it was finished, he'd find a way to give it to Theresa without explaining what it was.
Abel worked until his eyes blurred, then set the file down and went to bed.
For the first time in weeks, he slept without dreaming.
END CHAPTER 59