You wait for Samara and Patrique to reveal why they hate your brother so much.

"To those of you in the room who are not current or former attendees of Boarbristle Academy," Aegidius says loudly in a booming voice, loud enough for everyone in the room, "you are going to need to forget everything you have heard here today." It is phrased as a matter of fact, not as a request. "For Miss Grover and Mr. Collier - I am afraid my patience is at an end. You will now - ACH! Franziska?!"

Your hands are grabbing the crook of his elbow. Aegidius may be enormous and you may be small, but even a small girl putting all her weight on his arm is enough to stop him from effectively bringing out his staff.

"I would not dream of disappointing Kinzie. Let us hear it. If Aeddy has been doing something bad, I can't let him get away with it, can I?"

"My mother, father, and younger brother and sister are on the streets." Samara narrows her eyes at Aegidius. "You threw some worthless paper at them and told them you had a better life for me. That I would be well taken care of, educated, and helped to make something special of myself."

"'I' did this?" Aegidius grumbles. "Miss Grover, seventeen years ago, I had yet to pick up a wand, let alone travel to this island. I would have been only a bit older than you. The first time I came to this particular place was a little more than two years ago."

"You - your ministry, it's all the same." Samara says venomously. "You arrogant ministry bureaucrats made all those promises to my family when they took me to go and stay with a new family. To see where I really belonged." she makes sarcastic air quotes with her fingers. "And they did not lie, those ministry vipers. Well taken care of, educated - yes, that was all true. But then you left them. You left the rest of my family in the gutter! With nothing but a little fake paper money to cover over their problems temporarily. And when I came to you-"

"You have to be reasonable." Aegidius steps closer to her and speaks in a low voice. "Surely you can understand the danger of stepping in and granting every wish of a mundane relation-"

"Wish?!" Samara hisses. "My mother works twelve hours a day just to try and keep a roof over my siblings' heads, while they study useless technological nonsense in what this kingdom calls a 'school'! My father has to wait six months to be seen by an incompetent so-called doctor not fit to work in a barber shop! And you call doing something about that granting wishes?"

Aegidius's eyes flick to the rough-looking men in suits standing obediently behind Samara. "What have you promised these men, Miss Grover?" he asks.

"No more than what I would ask for anyone else. A piece of what they deserve." Samara says confidently. Her soft brown hand shows whiteness around the knuckles as she clenches her fist at him.

"You are talking nonsense." Aegidius grumbles. "Send these stooges of yours away and return to the academy with me before you do something you sorely regret."

All your fellow novice witches are silent, even Kinzie. But not all the onlookers are silent. A crowing chuckle comes from the pale young man standing at Samara's side. "Oh, Eddie... Did you forget what you involved me with, last year? A certain house party, with some eminent young men?" Patrique says sarcastically.

Your thoughts flash back to Ralph and his friends, the mundanes you and your friends... ahem... 'got to know' last night while crashing at their house.

For the first time in a while, you see Aegidius's stony composure crack. His curly beard betrays a twitch of his lower lip. "That is not the same. I - we - did not give any of them anything, Patti. Only an observation or two, which our mundane hosts may or may not have chosen to act upon..."

"Hah!" Patrique snorts, tossing his head back. "And how many millions of pounds were those 'observations' worth to your esteemed friends?"

An excited murmur ripples through the mundanes listening - not the ones behind Samara, but the ones with Vinny, who had been guarding the warehouse when you all arrived. Milly Cherrywood raises a finger hesitantly: "Sorry? Um, I'm a little confused here. Pounds of what?" she asks innocently.

"Ah. I see." Aegidius strokes his beard and looks down at them. "So your motivation, Patti, is the same that brought you to my attention as a prefect back at Boarbristle: sheer, short-sighted greed."

Sweat is forming under the arms of your shirt. The tension in the room seems as though even a knife could not cut it. You turn to Aegidius and stare at him in disbelief. "Am I hearing this correctly? You brought Patrique with you, the same way you brought his sister Felice, Miss Cherrywood and I, to take care of this city business of yours - and you granted a great amount of wealth to Mr. Ralph and his friends? After you had told Samara," you nod in the direction of the voluptuous south asian woman shaking her fist at him, "that she was not to be allowed to pull her birth family out of poverty, because it would be 'against the law'?"

Aegidius takes several breaths. "There is a difference between purposeful investment and mere sentimentality. If Miss Grover was allowed to do as she pleased, where would be the end of it? How could secrecy be maintained if thousands of slum dwellers every year suddenly become rich beyond their wildest dreams?"

He turns and looks directly at you, momentarily tuning out everyone else in the room. "Being 'good' is easy. What is difficult is being just."

"Franziska, doesn't he have quite a lot of nerve? Going on about 'justice' in a situation like this?" Samara says.

Felice suddenly smiles, and forces herself to laugh awkwardly. "Oh, mon frere, c'est un génie! You have him in the palm of your hand, now! You really had me frightened, for a minute. Why didn't you tell me you were going to blackmail this sour-faced ogre? I would have been happy to help!"

"FELICE!!" you shrilly raise your voice indignantly. But then you stop, and put a finger up to your lips. "Actually, yes. Is it too late for me to to get in on this scheme and extort concessions from him as well?"

"Franziska!" Aegidius looks deeply shocked and staggers back. "Such treachery! By my own blood?"

Kinzie McMullins tosses back her head and laughs sharply, clearly greatly enjoying all this. "Hah! Juicy, aye? And here I was, missing HBO at that old castle with the arsefucked internet!"

Patrique laughs too - but it is a bloodless and mirthless laugh. "No. No, I'm afraid it is not quite so simple, my darling." he says to Felice. "Once Eddie gets back to his ministry friends, all bets are off. They'll cover for him like they always do. And the little mistake of mine that he's been holding over me ever since he started snooping into my business, will find its way to my father's ears so he can get me disinherited. And some pretext will be found to lock my dear Samara away."

"Indeed." Samara Grover says, glancing behind her at the gang of menacing mundanes. On their faces are no smiles. "Seeing as how Mr. Weber," she fixes her gaze on Aegidius, "is doing something he shouldn't be, in a place he officially isn't. Engaged in activities which violate the secret agreements the ministry has with the mundane authorities of this land. Oh, and did you hear? Old Muldoon Mudfoot, who was in charge of overseeing my case, didn't make it to one-hundred-and-sixty after all. His funeral was a few months ago. So the only one with much idea of my and my family's case is Mr. Weber himself. Considering those specifics... I had a rather more permanent solution in mind."

Your blood suddenly runs cold, and your mischievous smile dies on your lips. "H-h-hold on a moment! What?" you stammer out. "Samara, please think about what you are saying! You don't want to give us the wrong idea here, do you?"

"Oh, I've been thinking about it." she licks her lips. "I've been thinking about it ever since this sanctimonious thug preached to me about the 'law'."

You feel almost as if you are sleepwalking in a nightmare. Rather than having crossed a line, you are dealing with the vertigo-like sensation of a certain line having been crossed quite a while back, without you noticing it at the time. "Ah - these tough bargaining tactics will not help you with my brother." you say to Samara and Patrique. "He is a stubborn one. So why don't you go ahead and tell him what deal you plan to offer?"

Samara looks right past you, and meets the gazes of Felice, Kinzie and Milly. "I'm afraid the time for you girls to simply be on your way has passed. Blame this one," she points at you, "for demanding it all be spelled out. If I were you all, I'd go stand in the corner and be quiet."

"Don't worry my dears! I am an artiste with memory spells. It won't hurt a bit." Patrique says with a sinister, toothy smile.

"Whoah, so wait," Kinzie holds her hands up, "so you gonna go playin' around in his mind, too? Or you just gonna merc him?"

"Oh my! That word doesn't sound good!" Milly says in a quavering voice. "None of those words sound very good but especially not that last one!"

"I think we'll play that by ear." Samara says, a terrible, fearful calmness in her words again. Then she whistles loudly. "You there," she speaks loudly to 'Vinny' and his men. "You are running out of time to come to an understanding. My new friends here," she cocks her head at the men behind her, "feel strongly that this valuable piece of real estate and the activities conducted here, should be under their purview rather than yours. I can convince them to split it fifty-fifty. But only if you put Mr. Weber there down on his knees, and keep his hands safely behind his back. What's it going to be?"

There's an awkward silence.

The dangerous-looking man in the suit, Aegidius's partner, chuckles. "I don't understand all of this secret society business too well, or those little tricks of yours, with the bird and whatnot. Safer not to think about it too much..."

He dramatically cracks his knuckles and looks around at his men for any sign of dissent. All of them keep their gaze focused on Samara, Patrique and the newcomers. "...but there's a couple things I understand perfectly. One is that this is my town, this is my business, my fucking warehouse. One hundred percent mine, and zero percent any other knobber's. Doesn't matter if it's powder, tax-free fags, lifted credit cards, or whatever the fuck my partner Eddie is doing here. The other thing I understand perfectly is that this is not where nor how I negotiate. You want to negotiate, you come and talk to me in the curry house. Coming here, like this, is what you do if you want to die. So which is it?"

The scar-faced man turns to Aegidius. "And don't you start, Eddie. Tell me to to be quiet again and you'll be tryin' to do those poofy tricks of yours with a bunch of broken fingers."

Silent for a while, your brother lets out a deep, weary, condescending sigh. "Patti... I feel betrayed, yes, but also insulted. Not insulted that you think I would provide evidence of your misconduct to your family after I swore that I would not. I know that House Draconis has had ample time to convince you that oath-breaking, blackmail and other degeneracy is the way things are done."

Aegidius shakes his head. "No - I am insulted that you thought this was possible. You brought one other sixth-year student and some idiots with knives and sticks? Do you really think that would make a difference?"

A long, tense period of staring follows. Half of you still feels that this is all some elaborate joke or prank, that they've gotten Aeddy in on somehow.

Samara takes a few steps closer... keeping her hands raised, palms out, showing clearly that she isn't about to go for her wand. She speaks in a low voice, with that same smug smirk that she was wearing the whole time when she first encountered you. "Franziska... this will go much easier on your brother if you and your schoolgirl friends help out." She looks at all of them in turn.

Unable to help yourself, you glance at the other three girls who Aegidius dragged out on this shady secret errand of his. If the worst transpires and it comes down to violence, who would be on your side? Felice? Sure, she likes you - but blood is thicker than water. Would she fight against her own brother, knowing that if he's subdued he's likely to end up in a dungeon cell?

Kinzie? She thinks you betrayed her and ruined her life. That stupid smug prick Aegidius just HAD to tell her that she'd be paying off her debt to him, for saving her from being expelled, for decades to come, didn't he? If anything, it's surprising that she has remained neutral and restricted herself to snide comments so far instead of volunteering her aid to Samara and Patrique.

Milly Cherrywood is the only question mark, since you barely even knew her before this trip. She's a strange and silly girl. You probably got on her bad side a little by molesting her earlier when Felice dared you to, but, on the other hand, you helped her live out a sexual fantasy of hers. And she is clearly really smitten with Aegidius's mundane "friend"(pawn), Ralph. Maybe she'd help? You gulp. Also, there's the fact that she's, well, a bit of a racist (people from the Kingdom of Virginia do have a bit of a reputation for holding outdated beliefs and now you see it's quite merited). It's hard to imagine her volunteering to help Samara.

"My brother is an ass." you say with a snort. "And I can't say I entirely disagree with your grievance, Samara. But I will not condone low-class thuggery! If you want to settle things with Aegidius, do it properly! In the dueling circle! I will not interfere, nor allow anyone else to. That is the way things should be. Face to face. One against one. Victory to the strongest. Not treachery nor ambush!"

"Oh, but you have already been ambushed, Franziska." Samara says smugly. "Perhaps if you had joined Draconis or Minerval instead of Leontes you would be a bit better at connecting the dots. They don't do much to teach us subtlety, do they?"

"You dare still call yourself a Leontes, after this?" you scowl at her.

"Franziska...." Samara says, glancing at Aegidius, who remains tense and poised for action but silent, "don't you think it is a coincidence that your brother's best 'friend' and informant in the school was mixed up in all this, even before you got yourself in trouble? Isn't it funny that Patrique and I knew exactly where you and your brother would be today, even though this is supposed to be a highly clandestine task?"

"What are you talking about?" you ask, wrinkling your nose. "I tire of these games! Either make your challenge properly or I will help you face the conseq-"

"Isn't it an even greater coincidence that your brother's mundane proteges, who he's been playing fairy godfather for," the dark-skinned young woman's mouth slowly curls into a smile, "would just so happen to show up, well stocked for revelry, just when you and your school friends were at a house Aegidius had chosen? And oh, how serendipitous that your brother had to leave the house for a couple of hours? Leaving you alone and unprotected in the lion's den?"

"That's... I... I don't need his protection!" you say. Which is, of course, exactly how Aegidius had justified it. So why hadn't that explanation been satisfactory to you last night? Why had you been so angry about Aeddy's lack of care that you challenged him to a duel in the streets?

"Physical protection? Perhaps not. But protection against horny, eager dicks? It seems that's a weakness of yours, Franziska. I can't blame you too much - a lot of women have that weakness. Especially when they've been having spells of lust put on them for months on end. Did you think all those pranks were just for fun? No, no - just a smokescreen so you wouldn't notice the real magic."

"That's quite enough!" Aegidius suddenly barks. "No more idle threats! Either dismiss your lackeys and put your hands up, both of you, or-"

"I'll finish hearing what she has to say!" you say sharply, looking at Samara. "Is there a point to all this? So you were putting spells on me to encourage me to act out. Is there a point to all this?"

"The point," Samara says, "is that until today, Patrique and I were only doing what your own brother asked us to. I won't tell you he's such a great prognosticator that he predicted the garden party elf massacre precisely. But something like it? He was counting on it. He made sure of it. I promise you, this little holiday trip is something he'd been planning for quite some time.

In spite of your suspicion of Samara, your mind flashes back to last night. To Aegidius's extremely strange reaction to catching you in the act with Jerry. You had literally been dripping his semen from your pussy when Aeddy walked in, but he was mildly put off by it at worst. And then, during the ensuing argument, he'd let slip how... how he almost seemed disappointed that Milly had been the one to fuck Ralph, the owner of the house, rather than you, and that you had ended up wtih Jerry, who Aegidius didn't expect to be there.

...how could Aegidius have expected Jerry not to be there if he didn't expect Ralph to come to the house that night at all?

"YOU SET IT UP?!!" you shriek at Aegidius in shrill disbelief. All the mundane gangsters, who looked like they were tense and ready for a fight to start at any moment, look like they're caught off guard and quite confused.

"Franziska! Don't let these black-hearted criminals distract you! Not at a time like this!" Aegidius says authoritatively.

"Did you set that up?! Yes or no? YES?! OR NO!??" you say, your voice reaching a hysterical pitch.

"...we can discuss this later when the danger has passed." Aegidius says, in the smallest voice you've heard from him in years.

"You will tell me right now or I'll kill you myself! Try me if you think I am joking! Yes or no?" you spit.

There is a silence that seems to drag on forever. Only broken by Kinzie starting to laugh scornfully again. "Hah! Hahahahahaha! Shite! It's better than telly, this is!"

"Yes." Aegidius finally says, unable to meet your gaze. "I did encourage certain events to unfold in a certain way."

"Thank you." You say. And then, you reach under your skirt, and pull out your wand, pointing it at Samara, who takes a step back in shock.

"Now that we've cleared that up," you say, "back to the issue at hand. Like my conniving, arrogant ass of a brother said, both of you get out of here, or we will have to use force. Milly? Bring out your wand."

Obediently, the bright red haired girl does so as well.

Samara's calm demeanor is gone, and she looks at you with anger. "You're going to help him? After he manipulated you, betrayed you, handed you over for his privileged, decadent friends to pass around?"

By way of reply, you give a funny little snort. "I would expect the girl who was just talking about committing murder for the sake of giving her family a better life to understand a bit better. At the end of the day we still have our obligations."

Samara and Patrique look a bit less confident now. Perhaps they expected Aegidius to crack under the pressure, beg for mercy or the like. Or perhaps they thought you would jump on him and attack immediately. If they were spying on you last night, they had good reason to think that you might.

You give them both your hardest look. Was your bluster enough?