When she returns home that night, travel documents and a purse in hand, she hurries home so that she can pack her baggage into her horse pocket, along with her SBD-level Arithmancy and Divination textbooks.

  However, as soon as she steps out of that secret fireplace that’s the closest Floo Network connection to her home, an owl comes to her, carrying an envelope bearing the black, lozenge-shaped seal of the Prussian Ministry of Magic. And yet, she doesn’t recognize the seal at first, any more than she would recognize the Prussian black eagle used by Muggles.

  “What’s the meaning of this? Who could want to send me letters by owl that isn’t French or Ottoman? But clearly, I can feel the letter isn’t jinxed, hexed or cursed!”

  So she opens the envelope in secret, hoping its contents hold more clues as to whoever sent that letter to her. Her hands start getting wet from her state of mind.

  Once she opens the envelope, she finds a letter whose body is written in French, but on official letterhead in German. Preuβisch Ministerium für Magie.

  Admittedly, her French isn’t as good as it used to be when she left France the day after the Serment du Jeu de Paume was sworn, so she struggles a bit when she starts reading the letter. To whom would the Prussian Ministry of Magic send letters in French? Outside of official diplomatic business, I mean.

  As she re-reads the letter, she feels like the Prussian Ministry of Magic wanted her for her financial expertise, along with work conditions that would feel like a dream to a lot of wizards, a land grant, and Prussian citizenship.

  “How would Prussia even have heard of me as Miss Irad-I Cedid in the first place?” Nurcan wracks her mind trying to make sense of the Prussians’ letter, offering her the Prussian equivalent of the wizarding defterdar. “I get that Prussia is trying to rebuild its wizarding population, devastated after several Muggle wars, and that wizards of all nationalities saw fiscal policymaking as a necessary evil at best, but why would they target Ottomans of all people?”

  I vaguely heard about the post-Estates-General chaos in France. But never did I imagine it would have led to Prussia trying to capitalize on it by getting their hands on wizarding refugees from what’s happening in France; I knew about how disinterested wizards were in Muggle affairs for years now, she conjures what little she actually knew about the whole situation, knowing that wizarding media tended to keep quiet about Muggle affairs until they spill over into the wizarding world. Also, I agreed to come to France for another year, on exchange, so I don’t think I can just back off on the word I gave to Beauxbatons.

  Re-reading the letter from the Prussian authorities seems to give her more headaches than she can handle, feeling like there’s some context that she might have missed. For some reason, she feels like this letter could be fake, but she’s still questioning why would someone go through all the trouble of writing a fake letter on what looks like official letterhead and then use a Geminio’d seal to then have it sent to her specifically.

  Then again, as she questions the letter’s authenticity, she’s reminded of a harsh reality of the wizarding world: a lot of wizards seemed, in her mind anyway, to lack critical thinking skills.

  Either wizarding Prussia is that desperate to get themselves back on track that they’re willing to look far and wide, and even ignore Muggle political stances outright. I guess, wizarding Austria, even in the post-Iasi environment, just don’t want anything to do with Ottomans… Nurcan seems to think that Austria is a party to the Treaty of Iasi when it really isn’t.

  When she returns home, she goes to bed, a little tired from thinking so hard about where she will spend the next year, and her parents also show signs of worry when she gets to her bed:

  “What’s in your hands?” her mom asks.

  “Documents I obtained from my last mission as a spy trainee. As such, you’re not authorized to see them!”

  “Not that I would want to; I can barely read Turkic as it is…”

  How practical it really is to pretend, to my parents, that I’m a spy trainee. I can hide everything I want from them under that guise, she has that suspicious letter from the Prussian authorities on her mind.

  Once she falls asleep, her dreams start getting troubled as she rolls on her bed:

  Erkstag, the Prussian wizarding maximum-security prison, somewhere in Berlin. Due to inmates coming in from all over Central and Northern Europe, it was the primary source of revenue of the Prussian wizarding government as its manticore allowed it to save on the prison’s upkeep, and their countries of origin paid a certain amount to Prussia to hold them. Nurcan was inside her cell, shared with a French émigré inmate.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “How did you land yourself here?” the French Royalist prisoner asked her in a Vendée accent.

  “The Prussian government seemingly offered me to run its wizarding treasury, yet, back home, I advocated for tax reforms not unlike those your Revolutionaries wanted!” Nurcan told the prisoner, recognizing the accent as French in origin. “The Prussians threw me in jail as soon as I arrived in Berlin!”

  “Keep in mind that Austria and Prussia fight over Royalist émigré wizards. The British, on the other hand, fear that, by trying to vie for Royalist refugees, they would drag its wizarding community into a Muggle war, but they were much more open to take in Muggle refugees!”

  “I’m NOT a Royalist émigrée! The Prussians promised citizenship for me and my family, a land grant…”

  “They made the same promises to a host of refugee wizards, and Austria, too!”

  “Wait a minute. How could the situation have degenerated to the point where Austria and Prussia fought over getting French émigré wizards to settle on their territory?”

  “Nobility, especially high nobility, thought that they could get the help of other countries to win back the old order; lower classes, on the other hand, fled because the Revolutionaries’ violence became too much for them, as indiscriminate as it might have been!”

  “I thought wizards mostly stayed out of Muggle politics! So why are you here?”

  “I was caught counterfeiting Muggle assignats with magic, right after the Declaration of Pillnitz! But since you said you weren’t a Royalist émigrée, where are you from?”

  “I’m Ottoman! Prussia was supposed to be an Ottoman ally…”

  These Muggles… as per usual when violence erupts on such a large scale, they are willing to accept wizarding deaths as the price to pay, and kill irrespective of blood status, even though they don’t deliberately hunt wizards! Nurcan ruminated as the counterfeiter Royalist émigré was about to assault her. Then again, since the Thirty Years War, Austria and Prussia’s wizarding communities continually fought for their survival, so they see Royalist émigrés as their lifeline.

  Nurcan awakens from this horrible dream about the terrors of the Prussian wizarding prison. and about how Austria and Prussia both attempt to woo Royalist wizards. Yet, she’s too shaken to attempt interpreting it.

  The following day, on August 10, after eating her bread, Nurcan gets to work trying to interpret the nightmare of incarceration she just had last night.

  At the same time, she uses it as a period to revise for her plan to take the Divination BUSE and ASPIC back-to-back, believing the French Brevet Universel de Sorcellerie élémentaire to be of a lower standard in divination than its SBD, but still good enough to comply with the ICW’s standards.

  As for the ASPIC, or Aspiration de Sorcellerie Particulièrement Intensive et Contraignante, she feels like, for both Arithmancy and Divination, it’s going to be somewhat above their corresponding SBDs in difficulty, but nowhere near the FYBS (Feci Yorucu Buyuculuk Sinavi), taken by Karakalem students at the end of seventh year.

  For all other subjects, on the other hand, she feels like the material translates almost 1-to-1 in difficulty between both countries’ systems.

  Let’s see: it seems like I’m a prisoner of not only Muggle geopolitics, but also my own convictions. Damn it! Why is it that I’m always stuck with the idea that Muggle political stances could put me in danger, even among wizards? Has the Irad-I Cedid become a liability for me? the teenage witch’s interpretation of her nightmare seems to destabilize her, especially since it reminds her of first-year History of Magic material.

  “It’s not that I’m discounting the Irad-I Cedid as an accomplishment, it’s only now that, to become the best witch I can be…” Nurcan cries over the interpretation she gives of last night’s nightmare.

  “Witch?” Nurcan’s dad gasps, after hearing only part of his daughter’s lament. “I thought you were a spy trainee!”

  “Witch is my current codename as a spy trainee, dad!”

  Nurcan returns to her train of thought. To become the best witch I can be, it might be in my best interest that I accomplish something that isn’t tied to politics! If Saleh was to be believed, winning the Triwizard Tournament is apolitical, and would stay with me even after the Irad-I Cedid’s repeal! The Irad-I Cedid might have been an asset to me in the past 3 years and is expected to remain such so long as Selim III is on the throne.

  She then tries to look into whatever tea leaves she has access to. Which really isn’t much: just old leaves lying in her horse pocket.

  But, if I outlive the Sultan, I predict with almost complete certainty that his successor will repeal the Irad-I Cedid! Speaking of which, I’m lucky that dad has yet to realize what my role in it really is, she takes a mental note of her prediction from the tea leaf.

  She then turns to reading her own palm, while her parents are out of the home and on the field. However, she is stopped in her tracks by yet another lament.

  “Louis XVI will be dethroned soon. Also, Austria and Prussia will be mired in war against France for years!” Nurcan starts crying after she reads her palm, not suspecting that, in Paris, the population, supported by elements from other regions, are about to attack the Tuileries. “Why is it that all my predictions seem to center around Muggle politics? I know that it’s not going to fly if I decide to go ahead and take the Divination BUSE and ASPIC once in Paris!”

  I hate tarot card reading! But I have no choice! She starts reviewing her notes on tarot card reading, about the major 22 cards and the four suits, with 14 cards each. About how random it really feels, compared to crystal gazing or dream interpretation. Muggles could perform it without getting results that differ from wizards’ that much. That’s why tarot card reading, dream interpretation, astrology and numerology are the mainstays for wizards wanting to live among Muggles, and why you basically cannot be charged with breaching the Statute with divination. Takes a lot of brainpower, but little, if any, magic.

  But when it comes to astrology, she feels compelled to look at her notes from astronomy as well. Which, for some reason, makes her turn to bibliomancy, and finally to automatic writing. Which yields an equation: AX + 2B = 3/16.

  “That sounds like a numerology thing, a probability of something. What could A, B and X possibly mean?” she shouts. “What is there a probability of three-sixteenths happening?”