~Astra~

I hadn't realized how much I'd missed being around people. The DA headquarters certainly had no lack of that; by the end of my first week there, I was beginning to miss not being with people a little bit. But just a little bit. Honestly, I kind of loved it.

I was staying in a small room with Faith and another girl a few years older than her named Charlotte Abbott, who was apparently Arthur Longbottom's cousin. She'd been a healer at St. Mungo's before her connections to Mr. Longbottom had gotten her put on some watchlist. Instead of waiting around to get arrested and sent to a detention center, she came here to help in the DA's infirmary. She was pretty nice, I guess, but she was hardly ever around. There always seemed to be someone injured to tend to.

It's not like I spent a lot of time in our room, either, though. After the first few days, when Faith took all of her free time to show me around, I found myself constantly bouncing between the Quibbler newsroom with Mrs. Potter and Faith to decide what the top priority news stories were, the recording studio to help with finishing touches to our set-up, and meetings with Mr. Longbottom and Mr. Jordan to determine where the radios we'd be broadcasting through needed to be. Apparently, we had a team of people out in the field who'd be planting them, but we needed to be strategic about placement.

They'd tried a this a few times already, just to see if it would work. On average, it took about twenty minutes for the radios to be found and destroyed. So far, though, none of the people who had planted them had been caught, and that was the only thing we were really worried about. Apparently, we could have an endless supply of radios. We did not have an endless supply of people.

I didn't know who any of these people were, of course. I didn't think that Mr. Jordan did, even. That wasn't our job.

I was beginning to realize exactly how much of a "need-to-know" basis the DA was actually on. In fact, there were many buildings around the grounds (including one with a huge plant growing out of the top, one with bars over the windows, and one that I was pretty sure I'd seen smoke coming out of once) that I'd been told by Faith "weren't our concern." There had been some questions I'd asked Mr. Longbottom that he'd told me he couldn't answer. How close is the DA to winning the war? had been one I knew he wouldn't give me, but I was surprised by a few of the others. If I wasn't leaving the compound, did it matter if I knew who was here? Why couldn't I know what was in all the other buildings past the "main street"? Or which of my classmates had officially joined the DA when they'd come of age?

I learned pretty quickly that we didn't operate like that. I guess I understood. Secrecy saved lives, after all; you couldn't break and spill all the DA's secrets if you didn't know any secrets. That same secrecy was the only thing letting James and Wren go off and live their secret society fantasy at the Ministry. Still, it was a little annoying to sit in the dining hall with Faith and the friends she'd introduced me to and have them all give me weird looks when I asked what they did. It wasn't like they didn't know what I was here for, after all. Being the public face of the DA isn't something that gets to be a secret.

There were things I was allowed to know. Mrs. Potter was the one who showed me the classroom and garden where the few children here spent most of their day. Some of the dozen or so kids had parents who'd gone into hiding, but I was excited to see the eight children the DA had actually managed to get out of the manor that night. Proof that it hadn't been a total waste, right? I couldn't help smiling as they ran around with the others, laughing and yelling like normal children.

"It took some time to adjust, of course, but from what I hear, they've all been doing really well," Mrs. Potter said. We were standing at the edge of the garden, watching as a couple of the older children tried to organize a game of tag.

I tilted my head. "You know, I wasn't expecting them to be here."

"You weren't?"

"I mean, I guess it makes sense. They probably wouldn't safe yet, if we just sent them back to their extended family. Not till the war's over."

"Oh." Something in her tone made me look over to see a clouded expression on Mrs. Potter's face. She was watching the children, still, but the way her eyes didn't seem to move told me that she wasn't really paying attention to them anymore. "We did look into that, initially. It took a few weeks to figure out who most of them were, of course. None of them could remember their names. But we thought we could talk to grandparents, or aunts and uncles, or family friends, and maybe offer them some protection."

A knot of dread formed in my stomach, and I when I swallowed it tasted sour. "But... that didn't happen?"

A slow shake of her head. "By the time we'd tracked their families down, we found that they'd all been killed."

"What?"

I turned to stare at her, silently begging her to be making some horrible, dark joke. But Mrs. Potter's eyes were locked on the far wall across the garden. She pursed her lips, then closed her eyes and sighed. "I'm sorry, Astra. Neville didn't want to tell you, but I thought you'd want to know. We're doing everything we can to find the other children's families, so we can protect them from something like this happening again."

For some reason, I suddenly felt nauseous. Countless more people dead, people I'd never known or even thought about before right now. People who would've still been alive right now if it wasn't for me, for the things I'd done.

"Astra," Mrs. Potter said, her voice sharp enough to bring my attention back to her. "This had nothing to do with you. You understand that, right? There's no way you could have known this would happen, and it's not your fault."

When I blinked, I felt my eyelashes grow wet. "But... all those people... Stillens wouldn't have killed them if we'd never gone to the manor..."

"Perhaps not." I felt her arm around my shoulders as she turned me back towards the kids, still obliviously playing tag. "But look at all those children, Astra. Children who are safe, and free, and here because of you."

It wasn't that I wasn't glad the children were safe, of course. I was so grateful for that, that one good thing had come in the midst of all the bad. But I couldn't just forget about all the bad, right? It felt... it felt almost dishonest to do that, to be happy about them. "I'm glad they're here. But that... it doesn't change anything else."

"I know." She patted my arm. "I'm afraid that most of the choices we make come with a lot of good and bad consequences that we can't predict. The important ones do, at any rate. If we let the possibility of something bad happening keep us from striving towards good, we're no better than the people we're fighting."

"But what are you supposed to do when there's so much bad?" I shook my head, pulling away from her. "I never wanted this. To cause so much death..."

"Let's be clear, Astra." Mrs. Potter's expression had grown stern. "Stillens had those people killed, and he likely would have done it eventually even if we hadn't been able to rescue the children. Whether our actions were what made him decide to do that doesn't matter, because he was still the one who chose to do it. He alone is responsible for his actions."

"That doesn't make me feel better."

"That's okay. It doesn't have to, not right now." She smiled sadly. "It'll take time, love. Don't try to rush it."

I was tempted to ask exactly how much time this was supposed to take, considering I'd been close to miserable for months now with no sign of letting up. That didn't seem to be a useful addition to the conversation, though, especially when Mrs. Potter was currently taking my snark with a lot of grace. I'd seen her tell Albus and James off, and knew she wouldn't have any qualms about lecturing me, either, if I pushed her to it.

Besides, she was trying to help me. Even if I couldn't see how it was helpful now, it wasn't fair to disregard that. I could appreciate the thought without feeling the benefits yet.

"What might help," Mrs. Potter said after a few moments of silence, "is getting to know all these children you saved. Maybe you can even help us figure out who this last friend of ours is."

I perked up. They hadn't been able to figure out who one of the children was? My mind instantly went to the three children who had been "erased." Maybe this child was one of them. "Who?"

Mrs. Potter pointed out one girl among the children. Her dark hair flew out behind her as she ran from the little boy who was tagging people. She couldn't have been more than five years old. "She told us her name was Seventeen. Albus said Stillens had been referring to them by number, but she doesn't match the description of any of the children that we have records on."

I peered a little closer at the little girl, who had been tagged and was now frozen in place, waving at another girl to come unfreeze her. Brown skin, dark eyes, and thick dark hair that looked like it was supposed to be pinned back by the yellow bow that was nearly falling out of her hair. She didn't look familiar, which meant I probably hadn't seen her picture. But I hadn't seen pictures of all the children, had I?

The children who had been completely erased were three of the ones I had the easiest time remembering, partly because it was so odd, and partly because of that weird alien conspiracy theory blog we'd found all our information on. If the muggle who wrote that was to be believed (and he'd seemed to have done his albeit illegal research, so I was inclined to believe he was), then those three children were named Isla Foster, Noah Wright, and Emma Chaudhary. Clearly, this wasn't Noah, who had been an eight-year-old boy when he'd disappeared almost two years ago. And I felt like Isla had been around ten or eleven. Emma, though, had been four.

"I think her name is Emma Chaudhary," I said softly, then glanced up at Mrs. Potter. "When you found out the other children's names, and started calling them that, did they seem to remember them?"

"After we'd already said it?" Mrs. Potter nodded. "How did you know that? And how do you know who she is?"

"I... um... alien conspiracy blogger?" I shook my head as Mrs. Potter's confused expression turned skeptical. "She was one of the ones who was entirely erased. That's not important. I was just wondering because that's how it was with Cassie, when I finally figured out who she was. So... I guess if that is Emma, she might respond to her own name?"

"It's certainly worth trying. As long as these 'entirely erased' kids don't have some special kind of memory charm on them." She gestured towards the children. "Why don't you go try?"

Emma had been unfrozen by that point, and was running around again with the others. As I walked out into the middle of the game, though, they all came to a slow stop, staring up at me. A few of the older children were squinting at me, as if they recognized me. I was almost glad they didn't; the few minutes I'd spent with these kids hadn't exactly been a good time for any of us. But I smiled and waved anyway, trying to act less uncomfortable than I was. "Hey, guys. I'm Astra. I just wanted to say hello."

A little boy's mouth fell open. "Astra Lestrange?"

"Yes, that's me." I chuckled, wondering what on earth they'd heard about me. After a moment, I just sat down cross-legged on the grass. "Will you all tell me your names?"

Most of the children gathered around. A few hovered around the edge of the circle of kids sitting on the grass, but most of them were smiling at me. One very small boy sat down in my lap and snuggled up against my shoulder, which was sweet. I was pretty sure he was the one I'd been carrying through the halls until Mr. Potter had run into us. When I asked his name, he smiled proudly and exclaimed that it was Liam Matthew Jacobi. Most of the rest of the children were all equally proud when introducing themselves, giving their full names. The exception was a few of the older ones (who I assumed were the children of DA members), though they seemed very excited to be talking to me.

Emma was one of the children flitting around the edges of the group. By the time we'd reached the end of the circle and everyone else had introduced themselves to me, she was the only one left. I smiled kindly at her. "What about you?"

"I'm Seventeen," she said softly, ducking her head.

I could hardly hear her over the growing chatter of the other kids. To remedy that, I patted the ground next to me. "Want to sit next to me?"

She hesitated, but ended up coming around to sit beside me. I couldn't tell if she was shy, or feeling left out or embarrassed over her lack of a real name. Cassie had never seemed to notice that One wasn't a name when I'd spoken to her, but Cassie had never been surrounded by kids who were remembering what their names were and proudly proclaiming it for everyone to hear.

A few of the children had hopped up to continue their game when they'd realized I wasn't paying attention to them anymore. The boy in my lap wriggled his way off of it as I turned towards Emma, so I leaned closer to her. "You're Seventeen, hmm?" She nodded, looking down. I nudged her slightly with my elbow. "You know, I'm seventeen, too? But that's just how old I am."

That got a small laugh. "That's really old," she told me.

"Is it? How old did you think I was?"

"Like... like twelve!"

"Oh, Merlin, no." I laughed. "No, I'm seventeen. How old are you?"

"Five. But next month I'll be five and a half."

"Oh, wow, that's so big!" As she smiled proudly at me, I couldn't help grinning back. "I have a question for you, by the way. Are you Emma?"

She started, mouth dropping open. The question seemed to replay in her head, then she gave a very jerky nod. "I... yes?"

"Emma Chaudhary?"

Her eyes widened even more. "Emma Chaudhary..." Another, slower nod as she took that in. "I'm Emma Chaudhary. That's my name..."

My smile grew wider as she glanced up at me with shining eyes. "Do you want to introduce yourself to your friends now?" She nodded quickly, seeming like she was either about to cry or about to get up and jump around from excitement. As we both stood up, she reached out to grab my hand. I smiled down at her, then turned to the children running all around us. "Hey, kids! Can you come back here for a moment? We've got one more friend who wants to introduce herself!"

The children all gathered together more quickly than I'd expected them to (there were perks to being a legend, I suppose, even if I still wasn't sure why I was one). They glanced expectantly from me to Emma and back again. I just knelt down beside Emma and smiled at her. "Ready?"

She squeezed my hand, smiling uncertainly back before she turned to her friends. "I know my name!" she yelled. "My name is Emma Chaudhary!"

To my surprise, the other children erupted into cheers. Before I knew it, we'd been surrounded in a group hug. Emma threw her arms around my neck, but the flash I saw of her face showed her absolutely beaming.

~~~~

After that, I tried to come visit the children every few days. The ones who hadn't come from the manor were always absolutely star struck to see me, no matter how many times I came by. All the children always wanted to hear stories about the things I was famous for. It was a nice ego boost, honestly, being treated like a celebrity by a bunch of tiny children.

I didn't have a lot of time to spare for them, of course. Most of my days were full of DA business, and by evening the children were all off with their temporary guardians (who I had realized might not be so temporary). I knew several of those couples by sight, though I had no idea who most of the people I walked past were. It wasn't like most of the DA members were in the practice of introducing themselves to others, I guess. Though they all knew who I was, so it didn't seem totally fair.

By early January, Mr. Jordan had decided we were ready to get our radio show going. That meant I had to run over to the Quibbler's operations and figure out if Mrs. Potter and Faith had finalized their report of the most important things that we needed to include in our first broadcast.

Mr. Jordan had set up the recording studio in the farthest, most out of the way corner he could. I think he was worried about noise and interruptions, though I was pretty sure the spells we'd cast on our building would have worked just as well closer to everything else as they did way out by the wall. I guess it was a nice place to get away from all the stares, at least. But, since the Quibbler was still operating out of the house itself, that meant quite a bit of walking to get from here to there several times a day. While Mr. Jordan got on some last minute mirror calls with his field operatives who were setting our radios up, I headed up towards the house.

If it wasn't for the DA being here, this would be a really dreary place, I thought as I stepped over a puddle. I had to pull my jacket closer around me as the wind whipped over the wall and straight into me. The sky had been threatening snow ever since I got here, but so far it had only delivered a freezing rain. Even without the gray sky and miserable weather, though, I still felt like Haverna's home was pretty dismal. I wondered if she'd actually lived here before the DA had taken over. If so, that might have contributed to her perpetual bad mood just as much as bitterness and grief had.

The plants were all dead. Huge hedges, tiny flower bushes, even the grass. I couldn't tell if that was just because it was winter, or if they really hadn't been taken care of. From where I was by the recording studio, away from all the bustle and noise of the camp, I could hear the wind wailing eerily through the branches of the trees. Had it always been this depressing?

I cut across a wide, brown lawn to walk through the front doors of the estate, then wound around the twisting hallways and nonsensical staircases (I was nearly convinced they'd used magic to expand the inside of the house, because there's no way all this could actually fit) until I'd reached the Quibbler newsroom. I burst through the door, dislodging a stack of papers and sending it flying. Though the rest of the room was a mess, too, with papers stacked in precious piles all over every table, shelf, and even the muted televisions across the room, I still paused to straighten up what I found were unassembled copies of the Quibbler.

"Hey, Astra!" Faith called from the backroom, where the printer was. "Is that you?"

"Yeah!" I scrambled to pick up the rest of the papers. "One second, sorry, I just knocked something over."

"Oh, it's all right." Her voice was closer, and when I looked up I found she'd actually come into the front. "Xenophilius says that the Quibbler thrives off the chaos, so we should embrace it."

I raised an eyebrow, biting my lip instead of saying how mad that sounded just in case the old man happened to be buried under some of the papers in here, where he might overhear. "Oh. Okay. Right."

"Anyway..." Faith winced as she took the stack of papers from my hand. "Before you go back there, I just... I don't know, you might want to be prepared... And, I swear, Mrs. Potter and I had no say in the matter, so I'm really sorry—"

I cut her off, suddenly worried that someone had gotten a bad case of dragon pox back there or something. "Faith, what is it?"

"Well... the Quibbler might have a new employee, now. And I'm not sure you'll be super stoked about him, is all. I know I'm certainly not."

That hadn't been what I was expecting. A new Quibbler employee? But I wouldn't be excited about it? The only people I really could see myself even caring about actively worked for Stillens, so I found it highly unlikely that it would be one of them. I chuckled in spite of myself. "Okay? Who is it?"

In a tone as if the very words tasted bad in her mouth, Faith muttered, "Marcus Dillam."

Somehow, that caught me off guard. "Wait, are you serious?"

"Listen, I know it's probably going to be pretty awkward, so I can go make him leave, if you want. You don't have to see him at all, if that would make you uncomfortable."

"What?" I shook my head. "Oh, no. I mean, that's okay. You don't have to do that. It's not like I'm going to murder him on the spot or anything. I'm just surprised he ended up here, is all."

"Me too!" Faith rolled her eyes. "He was always such a little brat, honestly. We all thought he was the most annoying, entitled child when I was back at the Prophet. I have no idea why Mr. Longbottom is letting him do this."

"I don't suppose you've asked?"

"Haven't given him the time of day, yet." Faith tilted her head, seeming perplexed. "I mean, I assumed you wouldn't want to see him, either, after everything he did to you."

I mean, she wasn't wrong. There had been a time when I was perfectly content with hating him for the rest of my life and reveling in his misery. And, to be fair, the thought of him being miserable still was not unappealing. But after that strange interaction last spring, where he'd apologized, and I'd forgiven him, I found that I didn't really feel one way or the other about walking into the next room and seeing him.

Well, actually, I was intensely curious about what was going on. Because as remorseful as Marcus had seemed last spring, I hadn't ever gotten the impression that he was off to join the DA. How had that happened? The memory of that night in a pub with James, months ago, when Stillens' lackeys had been causing a stir. I was sure Marcus had recognized me, and then given us a chance to escape. I hadn't thought about it once since, honestly, and I suddenly felt a stab of guilt about that. I hadn't even bothered to wonder if he'd been okay after that.

"I... I mean, yeah, that was all really messed up," I said, nodding slowly. "But it was also years ago. And I've moved on. Forgiven him, actually. He apologized last spring, and I told him I forgave him." I shrugged a shoulder. "I mean, I don't think we'll ever be friends or anything, but I think I can handle being in the same room as him. If anything, it'll probably just be painful for him. He seemed really torn up about it all, like, genuinely."

Faith raised a skeptical eyebrow, but I just shrugged again. "Well... all right, I suppose." She rolled her eyes and might have muttered something about teenagers, then turned back to the printing room. "Come on, then. Mrs. Potter's got a list of stories for you."

I followed her, mentally preparing something to say. Would it be weird to mention the pub? Should I thank him for that? And was it impolite to ask why on earth Mr. Longbottom had let him into the DA? Would he be more comfortable if I just didn't address him at all, like Faith had apparently been doing?

When I walked through the doors, my eyes found him immediately. He seemed to be tinkering with the printer, and hadn't realized we'd come in. Mrs. Potter was sitting at a desk across the room, comparing a document to something on her computer, but she glanced up and smiled as the door swung closed behind us. "Oh, good to see you. Are you and Lee ready, Astra?"

At the sound of my name, Marcus's head shot up so quickly that he hit it on top of the printer. I bit back an instinctual smile at his misfortune and looked away as he glanced in our direction. "Yes, we are. Just wanting the latest most important stories."

"Perfect. I'm finishing that up for you right now, if you want to have a seat."

Faith went back to whatever she'd been working on (using magic to sort a bunch of photos and notes on the wall), and instead of sitting down I drifted over to where Marcus was still standing by the printer, staring at me. As I stopped a few feet away from him, his eyes dropped to the floor.

"I swear, Astra, if I'd known you were here, I wouldn't have come..." he said quietly.

I raised an eyebrow, taken aback. "Really? That's... a little odd, that your ex-girlfriend's presence would keep you from fighting Stillens..."

"I mean... no, that's not what I meant." Marcus closed his eyes and seemed to suppress a groan. "Just that... I'm not trying to, you know, follow you or anything. I swear. I'll stay away from you, if you want. You don't even have to know I'm here. I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

I shrugged, shaking my head. I hadn't expected him to make this weird. Well, I mean, I guess it would have made sense if he had, but not this kind of weird. "I'm fine, Marcus. I meant it when I said I forgave you, you know. You can stop groveling."

He flushed red. "Oh. Yes."

He still seemed unsure of himself. I tilted my head, trying to figure out how to ask how he'd gotten here (and express my surprise) in an only mildly insulting way. "I... I'm just surprised, I guess. To see you here."

"Ah." He turned back to the machine, picking his wand up and peering into it. "I guess that makes sense."

"You just never had any DA connections, you know? And I mean, I know it was before you knew about your father, but you always struck me as kind of... against the DA. As an institution."

He stared into the printer, a hard look on his face, for long enough that I thought he didn't intend to answer. I had just made up my mind to roll my eyes and say something snarky before walking back over to Mrs. Potter when he sighed. "I was. I've been doing a lot of reflection lately, though. And I'm trying to be a better person."

"Joining a secret vigilante group seemed like the best place to start?" I didn't stop the skepticism from seeping into my tone.

He didn't rise to it. "I mean, it's a vigilante group that's fighting for what's right, isn't it? That's why you're here, after all, I'd assume."

Couldn't really argue with point I'd defended before. I had to shrug in agreement. "Okay. Fine. But why did they trust you?"

"I don't know. I just owled Mr. Longbottom, asked if he would give me a chance. And he did." He shrugged. "And, I mean, I do know a lot about the newspaper business."

"Astra!" Mrs. Potter's voice cut off any response I would have given to that. I glanced over to see her holding the paper up, eyes not moving from her computer. "This is ready, if you want to look over it with me quickly?"

"Sure thing!" I turned back to Marcus, who was watching me uncertainly. When I couldn't think of anything to say, I settled for just nodding. He nodded back.

~~~~

The stories were horrifying, honestly. As I walked back to the recording studio, I wondered if I'd be able to get through them without choking up. An entire family accused of DA ties had been thrown into a detention center, including their ten year old son. Parliament had convened just before Christmas to send two other DA members to detention centers, but hadn't told anyone who it was, to "protect their privacy." Apparently, our sources had discovered that it was Luna and Rolf Scamander, two well-known activists who had been raising support against Stillens in western Europe for the past two or so years. They were Lorcan, Lysander, and Luna's parents, I knew. And Mrs. Scamander was a war hero. If Russey could pull that off with no one the wiser, what else could he do?

On top of that, I also had to talk about James. Mrs. Potter had given me a script for that one, and coached me through exactly how to say everything on there. I was just stating the facts of what he was doing in Parliament (and how the person who previously held his position had disappeared mysteriously, somehow, with no investigation into it), but the betrayal and hurt needed to be in my tone. People needed to feel it. And then, maybe they wouldn't listen to whatever horrible public service announcements he had to send out to earn Russey's trust.

I was going over the James lines in my head again as I drew nearer to the wall. His position as the Head of Public Information Services was recently filled by Emilia Warburton, who doesn't seem to exist anymore. I was supposed to pause here, for dramatic effect, then speculate about what might have happened to her, and the countless other people who had quietly disappeared over the past few months, with Russey's fingerprints all over them. Before I got past the pause, though, I heard shouting beyond the wall.

I froze. As my eyes locked on the wall, I saw a flash of light shoot over it, then bounce off the protective charms and fly off into the sky. Someone had shot a spell. Someone was dueling.

Without thinking, I took off running for the little guardhouse set in the wall.

By the time I reached it, I wasn't the only one there. Mr. Longbottom was pacing inside. He blinked at me in surprise. "Astra? What are you doing here?"

"I heard someone outside, shooting spells."

"And you thought you should go investigate?" He pursed his lips.

"I thought they might be trouble..."

"Don't worry," he said, shaking his head. "Our border security is very tight. We've already got people out there to help." He raised an eyebrow at me. "I really hope you weren't planning on running out to help, because I really hope you understand exactly how dangerous that would be."

I guess that was what Mr. Longbottom had to say, being semi-responsible for my safety. I sighed and nodded. At the very least, me leaving might let anyone watching know I was here, putting the DA in more danger than before. I suppose he had a point.

"Are there often people attacking outside?" I asked, curious now that the situation seemed to be kind of under control.

Mr. Longbottom frowned at me for a moment, then slowly shook his head. "This is the first time."

My eyes widened. "Oh. That can't mean anything good."

"I'm not sure what it means." He frowned. "We've been noticing weird movements outside the walls for a few weeks, now. Not enough to indicate more than one person, so I don't think it's much to worry about."

Something he'd said had made my heart drop. "A few weeks? How long, exactly?"

Mr. Longbottom winced. "It did start just after you got here."

I had a very bad feeling, then, that I knew exactly what this disturbance was. Or, more precisely, who. As the door to the outside burst open and three aurors bustled in, pushing a blindfolded and restrained girl who still seemed to be fighting back, I barely contained a groan. Because this was my fault.

Because that girl was Artemis Wu. 

~~~~

Pretty soon, Colette's going to find out that Wren's a spy for the DA, Astra about to find out that her boyfriend is snogging Mollie Francis, and Elmer's about to find out that he might have a thing for redheads, not blondes. I forgot to wish everyone a happy new school year last chapter, so let's take a second to celebrate the Gryffingang's rocky start to fifth year.

Question of the Day: I want your opinions on Artemis Wu.

Answer: She's probably my favorite of Stillens' baddies, just because she's so much different than the others who have been introduced? I've really loved playing around with the whole "indoctrinated since childhood into what is essentially a cult" thing, and I do genuinely enjoy her character as a person so far. It's fun to explore a different kind of bad guy than the generic "practically insane" that I tend to run with. She's also very badass, I think, so that counts as points in her favor.

Vote and comment!

~Elli

Word count: 5634