Johnny opened on the first knock. He had grown a beard, which Brendan thought looked quite good on him. He looked thinner, happier. He thought about the days in that room that smelt of old carpet, cramming, doing test after weird test that Beidzner had spliced out of photocopies of a hundred old textbooks, practicing spells until they had them off by heart, faultless. It felt like so long ago.

"Long time no see, brother." They hugged. He felt different from before, but then it had been a long time since they had seen each other. Two years to be exact. He had been seeing his brother Gabriel. Johnny happened to be visiting too. 

Johnny led him inside. The inside of the house was a lot better than what the exterior would lead you to believe. There was a kitchen with stainless steel appliances and a spacious lounge room with a glass coffee table. Brendan was pleasantly surprised. 

"How's it going?" 

"Swimmingly, as you can tell," Johnny gestured towards outside. "Not the best of neighbourhoods, but it's close to the school and the rent is pretty hard to beat." 

"How's Gabe doing?"

"Good. Been out and living at home for six months now. He's got a job now. Only casual shifts at the moment, but they'll increase his shifts when they see fit." 

"Good to hear." 

"Still living at home?" Brendan followed Johnny into the kitchen. The things were new, shining, a recent renovation. He thought of the old jaded kitchen at home. His parents had been talking about redoing it forever, but it seemed to be forever put off. So he had to deal with the leaky taps and the drawers that didn't shut perfectly. 

"Yeah." Brendan couldn't see himself moving out any time soon. The surroundings he found himself in only exacerbated his feeling. He would not mind moving to his own place, but there was no incentive. Until he got a better job. 

"You want a coffee?" 

"If you've got tea, that would be nice." 

"I've only got teabags. Haven't been able to get the good stuff in a while." "

That'll do." Johnny put on the kettle. "How's uni going?" 

"I graduated. Now I have a Diploma in Architectural Design or whatever. Not much luck looking for a job yet, though. Applied for a couple, got no response. So I'm still at the internship." 

"Just ask her to give you a full time job." 

"She's not going to do that."

"Well, I could pull some strings." Johnny turned around. "Get you a job as a teaching assistant. Or a cleaner. Whatever floats your boat. You'd be surprised at the amount of vacancies." 

"Save that thought," Brendan replied. "I might need it if things fall through." 

Johnny nodded, satisfied that he could be of help. He had always been like that. Willing to help. He handed Brendan his cup of tea. They fell silent for a moment. They sipped at their drinks. Somewhere outside somebody was shouting. In the distance, the muted sound of the factories. 

"What's going on? There's something other than just a job, right?"

"You're right." Brendan described what had gone down. He tried to make Adrian's identity as vague as possible. "I think they started work on it again," he concluded. "That's the only possible explanation. They found another one. They must have." 

Suddenly, Johnny's attention was rapt. "I knew it. People were talking about it. Things have gone quiet with Beidzner recently. He's taken leave, he never takes leave. They must have something going on, things have been a bit quiet over there. So that's what's down. Makes sense. So who's this guy? Adrian. Tell me more about him." 

"Not sure what he's about. He said he's from Laidlaw, but honestly I'm not really sure if that's the whole story. Checked out his details and he seems legit." 

"I'll take you word for it."

"You knew this thing was going to happen?" 

"I knew the alphas were planning something and we knew that Beidzner was away. It was just that third piece of the puzzle that we didn't have. Didn't know bloody Halberstam was in on it." 

"Hang on, the alphas?" Brendan had seen a couple of packs' insignias on the card. It had struck him as a little strange, but hadn't thought much of it. So they were players in this, too. The whole magic business was mostly among those with powers. Their dealings with the outside world had always been a bit one-sided. The packs? That was a new thing. Even twenty, fifteen years ago the superstitions of backwoods werewolves towards magicians was legendary. For them to be working together was a paradigm shift. "How do you know about the alphas?" 

Johnny turned his head to the north-east, towards Fernside, the cluster of highrises Brendan had briefly spotted on the train. "They'll be in on it. It's only natural. You helped us, we'll help you. It's the way they operate, always. You helped with getting the permits for my condo in Fernside, we'll help with this. Ever since they started the investor scheme things have gone crazy. Every damn alpha has a condo in Fernside and another one for his mistress in Briarleaf. Plenty of building inspectors to finesse. Bribes are risky. Magic is cheap and basically foolproof." 

"Aren't they banned from having investment properties?" Brendan was trying to jog his memory back to a half-remembered news bulletin. 

"Well, on paper, yes. Look, everybody knows that these days the only people with that kind of money are Alphas from the other side of the border. And the property market would just collapse if y'know, they actually upheld the law. Who the fuck do you think is buying all those penthouses in Fernside? Fernside would not exist if not for these people. It's just a pile of empty apartments, about 200 fitness influencers, and Colvan Whiteside."

"They're doing some kind of conference in the museum tomorrow." Brendan announced. "The old pack house."

Johnny perked up. "Full Moon," he whistled. "Bold move. They'll be stoned out of their minds. You could sell the Brooklyn Bridge to them if you wanted. They'll be a bit grumpy that they can't go for a romp in the forest, but that's missing the forest for the trees. Pardon the pun. They can't think straight, there's so much wolfsbane in their blood. A bit of smooth talking and you can see the dollar signs appear in real time in their eyes." 

"I think they have some kind of retreat planned afterwards." Brendan said. 

"Well, that takes care of it. It's so much more refined than what they had before. Remember that? The hotel conference space? You were there. That first time they tried pitching to the pack wolves. Such cringe." 

"That was so bad." 

"At least the snacks were good. Good times," Johnny said, with a tinge of sarcasm mixed in. "So what are they selling?" 

"Some kind of city. Crescent City, I think it was called. Well, that's what it said on the card. Some kinda real estate thing. Some big name architects are listed, so it's big." 

"And you're planning to, er, infiltrate this." Johnny whistled. "That's ballsy."

"Yeah. I kind of don't have a choice. I could get the deets secondhand from Adrian, but that wouldn't be much use. He wouldn't know what to look out for."

"Fair enough." 

"I'll stay as far away from the front as possible. Just stand at the edge and hope they don't notice me." 

Johnny nodded. Taking it in. His eyes were twinkling. It was like the old days again, when he discovered a new spell that Beidzner hadn't even taught yet and he wanted to try it out in the labs after school. Now that Brendan thought about it, they had never been particularly close, but he was the closest thing to a friend he had ever had. "You're flying very close to the sun. You know. Not even a dry run. Well, I imagine in a best-case scenario they won't really care about it." 

"And the worst case scenario?"

"Maybe if your identity is really obvious, you're going to become a dog toy." Johnny laughed at that. "So how much do you know about the packs?" 

"Not that much, admittedly." Brendan hesitated. "I know some of them were involved in the funding, and some of them sent their kids there, but not really the details." 

"I blame the school system." 

"What?" Brendan was surprised to hear Johnny say this. 

"They don't teach us about our roots." Johnny clasped his hands. "They teach us history all right, but it's all human history. History from other places. Not our own history. That's just skimmed over. We'll go over Stalingrad in minute detail, but our own history? It's just like, yes, there were these werewolf packs that ruled over the island and they were bad and that was why Ruth Gray overthrew a bunch of them and formed our nation and now we're one of the most developed nations on earth and all the packs are still shitholes, end of story, all hail Ruth Gray. The real story is so much more complex than that. You don't even realise how much of a bubble you live in, even though you live on the same island as them. Just how insulated we are from them." 

Brendan had heard the same lecture a thousand times. Usually from the same people who spent their summer breaks volunteering in the rogue settlements across the border. He had long since ceased to think anything of it. 

"Well, that would assume that we would as a nation be willing to tackle the fact that Ruth Gray was a complicated and multifaceted personality. Which we are not, judging by how the reviews of that last biopic were." 

Johnny shrugged. "Not much we can do about that, unfortunately. I try my best with my classes, but the message doesn't seem to be getting through. If it wasn't for her, you'd be shitting in a hole in the forest somewhere. Can't really argue with that, when you think about it." 

"There's something else I wanted to ask you about. The sea. The invitation card had waves on it. We certainly didn't do anything along the sea. I mean we tried breaking the spell, but that didn't have anything to do with this. This was some kind of real estate thing." 

"There's that campsite. Near New Brighton. They used it for camps in the 1980s." Brendan had nearly forgotten about it. It hadn't been used in ages. 

"Beachside. that'll be a drawcard." 

"Pretty sure it's all protected wetland. It's a marsh. They won't be allowed to build anything on it bigger than a campfire. At least without half the entire west coast turning up with placards at their doorstep." "So why would they put it there?"

"I don't know. They said it would be over the border. All clean. All legal. No funny business. Well connected, because they don't want to drive five hours to Bumfuck Nowhere, Independent Territories to get to their luxury condo they paid seven figures for." 

"Maybe they'll just build it and use some kind of magic to waive the environmental fees. Some kind of vanishing spell to make it invisible. But that doesn't make sense." 

"Unless they were going to build it in the sea."

"Didn't expect it would be on the sea. I guess it has the one-up factor. But they can't build in the sea either. There's the spell." 

Brendan stared at the coffee table. "They're going to need to break the spell. They couldn't do it with me, but they've found someone else."

"That wily old bastard." Johnny poured himself another drink. "He finally figured it out."

"I don't think so." Brendan sank down further into the sofa. "Dude's on long service leave." 

"I don't know. Maybe he's doing it virtually. Work from holiday." 

"Someone's gotta be leading it. Fucking hell." Johnny whistled. "A whole city on the sea. George's doing well for himself." 

"Well, it's not exactly a city. More like a suburb, I'd imagine. It's not going to be big. No more than a thousand people. Very rich people." Brendan stared really hard at the table. "Maybe not even people. Just investment properties." 

Johnny breathed in. "These days it's all big leagues stuff. Before it was just a nice pack house, a sealed road there. Not stuff like this. This is new. Now they all gotta have their megaprojects. Les plus grands chantiers as the French call it. It's not just about a big fuck-you pack house with thick pillars anymore. If you're a pack on the rise you gotta have something a bit more than that. Something that shows you care about society or the environment or democracy, whatever floats your boat. Alpha Cameron's got the Lycan Renaissance Centre and that weird tram line down the lake. Alpha Edwin's got that bridge thingy, Clayton's got the Bitcoin mining setup, and Alpha Kaden's got that garage that collapsed on his car collection. Anyway. All eyes on Alpha George now. He's gotta one-up them all. He's been mouthing off about it for years now. I've got plans, I've got this, I've got that. People are starting to question him. Wondering if he's for real, you know."

"George?" Brendan was a bit hazy on his Alpha knowledge."Well, there's not much that hasn't been already covered by the papers. They called George King Lear because he had a fleet of private jets he would hire out to his fellow Alphas. Remember?"

"Oh yeah, him. He's the one who they sent a Swat team over the border to retrieve, right?" The operation had been for naught due to his legal team getting him out of his numerous charges on a technicality. 

"Yeah, that's the one."

Brendan tried to match this information with the stuff he had been talking about before. "People are going to copy this, I gather?"

"Oh boy. Soon every fucking alpha out there will be funding his own architect's utopia. With a dash of magic to give it that X factor. It's a foolproof formula. They're probably kicking themselves in the nuts for not having thought of it before."

"Oh well." Brendan relaxed in his seat. "We'll get a half-decent Cardwell cartoon out of it, at least."

"Cardwell? Oh, not that fucker again." Johnny looked pained. "What do you have against him? He's kind of benign. Don't know why the Alphas take his stuff so personally, really." "He's a hack with the drawing skills of a toddler. Honestly I hope one of the assassins gets him one day. Not enough to kill him, just enough to get him to seriously think about ending his career and fucking retiring to a ranch in the Highlands."

"Well, I gotta go," Brendan said. "We should catch up sometime soon," Johnny said. "Somewhere better than this dump. Sorry you had to come here." 

"It's a nice pad." Brendan said. "I know it looks a bit shabby on the outside, but I'd love to have a place like this." 

***

Brendan decided to take a different way home. He would bus it to Edenvale and take the tram across the river to Margate station, then a train home. 

On the bus, he looked over his shoulder. There was nobody there. He didn't feel like he was being watched, but he knew that more often than not it was these periods of false security that you were actually being watched. It came so naturally to him that he was surprised by himself for a moment, so habitual it had become over the years. The fear and paranoia he had felt back then felt so alien now.