❝ When I woke up, I reminded myself that freedom is never free. You have to fight for it. Work for it and make sure you are able to handle it. ❞ — Toni Morrison, God Help the Child

The last thing I expected that evening was someone reaching out to me telepathically. But for that person to be Matt Finley was even more surprising.

"Hey, Polly. It's Matt, from Ilvermorny. Am I reaching you?"

I sat up in bed, half confused, half caught off guard.

"Yes, I can hear you. Is everything okay, Matt?"

There was a beat of hesitation. "Everything's fine . . . ish. I just wanted to check in with you two. It's been a while."

It really had. Ever since the execution, our old pattern of checking in with each other every night before lights-out had fallen through. Joseph reached out briefly every now and then, just to let me know they were all still alive, but there wasn't much discussion after that point.

"We're alright," I said. "Thanks for reaching out. It has been a bit . . . well, lonely, really."

"You could say that again," said Matt. "I've never seen Theo and Jo this silent before. Especially Theo."

I didn't need to ask him to elaborate. What Theo was going through was pretty self-explanatory. Instead, I told him about the fight at the cafeteria the other day, Longstreth and Celander's inquisition and the Torture Chamber. Talking about it made me feel lighter, as if letting it out meant the memories would flee my brain and never return. If only it worked like that.

"What did they do to you?" he asked when I finished.

"Nothing. My guard Maureen handled the situation. She returned the favor for what I did for her at the cafeteria."

"You were lucky. If I were you, I would've told Longstreth the truth. The Torture Chamber . . . you don't know what that's like."

I froze. "You do?"

"Not me, thank goodness. But Zoë was taken there. Right before she . . ."

He trailed off.

I closed my eyes. So my suspicions had been correct. That's where they had taken her. The sight of the blood stains on the stone walls flashed past my mind's eye. It could've been hers. When Xavier said she'd killed her guard Richard, I hadn't believed him. Of course they'd find a reason to pin an Auror's death on a Dolphinus. But now I considered the thought. What if she really had? Perhaps in an act of self defense.

"You said something's not fine," I said, trying to distract myself from my morbid trail of thoughts. "When I asked how things are looking. You sounded hesitant."

"Well, actually—" I imagined him scratching the back of his head. "There's something I have to tell you."

"What is it?"

"Okay, I should probably figure out where to start. Here's the thing. I know about your dad."

My stomach dropped. "You do?"

"Breeze told my dad when I was very young."

"You know Breeze?"

"Of course I know Breeze," he said. "She's a close family friend. She knew my mom when she was thirteen . . . well, knew of my mom, more like. Celesta Vivenzio. She went to Ilvermorny, so Breeze never got to teach her but she knew what she was destined for, the same as your dad, Robert. Then, things didn't quite go according to plan and Breeze couldn't fulfill the prophecy through them."

"Prophecy?" My head was spinning. "Our parents were part of some prophecy?"

Out of everything that had happened to me since I got the letter, this had to be the most surreal of them all. I almost expected Matt to burst out laughing and tell me 'Happy April Fools' Day.'

"I'll get to that in a sec," he said. "Anyway, back to my mom. She died giving birth to me. The Aurors were furious because the whole purpose of killing Dolphinuses while they're underage is to prevent kiddos, but then I popped out like 'surprise, mofos!' and now they had one more person to worry about. So with my mom dead and your dad gone, Breeze had failed the prophecy, so the purge on our kind continued."

I shook my head as if to shake off alcohol-induced delirium. "I have so many questions."

"Well, I'd be surprised if you didn't."

"Your mom gave birth to you in Azkaban? At . . . thirteen?"

"Wouldn't that be a story? But no, of course not. Back then, they allowed visitors. Come to think of it, maybe I was the reason they got rid of that rule. Look at my power."

I could almost hear his laughter from the other end.

"My mom and dad were friends in school, and he and a couple of others visited her regularly when she was here. They fell in love when they were sixteen. Less than a year before my mom's execution. The Aurors were more lenient with the visits. They let dad spend the night and . . . well, nine months later, I graced the planet with my existence. When you think of it, it's kinda creepy that I'll die in the same place I was born."

"I think that's enough visual imagery to scar me for life, Matt, thank you."

"Just being realistic. Anyway, moving on to the prophecy."

"Yes?"

"Breeze is a Seer. She predicted it, sometime before my mom was born."

My brain struggled to process the answer at first. It certainly was a shock, but why? Breeze had always seemed to know things. Like the outcome of events that hadn't happened yet. She knew I'd be running away from home, so she notified Mike and his dad to be on the lookout for me, the same as she knew I'd become a Gryffindor. She always seemed to be one step ahead.

"She never told me," I said at last.

"Well, she's not exactly a chatty person, is she?"

"So what did the prophecy say?"

"It was about the purge on Dolphinuses. Only two kids, born on the same date, one year apart, could be able to stop it. My mom Celesta was a year older than your dad. They should've been the ones."

My jaw dropped. "My dad was supposed to stop this?"

"He was supposed to start it," Matt corrected. "An uprising, a war, whatever. According to the prophecy, that was called the First Task. Then my mom was supposed to keep it going, somehow. That was the Second Task. The two of them together would then be able to end it—The Final Task. Dolphinuses would win, and the purge would be over once and for all."

"What happened?" I asked. "What went wrong?"

"I can't say. Breeze felt guilty for letting my mom get taken to Azkaban. At first she wanted to prevent it, but then had a last minute change of plans. She thought it would be best if she let Celesta and Robert meet in Azkaban. Then she could figure something out from there. I guess you could say she procrastinated on making a solid plan. She never ended up telling Robert what he really was. So when the Ministry arrived at Hogwarts to get him, she told him to run away."

"Told him? Breeze said he did that out of panic."

"Well, yeah, I suppose. His Dolphinus identity came as a shock to him for sure. But she was the one who told him to run for his life."

It was too much. All that information was too much for my brain to digest. Everything Matt was saying made sense, but slowly I was realizing another thing: why he was telling me all of this. The revolt. The Case of Dolphinuses. Picking me to start the uprising. It had all been deliberate. Part of a prophecy that my dad had failed to fulfill. Now, it was my burden to carry.

"So it's me and you," I said. "We're the ones who are supposed to end this. To do what our parents couldn't."

"Not . . . quite, but either way it's too late for that."

"It isn't, Matt." I got to my feet and started pacing up and down in my cell. "I started a revolt. Breeze only sent me my Hogwarts acceptance letter last summer. She said she wanted me to be at an old enough age to be prepared. Now it makes so much sense. Maybe she failed because both my dad and your mom were so young. I mean, only thirteen and twelve. Stella's that age and when I look at her now—"

I shivered. Thinking of her leading an entire revolution was harder to swallow than anything Matt had told me so far today.

"I started an organization," I continued. "To spread awareness. We created a magazine and wrote articles pro-Dolphinuses. It became quite popular since Breeze had connections to help advertise it."

"Gee, you have some balls. How did the Ministry take that?"

"You can guess how." I sighed. "Two people we considered friends ratted us out. Breeze left the school a week before Willard and his men came to fetch us. She said she wanted to make things right, but at my trial, Peterson said she had been convicted. Which is my fault."

"You did your part. That's all Breeze needed you to do. You didn't have to keep the revolt going; you just had to incite it."

I nodded to the darkness. If anything good had come out of this revelation, was the assurance that I hadn't failed Breeze entirely. Wherever she was right now, my only hope was that she wasn't disappointed in me. But if Matt was the one who had to end the revolt I started, then—

"I don't," he said, reading my mind. "That's what I wanted to tell you."

"Huh?"

"Listen, Polly." His tone couldn't be channeled through telepathy but I could feel the hesitation behind it. As well as something else. Defeat. "What you did is great, but if Breeze is in Azkaban too, I'm not sure if she has anything planned for the end. I don't see what we could do while we're in here. Besides . . ."

He hesitated. I wasn't sure if I wanted to hear him go on. I had an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach about whatever he was about to say next.

"Besides?" I asked, tentatively.

"Remember how I said that the prophecy speaks of two people, born in the same date but one year apart?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm not the person meant to fulfill the Second Task," he said. "Even though my mom and your dad had the same birthday, mine is on June 22nd."

"Mine is on July 5th."

"I know," he said. "Because that's Theo's birthday too."

I blinked, slowly, like I couldn't understand. It shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did. There had to be a reason that flashback of our first meeting as kids came back to me that day in the Hospital Wing. Perhaps our meeting had been deliberate too. A setup by Breeze herself.

"Does he know?" I asked.

"No," said Matt. "At this point, there's no use in telling him. He, um—"

My heart plummeted, like a coin dropping to the bottom of a bubblegum machine.

"Matt . . ."

"I'm sorry, Polly. He—he can't fulfill the prophecy. I'm afraid this is it for us."

This couldn't be happening. I shook my head, bringing my hands to my temples. Please God, tell me this wasn't actually happening.

"Theo's sick," added Matt. I could feel his tears like they were my own. "He caught Dragon Pox."