I entered the Tower alone.

An enormous Gothic frame-and-plank door opened before me as I stepped through its roof. It was awkward, having the tip of a wizard tower so close to the ground. Telescopes peeked through the roof tiles, but with the woods blocking the sight, I doubted you could see the stars at night here very well.

The headquarters lurked in the depths of this dungeon. I crawled down spiral stairways that reached so far into the ground that they became as thin as ribbons from my vantage point. Torches hung from marble walls and illuminated dust mites floating through the bottomless floors.

It was so much colder here than outside. And I was asked to come alone. Darcy wasn't here, but at least I had Siris. His black eyes reflected the torchlight as he greedily followed my new rod.

"No," I said. "You can play with it later!"

"C'mon!"

As I pointed my staff, he obeyed my will and dematerialized into a puff of smoke. For my Initiation, I wanted no distractions.

I walked and walked and walked past doors carrying labels of arcane science. "Astrology Room II", "Divination Chamber I", "Magical Library IV", "Monster Containment, Eleventh Floor", "Helheim Research Group", "Door to R'lyeh; Access Only to Authorized Personnel". What on Earth did they hide here? My legs had turned to lead once I finally reached the bottom dungeon.

I walked over the stone-flagged flooring and approached the oval table in the middle. It was barely bright enough to get an idea of the table's size. Hundreds of chairs sat around it filled by cobwebs rather than practitioners.

A carving of a white serpent with six feathered wings and six heads, each of which had six eyes, decorated the table. It appeared so real. Even the faintest light made it flicker like a star cluster. The twinkles in its eyes faded in and out, giving the impression that the heads of this angel hydra moved.

"This is Seraphiel, creator of the Veil," a man spoke.

I looked up. I expected a Black Knight in imposing armor to reveal himself from the darkness. Instead, I saw a chubby man with sideburns, glasses, and an avuncular smile that made him look like someone's friendly neighbor. He looked harmless, except for his intimidating staff and his purple sorcerer cloak with a plaque on his chest reading "HUNTER Andrew Wiggs".

"You must be one of the new students of our Academy," he said. "I'm the combat magic teacher Professor Andrew Wiggs. You must be Marissa Luisa Alice Carter?"

The moment he spoke my full name, pain shot into my head. Names carry power. They are part of a person's spiritual essence. A cloud of energy from his staff assaulted my soul and I pressed my fingers against my temples in the vain hope of warding off his mind magic trick.

"Ah, so sorry for that," he said. "Just testing if you reacted to your True Name. For your Initiation, I needed to verify you are truly Marissa Carter and not a transfigurator or glamour-user wearing her face. Our diviners say you got involved in a Veil breach around Summer High in Summer Hill, New York on August 26th between 3:13 PM and 5:05 PM, with photographic evidence of your spirit guide being recorded and shared by Isabella Kelly, am I right?"

"Um," I said, "guess so."

"Very good, very good!" he said and gave me a card that read HUNTER ACADEMY APPLICATIONS. "Our diviners have no clue what caused the breach. The spirits are too scared to talk? How 'bout you join our Hunter Academy in case it happens again?"

Not sure I was comfortable joining. Going by the pictures, the Hunters seemed as male-dominated as mundane police and military. I've read the statistics about sexual assault rates in such spaces. That aside, I doubted I'd thrive in an environment of strict hierarchies, discipline, and dependence on others who might betray my trust. Call me paranoid, but there are reasons I prefer working on my own.

I returned the card. "Not sure it's right for me."

"We aint as strict as the mundane police or military," he said. "There are so many monsters and so few of us, we need everyone we can get."

"Maybe later."

He frowned in a way that made him look genuinely sad.

"N-nothing personal," I said.

"I'm used to it. My wife only keeps up with me because her Catholic faith prevents her from divorcing and my-"

"I understand," I said. "Thanks a lot for the offer Mr., I mean, Professor Wiggs. I'll consider it later."

Before leading her to the Councillors' bunker, he handed me a parchment along with a quill. The form was full of questions about when my power awakened, if I ever saw Veil breaches around me, what my Zodiac sign was, and what my favorite element was.

Once I filled it out, he showed me a trap door next to the table. We climbed down a wooden ladder into a dungeon that was creepy enough even without any skeletons or iron maidens decorating its walls. Everything was full of cracks and sighs to the point that you could smell the water seeping in from nearby aquifers and feel the troglobites that made this cavern their home.

Four unknown faces watched me from the corner of the room. The first was the astral projection of a man whose face was covered by a Black Knight helmet. A swooshing Dracula cape descended from the neck region of the chainmail armor, covering his muscular body. I'd have greeted him with "Good Afternoon, Darth Vader" had I been in a wittier mood.

The second figure was the astral projection of a small and plump woman in a grey wizard robe. She looked funny almost, with those large ears, but I couldn't read her expression behind that ski mask on her face.

Only the man in the middle had arrived in flesh-and-blood. Sitting on a throne carved of a boulder, he resembled a wizardly grim reaper with his big, grey cloak, and a hood concealing his features. His figure was tall and thin, his chin shaved and pallid, and his wrinkly hands carried a wooden staff along with the picture frame of a silhouetted, heavyset woman.

The woman in the picture sat around a desk, slouched into her chair, and tented her fingers with curiosity the moment she lay eyes on me.

These people did not arrive in person. They did not trust their subordinates enough to show their faces. They came masked and used sympathetic magic to talk through remotely-controlled projections or picture frames. And, yet, these people expected me to identify herself.

Wiggs pointed at the woman with the spectacles. "This is Wizard Celeste, principal of the Cunning Folk Academy; stationed in Sao Paolo. Besides her, everyone here is a member of the Inner Thaumaturgic Council. All of them use code names, so they only have one name each." His finger moved to the man with the helmet. " Wizard Sir Magnus, leader of the Hunters; Toronto." Then, he pointed at the hooded man. "Wizard Cornelius; right hand to the Archmage, disciplinarian, and executioner of rule-breakers, stationed here." Finally, he pointed at the portrait of the silhouetted woman. "Beatrice, our Archmage. Now, if you excuse me, I have the Warding and Defense Against Otherworlders class to teach right now. You can join us after you are Initiated."

He left me alone with the Elite Four. Nothing was to be found under their cloaks and concealed faces. No kindness, no mercy, or even eyes I could look into to read their souls.

I was a mere apprentice standing before the masters. Whereas sorcerers, like Professor Wiggs, reached the peak of what most reached, wizards were rare masters whose talents approached those of a minor pagan god.

Mom told me tales about the Inner Council. They were good enough at elemental magic to create tidal waves several hundreds of meters high and good enough at sympathetic magic to manipulate entire cities through miniature models. They could even transfigurate humans into cockroaches or frogs with a single look, something they reserved as a punishment for practitioners of dark magic. They did whatever they wanted with the Veil as their only limit.

Dad spoke less favorably of them. He told her they were criminals. As a police officer, he lovingly reminded me that they financed and maintained their Society through fraud and criminal trade. He said they were the reason why Mom didn't come home that day.

Regardless of whether this was true, they fulfilled every red flag of a cult. Secrecy, hidden teachings, creepy robes, leaders who don't care for the law, financial intransparency, obsession with an apocalypse only they can prevent, initiation ceremonies, everything. Yet, I was a practitioner. At the very least, I had to understand their society.

Finger a finger snap, Cornelius lit candles flickering beneath his throne. Edges of his hood produced a silver gleam in the candlelight. I couldn't make out any eyes under his robe, only his chin, and his sharp, impassive mouth. Anything above this remained shrouded in darkness.

The light further illuminated a small altar consisting of a boulder with craved illustrations of an angel wearing a red robe. An enormous cauldron full of water lay on its surface.

Plastic boxes full of quaking frogs and hissing cockroaches rested in the shadow of the boulder.

"Were those people?" I asked and pointed at the box.

"People who committed blights and perversions against creation itself," Cornelius said.

I avoided his gaze. "Like what?"

"What makes you so curious about the dark arts, Carter? Are you perhaps worried that your mother is among them?"

"No. I'm not. J-j curious."

"Curiosity is certainly a virtue," Archmage Beatrice said. "As a practitioner, you are expected to possess knowledge just as you are expected to accept the limits of the human mind. With our help, you will get a better understanding of where those are. Since you already have your familiar, we can skip that part of your Initiation and start with the main course. Marissa Carter, are you willing to swear our Oath?"

I bowed until my face was lit by the candles before Cornelius' throne. "What oath do I have to swear, Archmage."

"State your name, your family, and kneel," Beatrice said.

Each instinct told me to run back to the real world. Why was I making this distinction? This was the real world. Staying here and playing along was the only way for her to discover the truth. She kneeled. "Marissa Carter, daughter of Alice Carter."

"Apprentice Marissa Carter, by joining our Society, you are leaving behind the lifestyle of the mundanes and dedicating yourself to a greater purpose. You are the fresh blood that keeps our Society alive and you will swear a vow echoing those spoken in ancient times. You will sever all promises but these. To break those promises results in excommunication or worse. Do you swear your loyalty to us, to our laws, and to the Veil?"

"I swear!"

"Do you swear that you shall never expose members of the Council to outsiders without permission?"

"I swear!"

"Do you swear not to abuse your Gifts to kill, curse, or enthrall your brethren?"

"I swear!"

"Do you swear not to seek the advice of beings from beyond the gates of reality or human comprehension?"

"I swear!"

"Do you swear to safeguard your people and serve your new family that is the Society?"

"I swear!"

"Very well," Beatrice said. "It is now time for you to be cleansed."

Cornelius raised a hand and made a pentagram-shaped flame appear on the floor behind me.

The cauldron left the altar. It levitated over my head while casting a long shadow over my black robe. With the flick of a wrist, the cauldron turned around and spilled its cold, splashing contents over me.

I tried not to shiver.

Initiation ceremonies often included elements of humiliation. Elements meant to demonstrate the power that the initiators held over their subjects.

The cauldron flew back to an altar and a cloud of aether washed over me. The water evaporated and coalesced into a floating sphere that flew back into the cauldron and took any impurities it liberated me from with it. Yet, despite all the practitioners it must have cleaned before me, the water as fresh as that from a spring hole.

Beatrice's legato voice flowed over me as she finished her sermon. "I, Archmage Beatrice – head of the Thaumaturgic Society Council – hereby initiate you, Marissa Carter, daughter of Alice Carter, into our Society. You will be enrolled in our Academy where you will attain basic magical literacy and be taught our core cultural values. An in-person course of the Warding and Defense against Otherworlders module occurs just as we speak. If you hurry, you might still attend it."