While Nurcan is brewing what looks like, to her children, Turkish coffee, but is actually another kind of potion, the family’s oldest child, Yusuf, asks her information about their flight from Istanbul.

  “Where are we going?” Yusuf asks her while she brews an forgetfulness potion, but to make the drinker forget about a specific memory.

  “The Forest of Surmene!”

  “Where’s the Forest of Surmene?” Jannat, her younger child, asks.

  “The Forest of Surmene is to the far east of the Black Sea, a little inland!”

  And the brewing of this forgetfulness potion continues with the family asking more details about her need to hide, but with the children still being unable to understand why, neither the Irad-I Cedid, nor why the yeniceri or ulema oppose it.

  “It’s becoming too dangerous, and, to maintain the Statute of Secrecy, it’s best for the rest of the Meclis-I Irad-I Cedid (Council of the New Treasury) to forget that I ever did anything for it!” Nurcan then focuses on the specific memories that will be erased from the drinkers upon drinking, before whipping out her wand to cast the spell on it. “Obliviate!”

  Once the potion is finished, she can then add cloves into its pitcher, so that, to the Muggle members of the Meclis-I Irad-I Cedid (and possibly the Sultan himself), they’ll simply be drinking an orange sherbet like any other during the feast at Besiktas Palace, as is traditional after its meetings.

  But after the children are asleep, that night, Nurcan makes a reading with her crystal ball: The Irad-I Cedid, and the Nizam-I Cedid it funds, are condemned, and I wonder if sacrificing the Muggles on the Meclis-I Irad-I Cedid to the yeniceri is an acceptable price to pay to preserve the Statute of Secrecy. But a wizard hunt a breach of the scale of the public reveal of the magical origins of the Irad-I Cedid would invite would be far worse than a yeniceri revolt, even one of the size in Thrace, and even lead to the destruction of the Empire as we know it. And yet, I hold the Empire’s fate in my hand. The Sultan kept my involvement in the Irad-I Cedid secret from the Muggle public for years specifically to prevent such a grisly fate, as much as he could appreciate me… Nurcan starts crying while Vincent sees her cry. Yeniceri saw in the fight against esame (pay certificate) abuses a loss of their privileges, and the Nizam-I Cedid, a threat to their livelihoods! So maybe, in an attempt to fight corruption, I have a share of responsibility for what’s happening…

  “Now you have a better idea of how I felt back in France before I came here!” Vincent could tell Nurcan’s mental burdens from her facial expression. “That, to save myself, and other wizards, from Muggle fury, I had to leave Muggles to their own devices as nobility titles were abolished!”

  “Tomorrow, I will go to Besiktas Palace for one last time. For one last meeting with the Meclis-I Irad-I Cedid, and recover a few items so dear to me. And maybe, just this once, the Sultan will attend it… That being said, stand ready to leave the city through the Floo network as soon as I return from Besiktas!”

  With the pitcher full of the Forgetfulness potion, the following morning, she apparates out of the konak and into the back of a cedar cupboard filled, on the front, with defters (tax records) and other accounting records such as the payroll of troops currently around Silivri.

  Of course, the noise of apparition could pass for just the creaking of one of Besiktas Palace’s wooden walls, so the guards don’t suspect any use of magic, while, elsewhere in the palace, the Meclis-I Mesveret (Consultative Assembly) meets.

  Because I feel the end is coming for me, there are only two items in its vaults I wish to retrieve, as a memento of why I even designed the Irad-I Cedid in the first place! Nurcan has a lot on her mind while she leaves the silver platter on her desk, and goes to the archives of the Irad-I Cedid to look for both items in question. That, knowing the arzuhal that accompanied both documents is sleeping in the Defterhane-I Amire (Imperial Archives) and that Muggle yeniceri are mostly illiterate. And, of course, to ensure their safety. However, the ayans believed that fighting the abuses of the iltizam and muafiyets were an affront to them.

  At the same time, she slips into the archives of the Irad-I Cedid, right next to its vaults. Vaults that are nearly emptied by the whole Edirne Incident as well as the preparations for a possible war against Russia.

  Once inside the archives of the Irad-I Cedid, she feels like the clock is ticking on her, while she looks for a magic leather bag containing Visigny’s cahier duplicated by magic in 1789, along with the original plan of the Irad-I Cedid she fully devoted herself for the past 12 years.

  Now that the bag containing these documents is safely in her possession, she returns to her office that will soon no longer be hers. She then continues working until the time comes for her to pour the Forgetfulness potion into the crystal glasses into the Muggle members of the Meclis-I Irad-I Cedid.

  As she slips into the room where the board’s meeting is to be held, a pitcher full of forgetfulness potion in hand, she can sense the mood of those who sat on the meeting of the Meclis-I Mesveret (Consultative Assembly), when its meeting ends. And, of course, the atmospheric weight looms large on everyone around.

  With, of course, the relatively intimate nature of Meclis-I Irad-I Cedid feasts, she can make it out relatively quickly, while leaving the silver platter and the empty pitcher under the hands of the servants preparing other dishes.

  The reformers’ panic seems so visceral to her now that, as she leaves the meeting room where the Forgetfulness potion is, she can feel it in the air. Even as Selim approaches her:

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  “Nurcan, I owe you some apologies…” Selim begins talking.

  “Your Majesty!” Nurcan interjects.

  “For years now, you faithfully served the Nizam-I Cedid reforms that we both believed were necessary for the Empire’s survival. I wished circumstances were better, but as the retreat has been ordered from Silivri, I’m afraid the yeniceri are just a few days away from the capital!” Selim starts crying in front of her.

  “What are you apologizing for, then?”

  “Because I was too weak to stick with the reforms, you’re about to become the target of the ulama’s ire, and I don’t want to drag innocent wizards into this crisis any more than you do. I was unable to rein in the yeniceri, nor the Muggle corruption among the Irad-I Cedid leadership, or the Irad-I Cedid having ruined the lives of so many because of taxes on coffee, alcohol or tobacco! Which were suspended in Rumeli-I Sahane (European eyalets) because I don’t have the strength to enforce reforms…”

  “Wartime necessities forced the population to endure eight years of hardships and corruption…”

  “There may never be another one with your mind and vision, Muggle or wizard. I apologize for making you sacrifice your youth and your safety for the Irad-I Cedid for all these years, but you were also the only one who saw the truth past court intrigues…”

  “I cannot, in good conscience, continue to serve as defterdar of the Irad-I Cedid. The risks of a Statute of Secrecy breach are far too great, and the Empire wasn’t ready for some of the reforms of the plan that ended up never being implemented!”

  Namely religious fiscal equality, and graduated rates. The necessities of the War of the Second Coalition caused the Muggles to ease up on ayans whose loyalty was necessary for the Levant’s safety, Nurcan muses before Ahmed, the person who, to the eyes of the Muggle public, is the defterdar of the Irad-I Cedid, arrives, just as the noon feast begins. But this is the end for the Irad-I Cedid, it’s already bankrupt now, yeniceri controlling Silivri means Istanbul is threatened, and 2-3 days away!

  Nurcan is then seated on one side of Hafiz with Ahmed on the other side.

  “Before the noon feast begins, and you’re probably aware by now that the Irad-I Cedid is condemned, but I’m resigning from it!” She then hands Hafiz the arz to this effect.

  “I signed off on the reports, the expenses, and these new taxes! Because of that, I became the most hated man in Istanbul, not you!” Ahmed retorts.

  “I’m sorry, Ahmed, but, if my presence is revealed to the public, the danger to the Empire will be far greater than just you. I paid the price of having to stay hidden from the public eye ever since there even was an Irad-I Cedid!”

  Nurcan then looks at each of these men as they wash their hands, and she washes hers right after, without telling Ahmed the fate of his predecessors.

  In the feast to follow, as usual around the mat, the guests keep quiet, with the sultan front and center, eating lamb, eggplant, along with pilaf rice, in rapid succession.

  Relax: the sherbet is always served last. So all I have to do is eat as much as I possibly can without having room left for it, and maybe eat baklava, the witch muses while these men are about to drink what looks like orange sherbet to them.

  However, as she leaves this room of Besiktas Palace for one last time, smelling like orange, the occupants of the room start feeling the effects of the Forgetfulness potion.

  And, beyond them forgetting her role, and the role of magic in the Irad-I Cedid, their minds start trying to re-rationalize what went on during all these years, as to how the early successes of corruption fighting occurred.

  Other memories being altered include the plunder of Irad-I Cedid funds during the War of the Second Coalition by authorities in the Sidon and Damascus eyalets to pay yeniceri stationed there because the Hazine-I Amire was empty at the time. Just as empty as the crystal glasses of the others, whose noise against the leather mat marks the end of their knowledge of magic.

  Because she just resigned as the shadow defterdar of the Irad-I Cedid, she leaves at the end of its Noon Feast, with a lingering feeling that, while she might have upheld the Statute of Secrecy for now, maybe the real price she pays to maintain magical secrecy today might be paid later in ways she might not suspect.

  When she returns to her office for the final time, with the two documents in tow, she returns to the cupboard in her office to apparate to the city’s Floo network station in Sihirli Mahalle, where Vincent’s family awaits her, now ready to leave the city.

  “What took you so long?” Yusuf asks her.

  “You know how it is in these meetings of the Meclis… but these Muggles at court have now forgotten about the role of magic, and mine, in the Irad-I Cedid!” Nurcan starts crying. “Today’s meeting confirmed the worst: the yeniceri are now just two or three days away!” Nurcan answers in front of the whole family, crying. “Just get the Floo powder ready!”

  “Do you have any good news?” Vincent asks her upon seeing her a little distraught.

  “The only good news is that I finally know why I was kept around for so long at Besiktas, even when Muggle defterdars got killed or fired!”

  “What do you mean?”

  Nurcan refrains from answering, feeling like fueling gossip around her is not a good idea when she seeks to flee the city.

  As the family stands in line to enter the Floo Network station, they prepare the Floo powder to get to the fireplace in the Surmene forest Nurcan once used to get to Istanbul as a student at the start of school years.

  When they are ready to step into the green flames, Nurcan shouts the destination they are about to get to, with their belongings inside their horse pockets:

  “Forest of Surmene!”

  The green flames ignite and, on the other side of the gate, the family of wizards is met with fog. Some distance away from her home village, but still under the cover of the sis (fog). All they see is hazelnut trees around them.

  “I know this place’s fog, it can be dangerous for us to get to the place I have in mind to weather the storm, but pull out the flying carpet from your horse pocket, please…” Nurcan asks Vincent right as Jannat and Yusuf emerge from the hidden bonfire.

  “Did you lose your mind because of the fog?” Vincent asks her.

  “Of course not. However, we all lived in Istanbul for all these years, it’s going to feel quite different from the coffee and tobacco of Sihirli Mahalle!”

  As Vincent takes out the flying carpet, a Turkish carpet, a Turkish taban about two meters wide and three meters long, from his horse pocket, they feel the ambient humidity, but also, for Nurcan, freedom. Freedom from the looming threat of the yeniceri, who are threatening the capital, and the threat to the Statute of Secrecy they loomed over her head, and the Ottoman magical community’s.

  But because Nurcan knows the kaza (district) of Surmene much better than Vincent, a wizard of French extraction, does, she’s the one flying the family carpet. Once the carpet soars off the ground, the fog becomes thinner as the carpet gains altitude:

  “Can you please tell me where we’re going?” Vincent asks, while Nurcan maneuvers the Turkish carpet above the sis and the hazelnut tree canopy underneath it.

  “Are we there yet?” Jannat and Yusuf both ask their parents.