CHAPTER XVII

The news about the next attack spread through Hogwarts like dragonfire. By breakfast, everyone in the castle knew what had happened.

As James found out through tidbits and half-overheard conversations, Penelope Nottington wasn’t the only one affected that night. Though the whole hallway was closed off right now, the first early birds had caught sight of the Fat Friar, his whole body smoking and suspended in the air. According to the rumours, he was standing only slightly further down the corridor than the petrified Penelope. The thing inside the Chamber, whatever it was, got them both.

The Headmaster stood up in the middle of the meal, gesturing for everyone to quiet down. 

James hadn’t expected him to reveal much more than what they already knew, and he was right. For once, Dumbledore’s speech was short. Besides a wish for Penelope’s and Dirk’s quick recovery, he merely instructed everyone to be careful and always walk in pairs.

“I hope I don’t need to remind you all,” he said, his heavy gaze sweeping over the faces staring back at him, “that wandering through the castle at night will not only result in loss of points for your House, but could also endanger you and your fellow students. If you see anything suspicious, don’t hesitate to report it to your Headboys and Headgirls. Or, of course, the Heads of your Houses.” 

He nodded slightly in the direction of Professor McGonagall, who was just taking a sip of her tea. At another side of the table, Professor Sprout gave them all an encouraging smile. Professor Slughorn next to her seemed too focused on dissecting a large red pepper to notice the conversation was now about him.  

“As for the first year students,” Dumbledore continued, and James slowly pulled his gaze away from Slughorn’s increasingly worse attempts to cut his food. How was this the same man capable of cutting troll thumbs and trimming alligator scales, was a mystery for the ages. “They are to be escorted to their Common Room after the last hour of the day by fourth year prefects. That is all. May this day be better than the last.” 

He sat back down, and the conversation in the Hall slowly picked back up. 

“Somber,” Sirius commented, resting his elbows on the table.

James nodded slightly, while Remus’ face stayed troubled. Somber was almost an understatement.

They walked to their first class mostly in silence, Peter trailing behind them.

“Think Fat Friar will remember anything?” Remus asked as they turned another corner, passing by a large tapestry. “Maybe he saw what it was.”

“Oh he saw alright,” Sirius remarked from before him, voice dark and low. “That’s the problem. Whatever he saw obviously fried his brain. It’ll be a miracle if he’ll even remember entering the hallway.”

James turned his head to glance at Remus, wincing slightly. “Sorry, mate, but it’s likely. Fat Friar can’t exactly die twice, but it seems he came bloody close to it. I’ve never even heard of anything taking a ghost out of commission for so long.”

Remus frowned, but nodded. He pulled his bag higher on his shoulder, expression turning contemplative. “You’re right. It’s weird anyone would target him though. What could someone gain from attacking a ghost?”

“Maybe he was mistaken for someone else?” Peter offered hesitantly.

“Guys!” a voice called out to them, and then the fiery red head of Gideon Prewett appeared in between the students walking around. Seeing as he frantically waved his hand at them, and they trailed to a confused stop. 

Gideon disappeared back into the sea of students, red hair swallowed by the black of Hogwarts robes. 

He reappeared next to them a moment later, panting slightly and clutching at his side as he tried to catch his breath. His short hair was disheveled, tie all crooked. It was clear he ran all the way here. 

“Have you heard?” he pushed out in between breaths. “There was another message.”

Peter gaped. “What?”

James exchanged a look with Sirius, before looking back at Gideon. “What message?”

Taking another sharp breath, Gideon rightened back up. “Come on, you have to see it. Before Filch gets rid of it completely.”

They quickly followed after him, taking two steps at a time. Peter blanched slightly as they entered the hallway leading to the Astronomy Tower, passing by a large sign ‘No entry’ set on the floor. It was clear Filch had to set it up there, because it was propped up against a trolley with cleaning supplies, Mrs. Norris sitting right next to it. 

She blinked at them with her wide, yellow eyes, then let out a loud hiss. Remus jumped up so high that James had to hide his amused smile.

Mrs. Norris let out a long, drawn-out wail. A clear warning to back off. 

Gideon winced, but gestured for all of them to follow. As they passed, Mrs. Norris only unsettlingly stared at them, silently judging. Peter bowed slightly in apology, avoiding her gaze. 

Gideon quickly led them ahead until they came to a stand in front of a large inscribed wall. More than half the red words seemed to be already dutifully scrubbed off, the stone of the wall dark and shining wet in the light of nearby torches. 

The rest of the message was faint, but still readable.

‘-GONE. OUR DAY OF TRIUMPH IS CLOSE.’

Well, James thought, that wasn’t ominous at all. It was no wonder the school wanted to get rid of it before more people saw. If something like this got into the Daily Prophet…

He felt Remus next to him shift, absently pulling at the sleeves of his sweater again.

“The writing looks the same,” Sirius remarked quietly to his left. James turned to him, watching as his eyes moved quickly over the lines, before he followed his gaze back to the red letters. It certainly looked similar, nice, meticulously written characters mixing with strangely rushed letters. 

James frowned slightly in thought, tilting his head. Was whoever did it trying to copy someone else’s writing style? It would make sense, but something about the meticulous letters still bothered him. It didn’t look like a simple imitation. It almost looked like two entirely different people wrote it.

Mrs Norris hissed louder, then let out another loud wail.

“We should hurry,” Peter piped up fearfully. He still seemed to remember how Mrs Norris scratched him a year ago. And not very fondly.

Gideon nodded, but his gaze stayed glued to the dark words. He took a step closer to the wall, almost involuntarily. “It looks…Do you think it’s blood?” 

“No,” Remus answered, quiet but sure.

Surprise spread over Gideon’s face at the vehement answer, and James shot Remus a brief warning glance.

Something suddenly echoed to their left. James’ head whipped around and stilled, listening. Mrs Norris was still meowing loudly, but he was sure he heard something faint under it. Steps. Dragging and irregular. James heard them enough times over the last few years to immediately recognise them. 

“Filch,” he whispered sharply. “It’s time to scatter.”

Professor Slughorn didn’t care much for tardiness and only waved them away when they rushed into his class ten minutes late. Snape of course, immediately sneered, as if their late arrival was a personal offence.

The potion they were supposed to brew today was fairly simple, another routine antidote they’ve already tried their hand at a few times before. 

Slughorn’s lesson plan was fairly unpredictable to a point where they had an ongoing bet last year on what would come in each of the lessons. To their absolute confusion, no one had actually won. 

Slughorn’s lessons followed no rhyme or reason, or it at least appeared that way. One time, they were making a new complicated potion, and the next time, he had them only clean equipment and cut ingredients. Last year, they had even spent a whole hour breaking salt rocks into powder. It was scarily close to what he ordered them to do once during detention, and James had growing doubts that Slughorn sometimes forgot which hour was supposed to be which, realised it half-way through the given lesson and then just refused to admit it.

Brewing the same potion third time in the row this month at least meant that James could focus on thinking about yesterday’s events. Though he didn’t exactly pride himself on his potions skills, the antidote was easy enough that he didn’t have to spare much thought to its preparation.

After the class ended, Sirius and James bid a quick goodbye to the rest of the Marauders and headed to the second floor. 

Unlike Remus and Peter, they had their free period, which provided a perfect opportunity to go visit Moaning Myrtle, undisturbed. After what they overheard yesterday in the Infirmary, it was clear Myrtle was somehow connected to all of this.

“Are you sure it’s a good idea?” Remus had asked before they parted, lingering by the door. “She doesn’t exactly like visitors. Especially male visitors.”

James had laughed and looped an arm against Sirius’ neck, pulling him close. Though slightly surprised, Sirius put up no resistance. “Oh come on, mate, can you imagine anyone disliking him?”

Remus had looked doubtful. As always, James had reasoned, he had no idea what he was talking about.

They finally came to stand in front of the girl’s lavatory. The image of a dark hallway filled with water flickered before James’ eyes before he pushed the memory away. Now wasn’t the time for it.

Sirius stepped forward to open the door, a drawn-out squeak rising from the abused hinges. The expression on his face was distrustful as he walked in, clearly expecting to have to duck down any second. James followed close behind, carefully stepping over the threshold. 

He hadn’t had much experience with actually talking to Myrtle, but he could never forget their first encounter.

Back in second year, he and Sirius hid here from Mrs. Norris’ sniffing nose, and Myrtle introduced herself with a waterfall of toilet water that drenched them completely from head to toe. The walk back to the Common Room has never been as slippery or as miserable. 

The only other time he remembered talking to her was last fall, when the first attack happened. 

Well, if you could call that talking. Myrtle had only screamed at him, refused to answer any of his questions and then disappeared. Going to talk to her again might be just a waste of time. But James needed to be sure.

“Myrtle?” he called out. 

Their steps echoed slightly in the quiet as they walked to the center of the lavatory, carefully avoiding going close to toilets – Myrtle’s rumoured favorite form of transportation.

The bathroom looked even gloomier and more miserable than James remembered. There was dust and grime everywhere, lakes of stale, darkened water lining the stalls. A few of the doors were thrown open, barely hanging on their hinges and one was even missing entirely. James figured it was better to not know what happened to it. On the other side of the room stood a line of cracked sinks like a solemn guard, the mirror above them smudged, with large webs running through the glass.

“Myrtle,” James called again, firmer this time. “We just want to talk.”

Again, no answer, except for the small echo. But that was to be expected. Sirius turned to face him, lifting a brow, and James nodded.

“It’s not like she’d have anything important to say anyways,” Sirius said derisively, crossing his arms. The dark red of his Gryffindor sweater was a stark contrast to the dull colour everywhere around. 

James huffed out an amused breath. “I suppose you’re right about that. She didn’t know anything the last time either, and Dirk was attacked right at her doorstep.” 

“What could a ghost like her even know about the Chamber? She’s been holed up in here for years. I doubt she has even heard about–”

“OF COURSE I HAVE HEARD ABOUT THE CHAMBER!”

Myrtle flew out of the toilet in the far right corner, a jet of water erupting almost to the ceiling and badly shaking the whole stall. Even standing as far as they were, a few stray droplets still fell worryingly close to them, but neither of them moved. 

“I KNOW MORE THAN ANY OTHER GHOST IN THE CASTLE!” She continued, screaming  angrily. “But why should I tell you about it?! You don’t care about Myrtle, no one cares about me!”

Myrtle’s translucent figure shook with fury as she loomed above them. One of the sinks behind them burst to life, water spurting out and quickly spreading over the floor. 

James barely suppressed a flinch as she continued screaming at even higher volume, her voice more grating with every second. “And you, you’re not even supposed to be here! This is girls’ lavatory!”

“We just want to talk,” Sirius repeated, lazily crossing his hands. He was clearly unimpressed with all the yelling, regarding Myrtle with almost a bored look on his face. 

Deeply judging a ghost's ability to be actually scary was just so Sirius that James couldn’t help the indulgent smile spreading on his lips. 

He moved his gaze back to Myrtle hovering over them just in time to watch her mouth fall shut.

As if with a flick of a wand, her entire expression shifted, all the twisted and harsh lines smoothing out. “Oh, you’re the boys from the Daily Prophet, aren’t you? Potter and Black?”

James hesitated and swallowed down the words he wanted to say before. Whatever he was expecting, this wasn’t it.

He exchanged a confused look with Sirius before unsurely licking his lips. “I…suppose so?”

Myrtle let out a strange noise that sounded almost like a squeal, her whole ghost form fluttering slightly with excitement.

She grasped her hands together, eyes wind behind her large spectacles. James had only now realised how terribly young she really looked. She couldn’t have been older than fourteen.

“Life here is so boring, besides the stray person I can scare. But I loved reading about you two. You’re so cute together! I wasn’t sure if it was you, no picture and all, but the way you’re looking at each other, ah, I just knew it! Who else could it be?” 

Looking at each other? James felt his entire cheeks burst into flames as if hit by an incendio.

Damningly, he instantly glanced at Sirius, an instinctual response for when he was feeling overwhelmed or confused, or secretly amused – Light, was he really looking at him so much?

For a split second, silver eyes met his before Sirius was looking away, dark hair doing nothing to hide his flustered expression. 

The back of James’ neck burned as he followed suit, quickly averting his eyes. It didn’t help. The sight of Sirius, expression so uncharacteristically shocked and open, cheeks dusted a soft pink, was burned into the very core of his being. 

Embarrassment warred with the want to sneak another look. He thought he got used to all the remarks about their supposed relationship, but Myrtle recognising them just from the description alone had absolutely blindsided him.

Myrtle’s form fluttered even more. When James finally turned to her, heart still beating a little too fast in his chest, she seemed absolutely delighted. “I really thought the article was exaggerating! Ah, this is the best day of my afterlife!” 

“I–” James fought to get his feelings back under control; he was being ridiculous. This whole thing was just probably making Sirius incredibly uncomfortable. He never liked strangers talking about his business, real or not.

His mind, however, was completely blanked out, except for one random question. “How did you even read it?”

“Excuse you?! Of course I can read.”

“I mean…” James gestured vaguely in the air. “Logistically.”

“Oh.” Myrtle immediately preened, pleased with his interest. “It’s not that hard. People leave used newspapers lying around all the time. It’s a shame I can only ever read the first page though; the Daily Prophet should really respect people with incorporeal forms more.”

“Daily Prophet should respect everyone more,” James replied, the words leaving his mouth before he realised that dragging down what seemed to be one of Myrtle’s forms of entertainment might not be the best idea. As much as he didn’t like it, the article was the only reason Myrtle wasn’t still screaming. His ears deeply appreciated the change.

To his surprise, Myrtle smiled slightly. Her lips were slightly shaky, as if unused to the position. “I like how honest you are. A rare case for students here, sadly. Merlin knows that damned Olive kept always laughing at me…” Something dark glinted in her eyes. “Oh, but I paid her back, you should have seen her terrified–” 

Sirius cleared his throat slightly. “Can you tell us how you died?”

The blush on his face was gone, the usual calm disinterested expression on his face betrayed only by the slight tension in his jaw.

Myrtle faltered in the middle of her tirade. “What?” She blinked at them in clear shock, her translucent face mostly obscured by dark hair. 

“You can tell us,” Sirius said. “We want to get rid of the thing.”

The water overflowing the sink shut off. 

“It was the thing from the Chamber that killed you, wasn’t it, Myrtle?” Sirius pressed, his piercing eyes narrowed slightly. “You’ve been here, when it first opened.”

“I was,” she said after a long pause, moving slightly closer to the ground. “I died in this very room.”

James swallowed heavily. Suddenly, the room seemed too cold.  He exchanged a loaded look with Sirius, before turning back to Myrtle.

“Can you tell us how it happened?” he asked carefully.

Myrtle’s whole demeanor suddenly changed, her eyes glinting. She seemed unbelievably pleased someone would ask about her death. 

“It was so terrible,” she said, voice all excited and indulgent as she all but swayed in the air. “Olive Hornby made fun of me again that day, ridiculing my glasses. I ran away to cry here, as I  often did, but then I heard someone come in. They made these weird noises, almost as if speaking Gobbledygook or something; some strange language. It was clearly a boy and they had nothing to do here, seeing as it is girls’ lavatory, so I quickly opened the door to tell him to go away and then…” she trailed off, smiling slightly. “Then, I died.”

James blinked. “Died…how?”

Myrtle shook her head before leaning in, voice all hushed and conspirative. “There was something with him… I saw these big yellow eyes and then,” she shrugged, “I was just gone. Dead. When I finally came back from haunting Olivia, no one cared about how I died anymore. Can you imagine? It was so disappointing.”

She sniffed again. “And to think no one asked me how I died at all…”

James nodded slowly. “Must have been…insulting?”

“Exactly! But it was such a good death you see, they even considered closing the school for a while, or at least I heard so. But then they just said it was some accident, not connected to the Chamber at all. A shame really, I would have liked to be famous.”

Whoever did it must have found a scapegoat, James realised. Myrtle wasn’t supposed to be a target. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

“Where did you see those eyes?” Sirius asked and Myrtle preened again, pleased. It was clear talking about anything related to her death was deeply flattering to her.

“Somewhere over there, in front of my toilet.” She pointed with her translucent hand towards one of the sinks on the side. It looked deeply ordinary, same as the ones next to it. Still, they both immediately stepped towards it, intent on searching every inch of it for any sort of clue. 

James crouched to see better, carefully looking over the long pipes leading down to the floor. Then, he saw it. A small snake scratched into one of the rusty pipes, hardly noticeable among all the grime.

“Salazar’s heir,” James said out loud, eyes wide. Sirius’ head swiveled to him, so he quickly pointed at the engraving. “This has to be it. The entrance to the Chamber.”

They tried pulling at it, sending a hex after hex, but the sink barely moved. The bell signalling the end of the hour echoed through the hall sooner than James would have liked. He sighed, dusting his hands off on his legs. He’d spent the last fifteen minutes trying to take the sink apart, but without success.

“We’ll return later,” Sirius said, glancing at the sink as if inviting it to combat. James nodded in agreement, too worn-out to do much else.

“I’ll look forward to it!” Myrtle called after them, still strangely happy.

Professor McGonagall regarded them with wary eyes over her desk. “And you’re saying this entrance is in the girls’ lavatory.”

“Yes, Professor,” James replied. “Or rather, the lavatory is at the Chamber’s entrance. It was probably there first.”

Peripherally, he saw how Sirius’ lips twitched, but they both kept their eyes firmly on McGonagall.

McGongall stared at them for another long moment. James barely avoided the urge to shift. Standing before her desk like this felt like they were getting berated for something. Again.

Finally, McGonagall gave a quiet sigh, picking up her quill again. “I’m afraid that's impossible. All the teachers have personally studied every inch of this castle over the winter break, yet we’ve found nothing suspicious.”

“Then how come there was another attack?” Sirius asked bluntly.

“He’s right, Professor. What harm is there in checking the room? We told you about the sign–”

Minerva drew another parchment from the large pile before her, absently scanning the contents. “The snake you speak of is nothing too special. As I’m sure you can imagine, the Underground chambers in particular are quite full of it. But none,” she stressed, looking up, “lead to the supposed Chamber of Secrets.”

“Supposed? ” Sirius intoned, clearly irritated. “There’s no other way to explain this, Professor. It has to be real.”

“Besides, the sink hadn’t even budged,” James added, crossing his arms. “If it was normal, that shouldn’t be possible. Merlin’s beard, I even tried bombardo on it.”

McGonagall lifted a single brow. The quill in her hand stilled. “I hope I don’t need to mention that would be damage to school property… but yes, it is a bit curious.” She paused, clearly thinking. “I will look into it, but don’t get your hopes up. As I said, we’ve already checked the place.”

James had the feeling McGonagall’s search would reveal nothing and he was right. Three days later after they came to her, she frowned slightly when handing them their essays.

“Nothing was found,” she said quietly, and moved down the line of desks before they could even try and ask about it. It was clear she had written off the sink as another thing on the long list of Hogwart's anomalies. 

But James refused that to be the end, and by the determined look on Sirius’ face, he wasn’t alone. Whenever they could, they visited the library or the abandoned lavatory, trying out different ways of getting the secret passage open.

Sir Galanhad had informed James none of the portraits near the Astronomy Tower had seen anything suspicious, and certainly nothing like Myrtle described, so the bathroom remained their only lead. The only one happy with the whole situation turned out to be Myrtle, who seemed happy to finally have some company. 

Most of the time, she was content to just listen to them, fluttering around and watching them or randomly smiling, though James had no idea over what. Other times, she liked to retell the story about her death again or the slightly disturbing tales of the years she haunted her childhood bully.

With their focus fully on the passage, the remaining two weeks leading to the last task of the Tournament passed by too quickly. As previously instructed by Dumbledore, they were all to wait near the main courtyard.

After fidgeting with his Snitch for the better part of the hour, the clock in the Astronomy Tower finally struck four. James immediately straightened up, letting his hand fall back into his lap. 

“It’s time,” he said, voice full of anticipation. When the clock would strike four again, they’d either be winners of the Tournament, or not.

Sirius looked at him from where he was lying on the lower part of James’ bed, sprawled on his stomach. “Shame,” he sighed. “My book was just getting good.”

“Padfoot ,” James admonished, then kicked him lightly to the knee, seeing as it was the closest thing to him. When he heard Sirius’ book fall shut, he quickly jumped to his feet, knowing he’d otherwise receive swift retaliation. 

As expected, Sirius tried to catch him, and James quickly jumped out of reach, laughing. The mirth in Sirius’ eyes was so palpable it warmed James up from the inside. 

‘Truce?’ James offered wordlessly, lifting his eyebrows a little. Sirius tilted his head, considering, then nodded. While he rolled off the bed, Remus on the other side of the room exasperatedly shook his head.  

“Are you nervous?” Peter piped up curiously, watching them as they readied themselves to leave. He was working on his essay for History of Magic, same as Remus, though the difference was his essay barely had five lines. He had spent the last twenty minutes asking Remus increasingly random questions about goblins, clearly enjoying it much more than actually writing. “I mean, what if there's a repeat of the last time, or what if–” 

“Have a little faith, Tail,” James replied, smiling. “We’d figure something out.”

Peter nodded, clearly trying to channel a brave look. “If you see us…I’ll be the one holding the biggest poster.”

Remus coughed.

“Ehm, right, Remus and I will be holding the biggest poster.”

James grinned while Sirius scoffed, clearly amused. “We’ll keep an eye on it.”

The journey to the courtyard has never felt so short before. Soon enough, the large wings of the main gate fell shut between them, faint light warming their faces as stubborn sun rays peeked through the clouds. 

The Durmstrang champions were both already there. Theo smiled slightly upon seeing them, clearly perking up while Bokorova decidedly stared somewhere to the distance. James had the feeling she was scowling slightly less than usual, but that might have been just his imagination. Then, to his absolute disbelief, she gave both him and Sirius a curt, almost reluctant nod. James gaped so badly Sirius had to elbow him to the ribs to get him to drop the expression. 

Toussaint and Verville arrived right after, greeting everyone with guarded but polite smiles. The whole situation felt like a strange, misshapen mirror to their first meeting. Time was a scary thing, James decided. It felt like the first task was barely a month ago, and yet tonight would mark the final part of the Tournament.

They stayed there, making small talk until the sound of clicking heels carried over to them. The large figure of Madam Bellegrade, the Beauxbatons Headmaster soon came into view. She had another one of her habitual, enormous hats, its violet brim the same colour as her outer robe. Next to her walked Mr. Kirling, his multiple bracelets clicking together with each step. His face full of badly suppressed excitement, eyes glinting as he looked at them. There was no doubt he couldn’t wait to see the task play out. 

“Good evening, my dears,” Madam Bellegrade greeted them as they came closer, a serene smile on her lips. She gestured to her right, her extravagant robes shining with multiple different shades of purple. “I’m sure you all remember Mr. Kirling from the Ministry?”

Mr. Kirling lowered his head slightly. “It’s good to see you all again. The events of the last Tasks were…regrettable. Though I praise your bravery, you can be sure that today we have a special force of Aurors watching the Tournament with us, ready to intervene at any second. As before, if you find yourself in a situation and want to withdraw from the Tournament, send the red sparks up ahead. The team will take you back and you can watch the rest with all of us here, safe and sound. Any questions?” 

He folded his hands in front, giving them a moment. When no one spoke, he nodded again, pleased. “Good. Now to what you’ll be actually expected to do, hm?” 

The smile on his face turned mischievous. “All you have to do is find an entrance to a dragon’s lair and steal the Triwizard Cup.”

Apolline’s eyes widened. “You want us to steal from a dragon’s hoard? That’s crazy, he will turn us to,” she faltered, “ah, how do you say… cendres? ”

“Ashes,”  Sirius supplied bluntly. The word sounded strangely loud in the sudden quiet, almost as if having their own echo.

“I won’t lie to you, it will be dangerous, there’s no doubt about that,” Mr. Kirling said, pacing slightly. “But after what you faced in the previous tasks, I’m sure you’re all more than capable of succeeding.”

“The dragon won’t be your only obstacle. It’s going to be chained inside its cave, so you can be at least sure it won’t suddenly descend on you, but actually making your way to it will prove a challenge of its own,” he trailed off into a meaningful pause, his gaze slowly moving between each of them.

James looked steadily back. He always hated this part before the Tournament. The long dramatical pauses, the cryptic words. Why couldn’t they just let them start already?

To his side, he felt Sirius shift, crossing his arms. James didn’t need to turn to know he was as impatient as James, but he did it anyway.  

“If anyone wants to withdraw,” Madame Bellgrade proclaimed after a moment, stepping slightly forward “now is the time to do so.”

Apolline’s face was still pale, but she firmly pressed her lips together, refusing to speak. Clarisse touched her shoulder, giving her an encouraging smile. The rest of them hadn’t moved, Bokorova glaring at the Headmaster as if daring her to try and tell her to give up.

“Good. Follow me.”

As she turned to leave, Sirius lightly bumped his shoulder into James’.

“Let’s win this thing,” he said, eyes shining with determination like still burning embers in a fire.

James felt a smile spread on his face. “Let’s win.”