The Death Room did not calm after Thanatos withdrew.
Corvus stood at the centre of it all with Elizaveta next to him and Arcturus still settling. Bastion Guards were already moving to secure the room.
Gellert approached him.
There was a strange expression on his face. He stopped a few paces away, glanced once at the last vial still in Corvus' hand, then raised his head to lock his gaze with his.
"Could you tell me more about Death, please?"
Vinda turned to him sharply.
What was there to know, her expression seemed to demand, other than that the being had come through the Veil, fought Corvus, and retreated without any known spell managing to affect him other than Corvus' own spells, lightning, wings and that strange grey fog.
"Gellert," she began.
He cut across her with a small lift of the hand, not rude enough to become disrespectful.
"It is important." His eyes stayed on Corvus. "I am not asking for the Hallows. I do not care about old stories at the moment. I am asking about an entity of that magnitude, and all of us, the so-called wise of the magical world, had no idea it was there."
That landed harder than the room's cold.
Arcturus frowned.
The old man's face had not yet recovered from watching his heir disappear into the Veil, his return, and his fight with Death. Grindelwald's question added another wound to the same place. It was not merely that Death had appeared. It was that an entire civilisation had built institutions, theories, taboos, and legends around the Veil and still had not understood what sat behind it, feeding on the cost.
Gellert kept going; once he found the line of a problem, he rarely did anyone the courtesy of stopping before he reached the end of it.
"How many were thrown to the Veil over the centuries?" His voice tightened by a degree. "How many fed that being without anyone understanding what the act truly was? And that fog." He drew a breath through his nose and looked at the arch. "I have spent a lifetime thinking I understood the scale of power. That confrontation was a harsh correction."
Before Corvus could say anything, Vinda solved the problem in her own way.
She stepped in, took Gellert's arm, and linked hers through it with the calm force of a woman who had already decided where this conversation would continue and who would object too late if he meant to resist.
"Come." She led him out
Arcturus remained where he was for another second, gaze fixed on the Veil, then turned and locked eyes with Corvus.
"How can I help?"
The question came without ornament.
It also came without pretence. In all the years Arcturus had known him, one thing had remained constant. Corvus always had a plan, and when he did not have one yet, he was already building the structure that would replace the absence.
Corvus glanced at his Arcturus.
"I am already making the necessary arrangements."
He held the look and waited.
"If the need arises," Corvus added, "I will contact you."
The answer was sensible; it was also a quiet refusal.
Arcturus did not attempt to hide the bitterness of helplessness that came with it. This threat sat outside the scale of things his generation had been taught to understand. Their spells had not disturbed Death. Their titles meant nothing to it. Their institutions had built a room around the arch and then spent centuries pretending that counted as mastery.
His mind had already started working again in more practical directions. He would contact Manard to hasten the completion of the flying fortress. He would move the Ministry; it was no longer a need; it became a must.
He left the room with that bitter thought already turning into orders.
The moment he was gone, Bellatrix attached herself to Corvus's arm. She clung with both hands, rose onto the balls of her feet to reduce the disadvantage of his greater height, and started firing questions at him so quickly that the room itself seemed briefly unsure which one to resent first.
"What does he look under that hood? Can he cross the Veil properly if enraged enough? What was that fog? Did he speak like that because he was offended or because he is simply dramatic? Also, and do think before answering, is Death single?"
Corvus and everyone else stopped breathing for a moment.
He looked down at her.
Bellatrix looked back, her eyes wide. Her face would have suited a particularly murderous kitten.
"Bella." Corvus inhaled slowly. "There are Nestborn mind mages available. Would you fancy a visit to have a tea with them?"
Bellatrix narrowed her eyes.
Sirius, who had drifted close enough to hear the last question about Death's marital status and too close to retreat with dignity, nodded with solemn conviction.
"Yes. Bella is definitely in need of a mind mage." He looked at Corvus next with the same grave wisdom. "Frankly, so are you. Who in Morgana's name fights Death?"
Amelia, standing beside him, felt the direction of his sentence before he completed it. She caught his arm and gave one sharp tug.
That stopped Sirius. He looked at her.
She did not need words. Her expression told him plainly that whatever special contribution he had been preparing to offer would keep.
Narcissa stepped in where Sirius had wisely failed to continue.
She faced Corvus directly, composed as ever, and gave the only response in the room that resembled thanks instead of interrogation.
"Thank you for securing us before the confrontation."
Bellatrix opened her mouth again, but Narcissa did not let her begin.
She took her sister by the arm with the ease of someone who had done this before, turned her in one smooth motion, and started steering her out.
Bella resisted for half a step out of instinct alone.
Then she looked over her shoulder toward Corvus, realised she had not yet been forbidden from asking the question later, and allowed herself to be removed with surprising grace.
Amelia performed the same service for Sirius, though with rather less elegance and more practicality.
She caught him by the sleeve again, then by the wrist when he attempted to stay, and started moving him.
Sirius cast one betrayed look, which Amelia ignored with familiar practicality.
She was in love with the idiot. That did not mean she intended to let him stand in the Death Room long enough to say something suicidal to a man even Death had chosen to flee. Perhaps in another fifty years
Most of the Bastion Guards left as well. Corvus turned to the remaining ones.
"Seal this room. Ward it to high heaven. No one enters without my leave unless the Veil starts behaving worse than it already has. If anything changes, report to me immediately."
The guard at the front struck his chest in acknowledgement.
"It will be done, my lord."
Corvus extended his hand.
Elizaveta took it without thinking.
She had been watching him since he came through the Veil. The fact that he had again done something impossible and returned with the expression of a man already organising the next problem was giving her headaches.
The moment her fingers closed around his, a portal opened beneath their feet.
The floor vanished into dark violet motion, and Elizaveta's startled scream cut clean through the Death Room while Corvus, to his credit, enjoyed it far more than a husband should have.
They dropped together into Mictlan.
The shift in pressure hit first.
The Death Room's cold, its whispers, its layered dread, all of it vanished and was replaced by the silence of a realm that belonged entirely to one will. The landing was soft. They settled onto a broad black platform just beyond the central court of the castle.
Elizaveta's grip on his hand tightened once, then again.
When she realised they were not, in fact, plummeting into some abyss he had neglected to mention over breakfast, she turned on him with narrowed eyes.
"You did that on purpose."
"Did I?"
Her eyes narrowed a bit more, which he genuinely chuckled at the cuteness.
"Where are we? She asked as she started to look around.
"This is my realm," Corvus answered and gave her only the necessary details about the place and the souls. He explained his plan about a new Nest and starting to produce withes and wizards similar to Death.
Elizaveta listened in silence. She nodded slightly and frowned about the new project. Though she trusted Corvus and decided to stay silent.
"I will spend most of my time here." He continued.
"Can I come as I wish? This was her first concern. Upon getting a nod, she sighed with relief. She let the stress of the last couple of hours stream out of her system.
"You fought Death."
The bluntness of the statement made him smile again.
"Yes."
"You bled him."
"Yes."
"You dropped me through a portal for amusement."
Corvus considered the sequence. "That summary is broadly fair."
The realm stayed still around them.
When she stepped back, her control had returned properly.
"Show me around, please."
He floated them both and started to fly towards his chambers in the castle.