Grigori did not send runners. He came himself with a dozen of his elites and a mood that filled the lane like a storm. The bell above the shop door could not keep up with him. The door banged wide, wood rattling in the frame.
"Corvus Black." His voice rolled through the shelves.
Corvus rose from the small table by the front window. The glass showed a river of pedestrians parting around the Volkovs. He stepped forward. "Uncle Grigori. It has been some time."
He got a bear hug instead of a handshake. Leather and steel buckles bit into him. Grigori squeezed as if he could wring coin from him. The old wolf smelled of cold air and tobacco. Desperation hid under the laughter.
A brush of memory mapping told the rest. Seven hundred Squibs, all accounted for. Food, cloaks, beds, healers. Vaults bleeding. Letters to goblins. Numbers that turned hair white. Corvus filed the details and patted Grigori's shoulder once.
"Come," Grigori said, already striding for the alley. "Let me show you a manor, not the shack your cheat of a grandfather calls home."
Corvus let him talk as he did not want to cause a scene in the alley. But, he will kindly tell Uncle Grigori that if he has anything to say about his Grandfather, better to say it to his face. Grigori continued, Arcturus this, tightwad that. The elites cleared space with their silence. At the apparition point, Grigori faced him. "My men will bring you. I will lower the wards." He vanished in a twist of colour.
A tall blonde witch with the Volkov crest on the chest of her robes offered her hand. Corvus took it. The world turned and settled on a stone walk lined with black iron lamps.
Volkov Manor rose ahead, four stories of pale stone, long windows, steep roofs. Wolves stood along the path, carved in ice white marble, eyes set with smoky quartz. Frost hung on the hedges. The air tasted clean and sharp.
Grigori waited under the portico with a grin that showed teeth. "Come, Corvus. We will register your magic so you can come and go."
Grigori took him to the secret room where the main ward stone was. It was a rare gesture of trust from the old man. Corvus set his palm on it, felt the prickle of an old binding take his measure, and pushed a thread of power. The stone answered with a low hum. Runes woke, recorded his signature, then dimmed.
They crossed to Grigori's study. Wolf pelts draped the chairs. A broad desk lay buried in files. A map of the north with new settlements marked in neat red ink. Grigori shoved a folder across.
"Squibs," he said. "All we have. Families attached. Trades. Needs."
Corvus read the totals and the tallies. Seven hundred and change. He closed the file. "A good start." He met Grigori's eyes. "I need your elites. Seven will do. I want the Squibs be ready in sets of twenty five. We need to move fast. If we start tonight, the first payments flow by week's end."
"Goblins?" he asked.
Grigori snorted. "My account manager spoke with yours in London. The little bloodsuckers opened their mouths for fifty. We closed them at fifteen." Pride warmed his words.
Corvus smiled. "Tornhook grins the same way when he loses less than he asked."
Grigori barked a laugh. "Arcturus taught them. Or they taught him. No matter."
"Has your side begun to seep into the Ministry?" Corvus asked. "I will need laws moved as soon as the first payments hit. The settlements must become primary zones for all magicals. I do not want our people near muggles."
Grigori's nod carried weight and a hint of strain. "We have people inside. Clerks. A registrar. A ward inspector. Enough to nudge. Not enough to shove."
"Then we add muscle. Make it quiet, and start to make the lords and ladies see things our way, Uncle Grigori," Corvus said. He tapped the map. "Moscow is the starting point for us. First, we will separate the magical and Muggle worlds. Next, a global separation will follow. Each country will have borders controlled by us." His gaze got sharper. "I will select some of the Squibs to infiltrate Muggle offices and start some foundations." He stood up and walked to the world map on one of the tables. "We will bring order to this world, Uncle Grigori."
Grigori studied him. Somewhere between pride and unease. "You are not only telling us how. You are taking the reins."
"I am taking the risk," Corvus said. "The reins come with it."
Silence held for a breath. Grigori broke it with a shrug that belonged to a younger man. "So long as it pulls us forward."
"It will. Now, where is the ritual room?"
The line of Grigori's mouth changed. Age peeled off him in the space of a heartbeat. "Now that you mentioned Rituals, Corvus. I want what you did for Vinda and Arcturus. Will you do it?"
Corvus let a thin smile show. "If you swear the same oath or sign a contract. I want you to understand this, Uncle Grigori, this is personal. Between you and me, not the Alliance. Not the Acolytes."
Grigori weighed that. Vinda's face moved behind his eyes. Then Arcturus. He nodded once. "Both agreed the same, I think."
Grigori slid an empty parchment toward Corvus.
"They did," Corvus said while writing and slid it over. "The oath." There was no need to explain to Grigori or Vinda that he did not ask his Grandfather Arcturus for the oath.
Grigori read, lips silent. He took a blood Quill and signed. The parchment curled at the edges and went to Corvus' mokeskin pouch.
"Good," Corvus said. "I will gather twenty criminals tonight. The worst I can find. I want cages of steel with thick bars. Charm them to hold a troll."
Grigori's eyes lit. "We will have them in the lower galleries within the hour."
Corvus nodded. "Have your seven ready."
Grigori leaned back, finally letting the truth out with a long breath. "Seven hundred mouths. Seven hundred chances. If this works, we can build Magical Russia as we wish."
"Yes," Corvus said. "And we will."
Grigori's laugh came rough and genuine. He pushed back from the desk and clapped his hands. Somewhere in the manor, a bell answered. Feet moved. Orders spread.
"Come," he said. "See the hall. The cages will follow. You can tell me on the way how Minister Black is doing."
Corvus let him have his joke. "You can tell me on the way who you want to be the Minister here in Russia."
The old wolf grinned without shame. "I have someone in mind, Corvus." He gestured to himself. "And I can even vouch for him."
They left the study together, past marble wolves and cold firelight, the manor already turning to meet the night.
--
The grab on Averin took twenty seconds.
A rented office on the edge of Solntsevo. Frost on the window. Two men at the door. One kettle hissing. Viktor Averin leaned over a ledger with three phones lined beside it. Corvus crossed the room in one smooth step. A palm to the back of the neck. A sleep hex like a whisper. Everything was done under invisibility charms.
"Next," Corvus said, and the group swirled into colours and was gone the next moment.
The ritual room under Volkov Manor was ready and waiting. Chalk lines ran tight and exact. Four circles nested inside a larger ring that drank lamplight. Corvus worked the array himself. Averin woke when the binding set and tried to speak. A strong fist made him decide otherwise.
Grigori watched Corvus place the scum in the centre of the array.
"Let us make sure he knows who is in charge," Corvus told Grigori. "I will make sure his Bratva stop human trafficking and selling to minors. I will leave the rest. He keeps his talent for numbers and people."
Averin's eyes lost their frantic shine. The ritual rearranged all his memories. There was one step above him and Mikhas. A person who manages everything from the shadows, he was loyal, he was more than loyal. He would have put his life in line to protect this figure.
"You know who I am," Corvus said, and all Viktor could do was nod frantically. "You will cut human trafficking. You will never sell poison to minors. You will push rivals out of those trades and steer them to things that rot more slowly. You will account for every coin."
Averin kept nodding with each new instruction.
Two hundred Squibs filed through every vein of the Bratva over the next two nights. Tailors took measures. Forgers stamped histories. Corvus walked the line with a clipboard and a memory sharp as a razor. Cover stories set, routes mapped, signals taught. The first wave went into Solntsevskaya proper. Front offices, warehouses, counting houses. The second wave, another two hundred, was split between the arms and drugs wings. They learned faces and floors and where to stand when the mood turned. Every ten men had a Squib handler with a silent portkey stitched into a belt.
St Petersburg took its turn at dawn on the third day. Tambovskaya Bratva's warehouse lights died at once when the breakers tripped under a tailored surge. The floor boss woke with a sharp headache and a new chain of command. Malyshev's crew lost three lieutenants to sleep in a corridor and woke to a different paymaster by noon. No blood. No noise. Only a 'slight' shift in gravity.
By the fourth night, the network hummed. The first payments were on the move, small tests sent through three banks and a broker. Corvus marked the times in a small black book and was gone in flames after the numbers matched.
Fire gathered around his shoulders, clean and hot, then folded. He came out into the guest chambers set aside for him at Volkov Manor. A knock came the moment his flame was gone.
A maid entered with her eyes down and her hair tied back. "Master Volkov asks if you will join the family for dinner."
"I will," Corvus said.
He watched her go. No elf had laid the table here. Squibs did; they wore the black and white. They carried messages and trays. They did not scrub; house elves were doing the snapping and cleaning. Nor did they cook; the kitchen elves tended their own fires. It gave people with thin magic a place in a house built on power. He filed the note for Black Manor.
Two elites waited outside his door. The blonde fell in beside him. The other shadowed at a polite distance. They brought him along a corridor lined with wolf statues and oil portraits. The house had its teeth where visitors could see them.
The dining hall doors stood open. Grigori rose from the head of the table and made the room stand with him. The man looked twenty years younger. The ritual had found the waste and burned it out. His hair was thicker. His eyes were bright. He would have hugged a suit of armour again if one had been close.
"Come, Corvus," he called, loud enough to rattle a glass.
Corvus crossed to the right hand seat. Grigori clapped him on the shoulder hard enough to jolt the cutlery.
"Family," Grigori said, and swept a hand to his left. "Vasily Volkov."
Vasily gave a cold nod, chin sharp, mouth thin. A man who liked his place on a chart and did not enjoy being moved.
"And Oksana Volkova," Grigori said.
She met Corvus's eyes and smiled warmly. "Welcome to our house, Heir Black. Elizaveta mentions you a lot in her letters. Seeing you in person, I understand her point," she said, adding a small chuckle.
"Thank you for the welcome, Lady Volkova."
Names ran down the table. Uncles. Aunts. Cousins. Nieces who tried not to stare. The blonde elite took a place against the wall and folded her arms. Corvus let the room settle and took the temperature. Pride and curiosity were thick enough to be cut with a blade.
Grigori lifted a glass. "To work finished, and to work to come."
They drank. Dishes arrived on silver. Game with juniper, dark bread and Frost Vodka that caught at the throat.
Between courses, Grigori leaned close. "How fast?"
"A couple of days," Corvus said. "Notify your account manager and prepare the Ministry."
Vasily set down his knife. "You put seven hundred Squibs into my ledgers in three days. Do you intend to keep spending at this rate?"
Corvus looked at him without warmth. "I do not remember you spending even a galleon, Heir Volkov. You are not part of any deals I made and will continue to make with Lord Volkov." He turned to Grigori with a raised eyebrow.
Lady Volkova nodded silently. Her smile thinned into something like approval.
Grigori sighed deeply. "Mother Magic..." he murmured. "Vasily, Corvus is an honoured guest of the house. This is not the place nor the time. Soon, he will be part of it. I suggest you think before making an enemy out of a man who dismantled things you can not even start to imagine."
Vasily's knuckles went white on the stem of his glass. Corvus let it pass.
"After dinner," Grigori said, voice bright again, "you will tell the table why Moscow is safer today than it was four days ago."
"I will tell you that some trades are closed," Corvus said. "And that anyone who tries to open them again will find some of your elite at their doors."
Grigori grinned. "Good."
They ate. Toasts rose and fell. The young ones watched Corvus as if he might turn the salt to gold. He asked a niece about her studies instead and listened until she forgot to be shy.
When the plates were cleared, Grigori stood again. "My study," he said. "We will speak numbers."
Corvus rose with him. He inclined his head to Lady Volkov and to the table. His gaze locked on Vasily for a while and moved on. The blonde elite slid out from the wall and fell in behind them as they left the hall.