Newt gently set the occamy in the nest. The others were noisy; I assumed that they were excited at the return of a member of their kin. The look of joy on Newt's face lit the room - he was practically glowing at the fact that we had been able to rescue all of his animals. It was contagious.
"So," I said. "What now?" I leaned in close to him, pecking him on the cheek.
"Well, I suppose it's on to Arizona."
"You're not going to leave us are you, Mr Scamander?" wondered Jacob. "Why don't you stay a while?"
"Yes," agreed Queenie. "At least another night."
Newt grinned. "I couldn't have you getting in trouble for my sake. I wasn't supposed to be in New York long, anyway."
"Well, we do need rest for tonight," I reminded him. "We've had a long day. If all else fails, we can stay in the case."
Newt chuckled. "Well, if you're all going to insist. I might as well."
We all climbed out of the case, Newt and me first. Queenie was just climbing out when a voice shouted, "Stop right there, all of you!"
We spun around. Behind us was a large group of witches and wizards. Graves was among them. He said, "We know the girl is an Obscurus, Goldstein."
My heart sped up. How could they know?
Graves continued speaking, "I try not to make it widely known that I'm quite an accomplished Legilimens, so I was able to get the information from you, of course. I also knew that you had yet to discover that she was the Obscurus, but the clues were there in her mind for me to put together. So tell me, Mr Scamander and our Goldstein sisters, how long did you think that you could hide this from us? Not only have you now evaded your execution, but you are guilty of withholding valuable information and being an accomplice of the criminal!"
"Zarayna is not a criminal!" Newt shouted.445Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1bfrbj0WFG
Graves laughed. "Well, she has killed four people. And from what I understand, three of those four murders were quite intentional. Hand her over, and the rest of you can go."
"You can't take her! You - you don't understand, you don't have to do this! If you're a Legilimens, then you should know how she became the Obscurus."
"Why does it matter? She's a threat, and she must be stopped."
"But she can control it! And she has no reason to withhold her magic any longer."
"He's right," said a new voice. "She doesn't."
And then I saw him. He stepped out of a dark corner, slowly revealing himself. I immediately recognized him. "John?"
"Hello, Zarayna." And he raised his wand to me.445Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRu64YIPn7Y
