March 26, 2004
Sultanahmet Meydanı
Istanbul, Turkey

The bold, clear tones of the first ezan rang across the open square, stilling the crowds as startled tourists turned to look for the source of the call.  Within moments, the voice of a second muezzin had joined in -- and then a third, until it seemed as if all of the city was awash in an orchestral bath of sound.  They echoed off buildings, sparred and danced with each other, reverberating with a symphonic strength that seemed to resonate down to her very bones, haunting and beautiful and lonely all at once.

Raizel kept her head held high as she wove through the crowd, deliberately picking her way back towards the enormous blue mosque whose domes shone a bright azure blue in the afternoon sun.  With the dark sunglasses that shaded her eyes and the brightly colored scarf that she'd wrapped loosely over her hair, she imagined that she might be taken for some sort of exotic tourist -- American maybe, or Swedish, or French -- anyone who might have some sort of exciting reason to be here, and never for a very young woman who had spent most of her time in the Middle East.

Tourists were trickling out through the gates of the Sultanahmet mosque now, some looking disappointed, others setting out with purpose for the enormous former church that sat opposite the blue-tiled mosque on the opposing side of the square.  Every day like clockwork, they closed the famous building for the five-times-daily prayers, ushering out the visitors to afford some semblance of peace for worshippers and pilgrims.  Raizel paid the fleeing crowds no mind as she stepped through the gates, pursing her lips as she examined the still-busy square. 

She knew the schedule by heart now.  She and the others had spent most of the prior day scouting, even with the prayer times posted in big, bold numbers on a sign outside the mosque.  The staff here began moving the tourists out just before the call to prayer sounded; politely ushering them away, or better yet, directing them into a much smaller blue-roofed building that sat just to the side of the domed mosque, with promises of refreshments and an educational talk on the history of the famous site.

Raizel set her sights on the smaller, unimpressive looking building, starting for it with a determined gait.  On Fridays, the crowd here was exceptionally large, which served her purpose well.  She ducked through the door, climbed up the first wooden stairwell, and then -- when she was certain that the guides inside were preoccupied with ushering the visitors to their seats, and no one was really paying attention as she slunk along the back well -- under a rope and up a second staircase as well, this one with smaller steps that were far more worn, as if no one on the caretaking staff had ever bothered to get around to replacing them.

Back in the days of the Ottoman Empire, the Sultanahmet mosque had been at the very nexus of culture, religion, and learning.  Raizel felt as if she knew the words of the lecture that would soon begin on the floor below by heart.  The building they were in now had once served as a religious school -- although far more had been taught here than the Muggle tourists would ever in their wildest dreams suspect.  The lower floor had been the classroom -- and this room up here, with its wizened wooden paneling, declining window glass, and now empty shelves: it had been the library.

"Goleya," she murmured, as she drew her wand.  Sunlight managed to sneak in through the thickened windows, but it was obvious at even a passing glance that this upper floor did not get nearly as much traffic as the lecture room below.  Biting her tongue, Raizel silently began to examine the walls, letting her gaze slowly move over the once-ornate wooden walls.

It had to be here.  Every inch of her, every instinct screamed it.  There had to be some telltale hint of an enchantment, the unmistakable mark of a spell long cast, keeping its prize still hidden within.  On the floor below, she could hear the sound of people shifting in wooden chairs, and then a man began to speak in heavy English.  Raizel scowled, already feeling the rush of frustration.  Where was it?  She called light to the tip of her wand, and then jabbed it forward like a torch, using the illumination to help her examine the panels for anything out of the ordinary.  A hidden panel, a false floorboard, an X to mark the spot -- just something!  It had to be here!

And then she saw it.  A faint yellow glow, barely visible against the faded wood that lined the left wall.  Raizel hurried over, ignoring the squeak of the floor boards as she rushed to get a closer look.  Yes -- magical remnants for sure, barely visible even with the revelatory spell that she'd cast.  It looked to be in the shape of Arabic script, though the letters formed no incantation that she recognized.

But she had found it, at least.  The mage let out the breath that she hadn't even realized she was holding.  And now, nearly trembling with excitement, she leaned closer, her entire focus fixed on the old concealing spell that was still barely visible before her, as she began to consider the best way to break it.

Edgar Grey didn't stand out in the crowd. He looked like any other tourist there to marvel at the opulence of the religious buildings. With his short sleeved tourist shirt and khakis he looked down right kosher for the mobs of milling sightseers. This suited Grey just fine as he stood in the midst of the throngs of people. His query was making her way towards a building to the side of the grand mosque. Nonchalantly as one could through a crowd, he started to close the distance.

Grey aped being a part of a group that was pushing in through the door of the smaller building. It was most likely an unneeded precaution but was one he carried through with regardless. Once he'd taken the first flight of stairs he saw that the muggles were all being seated. He turned towards a wall, certain he'd seen his mark disappear in that direction. He pretended to be fascinated with the architecture of the building. In reality he was looking around for the best egress route for when his task was completed. He saw a few promising leads, all depending on how the encounter that he was building towards went.

He waited towards the back of the crowd. Once he was certain that there were no eyes lingering on him he backed slowly towards the rope that separated him from where he needed to go. He slipped under the rope and out of sight in one swift motion. His feet fell silently on the old stairs, a combination of practice and one of various enchantments his outfit had been outfitted with for his task. He silently thanked the powers that be for the way up not being an old wooden ladder like he often found himself climbing while out in the Near East. The cosmopolitan setting of his current mission was much more to his liking than the forays into the brutal and rural locals he often found himself in.

Grey found it pertinent to be armed when everything came to a head. He slid his hand into the inside of his print button-up and removed his wand. The wand was eight inches with a black finish, and smooth as the Near East's sun was oppressive. Its relatively short length and pliable nature served him well in the field. It rarely let him down when push came to shove. He finished the steps and found himself in a dim room. He could already make out the sounds of someone moving about inside, searching for something.

He slid along the wall as he took the room. He looked for his mark in the room. He crept along the wall with his back to it, and his wand at the high ready. A patch of sunlight washed over him, illuminating the intensity in his sky blue eyes. That’s when he located the exact position of his target. He tuned everything else out for the moment. Ignoring the sounds of the mass of tourists just down the stairs, and of whomever it was giving them the history of the place. Grey cared very little about history at that exact moment.

He moved from the back wall towards the center of the room. He did a quick scan of the room as he progressed his forward motion. He didn’t spot anyone besides the female who seemed to have come across something. He cleared his throat, not so loud as to make himself heard over the mob down on the floor below. He cleared it just loud enough for someone listening to make sure no one wielding a wand was sneaking up on them as they went about their task of looking for some secret or another would hear him. 

“Have you found something good?” he asked dryly from behind his wand.

The spell was a good one, delicately woven and intricately cast.  Most mages didn't realize how useful wood could be as a base for anchoring enchantments.  Stone always seemed far more reliable; bone more mysterious; gemstones and precious metals leant glamorous power.  Wood was simple, but it was resilient, and it took magic into itself like it was the driest part of the Negev soaking up a monsoon.  That was why all but the most traditional mages had adopted wands made of wood, even here in the heart of Istanbul. 

The letters glowed faintly within her vision, a remnant of the Goleya spell.  They were everything that could ever matter in the room, and Raizel was utterly focused on them.  She knew the letters -- she could run her finger over the invisible script -- but even now she could make no sense of them.  Arabic, but not Arabic words.  Unless they were --

Someone cleared his throat behind her, and Raizel's heart felt as if it stopped short and then restarted again.

She whirled around, her expression panicked, fumbling for her wand only to find that another was already pointed at her.  The blonde mage froze instantly, her fingers closed loosely around her wand.  Her face was pale as she gaped at the intruder, clearly taken by complete surprise at his interruption.

"Ma?  Lo yodaat -- mi zeh --?"  She cut off abruptly, breaking off the rush of Hebrew words.  Raizel stared up at the man, her eyes wide, her heart pounding.  English.  He couldn't be Turkish -- he didn't look it, and even that brief question held no hint of anything but the most impeccable British accent.  So who was he?

"I don't -- ...no," she said haltingly, in rough English.  She hadn't looked away from the man -- or rather, away from the tip of the merciless black wand that was still pointed at her.  Something felt as if it was catching in her chest.  She had her own wand already in hand, so she couldn't pretend as if she didn't know who he was, and how could she know that he hadn't followed her here intentionally anyhow?  Suddenly, the room felt very small. 

"Nothing," she insisted, and gave a quick shake of her head.  "Nothing is here.  I don't know what you're talking about.  I was --"  She broke off, pressing her mouth shut as she shrank back in a sort of panicky frustration. 

Grey’s gaze didn’t leave Raizel as he strode across the room, and neither did his wand. He closed the distance without any hesitation. He stood close to her, but just out of reach from any surprise blows. Normally he wouldn’t leave himself so open to an attack from behind. But what could he say? He was feeling lucky. His eyes flashed from Raizel’s dark ones to her wand and back. He considered disarming her but was afraid the noise might draw some attention. Things hardly went well for long in his line of work and he wanted to keep it all moving smoothly for as long as possible.

The witch started to say something to him in Hebrew. He recognized the language but didn’t speak it himself. His face didn’t betray whether the revelation took him off guard or not. Inside however it did take him by surprise. There were half dozen languages he would have expected to be addressed in; Hebrew was not on that list. He watched as she shrank away from him.

“No need to run now. If I was going to do something I would have already. This wand is for my protection,” he lied with a reassuring wink.

He glanced quickly at the spot that Raizel was appraising just moments prior. He didn’t see anything, just wood swollen from the humidity. She had been staring so intently though that Grey had been able to sneak up on her. So there had to be something there that he just couldn’t see. With his gaze split between the witch and the wall Grey reached out with his free hand. He knew better than to just put his hand on the wall, and instead waved it in the air over the portion of wall space he was sure had held Raizel’s rapt concentration. He didn’t feel anything, and he didn’t lose his hand. Both were good things, but also meant that he was at a loss as to what it was the witch had found.

Grey took a step back from where he stood by the wall, allowing room for Raizel to move back into the area she had originally occupied. It seemed his hands were tied at the moment. He didn’t have the faintest idea what it was his quarry had found, so he couldn’t just neutralize the witch and examine whatever it was. He was sure some of the other Unspeakables would be able to make short work of the little mystery the witch had discovered. That however, was not Grey’s specialty. A good minute had passed at least since Raizel had spoken, Grey finally addressed her insistence that she had not found anything.   

“You were what? Just on Holiday and found yourself up here? Looking for the little witch’s room perhaps?”

Grey’s eyes darted from the witch to the wall, and then back to the witch again. He gestured with his wand, trying to impress upon her that she should move back to where she had been.

“What is it you’ve found?” 

The man -- the wizard -- stepped towards her, and Raizel stayed still, keeping her fingers wrapped tightly around her own wand.  He was tall and almost stocky-looking, with straw-straight blonde hair and a nondescript face that could have blended in to any crowd.  He was old -- he had to be at least in his late thirties -- and she didn't believe him for a second when he said that the wand was for his own protection. 

Raizel dropped her gaze, her eyes resting on the wizard's perfect shoes as she swallowed hard and tried to quiet her panicked thoughts.  She still had her wand, and while she didn't trust this man for an instant, he was only one man.  If she was smart and quick and kept her wits about her, this didn't have to be the end of everything.

The wizard was making a careful examination of the wall -- so careful that when he finally spoke up, she nearly jumped again.  Raizel's eyes flickered to his face, and she stared, her mouth pressed thin and her face very pale, before finally lifting her chin.

"If you don't know, then why did you follow me?"  The English sounded as obnoxiously harsh as ever, filled with hard consonants and unnecessary verbs.  Each word came out clipped and unnecessarily precise, though not nearly as gilded as the man's elegant accent.  Raizel set her jaw, keeping her eyes locked on him.

"I haven't found anything," she said curtly, giving a good approximation of a careless shrug of her shoulders.  She slid back into the place that she'd occupied a moment before, keeping her face towards him.  Her muscles burned as if they were ready to run, to flee, to apparate out of here in a hurry, but she didn't dare; not yet. "You can tell me.  What are you looking for?"

“None of it is quite that simple. You see I am looking for you. More specifically, I am looking for whatever it is that you’ve found,” Grey took a few steps back and lowered his wand from the witch’s face to her torso. “You see your backers are a group of shady bearded men, the sun never sets on my backers. So let’s not play games. I’ve never been the type to enjoy them.”

Grey’s piercing blue eyes found Raizel’s mysterious dark ones when she raised her head and met his gaze. A shaft of light fell between the two of them from a narrow window on the far side of the room. Dust danced in the beam, and the heat in the air caused a drop of perspiration to run down the defined edge of the man’s jaw. His gaze was unflinching, and so was his grasp on his already drawn wand. His nostrils flared slightly when she continued to feign having found nothing. He clenched his jaw and tightened his fingers on the polished black length of wood.

“My Intel is always impeccable. My organization simply does not make mistakes. I am here because you found something. I am here to see what it is you’ve found,” he said evenly. “My backers have relayed to me that your backers have come across something big. A game changer as it were. This next part is very important and I want you to listen very carefully to me so you are not confused at all. I’m authorized by my backers, my very powerful backers, to do whatever I have to, to make sure whatever it is your backers have discovered is not recovered by those shady bearded men.”

Grey’s chest rose and fell rhythmically, and the white cotton of his undershirt was pulled taught over his tanned muscles exposed by his partially open print shirt. The heat of the room was starting to get to him. The tension, plus the humidity, plus the size of the room, equaled a stifling sort of feeling that pressed in on him. He did however do an exemplary job of hiding the feeling from his face, which was blank save for the slightest hint of a frown at the corners of his mouth.

“But now I’m going on like the villain in a spy novel. So why don’t we make this quick before it turns into a chase scene?”               

The blonde man was going on like the villain in some English spy novel, the sort that Raizel might have teased one of her friends relentlessly for reading back in school.  Shady bearded men -- she couldn't help bristling slightly at the conveyed image, despite the fact that she was only incidentally heir to the regional assumptions that it implied. 

Dust shimmered in the air between them, dancing as it passed through the shaft of interrupting light, and suddenly, the overwhelming sense of fear seemed a little less striking.  There were two ways she could go about this.  One was to run.  Chances were good that she could apparate away, and the boom of her departure would surely draw a response from the Muggles downstairs.  But then she'd be departing without her prize, and now that this man had happened upon her, it was unlikely that she would get a second chance to retrieve it.

Her second option, then, was to fetch it and then run.  The odds of completing such a venture without ending up dead were far less certain, but at least it held a chance of success; apparating away now meant certain failure. 

And besides, this was an old room, and there was plenty of dust.

The last thought was what decided her.  The blonde mage seemed to make a decision, squaring her shoulders as she turned to face the wall.  "Ki apar ata," she murmured, raising her wand as she ran her fingers lightly over the wood.  "Goleya."

The spells settled into place with a familiarity around her.  A quiet shiver, barely noticeable, seemed to pass over the room, and in an instant, her vision had changed once more.  Without a doubt, if she looked back at the Englishman now, she'd see the glow of his magical defenses, but that sort of examination could wait its turn.  For now, her focus was on nothing but the enchantment, glowing softly in her vision.

A Turkish mage would have likely caught the trick of it immediately.  The charm was written in Arabic characters, but it was not Arabic; it must have dated from a time when the Ottoman Empire had adopted the elegant script as their own.  It took some doing to sound it out -- much like reading Hebrew words when they were inelegantly transcribed in blocky Western letters -- but with a few seconds to think it through, she could read it nevertheless.

"It is an old spell," she said, in as cool a tone as she could manage.  She chanced a glance over her shoulder.  The man was intimidating; for all that her heart was still pounding, he seemed to be entirely unconcerned by their standoff.  "It is meant to conceal."  And it would not be particularly easy to break, not with how long the magic had had to soak into the wood -- though the thought that she couldn't manage it never really crossed her mind.

Her attention was focused once more on the spell in front of her, although now she could not afford to be solely focused.  It was impossible to ignore the man with his unforgiving black wand, still pointed right at her.  She knelt, adjusting her position to give her a better angle to examine the spell.

"You trust the men that you are working for so much?" she asked over her shoulder.  She did her best to sound idle and unconcerned, and not as terrified as she felt.  She wouldn't let this blond British wizard scare her into inaction.   "They don't even tell you what you're looking for, and you come here to hunt me down.  How do you know what they will do with it?"

Grey eyed the witch at the end of his wand like a patient vulture watched a sick gazelle. There was no rush betrayed by his actions, though both mages knew they were working on a time hack. If at any time they were discovered things would become significantly more complicated. With the sort of spell work the woman was doing, complicated wouldn’t do.

So it fell on Grey to serve as both lookout and captor to the gazelle as they stood there assessing each other and the situation. Every second that passed was another second he wouldn’t get back. It was another second that the whole situation could explode in his face. He remained outwardly calm, and his fingers didn’t tremble on his wand at all. His gaze was cold and unflinching. The only sweat that fell from the man was obviously from the temperature. Or so he hoped.

When the woman finally moved a hint of a smirk played at his lips, but he fought it away. Her complying didn’t mean anything. It was just as likely that she was preparing for a sneak attack as it was that she was working as instructed. He heard her say something under her breath as she faced her task. It might as well of been gobbledygook to him, but her next word seemed to be an incantation. He watched her wand as she cast the spell, but it was mostly her eyes that he paid attention to. He couldn’t see a change in the room, and could only assume that spell only affected the blonde woman.

“I guess I’m going to have to assume that one was benign,” he whispered into the warmth of the room.

He looked over his shoulder to the doorway and back to Raizel in a smooth movement. Having your head on a swivel was something you were taught day one. Having to do so while watching over a detainee however, was infinitely more nerve wracking. The whole ordeal was leaving his mouth dry.

“Well I supposed by the dust in the room that it wouldn’t be a relatively new spell. The million galleon question is what is it concealing?”

He gave her a smile when she turned over her shoulder that was all crocodile tears, and obviously so. Grey didn’t show any sincere emotion as he watched her study the spell that he could not see. Only two things were on his mind as she worked. Those were what he would do with whatever it was she unearthed, and what he would do with her. If he wanted to extract her to turn over to his side for questioning then things had the potential to turn very bad very quickly. As much as he hated to hurt a woman, it was looking to him like a stupefying strike might be his best course of action when it came time for exfil. He was pulled from his surface thoughts when Raizel spoke again.

“I trust the men I am working for implicitly,” Grey said as he looked down the length of his wand at the cursebreaker. “Whatever they do with whatever it is will be for the greater good. They send me because I don’t need to know what I’m looking for, I’ll know it when I see it.”   

Now it was certain: the blond man clearly had read too many British spy novels.  If there hadn't been a wand pointed at her back, Raizel would have turned her nose up at all this proclamation of the Greater Good. 

Still...the posturing gave her two bits of vital information.  The first was that this man, whoever he was, might possibly see himself as being one of the good guys.  It didn't matter that right and wrong was questionable; that in this world, there were no absolutes.  If he didn't feel like he had to do it -- if he didn't think she was a threat, or thought that she was being manipulated into this -- then there was a chance, however small, that he wouldn't kill her.

The second piece of information -- possibly even more crucial, but far harder to believe -- was the idea that he really might not know what he was looking for.  Raizel felt incredulous that that could be the case; it seemed far more likely that he was trying to put her off her guard by not admitting it.  But if it was true -- if he really didn't know -- then that gave her another critical advantage in getting out of this standoff.

"You're not the first mage who has used those words," she informed him over her shoulder, her tone crisp and clipped.  But it was doubtful that any British wizard would remember that part of history, save for the part where their hero had swooped in to save the rest of the world at the end.  She'd take an honest mercenary any day over a man convinced he was doing what was right.  Relying on one's judgement of right and wrong made one too easy to manipulate.

She'd known the spell would be an ancient one, but she hadn't thought before of how that would increase the difficulty of breaking it.  This particular enchantment had had so long to entwine itself with the aging wood that the two were one and the same.  It was made to conceal, to hide; if it weren't for the subtleness of Goleya, she doubted that she would have ever been able to spot it.

But there was a trick.  There had to be.  Normally, she would have simply transferred it to something else, but its essence was so mingled with that of the wall that her usual trick would be impossible.  She could probably find the right runes to break it, but that would take time -- time that she did not want to spend, not with the Muggles downstairs and a wand at her back.  That meant finding some fault that was inherent in the spell, some hidden key to unlock it.

She read over the words one more time -- Turkish, but written in Arabic script by some ancient, unnamed imam -- and then suddenly she got it.

"I need a knife," she informed the man behind her, impatiently holding out her hand.  Normally, she carried one with her -- a small silver blade that was useful in breaking enchantments -- but she had no intention of revealing that to him.  If he wanted to see what was hidden here -- if he wanted to claim her prize for his so-called Greater Good -- then he could surrender his own.