Title once more taken from William Blake's Jerusalem
Continued from this thread.

---

Things happened at a break-neck speed: a Patronus sent to Kiva. A hasty, in-tandem Apparation with Gwen to the Ministry.  Rushing to the International Floo so quickly that none could protest.  By the time the green flames of the floor subsided, Adon guessed that maybe... 5 minutes had passed. Maybe 10.

They had abandoned the black marble of London for the light, smooth limestone of Jerusalem.  Adon gave a slight smile, already feeling easier about this. "Stay here," he said to Gwen. "I'll figure out where we should go."  Technically, she shouldn't have used the Floo without proper documentation; neither of them should have without prior authorization. But if he got a chance to explain to Adnan... Adon scanned the Grand Entry.

Makan and Sbitani, two hitwizards he'd worked with before, were manning the security guard desk.  Adon barreled towards them, arms waving for assistance.  "Guys! Ezra! Ain starch Adnan!" The two hitwizards hesitated, looking at each other before moving from behind the desk.

"Where is Adnan?" Adon asked.  The next realizations came as though in slow motion:
1. Makan and Sbitani did not look happy to see him.
2. Their wands were drawn.
3. Adon didn't even have his wand ou--

Adon was engulfed in a flash of red light and flung backwards.  As he crumpled, his head hit the limestone floor with a loud crack. The hitwizards looked at each other, at their wands, at the prone form of the newly-arrived Auror, and, finally, at Auror Ori Peretz, standing right behind Adon Eleor, his wand also drawn.  In an instant, all three had mobilized.  Makan rushed over and had knelt by his side, checking for vitals while Sbitani lifted his head, checking the back of his skull.

"What the hell, Peretz!" Sbitani barked in Hebrew at the Auror as Peretz knelt to his other side, searching through Adon's pockets for his wand.

"You weren't making a move! I did!" Peretz snapped back, defensively.

"We already had it under control!" Sbitani retorted hotly. "You did not need to add a third curse!"

"You probably didn't need two! We were only supposed to detain him!"

"Three Stupefys is enough to knock out a dragon," Makan muttered, rolling back onto his heels.  "He will be out for a few hours. Better get him into a cell."

"And the girl?" Peretz questioned.

"What girl. There was no girl."

Peretz lifted a finger and the duo turned slowly to take in the sight of the lone, private investigator.  And then, the first word in English was spoken: "Fuck."

---

---

This was it. Death had already come. Ha'olam mitmotet.[1] Adon Eleor was dead and everything was terrible.  No, worse. Everything was hurt. 

Adon Eleor exhaled, his breath coming out in a grating groan.  He sniffed once, twice, checking his lungs. Good. Nothing wrong, there.  He'd need full lung capacity in a moment when he raised holy hell.  He turned his head slightly to the side.  Another wince and whimper.  Slowly, Adon opened his eyes. The ceiling was... dark. Dark cinderblocks? Where the hell was--?

What the hell was wrong with his head?  "Ze koooo'ev!" he moaned loudly, with an edge of anger.  Who the hell was in charge of this operation?  He took an assessment of his condition. Cataloging:  "Ani margish lo tov," he told the ceiling in a dull voice.  "Aaaay, yesh li s'charchoret."[2]

As he attempted to sit upright, Adon was only aware of a sharp, white-hot pain at the back of his skull.  Fingers fumbling, he gave a sharp cry when he touched a growing bump, there.  Moloch.  He couldn't even.  Abandoning his diagnostic course of action, he instead flopped back and rolled over to his side, feeling the rushing urge to dry heave over the side of the... cot.

He was in a fucking holding cell?! Again? It came back slowly: the two hitwizards, running at him... that was the last thing that had happened. Makan and Sbitani--those bastards. "Why why why why why," he muttered into the limp cot pillow before suddenly snapping his eyes wide open in a panic. He remembered one other thing.

"Gwen?!" he called.

1.	The world was caving in
2.	in order:  "I hurt! I do not feel well at all. Ugh, I am so dizzy."

The kindness of Dreogan Eleor’s words in that whirling cart might have been heartbreaking, for they were finely woven with weariness and wistfulness both. Gwen had heard it, that longing for an old life that Cumali, in the next cart, no doubt found more dangerous than the irksome witch and her pile of hideous heirlooms. Words that had need to be whispered, but seemed instead to have been spoken with friendly defiance.
And then urgent caution, as the cart had slowed and he'd climbed out, as he’d handed her back what was hers, activated the shield, and given her a message for his brother.

A message that indicated he meant to be gone before Adon could find them.

Gwen was good at masking emotion, making decisions that didn’t involve it, clutching at the made up version of herself, the stage version. But her eyes deceived her, and Gwen’s lips parted for half a second as Dreogan Eleor stepped away from the cart, so seemingly unlike his brother, and yet suddenly with a hint of that same bullish, infuriating sense of heroism she’d met under a cafe umbrella.

If she weren’t sane, she might have thought it a mistake to give him a Shield Charm. But the Thieve’s Downfall was impossible to fool, and Gwen wasn’t stupid. Without the protection, either of them could have been at the wrong end of Cumali’s wand— which was obviously no stranger to the Unforgiveables.

It happened so quickly, she’d hardly hopped out of the cart, abandoned things her grandmother might hiss at her for leaving behind, putting in harm’s way: Dreogan ran, Cumali whisked after him, Gwen after him. Goblin hands came up, fingers pointing and dangerous.

The door opened ahead, a beam of light, and Gwen watched Dreogan’s untamed mop whirling out of the door frame. She managed to throw off a goblin with a wave of her wand, dodge another with an inch to spare as she squeezed between him and the wall, and then the ground rumbled.

Hexes flew in the window of the lobby before her. A body fell. Gwen winced, and then saw the color of the robes, the clean soles of the shoes.

Cumali.

By the time she made it out of the vaults, it was over, Dreogan was gone, and there was Adon, calling her, waiting for her.

——

She didn’t stop him from choosing their destination, felt it was the smarter alternative to answering goblin inquiries. But Gwen felt herself tense as the Ministry appeared before them, suddenly, threatened to swallow them up. The Floo was almost a welcome sight, compared with the daily grind of the Atrium, and she accepted the second easy out as if the first were merely an inconvenient stepping stone.

That was where Gwen should have paused to think.

Trading one Ministry for another had not been her idea of safe.

Adon seemed confident in the plan, however, and Gwen stood still for all of ten seconds, taking in the limestone, then Adon’s running, waving, attention-stealing form… the Hit Wizards (she would learn), wands drawn… the spells, so much red… a flash of her own reflection on a column as protest left her throat: “No!”

Gwen, wand out, ran toward his flying form--

And then hit an arm as Adon fell.

An arm, of all things, was what caught her.

And it was just as well, because no magic would have been able to get through the charm emanating from the pink gob on her boot.

Her breath caught in her throat, hair whirled round her face, her own arms flung out before her as her chest made contact and her body half roiled over the sturdy limb and back. “Get off of me!” She shouted, even as someone else came up behind her, tugged at her shirt, brought her back down to her feet. “Get back!” She brandished her wand, a futile move as her arms were pulled roughly behind her, and the promising young investigator was undone by a burly pair of wizards with patronizing words and infuriatingly secure grips. “What are you doing? He works here! I came with your auror!”

So much for being slick as water.

——

The next several hours were a whirl far more unsettling than the turns of the cart had been. They refused to listen, the strangers in this Ministry— aurors, colleagues of Adon— who strong-armed-and-wanded her, ushered her through a maze of corridors.

Gwendolyn had never been here, and while certainly its reputation was upheld in the architecture, the atmosphere, there was also something universal about an aurors’ office, however markedly different from the British one. It was the place on Adon’s business card. The walls affirmed it, if their hospitality did not.

“This isn’t legal!” She chanted, to deaf ears, a line that might have been hilarious in any other situation, but now she almost yearned for her acquaintances in the London ministry.

Her questions went unanswered, mostly, and the answers were worse than their default of ignoring her. Vague, bureaucratic, glassy in the way of members of the Wizengamot arguing a point to an old friend on the bench beside him: sticky sweet as a Pepper Up potion, as if they knew what was good for you even if you didn’t. Gwendolyn refused the favor by refusing to answer any of theirs.

Every so often she heard the words that referred unmistakably to the British government, through the haze of foreign tongues. They glanced at her each time they mentioned it, and she could feel fleeting moments of hesitancy.

When they shoved her in a cell, there was a two minute pause in her search for an out, during which time she turned her attention the unconcious form of Adon as they brought him in, laid him down. After assuring herself he was breathing— poking, prodding, talking to him, looking over her shoulder in disbelief at the way his fellow aurors had handled the situation— she resumed her indignant questions. “is this how you treat your employees? Where’s Dreogan Eleor?” She looked over her shoulder.

A woman was there now, sizing her up even as she answered calmly and flashed her— Gwen’s— intact wand.

The sight of someone else holding her wand made her so angry that she was sure she could bend the bars with her mind.

No such luck.

She stared, searing the woman with her unblinking eyes.

This is not what Gwen had had in mind when she’d answered that bear, dared to follow Adon’s brother into the vaults.

She could scratch Jerusalem off her list of magical communities to one day see.

When the woman left, Gwendolyn moved back from the bars. She stood near the middle of the cell, arms crossed, cheeks pinched as her lips pressed together. Her eyes were hungry as they searched the wall across from the cell. No windows, not even a crack.

Yelling her inquiries, obviousness, were not her usual tactic, but Gwendolyn was not accustomed to corners she couldn’t squeeze out of, rooms with no escape. When they didn’t exist, she made them. Here, there was no chance. And authority was not something easily doled upon her without argument. There was a reason she had never taken up the aurors’ robes.

--

By the time he started talking— a murmur of foreign words, at first— she’d been leaning against the wall, arms still crossed, eyes on the wall opposite the cell, as if she could stare her way out of it. She’d been lost in thought, wondering how long it would take the British government to discover any of this. The goblins must have given them her name; her spy’s habit of peppering disguises with truths (like her name) worked to her benefit there, at least.

Gwen pushed away from the wall, her brows raising hopefully, a little off guard. At first she wondered whether he was dreaming, whether what they had given him (via her, after some protest) had made him ill after all.

But his eyes popped open, and her name was a panicked thing.

“I’m here, I’m fine,” she said, sounding stupid to her own ears as she crossed the room and knelt down, hovering just over him, almost eye level. She tilted her head a bit, studying his face, his pupils. He seemed alert, if surprised. She reached out tentatively. Fingers ghosted over skin, then straightened against his cheek, feeling his skin for clamminess or temperature or neither. Mostly she felt a relieving warmth, and scratchy stubble that made her recall the bear patronus, suddenly. The way she cupped his face betrayed a touch of concern.

“Why the fuck are we in an Israeli holding cell?”

He hadn't even had to look around the cell for her--which he was grateful for--not that it would have taken that long. Instead, in a moment, she was mere centimeters above him.  Which he was less grateful for.  Squinting, he shifted uncomfortably as she directed that razor-sharp gaze at him.  He'd experienced it before just yesterday, but not so direct and close.  He flinched under the light touch, sending tingles across his face.  As she cupped his jaw, the touch now more firm, reassuring.  And still close.  After several moments of looking at her looking at him, he took a deep breath. "Well, doc, what's the prognosis? Am I gointo make it?" he asked, eeking out a smile.

All signs indicated towards yes, even if it didn't particularly feel it at this precise moment.  Slowly--Jeezus! Sloooooooooowly, Adon eased himself up into a sitting position.  "Euhhh," he groaned, pressing the palms of his hands into his eyes.  What was that? Gwen. Talking.

“Why the fuck are we in an Israeli holding cell?”

"The hell if I know," he muttered darkly, eyes drifting down to his knees.  He gave an exasperated sigh and shrug.  "I can guess it maybe had something to do with Gringotts--though if they know, I don't know why Carstairs or Pratt hasn't raised holy hell."

Maybe they didn't know.

Another sigh.  "How long was I, ah," he flailed his hands meaninglessly.  "...You know."

"Well, doc, what's the prognosis? Am I gointo make it?”

He was one of those. She should have known. A scratch, and he might require the attention and pampering lavished upon a spoilt child who had tripped on the sidewalk and ruined his ice-cream. A minor brush with pain, and it was end of the world. This, being stunned by three expert aurors at the Israeli Ministry, and… Gwendolyn could only imagine. She might as well quit her job as an investigator, and take up the milk-maid-sweet disposition of a caregiver.

What else was she going to do in this damn cell?

Her fingers gave the tiniest squeeze, curling into his cheek, feeling stubble and the outline of a scar both. “Unfortunately, you’re barely scathed,” she murmured back, bedtime-story-gentle. “Compared to what I wanted to do to you after I stopped worrying they’d stunned you into a permanent coma.”

Perhaps it hadn’t gone quite like that. Gwendolyn had been worried— was still worried— that they’d taken the fight out of him. The obnoxious hero. Their key out of this cell, and something she’d grown a little accustomed to in the past several hours, too, however brief their interactions.

“You’re shocked your colleagues are useless? Sorry—” She added, not even needing to throw in a wince. “Tied up in red Spell-o-Tape.”

Despite her words, she was shocked. Did their Ministry really just let another government manhandle them, take their wands, toss them in a cell indefinitely, without so much as a word of protest by now?

Such shortcomings were usually a comfort to the investigator, but this… was annoying.

 “Hours,” she said, with a frown. “They provided a potion, but… The spells did most of the work.” Overzealous was too small a word for it. “I see this is where you developed your dramatic flair and premature…” Something. Gwen stopped her tongue, mid-thought. She’d let him fill that word in himself. He deserved a little more torture, now that she knew he was perfectly fine, that her worries that she’d lost this ridiculous, entertaining, infuriating bear of a man were just that: premature. (Threats to that face had not hung in the balance in this case.)

Gwen withdrew her hand from the tangle he’d created when he brought his up to his eyes. If hers had lingered, it was a little thing, not worth a mention. “You didn’t answer my question,” she pointed out, staring at him unblinkingly. “Why are we here? Are you wanted for crimes against their government? What have they done with your brother?"

“Unfortunately, you’re barely scathed,” she murmured back, bedtime-story-gentle. “Compared to what I wanted to do to you after I stopped worrying they’d stunned you into a permanent coma.”

The tone of voice, the softness of her touch, the sentimental threats of bodily harm betrayed the smallest hint of concern.  A hint was enough to egg Adon Eleor on.  He smirked.  "I'm touched, doc. You do care..."  The smile, which was growing a bit more self-assured, circumstances permitting, came to a strained halt at her next words.  He attempted to maintain the smile--though it became a grimace as his stomach turned acrid.

The same prodding, the same cynical, bitter jabs at his profession, his colleagues, his government, his role in it all that had set him off at their first meeting had not abated any.  Adon had been doing all he could to diffuse the situation, to keep it together, but this incessant prodding at these cracks at the chinks in his armor--if she did not see this coming, if she could not have the decency to lay off a moment or two... he'd have to question her investigative instincts.

Underneath her hand, the muscles on his jaw tensed.  She drew away.  He felt relieved.

"I did answer," he sighed, irritated, trying to battle his mounting frustration.  Not that it was much of an answer--except that it was the truth, and that it was all he knew. " 'The hell if I know,' " he repeated, now pinching the bridge of his nose.  He let his hand drop.  His voice took a plaintive tone, willing her and her unwavering skepticism to believe him.  "I don't know." Their whole approach towards his employment, and his brother's case had been cryptic at best, the past few months. It had been a matter he'd been trying to muddle out himself--why Adnan took him off the case, why Adnan went so far as to send him to England, now, why--presumably--Adnan had him placed in a holding cell with a totally innocent third party...

But no matter what the confusion he expressed, it didn't stop her accusations.  "Crimes against their government?!" he repeated, hotly.  After insulting his British colleagues, next drawing the pejorative correlation between him and his Israeli colleagues, he supposed that he was once more conveniently British, to suit the next attack.  "I'm an Israeli Auror," he growled.  "Of course I have done nothing against my government! Either of them!"  That it even needed to be said--to her, to them, to anyone--defied logic.

Adon was angry. He was dizzy; and he was terrified--terrified for his brother, who he now, from behind bars, felt utterly powerless to save.  He was also a little sorry--for snapping at her that way.  However she chose to act on it, he supposed she was probably terrified, too.

But her words--he was particularly terrified at her last question: What have they done with your brother?  His face was ashen as he rose quickly to his feet, hands grasping around the iron bars. There was a rushing in his ears; his face felt flush and his vision blackened on the edges.  His grip on the bars tightened as everything righted itself.  Desperately, he cast a look towards where the guard was posted. Upon recognizing that bastard Ori Peretz, he yelled his name. "Peretz! PERETZ!"  He shook the bars, rattling them slightly. 

Peretz came with mincing steps, slowly, infuriatingly just out of reach, standing back behind the bars.

"Eleor," he stated, coolly. Adon could wring his neck.  As a courtesy to Gwendolyn Irving, Private Investigator, he would conduct this in English, though he did not spare a glance back towards her.

"Where is my brother? What have you done with him?! Why are we here!"

Peretz was stiff. Formal.  Infuriating.  "I have no knowledge of your brother.  We were ordered to detain you and your accomplice; we have received word from Gringotts of the death of a Turkish national whom you were dueling." He gave a smile, but it was not kind.  "Wait a moment. I will tell Head Auror Musallam that you are awake."  He turned on his heel, walking towards the door.  Adon shifted his grip on the bars; shook again.

"But my brother! Peretz--my brother, was he here?!"  He heard the door's hinges swing open. "Nonono--no! Peretz!"  The door closed, and there was only the hum of silence.

Adon's shoulders dropped.  His whole being slumped as he sat heavily down upon the edge of the cot.  Hands tore through his hair as he took one, two, three deep breaths. The last thing in the world he wanted Gwendolyn Irving, Private Investigator to see was any... any more weakness. Adon knew he had been nothing but weakness; he could only imagine what she would do with that.

"I'm touched, doc. You do care…”

The witch felt her face of concern threatening to transfigure itself into a bemused smile, despite her outrage. If Adon's playfulness— now, of all moments— was vexatious, it was also… appealing. Pleasing? Refreshing? Reassuring?

Gwendolyn slammed shut the thesaurus in her mind, and let her eyes work over his face. (Which was maddeningly pleasing in its own right, and ripe for injury and trouble both.) She felt the change in him before she heard it. Her demands had come too soon, too tenaciously.

Gwen was fairly good at reading answers, even if she wasn't particularly gentle when she wanted one. If she should have let it go after his initial reply, the circumstances didn’t make her predisposed to taking someone’s word for it. However honed her spy skills, Dreogan Eleor was missing again, Adon was waking up from a concussion, and Gwen was stuck behind bars in a place where the recently hexed was the only one who bothered to speak to her at all, let alone in English.

Even a professional interrogator could be cut a little slack for her temper in this situation.

And even a professional interrogator could occasionally be taken aback by the indignation served back.

Gwen’s brow darkened, eyebrows knitted together, mouth slackened. Her lips even parted a little as his defense barreled at her like a Stinging Spell.

She should have known he’d take offense.

And yet, it was ridiculous, how venomously he argued her questions.

She would never forget to include him in the vague ‘them’ or ‘they’ of Israel again. “Fine, calm down, I didn’t say you were—”

She felt naked in the face of the onslaught, only because she didn’t have her wand. And possibly because a minute ago, her wand hand had been on his cheek, feeling his temperature and inspecting for damage.

“Calm your ba—”

As he leapt up, she found herself again, and took a step forward, attempting to block him. And then she thought better of it. If he wanted to knock himself out again, he could have at it. Gwen crossed her arms and watched him as he clung to the bars and shouted. “Yeah, good luck with that." She’d already tried it a dozen times.

But Adon’s charm seemed to do the trick, and what Gwendolyn’s own shouting hadn’t earned, the auror’s thundering did. Narrowing her eyes at Peretz, who appeared on command, she thought silently that it had to be their familiarity, nothing less. She let her arms fall to her sides. Her hands formed fists and she turned to face him, standing in Adon’s shadow. Maybe Peretz heard Gwen make the terrible mistake of accusing Adon Eleor of being a criminal, and had come to rub it in her face. A job hadn’t gone this wrong since she'd tried to pluck a young wizard from the clutches of a Knockturn Alley gang at the behest of his ex-gang-member father. And even then, there had not been any shouting in Hebrew, windowless jail cells, or Witch Weekly centerfolds lecturing her on their patriotism.

The auror had the skill of a politician, eel-slick, emotionless as a sociopath. He tried to turn it on them, as if the Turk hadn’t been holding Dreogan prisoner, hadn’t tried to take the lives of the Eleors. Break into the bank. Gwen felt her stoniness crumbling, felt something molten rising in her stomach. Whatever sanctimonious speech Adon had just given her, he was not slimy like this bastard. She stepped up to the bars beside him and stared Unforgivable Curses at the wizard. “Are you trying to pin him with murder? He was saving his brother’s life!” She called after him. “I’ll hex that smile off your face, you creep. Where’s my wand? I’m pretty sure that’s an illegal seizure!” Her faced was pressed into the iron now, her eyes straining to see him at this angle.

She turned to watch Adon retreat to the cot. Her look of anger faded a little, and concern began to trickle back into her expression. “They can’t do this. There are laws. I know this is your government and that you’ve stood by them, but London will be after us soon. You, at least. You still work with them, technically, right? And even if I don’t have a Trace, they’ve got to know I’m missing after the mess with the goblins. They can’t just steal your brother, either. His wife is a British national, isn’t she?” She asked, almost in a tone of defeat that seemed well-suited to the look on his face.

That was the second time. The second time she'd brought up his brother and the Israeli government.  "What have they done with your brother?" followed fast by "They can’t just steal your brother, either. His wife is a British national, isn’t she?"

"He's a British national; we both are," he said abstractly, trying and failing not to let the panic show more than it already had been.  He couldn't yell at her for answers about this like he had to Peretz.  Not that that had gotten him anywhere.

But it was the second time Gwen had implied--maybe implied--that they had Dree here.  And he'd been unconscious for hours, she'd said.  She could have seen something, have heard something. That could change everything.  "What makes you think they have him here?" he blurted out, any hope of concealing his desperation a fantasy.  It took all he had not to grab her hands pleadingly.  His voice rose in urgency. "Did you see him?  Did they tell you he was here?"

Dree could be anywhere right now.  He'd made it clear enough to Gwen that where he was going, he didn't want to be followed.  But if Dree was here--if he was safe, Adon didn't even care if he was in this cell for weeks if it kept his brother, if it kept everyone safe.  He ran both hands across his face, hands finally settling in his hair as he looked up at the ceiling.  Eyes fastened on the far corner of the cell, his hands dropped.  His shoulders dropped.  He had to do what he could to keep his jaw from dropping, too.

There was a slow dawning, followed by a blaze of clarity.  Adon didn't know if this is what it felt like to be a Seer, but he imagined it was something like this.  And Adon knew: Adnan Musallam knew about the dream.  He didn't know how--probably Thea.  Yes, Thea must have told him about it, about how he was going to die for all this--for his brother... They weren't here because of that bastard at the bank.  And he was damn well certain he hadn't done anything wrong.  ... Other than coming back to Jerusalem when he had been sent away and expressly told to stay in London.

That had been to keep him safe.  But he hadn't done that, so Adnan Musallam, had put him in a holding cell, preventing him from chasing after his brother. 

To keep him safe.

It was touching, in a way.  In that sort of  I-still-want-to-punch- your-teeth-out  way. 

He took a preparatory breath, meeting Gwen's eyes hesitantly.  He really didn't want to be talking about this to her.  He wet is lips, exhaling.  Maybe he shouldn't tell her.  She certainly had a way of digging her nails into tender spots and pulling.  She'd already bitterly insulted his profession , accused him of being a criminal or a traitor of some kind, sent him into a near panic by insinuating his brother was here in Jerusalem... Adon Eleor was unravelling fast enough enough as it was, without bringing this into the picture. 

"I think," his voice was breathy, uncertain, and ambling. "It's long-shot, but I might have an idea of why they put us in here."

The auror, who worked for both the British and Israeli governments, and who sought to take down Turkish kidnappers and was arrested in the process, might have had more legitimate identities than Gwendolyn had false (for innocent investigatory purposes). Again, Adon Eleor made her think briefly of the xenophobic grandmother whose shared family vault she had robbed, and there was one tiny bit of private joy in this ludicrous situation of being stuffed into a jail cell with the overzealously-stunned (and simply overzealous) pretty face. The pretty face that had healthily chastised her and now turned the interrogation her way.

(Really, though, Gwen was well aware of Israel’s many dual citizens. And had now come face to face with its fabled police force.)

She held up a hand, which again felt naked without its best and most used spy tool, that wand of persuasive birch. “I haven’t seen him at all. I just assumed when they took us out of the United Kingdom, that we might have been taken to the same place your brother disappeared to. Not too far fetched, is it? It seems like they’re keeping close tabs. And they’re definitely allergic to answers,” she added, annoyed. “They only told me to feed you pain potions.” Of which she had been temporarily suspicious, however absurd the idea of his own government poisoning him.

But there was desperation in Adon, plain to see, and Gwen felt a little guilty, absurdly. As if she’d given him false hope. It was the sort of thing she rarely felt on her jobs, when she knew she had to betray, casually, some lesser involved party in pursuit of answers.

It was absurd because it was clearly his fault they were here.

And yet...

The defeated look that followed made her angry. At them. At everyone but Adon. The urge to protect and defend was strong, now, and as his head lifted, she allowed him to speak rather than assaulting him with more questions. Mostly. “Why?” Her own desperation mirrored his of moment’s prior, but it only extended to her voice. Her searching eyes were set in an otherwise calm, curious face. Gwen stepped closer, found herself against studying him for signs of injury. And: “If they know that you know…” Did that help them or hurt them? Gwen often preferred to keep her cards close and covered. “You must have allies here,” she reasoned, softer this time, less accusatory. His was a face that looked in need of encouragement, however attractive, artfully disheveled, and talented with its expressions. “Could they have some sort of trace on your wand or your brothers? Maybe the wizard who had Imperioed him? I gave him a Shield Charm..." The admission was spoken in a low, almost haunted tone. If she hadn't, would they be here? Would Dreogan Eleor be missing? But the Turk had seemed so intent on overpowering him, and not out of charity.

"Not too far fetched, is it? It seems like they’re keeping close tabs. And they’re definitely allergic to answers."

"No, it isn't," Adon sighed, his tone disappointed.  He bit his lip, his current preoccupation for his brother easily out-weighing even an absurd need to defend his home department.

Pain potions had helped the head some, but it hadn't helped his sick stomach, any.  Dree wasn't here.  He was probably with his captors--apparently had gone back to them, voluntarily.  If he had not, he was probably taken by them as he attempted whatever fool's errand he was about.  Adon grit his teeth, his hands in his hair. God, why did Dreogan have to be such a complete idiot!

He took a soothing sigh.  1.... 2....3...fuck it. Another. 4... 5...

Gwendolyn Irving was talking about shield charms and tracking and other things he had not been listening to.  He tried to nod to sound attentive, but she was looking at him, all optimistic, like he ought to say something--

Ah, damn it all.

"There's been a prophecy," he blurted suddenly. "I die in it."  He looked at her--no, he looked down again, quickly.  "It's... Look."  He waved his hands away, flustered.  "It's," another sigh.  "It would seem to be this exact sort of scenario leads up to it.  I'm trying to get Dree back from... something, we're in the Old City of Jerusalem, I yell to someone that he's safe, a spell hits me and--" he shrugged helplessly.  "My brother, my mother, Jonas--my partner, and my--" how to describe Raizel and Thea-- "ex," better just to keep it one, "know.  The ex works here, and I'll be damned if she told Adnan and got me locked up to keep me from Dree!"  His teeth were gritting again; his jaw hurt.  Habitually, he cracked it.  "It's possible that if Adnan knows, he'd do something like this to keep me safe."  His fingers curled to fists and he took a quick pace the length of the cell, which was covered in about 2 strides.  "But I'm the one who's supposed to save my brother. Not them."  The Auror kept his pace, changing directions every two steps.  "If they try it, it won't work, and they'll never get him back..."

It was apparently the time for confessions.

If Gwendolyn thought she was going to be chastised for hers, instead the floodgates of Adon’s mouth opened and he looked rather defeated, on the brink of tears or needing a hug with all the strength and bigness of his patronus.

A prophecy, on its own, was an unexpected answer to this mess, but the next words were chilling. Gwendolyn felt her body tensing, her eyes attempting to soak him up rather than stare him down. It was too much, too fast, and yet exactly the sort of dark and meaningful spin that made her determined to chase the culprit. Only, in this case, the culprit was death— and Gwendolyn, though confused and overwhelmed, suddenly could not blame whomever had locked them up and tossed their wands in a drawer. The Israeli law enforcement had done right by their wizard, it seemed.

As he went on, dejectedly, Gwen couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t simply sit there watching with deer eyes and parted lips. A ghost of herself reached out and slapped her. “Adon!” She took a step forward, as if she meant to reach out and shake him. “Don’t be a massive idiot!” There was hard-headed, and then there was this. “I’m sure your brother would rather have you around for a bit longer than mourn you as the world’s most hard-headed hero.” Seriously? This was why he was agonizing over himself? She took another step closer, loomed before him like a blockade, spoke softly, but with the same sort of irony that had peppered their first meeting. "Give him a chance to see his kid and have a shave before you go and off yourself.”

She resisted the urge to touch his face again. Her limbs were relaxed now, and she looked over her shoulder with calm understanding. Thanks, almost.

But as he crossed the cell again, Gwen could feel her temperature rising. She spun and eyed him as if he’d been trying to save her again. “Dying young really isn’t worth its reputation.” The only unoffensive thing to come out of her grandmother’s mouth in the past two decades. If they were going to moan about family obligation, Gwen could impart that wisdom, at least. “You’ll have plenty of chances. Let them take this one.” Gwen crossed her arms as she joined him at the bars. If her words until now had assumed his brother would survive without him, she realized he would need more reassurance than that. “The way you relay it, the vision sounds muddled at best. You don’t know that he’s gone for good if you’re not there. I’m not sure how well it’s worked out for you in the past,” she admitted, “But there are a few people back in London who could tell a thing or two about people putting too much stock in a prophecy.”

The only annoyance that remained— besides the obvious one beside her, wanting to save the day— was that Gwen was still locked up herself. But she quietly decided that if it kept Adon alive, she could spend another day or two sightseeing in Israel’s most exclusive cell.

Hard-headed?  A massive idiot?  Adon looked at her in bemused surprise, feeling a flicker of emotion--appreciation, amusement--cutting through the fear and bewilderment, as thick as a wall.  "I was going for 'martyr,'" he corrected, a strained sort of smile flitting across his face.  The attempt at humor was gone in a moment; heavily, he sunk back down onto the cot, slumping. Despite the undoubtedly brash attempt to check his mood in that sort of light reproving that had just enough humor in it to make it bearable. 

Had it been anyone else but Dree, had he been anywhere else but in a jail cell, he might have even acknowledged her skill.  She had gumption, that was for certain. Though it had only taken him about 10 minutes into their first meeting to know that.  But she did not understand.  This was not her brother, this was not her home.  And it was not her fight.

"That's not how this works," he said, shaking his head, hands hanging between his knees.   Why did he feel like he kept saying this? Why didn't she understand? "In the prophecy, it's me that finds him.  If I'm in this cell, I can't. And we can't be certain that anyone else can."  It was not a risk he was willing to take.  His jaw jutted stubbornly.  If she couldn't understand, there was nothing he could do.  They would be at a standstill.  At the very least, they had the time for that.

Then he heard Thea Nurin’s voice saying his name.

Still looking at Gwen, Adon’s response couldn’t appear more startled if he’d tried.  Gwen was nothing to him, exactly—aside from the obvious: a very good-looking woman sharing a jail cell that he was currently quite frustrated with—but he would not wish Thea Nurin upon anyone, least of all the conversation that was to follow.  “Fuck,” he muttered under his breath.

“Thea,” Adon said more loudly and clearly, his feet heavily into the concrete floor.  Anything to ground him.  He could have this conversation in any of the three languages they shared, but Adon opted for Arabic—her native tongue.  “Kind of you to come.”  Adon’s attempt at avoiding bitterness was already shot.

Her face was a mix of emotions—tears and timid smiles.  Adon prepared himself for anything.  “You are really here.”

“Checked into Jerusalem’s finest,” Adon said, gesturing towards the narrow confines of the cell.  Thea extended her hands through the bars, beckoning to him.  Adon rose slowly to his feet, feeling his pulse beat in his ears and echo at the base of his skull in a dull throb.  Slowly, he moved towards her as she spoke.

"I heard that you were, that you were safe, but I couldn’t believe it," her slender fingers skimmed his cheek through the bars; Adon flinched as though he’d been burned and slowly cupped his hands around hers pulling them away from his face.

“Well, I can hardly be anywhere else now.”

Thea’s expression took a moment to settle.  There was a moment of uncertainty, a flash of anger, which settled into a seething disappointment.  “You do not need to be so cold.”  Wounded, Thea pulled her hands away. With the distance, Thea seemed to take in a new element to the room.

“And who is that?” Thea asked, pointing accusingly at Gwen.  In English, her voice rising, she repeated: “Who are you?”

“Hey!” Adon said, hotly, following the lingual shift.  He took several steps back, standing firmly in her line of sight to block Gwen from the brunt of it.  “No.  You don’t get to talk to her like that.”  Thea’s eyes were back on him now, blazing.  “She’s a private investigator. I met her yesterday and hired for help on my brother’s case.”

Thea’s eyes raked up and down Gwen’s body, taking in the long legs, tousled hair, pouty lips.  Thea’s own lips pressed tight into a firm, white line.  “A private investigator,” she repeated, accusatorially looking the woman up and down.  She gave a single, bitter scoff of a laugh.  “Adon, you’re an Auror.”

Adon glanced back to Gwen apprehensively, hoping to powers that be that she had the good sense not to engage in combat on this, the worst day of Adon Eleor's life.

 "I was going for 'martyr,’”

Whatever their predicament, this was met with a snort. Gwen was like a dragon finding a tepid glow of amusement in her captivity. The view and the company both could have been worse, she knew. She’d once spent three days in the crawl space of a manor in the Cotswolds, with only a ghoul, a flask, and several bags of crisps for company. And at least Adon’s ego looked as if it might recover.

She was not a witch beholden to the ‘arts’ of divination. That branch of magic, while intriguing and certainly not foreign to a privately paid agent, had proved less than useful to her over the years. Concrete inventions of brass and metal imbued with robust charms work had always been more serviceable than crystal balls— the latter being more likely to cause mysteries than to solve them. Wide-eyed tellers and seers had only ever served as curiously thorough witnesses or dramatic roadblocks, those who lived on the peripheral and thus saw more than society gave them credit for. But it was a branch with a dark and sticky underbelly, whose claim to fame included but was certainly not limited to Harry Potter.

“But that’s only one perspective, surely,” she argued. “It’s narrower than a Pensive…”

And why did it have to come to fruition now? She summoned the grace to swallow the words. A miracle.

Prophecies had been proven, and had also been wildly misinterpreted in history. And yet, there was a creepy crawl of cold on her spine. For a moment she imagined the force of it, that version truth coming to pass, and whatever bits he might be leaving out of the happy reunion. All of this drama with his tight-lipped colleagues wasn’t for nothing. Even the Israelis couldn’t have been so over-reactionary, surely.

The woman was a distraction. And among the few who seemed to approach without a blank face. Good or bad, it was a knut toss.

Gwen had read enough people in her life to know that even the way he spoke her name foretold more than a professional history. The woman’s needy hands soon confirmed this.

Of course he had a past with one of the ones who might hold the keys to the cell. Of course one of the two jurors who had spoken to them since he’d woken was a giant ball of emotions. The British witch’s eyes extinguished their appraisal of Thea and swung back— a short path— to the wizard. She kept any maddening judgement or exasperation out of her stare, but something unimpressed manage to remain. She didn’t care… She just wanted one less obstacle.

The accusation in Thea’s demand did not go ignored. Whatever the power imbalance, Gwen savored a moment of quiet defiance that bordered on rudeness. She blinked once, lazy. “Gwendolyn Irving.” It was almost too long a pause. Her tone was casual.

Adon did the rest. However loathe she was to be defended or saved, she couldn’t help the small swell of pride that replaced the chill from before. An auror. Yes, an auror. He was on her side; they were a team. A do-gooder government worker and a private hire together could find a way out of this.

But… the melodrama.

“That doesn’t mean the British Ministry wouldn’t want both of us back soon...” It wasn’t the tactic she wanted to use again, but she didn’t want her wand, her bag, any patience. She smiled a bit, almost apologetically. “And your boss might not want your emotions getting the best of you.” A bluff. Possibly an obvious one. For all Gwen knew, she was the boss. “This lot seems a little more no nonsense than ours.” Or all nonsense, with the lack of answers, the over-reactions, the power tripping. She gestured to Adon, even if he was both the UK’s and Israel’s auror. Even if he was a bigger ball of emotion than twelve of this witch. But Thea could save this wet admonishment bit for a Wizarding Wireless soap opera. “If you just look at my wand and that bastard’s we caught—” Yes, caught, her face said, “You’ll know you’re wasting your time locking us up.” It was possibly the only time she’d ever offered her wand for examination to an auror.

Well, this was going well.  Adon had scarcely had time to register just how quickly his concerns of the past two years had been blown off--Gwendolyn Irving, Private Investigator was sounding  like Jonas or Raizel.  Just one interpretation. Shit. Why did everybody keep saying that?  Next thing he knew, Thea was back in his life and destroying it just as thoroughly as he'd ever seen it before.  Like an angry knarl, savaging the home and life of the well-meaning.

But she had met a match in Gwendolyn Irving.

“And your boss might not want your emotions getting the best of you.”

Thea visibly bristled, hackles up.  Stung, but preparing her own strike, judging from the way she stiffened, the way she drew in her breath.  Moloch! Adon was in a den of vipers.  If he was going to die today, could at least be it be before the fangs came out and things got hacked to little pieces?

"You," Thea said voice seething, finger stabbing the air in Gwendolyn Irving's direction, "Do not have an idea what you are talking about."

Apparently sudden death was too much to ask for.  But really, Thea had a point. The cold observation--the guilt--about the emotion that was the culmination of three years of trauma... Gwendolyn didn't know about any of that. No matter what her skills as an investigator might have led her to deduce.

Thea was now looking at him for some sort of response, but Adon wasn't an imbecile. Any comment on his end would have corroborated Thea's statement, alienating Gwendolyn--his only apparent ally in this topsy turvy twist of events--and, more importantly would welcome a conversation about feelings. About them.  Death by runespoor could not come quickly enough...

Adon kept his mouth firmly and stubbornly shut.  Helpless, Thea changed tactics; still ignoring Gwendolyn Irving's wands suggestion."You do not need an investigator, Adon," Thea resumed in Arabic. "You are one!"

Don't be an imbecile, Adon reminded himself.  It was hard, but he again stayed silent.

With Adon unwilling to write the P.I. out of the scene, Thea was forced to look back at her. Once more in English: "I am not keeping you locked up. That is above me.  I do not know about this person you have caught."  Her voice was prim, but there was a struggle in it that betrayed a deeper story and a genuine pain.  Adon's stomach twisted, and he wanted to--but he couldn't ask.  It was no longer his place.

Hands folded in front of her, Thea glanced back at Ori Peretz and the door before saying, with a pristine formality, "Well, Auror Eleor. It is good to see you alive at any rate."  And with that bit of cryptic powerplay, she was moving towards the door.

Adon threw his hands up in the air angrily, not caring if Thea had not quite vacated the premises.  "The fuck?!" The heavy metal door closed.  Ori Peretz was looking at the two of them grimly, disapprovingly.  This was unbelievable--utterly and totally majnoon.  Turning, fuming, from both Peretz an the echo of the departed Thea, he  kicked the leg of the metal cot.  Great.  And now his toe hurt, too."Shhhhhhit," he hissed, dropping down heavily to sit on the edge of the cot.

"Well?" He said, looking up at Gwen sorely.  "Enjoy the show?" He adopted an announcer's voice.  "Thea Nurin, ladies and gentlemen! Ex-fianceé extraordinaire!" 

Ori Peretz pushed himself off the wall he'd been leaning against.  Arms folded across his chest, he was glowering dangerously. Protectively.  He'd always liked Thea too much. "Oh, shut the hell up, Peretz," Adon snapped preemptively.

If her words ruffled the lady's feathers, Gwendolyn seemed placidly unworried. Or, perhaps beneath the veneer, even a bit triumphant— it was the point, after all. The other witch’s operatics stood in the way of freedom. If she wasn’t their primary captor, Gwendolyn had no qualms blaming her in the moment. She might as well have been a warden dangling a big, fat, shiny key in their faces.

”You, […] Do not have an idea what you are talking about.”

“Oh, don’t I?” Gwen asked, mild as the weather in their windowless cell. Then again… “No, no, you’re right. I don’t know it all. But I really think I deserve to know why I’m here, so if you wouldn’t mind…” She didn’t even bother to wave her hand in a counteraction to the woman’s accusatory finger. She supposed her previous suggestion of a simple wand test was too cumbersome a request. The trailing off of her voice no doubt told Thea as much.

It was hard not to roll her eyes at the woman’s next words. Sure, Adon didn’t need any help. He’d only been stretched out on the cell cot, all woozy and nearly weepy and devil-may-care windswept for the past several hours...

What if Gwen hadn’t been there in the bank, overstepping the boundaries of her job? Would his brother have been fine on his own? Had she made things worse? Would Adon be here, in this cell, better off, or laid out somewhere else, unreachable?

Thea’s insistence that she wasn’t in their way held little weight for Gwen. She had spoken more to them than everyone else combined, and here she was, letting them know, oh by the way, I’m useless..

“If you— or your people, or whoever has the pull you apparently don’t have— haven’t figured out I’m not who you after— and he—” She tossed her glossy raven head in Adon’s direction without looking at him— “Doesn’t need to be bundled up here to be spared, you might need to another crash course in how to do your job.”

But Adon summarized it nicely, better than Gwen could have, or exactly how she might have on any other day.

The fuck, indeed.

She blinked with rapidity in the direction of the clanging of body parts on iron, that echoing laugh of the metal as it asserted itself, and Adon’s reflexive curse. Her eyes traced up to him, telling him two things at once: Well done, idiot, and smooth recovery.

“I wasn’t going to say anything about her,” she admitted, though it might have been less than truthful. Even Gwen wasn’t sure at the moment. But since he’d opened that door (the only one opening for either of them…) “Your taste, though, I…” She raised her brows with another bout of maddening mildness. “Did you kick her puppy, or did just dump her in public?” More likely, she had kicked the puppy who was Adon Eleor. Gwen could perfectly picture the dynamic between them when they were half getting along. “What did she say when she wasn’t speaking English? Anything useful? Maybe if we call her back and I pretend I like her, she’ll remind them of habeas corpus.” Was that a thing here? Gwen supposed she should read up on international laws when they made a jail break; she knew Britain’s law inside and out, and she’d relied a bit too much on her escape artist strengths in other jurisdictions.

The younger witch ignored the man who was standing all mannishly now. Her eyes seemed to be devouring Adon as if the task might provide an answer. But then… “Hey,” she said, whipping her head around to Peretz. “I need to owl my cousin. Archer Radley with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement with the British Ministry. He’s sort of a big deal.” And sort of not really her cousin. But she enough of those dripping with pull that she could use the auror's name. She'd owe him.

How was that even an invitation to talk about it?!?  Adon's attempt at a smile stretched into a sneer at the comment about puppies.  Always with the puppies.[1]  Always some sort of disparaging, belittling phrase to try to downplay momentous hurdles.  Like when Jonas likened his foretold death to drowning in a teacup.[2]  What did she say to him? What was happening?

"S'complicated," he rumbled.  And painful.  And intensely personal.  He kept his response clipped and as close to mono-syllabic as possible: it was the only amount of time he knew he could remain civil for.  Gwendolyn Irving was going on about her next plan--one doomed to failure--hinging upon two impossibilities: (1) Thea ever liking Irving, and (2) anyone in the Jerusalem office deciding to open up.

That wasn't complicated, it was impossible.  "Look," he began with a sigh, "my mother has been trying to get answers from this office for 15 years.  If she can't--"  and his mother could be positively terrifying, "I don't know how much help Radley can be." 

It was an ingenuous move, really, but a surprising one. Considering Carstairs himself was likely to hear of it soon enough and start making inquiries.  Moloch, he hoped he didn't lose his position over this.  He was already losing too much over this.  He looked at the door. Thea had not come back.  He didn't know why this surprised him.  He had just thought that maybe she would.

But there was one thing that could fill the space.  "Wait. Radley's your cousin?" Why this was the most shocking? He did not know.

1.	January 6, 2009 - Cupcakes are bad for Puppies and October 13, 2008 - This Is It, Raynor's nickname for Adon for a time.
2.	January 5, 2009 - For Thine Is The Kingdom