---

Kristoffer had been working long enough to have learnt the basics of his job, but a short enough time that if anyone found out about this portkey permission he could probably wriggle his way out of it by playing the fool, pretending he’d made a mistake. Certainly no one would find out that he had come along to Egypt for the ride.

“Maybe we’ll stumble upon some lost ancient treasure,” Kristoffer said with a snort, although it was more likely they’d cause an international crisis or bring another set of plagues upon Irvingly if they tried - and the narrow (magical) city street he was idly leading them down did not much look like the way to any tombs or pyramids.

“Which way?” he said, casting his gaze at the options before them, one of which was a flight of stone steps up to a door up on a terrace, and the other the archway below it that led into shadow. Either looked intriguing enough to him.

---

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Kristoffer raised an eyebrow at that remark. “No, whimsical isn’t the word people usually use to describe me,” he said with a smirk (although the alternative words Kristoffer had in mind probably weren’t the ones most people would use when they thought of him, either).

With a shrug, he followed Rupert down the archway, past a few gilded looking doors before the street narrowed a little further, becoming something nearer a passageway - and it was at this point that Kris was pleased he wasn’t going first, because if one of them was going to be fodder for any threat, it better not be him.

“Just as long as we don’t get mugged by any Arabs,” Kristoffer muttered from behind his friend, wondering whether he should have his wand at the ready just in case. Getting mugged would be much the opposite of finding lost treasure; and he’d been down Knockturn Alley enough times to know the kinds of people one could meet lurking in the depths of a city. Hopefully this street was not so bad, and if there was a brothel down here somewhere it would have some class. He did not much want to return to London with a case of syphilis.

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“Yeah,” Kristoffer protested, and fingered his wand in his pocket, a little tempted to have it out at the ready, but not wanting to look too paranoid, either. “And what do you plan to do while I’m duelling, huh? Stand and watch?” He tossed Rupert a narrow-eyed look; his friend might still be at leisure in his whole life, but that hardly meant Kristoffer ought to do all the work.

Rupert was a little taller, too, and might look a little dangerous with his dark hair and sharp features if he weren’t also so bloody slender. This passageway was getting more worrying by the moment, too, and none of the doors looked particularly promising. Kristoffer glanced over his shoulder, and when he glanced back, a silken hanging brushed past his cheek and nearly made him physically jump.

“Forget treasure,” he added under his breath, “just find me a foreign whore.”

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“Well, none,” he agreed with a laugh, mollified somewhat by Bingham’s answer. (However, even though Rupert was his best friend and his best bet for a loyal second in any duel, Kristoffer did secretly think he was too much of an ineffectual pretty-boy to be much of an asset in a real fight.)

But he was a real whore magnet, wasn’t he? “Better than a compass, you are,” he murmured with an amused snort, because it did sound like there were festivities not far off. He followed Rupert for a while, but pushed past him in excitement once the music got much louder. “Through here, I think –?” Kristoffer said, emerging out of the alleyway and finding an open door into a grander-looking building, only the faint clouds of strange-coloured smoke drifting out from it briefly giving him pause.

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“Could be,” Kristoffer said, giving the air a cautious sniff. It didn’t smell like an opium den, exactly; there was a faint sweet smell in the air, and a visible glimmer to the haze, so it did smell... intoxicating. Pleasant. Worth the trying.

Rupert seemed ready to go lose himself in it, anyway. Abruptly anxious at the thought of Bingham leaving him behind, if they split up, Kristoffer clutched briefly at his arm to restrain him. “Wait,” he said, in a low tone. “Shouldn’t we have some kind of – signal? In case of trouble?” What if he needed to find Rupert again in this place, or they had to leave in a hurry? No way Kristoffer was being left behind. No way Rupert was getting out of here without the portkey back, right?

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If he didn’t know better, Kris would have thought it sounded like Bingham was mocking him – but his friend’s tone was not openly facetious, so he took it as sincere. Besides, the second suggestion sounded just fine to him. “Oh, I can always cause a ruckus,” Kristoffer agreed, with an almost gleeful nod, satisfied enough that they had a backup plan up their sleeves to finally let go of Rupert’s arm.

Whatever peril they might get into in this place, Kristoffer was at least confident in his capacity to make a scene.

“Have fun, then,” Kris said, all carelessness again, moving off from the entryway with no further compunction about the unfamiliar smoke, “– I’m going to find out if she’s a tart.”

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