Sometime 1888, somewhere in middle of nowhere England

The cold hit first.

Not the sharp bite of the desert night kind of cold, but something that felt much older; it was a deep, marrow-sinking chill that slithered through a seam at the bottom of the wall and coiled around Gus’s ankle the moment he stepped through the threshold of the room. He’d fallen through a hole a few feet up after being forced to split apart from his team due to a run in poltergeist, so his choices seemed to be either waste time trying to climb up or just relent and push forward. Hopefully he’d run into a friendly face or the entrance to the tomb that led back to the outside world.

His luck however, was never that good.

Gus moved slowly, his wand held low, the lumos spell sputtering in the unnatural air although luckily it didn’t give out. His breath fogged out in front of him like it might during the middle of winter, the crystals of frost glittering in the sand along the walls. The deeper he stepped inside the tunnel, the more Gus found he wanted to stop and cast something to warm his clothes, although he didn’t trust what would happen if he extinguished lumos, so he didn’t. His toes curled inside his boots as he continued forward.

The walls narrowed into a passage choked with ice-flecked dust, and he had to turn sideways in order to make his way through. His shoulders scraped against the wall, sending some of the ice flakes to the ground, making the ground slick beneath his feet. Luckily it didn’t take long for it to spit him out into a much larger room, not that there was much inside of it.

“Bloody brilliant,” the curse breaker mumbled, his teeth gritting against the cold. He generally didn’t wear heavy clothes in tombs – they often got in the way and caused more trouble than they were worth – but now he was wishing he at least had his Hufflepuff scarf to bury his nose in. Basil had charmed it during their seventh year to radiate heat when it dropped to a certain temperature, and Gus had never bothered to break the spell. But he didn’t have the scarf, so he was going to be miserable while trying to figure out how the hell he was going to get out of here.

It didn’t stop him from moving to the center of the room to look around, blue eyes darting around to see if he’d missed any small details. It was here he saw some inscriptions near the bottom of the wall next to the door in front of him. He crouched by them, tracing the air above them with gloved fingers. The script spiraled in opposing directions, one line etched deep and angry, the other fine and precise. Gus had zero idea what they meant, but it didn’t stop him from finally touching them.

The inscriptions lit up, glowing in conflicting colors, heatless and sharp. Gus stumbled back just as the door next him slammed open with a hiss of frost-rimed air. He raised his wand, a curse leaving his lips as the cool air slapped him in the face, ready if something were to come from it.

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Sébastien Delacour

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Bash wasn’t a stranger to the bitter cold but this was simply ridiculous. His breath billowed out in soft clouds in front of him as he followed Marchand through the structure they’d managed to get through. He’d wrapped his scarf around his head and spelled it with warming charms, but the tip of his nose was still cold enough that the cursebreaker was more than a little worried about potential frost bite.

If he exited this fucking structure having to chop the tip of his nose off, Marchand would have to worry about Sébastien chopping off the tip of his —

“Delacour!” Marchand’s bark sliced through the violence of Bash’s thoughts. “Pay attention, Delacour, we need to get this fucking thing before the Brits do, or else we’ll be cooked.” By ‘cooked,’ Marchand meant their cut went from 40/60 to 20/80.

Not that Sébastien needed the money - it was the principle of the matter. Bash did not like to lose.

He gripped the handle of his wand tight, resisting the urge to make a rude gesture at his superior. Well, if we’d taken the other route like I said we should, we’d have gotten there a quarter of an hour beforehand. He resisted the urge to snap as he stomped the dirt off his dragon hide boots.

“By all means, sir, let’s hurry then.” He said, all slick respectability while beneath, he was absolutely itching to curse his superior’s hair a ghastly shade of puce. There was only one door for them to go through, and with a flick of his wand, Marchand opened the door and hurried through, with Bash on his heels.

Of course, they were already late. “Putain.” Bash swore as he took in the sight of the redheaded cursebreaker to his right.

  

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Gus didn’t lower his wand right away, not even as a familiar face came through the door: Sébastien Delacour and whatever crew he was running with. Or at least some of them, because an entire mob of people didn’t stumble through the door behind him. Still, Gus couldn’t help but wish he had a little backup himself. (At least he knew Delacour wouldn’t straight up murder him like other curse breakers would do.)

He looked ridiculous with his head wrapped with the exception of the tip of his nose, which caused the redhead to snort. “Of all the insufferable pricks in the world, it had to be you.” Gus chose to ignore the other man, for now at least. Delacour was as annoying as he was handsome, although he also always had this look to him that pissed Gus off to no end; like everything belonged to him unless proven otherwise.

His wand stayed leveled, his shoulders squared, though his knees were starting to tremble. It wasn’t from fear, not exactly, but rather it was so bloody cold that his joints felt like they were being filled with water that was freezing over. Gus knew he had to get out of here before he froze to death, but he just wasn’t sure which way that was. Blue eyes narrowed.“Whatever you came here for, I already beat you to it.” His wand twitched slightly in his grip. “Now do us all a favor and back off before I hex you into an icicle.”

Hell, maybe a fight would do him some good – it’d get him moving and warm him up, for sure.

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“Takes one to know one, Lissington!” Bash barked back as he took in the scene. Of course it had to be Lissington who had just beaten him to the punch. Could it not have been someone Bash didn’t know, so at least when he hexed the pants off his opponent he wouldn’t feel a glimmer of guilt? Lissington was a good sport when all was said and done, so it wouldn’t give him much pleasure to cheat him out of what was likely rightfully his treasure (finder’s keepers and all that bullshit) — that is, of course, if Marchand didn’t get them killed first.

His superior had drawn his wand already, which would have been good if this were any other duel.

Sébastien, on the other hand, had started to look around the room to see what they were up against. His eye immediately caught the inscriptions at the foot of the wall. He raised his brows at it, looking towards Lissington. “Or maybe instead of hexing us you could solve that equation on the wall before we all get squished until our eyeballs pop out of our fucking heads.”

There was a distinct clicking sound, like tumblers in a lock, then the sound of grinding stone.

  

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Gus had a thousand quips on his tongue, most of which were telling him to go to hell, but the low rumble of the stone shifting was enough to still his tongue. His jaw tightened, but instead of lashing out or panicking, he knelt down next to the wall, his wand angled to draw light across the carved script. His eyes scanned quickly, lips pressed thin.

Gus hated riddles. If he enjoyed them, he probably would have been sorted into Ravenclaw and not Hufflepuff.

He reached up, tracing the first line of numbers without touching it. Dust spilled from the ceiling. Gus exhaled hard through his nose. He’d also hated Ancient Runes but he at least hadn’t fumbled his way through class like he had Transfiguration. Arthimacy… well, he hadn’t taken that at all, so if Bash expected him to figure out this riddle they were fucked.

“What does this one mean?” He reached out to point toward the three circles at the end, but still, Gus didn’t dare touch it. Not that he knew what any of the glyphs meant.

**

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**The statement "A quantity and its seventh make 19" is a classic problem from the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, dating back to roughly 1550 BC. | A number and its fifth make 30. X + (1/5)x = 30 → (6/5)x = 30 → x = 25

  

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If someone didn’t start listening to him, they were going to die. Bash watched in apprehension as Lissington seemed to struggle with his answer before — thank Christ, the redhead was on the move. Sébastien himself kept frozen where he was, though his gaze went to Marchand who looked equal parts miffed and relieved that he wasn’t the one who had to go look to the inscriptions.

What fucking kind of boss was Marchand if he looked like that at the prospect of a puzzle? Their entire job was solving puzzles!

Shoving the sudden onslaught of existential thoughts that had swarmed to the surface of his mind, Sébastien forced himself to try and read the inscriptions from where he was standing. He was about to tell Lissington to hurry the fuck up when the wizard finally spoke, except it wasn’t the answer that exited his mouth, just another question.

Putain. His Ancient Runes was a tad rusty. Sébastien read the line of glyphs once over, then twice before hearing himself say, “Five.” and surprising himself as he realized he was actually right about it.

  

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