Interpersonal commerce really ought to be nipped in the bud. It had been only a little more than a year since Carlisle's fatal accident. Possibly his nostalgia for lost isolation was only the result of the gulf of months of unmoored novelty and his foray deeper into the criminal underworld--and, of course, its juxtaposition with his current involvement with Jasper. It was impossible to be friends with Jasper without feeling a lot of pressure to talk to other people as well. People like Patrick Everard and Dermont Walmsley. And then there was the Dorian Problem, and--

It had all added up.

The sudden intrusion troubled him existentially. First, he squandered more and more of his time in negotiation, conversation, discussion, and (er, um) sex. It made him feel time was passing much too quickly, that 'stop the world, I want to get off' feeling; and it also engendered the strangest kind of euphoria, spiked with moments of weird despair.

That, and he didn't like people very much.

Still, when a Mr. Alderton from the Department of Mysteries owled him, Cal had, with some reluctance, agreed (his owl back had been rather curt, in part because the man's bird had bitten him four times, once on the nose). Alderton hadn't mentioned the nature of the artifact he'd discovered, but had expressed an interest in interdimensional magic, and a more than passing knowledge of Cal's recent research. They had agreed to meet at Cal's flat, so Cal waited on the old hassock just inside his lab, leafing through his notes, heedless of the stain leaching into his pants. He always let himself unravel at home; that was part of the relief. He didn't have to wear Jasper's clothes and pretend to be the person he might have been had been someone entirely different. For instance, Jasper. Which was in fact rather a nice thought.

Most of his associates weren't polite enough to knock on the door. Shallah Kosa seemed to assume she could apparate into his foyer, but then, an Unspeakable wouldn't need to display criminal panache and disregard for Cal's privacy. One would hope.

Only very loud and persistent knocking roused Cal from his reading; he'd sunk into the equations for yet another time loop spell and distracted himself thoroughly. Maybe there was a practical reason people tended to apparate in.

"Coming!" He scrambled upward, tucking his papers into the back of the hassock, and knocked into the doorframe on his way to the front hall. "Just a--" In a flurry of knees and palms, he made it to the door, peered through then wrenched it open. "I presume you're Alderton?"

Perry wasn't sure what he ought to expect, upon his return to the UK. Never much of a traveler, he lacked experience in returning from prolonged trips to anywhere further than Ireland. He did have a few vague expectations, however, such as: a bit of time to settle into his new home and break out of the lawn furniture phase, to be left alone by parents and in-laws at least until he tried contacting them, and a very slow return to the office to ease back into level nine.

But with expectations like these, it's almost an unwritten rule that none of them would be met.

So it was with a tired, harried Perry Alderton who began his correspondence with one Calixtus Ferox. It was an annoyed, incredibly pissed off little hoot owl named Parsifal who got to deliver the letter, despite still readjusting to the major change in locale. Despite this, the letters would have been very to-the-point. Perry had been given Ferox's name and knowledge of some recent studies of the squib. His superiors suggested Ferox would perhaps be able to shed some light onto a specific case. Could they meet up to discuss the details? And that was really it: any more had too high a chance to be intercepted by, well, anyway, and that was never something the department wanted to risk.

Somehow things got worked out, and Perry approached the address he'd been given at precisely the correct hour, dressed for business and clutching a satchel to his side. And when no one answered at first, of course he'd keep knocking until someone DID answer. He came all this way, he was not to be dissuaded easily.

When the door finally was flung open, Ferox would be met with the sight of a dark-haired man peering over the top of his glasses, his eyes relieved and his mouth scowling. But as soon as he opened his mouth to speak, it all swept away and was replaced by a placid calm.

"A pleasure," Perry replied, pushing his satchel out of the way and offering the man his hand. "And you must be Mr. Ferox?" His eyes glanced over the man once, quickly, getting the look of him before returning to meet the older man's.

"Thank you for agreeing to meet me. I'm afraid owl correspondence can only go so far, with the matters at hand."

Cal didn't like to be scrutinized. The reflected glare off the man's glasses lent chilliness to his regard, but Cal nodded in return anyway, warily. He really didn't like being eyed; it brought his attention back to his rumpled suit (Slimane, thanks to Jasper; covered in manticore bile and occamy spleen, thanks to the protective potion he'd been brewing), the way his hair had turned into a seaweed salad of greasy straggles, and, worst of all, to the fact that he cared how he came off. That was new. That was the bit of Jasper he'd internalized. The bit that sort of cared what he looked like, but not the confidence that it was 'excellent.'

"I must be," he said blandly, trying to shrink back from his own skin. Maybe it was the doxy powder, though he hadn't had much, just a line at noon. Maybe it was that he knew Alderston would know he was a Squib; he couldn't expect someone from the Department of Mysteries not to have looked at the information his parents had paid to keep generally secret.

Pause.

"Yes," he said at last, accepting the handshake. When he pulled his hand back he felt compelled to wipe it on his pants. When he wasn't with Jasper, most of his awkward, misanthropic gestures returned full-force. He folded his arms around his body, shoulders hunched, and motioned jerkily with one for Alderton to follow him inside, to the kitchen. At the very least he wasn't an intimidating-looking man. Small, ruffle-haired, young-looking. When had everyone become younger than he was? Department of Mysteries, too. Cal recalled when he'd been a boy genius.

"Thank you for agreeing to meet me. I'm afraid owl correspondence can only go so far, with the matters at hand."

"And what are they," Cal said, over his shoulder, and nearly bumped into the kitchen island. "I--" He navigated around it to the table, and motioned for Alderton to take a seat, before settling in himself, arms still crossed, feet on the rungs of his chair, knees bristling upwards. "--should offer you tea or something, but I was born in America, so we can move straight to business. That is. What did you come here to discuss?" His speech was full of his habitual fits and starts, his eyes skating awkwardly between Alderton, the table, the wall, and his own shoulder.

Perry's eyes moved from one antic to another with calm acceptance, from the way Cal wiped his hand right down from his clumsy movements. They certainly contrasted Perry's own; although the Unspeakable wasn't the epitome of grace he moved with ease through the house and into the kitchen, taking a seat when indicated.

"And what are they? I should offer you tea or something, but I was born in America, so we can move straight to business. That is. What did you come here to discuss?"

Perry pulled his satchel onto the table and briefly glanced up when he was addressed. "I'm afraid there's a bit of paperwork, first," he explained, pulling out a folder. The exact contents of the satchel are difficult to discern, but he reached in and pulled the folder out as if he knew exactly where it was. It was a very organized satchel.

He turned the folder around so that it's right-side-up for Cal and slid it over to the man. Inside were a variety of papers not unlike a non-disclosure-agreement, only a lot more... intense, for lack of a better word. It basically explained that the project was confidential and not to be discussed with, well, anyone that lacked a certain level of clearance within the Ministry, that all research compiled was property of Level Nine, blah blah blah and an exhaustive list of repercussions for broken contacts that did not exclude obliviation. In short: it was a secret! Don't tell anyone!

"You can of course walk away from the project at any time," Perry explained while waiting for the man to read through the contract and sign where appropriate. "You only need to help as long as you want to. And you will of course be paid as a consultant. But I need you to sign that before I can disclose any more information."

Also while he waited for the other man to read, Perry pulled one more thing out of his satchel: a sneakoscope, and a fancy-looking one at that. It got sat to the side, and ignored after that.

Official documents and Cal's paranoia didn't mesh well. He took the time to peruse them minutely, to make sure the loopholes he tried to keep open were firmly in place, and then, with reluctance, signed. He hated to leave a paper trail, but he could tell Alderton wasn't the sort of person he habitually worked with. He wouldn't stay if Cal refused to sign.

Still, setting the pen down slowly on the table, he couldn't quite quash the thought that this would come back to haunt him.

He eyed the Sneakoscope, paranoiedly sure it was about to go off at any moment. Cal thought himself rather inherently untrustworthy; but the things generally weren't sensitive enough to detect motive (though he knew the algorithm that could key that in, most didn't), only action. But some models... and the line could be a thin one.

"There," Cal said at last, pushing the papers back across the table, several of them now smudged rather messily with ink. The other man might not appreciate that, but it happened naturally, like syrup from pancakes (which always traveled up his fork and along his arm). It struck him that he ought to get Alderton to sign something, then that he didn't have any official documents ready, or at all. 'Paid as a consultant' indeed. Cal preferred criminals. They were fairer. Luckily he was only in this, as he was only in mostly everything, for the sake of his curiosity.

"Now," he said curtly, planting his elbows on the table and leaning forward. "The matter at hand is...?"

Perry waited patiently as Cal took his time with the forms. He did his best not to fidget, nor did he stare at the man, and instead occupied himself by staring thoughtfully out the nearest window.

As soon as Cal pushed the papers back over, Perry picked them up and quickly flipped through to make sure everything was in order. That done, he straightened them out and filed them back into his satchel.

"Thank you, and sorry about that. I have to follow protocol on these sorts of things. The matter at hand... well, let's start here."

He cleared his throat and looked intently over at Cal, lapsing over to work mode. It wasn't as if he was being particularly casual before, he was just bored then. It may not have been obvious that the blank stares were boredom, but there was a different sort of look to his eyes once the formalities of paperwork were over. Passion. The passion of a man who, at the end of the day, really loved his job.

"Say you were exploring a room, and you were led to believe the room hadn't been opened in three thousand years. This includes anyone and anything entering or leaving the room. And in this room, you find a bracelet known to have been popular those three thousand years ago. Only, the condition it's in can be better related to objects only a few hundred years old. Also, it is attached to a full set of bones, which after being tested prove to BE only a few hundred years old." Perry paused, letting the story sink in.

"Now. What would you make of it?"

Cal leaned back and raised his eyebrows. He had the feeling Alderton was holding something back, because...

"I should think you were misled, Alderton," he said, a little coldly, watching the other man from beneath his lashes. Calculating. "I should think there are many explanations for the phenomenon. A prank. A mistaken calculation. What dating methods did you use?" He paused, shaking his head. "I am a scientist, Mr. Alderton, not a cryptocriminologist, and you haven't given me information I can use to make any sort of conclusive judgment."

Usually things like this had stupid, simple explanations: the burial site had been disturbed and the disruption covered up. Admittedly, if the person in the tomb had managed to travel in time, but not space... why not Apparate? It was all too confusing; and that, in Cal's experience, meant it had to be a hoax. Disappointing. Still, maybe the bracelet did have some sort of spell attached. And he couldn't forget that he didn't have enough data to make further judgments. There were any number of possible explanations for the inadequate facts Alderton had mentioned.

Might as well see.

"But the artifact might be interesting on its own." He held out one palm, then let his arm flop to the table, his hand still open. "Do you have it?"

The faintest trace of a smile curled up the sides of Perry's mouth, even as Cal became disheartened. "Possible," he agreed with a nod, "but the nature of the... well for the sake of unnecessary details we'll continue to call it a room, would make that very unlikely. Possible, but unlikely."

Unshaken, the man folded his hands on the table and leaned in. "I am neither a cryptocriminologist nor a scientist, but lucky for me I am not looking for the sort of answer your garden variety of either would give me. For you see, I don't need a conclusive idea, especially with what little information I just gave you. I need the 'but's, the 'what if's and 'maybe's. With what I've heard of research you've done in the past, surely you don't always think inside the box?"

When he leaned back once more, Perry actually smiled lightly. "So say it wasn't a prank. No one actually used the entrance in three thousand years, and yet somehow they still entered and died there. What other possibilities are there?"

Finally tearing his eyes away from the older man, he reopened his satchel to pull out a binder. It gets set in front of him, flipped to a certain section, and the Unspeakable took a few pages out to hand over. "If it makes you feel better, here's the paperwork for how they were dated." And sure enough, the studies were quite meticulate. Since they were confusing, they were checked and re-checked a number of times.

At Cal's next question, Perry paused to look at the man for a few moments before going back into his satchel to pull out a box. "I'm sure it's unnecessary to say, but please be careful with it. This is a priceless artifact even if it isn't of importance. As it is, I think it is important, but I'll let you make your own decisions."

The box is plain enough, and appeared seamless, but after Perry pressed his thumb against the wood it popped open to reveal a gold armband, decorated with lapis lazuli. There was also a faint inscription in it, which Perry was quick to explain by adding, "The inscription is an invocation to the Egyptian god, Thoth." And without another word, he pushed the box over the table to the man.

"Mightn't he had apparated inside?" Cal said pointedly, but he leaned down to examine the bracelet. How strange. It was totally outside of his realm of expertise, apart from a vague mention he had read of in a textbook. Thoth. The go-between between living and dead, the power of logos, etc.; or at least his amateurish knowledge told him that much. What had he read about the bracelet of Thoth?

Well, it was mythological, first of all.

He ran a finger over the indecipherable inscription, frowning to himself, stroking his jaw with one hand thoughtfully.

It was also one of the most powerful time and dimensional destabilizers in fiction. Supposedly, a link between the afterworld and this world. Supposedly a link between life, death, and everything in between. Of course, no one believed such an artifact could possibly have existed; its use, in any case, would be too tenuous, and too uncertain, to be of any practical value. Its only real purpose would have to be worship, reverence, the awe accorded to the ineffably powerful and very dangerous.

"This object is either a very good hoax, a copy of a mythological artifact," he said at last, putting his fingers to the corners of his eyes as though adjusting the glasses he wasn't wearing (but Alderton was; he often found himself confused, on social occasions, by such reciprocal gestures). "Or. It would help me very much if you could translate the inscription. There is a translating spell, but I don't always trust things of that sort." Carefully, he pushed the bracelet back toward Alderton. "I have no confidence that this really is the thing I've read about, but if it is..." Open-handed motion. "Who knows."

Perry waited patiently as the other man looked things over. With the box no longer in his possession, he just sat with his hands folded and watched.

"Apparition would have been impossible, so that wasn't it."

"The inscription is an invocation," he repeated when it was brought up again. "Or part of one, at least. More specifically..." He flipped his binder to another page, where he has something written down neatly. "It reads: I have scattered the darkness, I have caused him to enter the hidden abode, he shall vivify the soul of the Still-Heart, Un-Nefer, the son of Nuit, Horus triumphant." Perry took the page carefully out of its binding to produce that as well.

"It's typical enough, as these things go. The inscription I mean, not the circumstances of how the bracelet and the skeleton found themselves in the chamber with such odd dates surrounding them. As for it being a copy: it's possible, but a hoax? Well, it would be a very odd hoax, being pulled off for reasons we probably couldn't figure out ourselves. Not being alive in 2018."

Perry continued to watch the man quietly, but he shrugged just after Cal's hand-motion.

"Who knows? Certainly not me. Likely no one alive today. As for cultural significance, I can only guess. It's a bracelet, with an invocation to Thoth. Thoth was the god of time. He was a link between good and evil. He was a scientist, and is often linked with writing... one of my partners wondered if he had something to do with the origin of wristwatches," Perry chuckled.

Cal nodded slowly, still turning the artifact over and over, examining the inscription, searching for any traces of wear and thinking. He couldn't puzzle out the inscription. Most likely it referred to interdimensionality: the fifth dimension, the dimension of afterlife? Certainly that of time. Might it be one of those rare artifacts unanchored in time and space? If it didn't take energy to use it... Carlisle had, when Cal had met him, been working on an advanced version of the Time-Turner. He hadn't succeeded, but maybe the Egyptians had.

Then again, he wasn't sure it wasn't a hoax.

"Just because we in 2018 cannot understand the circumstances surrounding the perceived paradox doesn't mean they're what we might think, or hope--" He glanced up at Alderton. "That is, who knows what happened? Perhaps this person was embalmed using an extrinsic spell. Perhaps the bracelet had nothing to do with it."

He shook his head and frowned at the thing. "But there's no sense in dismissal. I take it you haven't tried to use this item? I have a book of incantations--in the original, though the translation is provided--one of them pertains to the bracelet of Thoth. And then, have you tried to use the inscription as incantation? or elements of it?" Cal stopped, forefinger tapping the bracelet fitfully, and glanced up at Alderton.

"I'm sorry. If we do run tests you'll have to do the spell; I can't." He felt his face warm just a little, as it always did when it came to this admission. Alderton probably knew. Level Nine knew these things. Still.