"E-Excuse me?"

Elvira looked away from the game of gobstones going on on one of the back tables. That was theoretically legal as long as no money changed hands, but since the game had started, at least three bets had been placed.

The speaker was a skinny, bespectacled wizard with ragged dark robes and a twitchy manner to his walk. He looked utterly exhausted, with heavy dark circles under his eyes, the whites shot through with red, and an unhealthy grey undertone to his skin. On closer inspection of his pale complexion Elvira realized that this wasn't just a wizard, he was a vampire.

"Can I help you?" she asked softly, beckoning him to the other end of the bar where it was quieter and a little more secluded. He followed her, hand trailing along the surface of the bar like he needed help to stand. "Let me get you a drink, friend. You look like you could use it."

He had a surprisingly deep voice tinged with a Scottish accent as he raised a hand. "Thank you, but…" It took a moment for his tired eyes to fix on the bottle in her hand, but when he did his gaze sharpened. Elvira swirled the bottle of blood enticingly and smiled crookedly at him. He sank onto a stool, looking relieved. "Thank you."

Elvira nodded and mixed up a Bloody Mary, heavy on the blood, and passed it across to him. He took a deep, satisfied drink, smacking his lips. That seemed enough to give him some energy and when he looked back at her he seemed slightly more alert.

"I was told that you were able to help people who are, er…" he trailed off uncomfortably.

"People of unique circumstance is what I always call it," she replied with a wink and a chuckle. "What can I do for you, mister…?"

"MacArthur," he replied. "Nathaniel MacArthur. I've, er, it's a bit delicate…" he glanced sideways at the next closest person at the bar. It happened to be Alfred, who was well into his empty bottom of his third drink of the night and mooning after yet another girl who had broken his heart. Elvira sloshed a generous pour of firewhiskey into another glass and slid it down the counter. With the instinct of years of being a barfly, Alfie caught it before he even registered it was coming at him. He looked up at her questioningly and Elvira jerked her head pointedly. Alfie looked curiously at Nathaniel before nodding and moving off further down the bar.

Nathaniel watched this exchange with interest, seeming to gain confidence from the amount of control Elvira clearly had on the room. "I've come from Pitlochry. My daughter, she married a man from New York." The way he spat out the word made Elvira very confident that it wasn't the word that he wanted to use to describe his son in law.

"And you think she's in trouble?" she asked knowingly.

Nathaniel shook his head. "I know it," he hissed. "I didn't like the look of him from the beginning, but my Madeline, she always owled at least once a month. And now it's two months without an owl."

"You need to find her," Elvira guessed, and he nodded. "And you need to do it quietly, because of the vampire legislation MACUSA's got," she said disdainfully.

For a vampire to come in the US was a process that took months, even for a short visit. Anyone who was turned in the US had a grand total of seven days to register with the appropriate department at MACUSA or they were hunted down and imprisoned, and jail was exactly what would happen to Nathaniel if he was caught. He hadn't the time to bother with the bureaucracy of it all, not with his daughter on the line.

"What your son-in-law's name?" Elvira asked. "I can make some discrete inquiries on your behalf."

"His name is Mitchell Armstrong," Colin said spitefully. "But can you really?"

Elvira smirked. "The beauty of the Cactus Cat is that it's safe, but everyone who's dangerous or someone that knows them passes through here eventually. It may take some time, but I'll find your Mr. Armstrong. That said, I would appreciate anything you could tell me about him."

Elvira served her patrons by magic for the next several minutes, instructing the bottles to pour shots and glasses to serve themselves with distracted flicks of her wrist as she listened closely to everything MacArthur had to say. He thought that Armstrong lived somewhere in Manhattan, and he knew the man had a fondness for alcohol and gambling, something that had been the original cause of his concern over his daughter's marriage.

"I think that's what made him so attractive to her, honestly," he sighed wearily. "That I disapproved."

"How very Romeo and Juliet of them," Elvira said sarcastically, and Nathaniel gave a humorless laugh.

"I suppose so." He shook his head. "Miss Blödgarmr, I hate to impose after you've already been so helpful, but do you know of anywhere I might be able to stay while in the city? I'm not above sleeping on a park bench, but a proper bed would be nice."

Elvira straightened up, squinting through the faint haze of cigarette smoke that was starting to fill the room. "I dunno about proper," she muttered, "but I swear I saw him earlier, I… aha!" Elvira sketched a series of hand signs and a glowing purple copy of her hand pulled free from her skin and drifted across the room. It settled on a man lingering at a single table along the wall, tugging gently on the shoulder of his robes. He looked up, pale face easily visible through the dimness and smoke, and rose, crossing the room.

"Nathaniel MacArthur, this is Maas Oldhof. He's what you would call the local vampire liaison," Elvira said with a cheeky wink at Maas. The tall, burly Dutchman was exactly the opposite of the dour figure one expected from a vampire, but that's what he was. He inclined his head to Elvira knowingly. "Nathaniel is in town looking for his daughter and needs a place to stay."

Maas nodded. "We have a few rooms in tenements where we can come and go without much notice being taken. There's one not far from here. We can put you up there."

Nathaniel nodded and turned his attention to Elvira. "Miss Blödgarmr, I cannot thank you enough, I really can't." He took her hand between both of his and shook heartily. Elvira laughed him off.

"Ah, no, don't worry about it. Just do me a favor, will you Mr. MacArthur."

"name it," the man replied immediately.

Elvira leaned in. "When you find your Mr. Armstrong, give him a hex from me, eh?" she asked, and winked.

For a moment, Nathaniel's eyes flashed red. "With pleasure," he replied, and there was an inhuman hiss underlying the words that made Elvira very confident he'd be doing more than hexing his son-in-law if he found that man had done anything to Madeline.

"He's looking for someone," Credence said softly. "He says I can help. Graves," he added at Iliana's questioning look, and no wonder. They'd been in the middle of a lesson when he spoke up.

They had been doing this every night for almost a week now and odd as it had felt in the beginning, there was now something familiar about letting bird-Iliana in after night fell and then spending a few hours housed in his room shrouded in her protective spells. It seemed normal, in a way, and he had even become able to see her perched on his sad, sagging mattress without instantly becoming a red-faced stammering mess.

"I wondered," Iliana hummed, a crease forming between her eyebrows. "All of this about giving you magic, it's not doable. The only reason he would offer would be to get something from you. Is it still the supposed 'savior of wizardkind' he Saw close to your mother?" she asked, and Credence nodded.

"He said he had the same vision again, said that time is growing short. He was... angry, that I hadn't made any progress." Credence lowered his eyes.

It was strange, but even knowing the man was manipulating him he still wanted to help. Graves, whoever he was, was a mystery, and a potentially dangerous one. But he played the part of paternal concern so well and that was a delicious something that Credence had never once tasted. When Graves wrapped him in his arms and clapped him on the back, he felt... like man. Like he had the approval of someone powerful and he could draw strength and pride from that, instead of being the sniveling, fearful thing that he was.

"Did he hurt you?"

The way Iliana asked it, so fast and so sharp, with her eyes flashing and her expression fierce, was both comforting and disheartening. She knew he couldn't take care of himself, that was the point of these lessons, and she was ready and willing to defend him herself. Much as he was pleased by the sentiment behind the action, the sentiment itself made him feel... weak.

"No," Credence assured her, and she smiled, shoulders slumping slightly in relief. She reached out, patting his hand where it rested on his thigh as he sat on the apple crate.

"Good." She shifted her grip, lacing her fingers through his and pulling him to his feet. "Come on, moonlight is wasting and I want to see you levitate something bigger than a pencil before the night is out," she chided teasingly, wagging her finger at him, and Credence smiled back shyly.

"Yes ma'am," he replied quietly, and Iliana pointed to his bed.

"Lift that. Remember what I told you last time, about focus?"

"Focus builds the foundation for familiarity," Credence recited. It was a quote of her father's, one she'd recited to him before she left last night. Basically, it meant that while now he had to spend all his concentration on making the magic work, the more he did and the more he got used to it the easier it would become.

Iliana nodded approvingly. "Right. Now, go on," she stepped aside, out of the way of any potential mishaps if the bed tilted, coming to his side. She stood there patiently, hands folded in front of her stomach, watching him supportively. Credence took a deep breath, raised his hand, and wiled it. The pillow flew up into the air easily, but the actual bed frame stayed determinedly on the ground. He frowned focusing harder, and the sheets rustled, one corner of the bed lifted just slightly, and he felt so hopeful he completely lost his concentration. If Iliana's spells hadn't dampened sound the whole house would have come down on them as the corner slammed back down to the ground in a loud cracking of wood.

Credence cringed, but Iliana merely chuckled, unconcerned.

"Take care of how you move your wrist," she explained, moving closer to his side. She placed one hand on his shoulder and she other reached down the length of his arm to take his wrist. Credence trembled. He loved these moments, when she physically manipulated him into position. Feeling her hands along his body, even through the fabric of his shirt and jacket, was nice. It reminded him of the night she'd slipped her magic inside of him, a similar, less intense version of that lightning warmth creeping through his blood. It pleased him how easily she would reach out to make small corrections for him, how she seemed as eager to touch him as he was to be touched, though he'd never yet dared to be the one to reach out to her.

"You see?" Iliana continued, and her voice was soft by his ear as she guided his wrist through the appropriate motion. The small part of his brain that wasn't devoted to delighting in how her breath felt against his throat was noting that yes, that did feel different than what he had been doing and he knew how to fix it now. "It's all in the hands, the wrist and fingers. It took me ages to learn some of the more complicated gestures for some of Elvira's advanced spells. She had to move my fingers through them over and over."

"What do you mean?" Credence asked, and instead of answering verbally, she slipped past him, the fabric of her sleeve brushing his as she moved to stand in front of him, taking his upraised hand in both of hers. Iliana kept her eyes focused on the damaged, scarred skin of his fingers as she manipulated them into position, forming a complicated hand gesture that was supposedly the key to advanced magic. Credence cared little about that, he mostly cared that she keep touching him, her fingers gently tracing along the back of his hand as she finished her positioning.

"There, you see?" she asked softly, taking a moment to angle his wrist before stroking her fingers up his and away. "Like that." Credence wasn't paying a bit of attention to her words. Instead his eyes were closed and he was taking slow, steady breaths, trying to keep himself from doing something supremely stupid and getting himself blasted back through the door by an irate Iliana. He wanted to... he didn't even know at this point. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to make her flapjacks on Sunday morning. He wanted to lay her across his bed. He wanted to sit beside her on a piano bench and listen to her sing. He wanted to hold her close and never let Ma or anything else bad in the world touch her. He wanted to know that she was his as intensely and slavishly - yes, he was fully aware of exactly how pathetic he was - as he was hers.

"Credence?" she asked softly, and her fingers came up, touching his cheekbone gently, a hint of concern in her voice. "Are you alright? Is something wrong?"

Credence's eyes sprang open, because something was very, very right. He knew it, the magic roiling in his stomach knew it, and by the widening of her eyes and the way she gasped softly, she knew it too.

Iliana wasn't stupid, nor was she ignorant. She knew what a man in lust looked like. She'd seem the expression aimed at her more than once. But this wasn't lust - well, it was, but mixed with and diluted by a hundred other things - that swirled in Credence's dark eyes. Things like affection, adoration, fear, self-reproach, hope, hesitation. She had known from the beginning that Credence felt some sort of way about her. She'd accepted it as natural, as a part of her attraction to men inherited from her veela mother. She'd been foolish enough to think that it was something she could overlook and move past, even after realizing that she felt something beyond just affection and protectiveness for him as well. Iliana realized she had been missing signs of something deeper for a while now and felt both supremely worshipped and supremely stupid, and so she did something stupid about that worshipful look in Credence's eyes.

She shifted her hand so that her palm lay along his cheek, stepped in close, rose up on her toes, and kissed him.

Credence was a statue, a perfect moment carved in time by God himself because nothing could be better than this, than feeling Iliana holding his face so tenderly, being able to sense her right in front of him as the hem of her dress brushed the fabric of his slacks just below his knees. And she was kissing him, God have mercy, she was kissing him, her mouth pressed tightly to his, her lips working gently to massage his tattered soul, and he felt like he was about to either fly apart or melt into a puddle. He was wired and shaking, he wanted to hold her the way she was holding him and... and...

"Oh!"

Iliana jerked back suddenly, eyes wide, and the look of utter terror on her face drove a spike through his heart.

"I shouldn't have done that," she whispered, eyes darting all across his face, her hand shaking as it rose to cover her lips. "I should not have done that."

She took another step back, angled her body towards the window, and he knew that she could flee that way as easily as she could through the door behind him. He knew she was about to bolt, could see it in her body language. He'd felt that feeling before, when the only way to escape was just to run, and he knew he couldn't let her. He lunged, grabbing her upper arms in a grip that was strong but gentle enough not to bruise. He'd never forgive himself if he ever marked her skin the way his had been marked so often.

"Then make it so it didn't happen," he pleaded, and she stared at him blankly.

"I... what?"

"Make it so that it didn't happen," Credence stressed, because this was important, this was critical, this was everything. If she left now he was terrified she wouldn't come back. "You have magic, erase my memory, rewind time, I don't care, I just... I don't want to... I can't... I can't lose you," he all but screamed in her face, and thank god for her silencing spells because his voice actually echoed in the room in the silence between them as she stared at him, owl-eyed and mouth open softly.

"Sweet Sayre," she breathed, and she was shaking just as bad as he was, which made him feel both slightly better and slightly worse. "You... I... What am I doing?" she moaned, and her hands came up to cover her face. Credence was horrified to realize that her shoulders were shaking with tears. When she lowered her hands, wetness had gathered in the corners of her eyes. As he watched, a single tear rolled down her cheek, diamond bright. "I can't... we can't..."

She reached up, knocking that tear away in an almost angry motion, but another fell down the same trail to replace it. As she moved her arms, Credence became aware that he was still holding her. He had reached out, he had placed his hands on her, and she wasn't shaking him off. She had made the first move, she had been the one to kiss him, but he could take steps too. Small ones, maybe, tiny by comparison, but he could do it, and that gave him the little bit of bravery required to force out two little words.

"Why not?"

Iliana made a noise in the back of her throat. "Why not? Credence, it's madness! Your situation here, with your mother, it's an absolute mess! How can I ask you to put up with me on top of all of that? I'm not exactly confident in this myself, despite what people would think... and that's another thing, you might not even feel as strongly for me as you think you do. I do things to men that I don't mean to, I'm half-veela! Merlin, Credence, I'm not even human!" And she was gone again, burying her face in her hands and letting out a small sob.

Iliana felt wretched. She'd done the one thing she'd sworn not to do, she'd crossed the line she herself had drawn in the sand. And Credence was right, she could wipe it from existence, could erase the moment from his memory, but she didn't want to because she liked it and he did too and she couldn't bring herself to use magic on him, not like that, not taking a memory away when he'd already lost so much under Mary Lou's thumb. The very fact that he was willing to offer up that memory to be stripped away spoke of something scarily intense, the way he'd looked into her eyes like he was willing to sell his very soul to keep her in his life...

And wouldn't she do the same for him? It was stupid, they hadn't known each other long. A handful of meetings scattered across a few months, and yet aside from Elvira, Credence was the closest person to her in the world. Perhaps that said something sad about her interpersonal relationships, but did that negate the strength of her feelings, of his? It didn't change the fact that she still felt angry with herself, felt like she'd taken advantage of Credence's own shortcomings in that area, but the very fact that she felt bad meant something too, didn't it? And was it fair for her to take guesses at what he was feeling and make judgment calls for him based off of nothing but her own suppositions? Then of course there was the old fear that there was nothing behind Credence's affection for her but a genetic fluke, whatever it was that veela had that turned men's heads... and yet the moment she thought it that fear was completely discarded, because she could make a man want her physically, but she couldn't conjure up that whole host of other emotions she'd seen etched in his face.

Credence felt an odd tingling of awareness, a sort of slow realization creeping over them that despite how in control Iliana always seemed - confident in her magic, confident in her words, confident in herself - in some ways she was just as isolated and confused as he was. Something about that gave him a little bit of confidence as well, gave him the ability to look up at her and ask, "How do you know how I feel if I don't know myself?"

Iliana stepped back at that, finally breaking his grip on her, pulling away to let his arms swing down to his side. Credence noted that, somehow, Iliana was even more beautiful when she cried. The tears did something to her eyes, made them a shade of blue he'd never seen before, but he wished more than anything that the fearful, uncertain expression he read there was gone.

"I think..." Iliana licked her lips, trying to think of the words she needed, trying to figure out how to say this without breaking either of their hearts, "maybe we need to... to step back. To think about this."

"Iliana..." Credence was scared. She was taking another step back towards the window. It was still open.

"I think it would be best. I need to... to think, and so do you. Away from me, I mean, and anything I might do to you..."

"Please..."

"It's... I think this would be best. Safest... I-I... I'm sorry." She looked as agonized about it as he, but her shoulders were firm. "Three d-days. Th-That's all I'm asking..."

Iliana turned and Credence reached out a hand to try and stop her before she transformed into a bird and bolted through the window. But he couldn't have, because there was a loud pop and then she was just gone, and he was left standing in the middle of his room with his hand outstretched and a horror-struck expression on his face, the thing coiled inside his stomach screaming that this wasn't fair, that she didn't get to be the only one making this decision, that it wasn't just up to her. He could feel himself losing control, could feel it in the way his skin suddenly felt curiously loose and his head filled with pressure like something was trying to burst out.

Burst out it did, and through the window a wave of black smoke went barreling off into the night, screaming in wordless pain.

He missed the scrap of parchment that had fluttered to the ground in her place, her spidery writing scrawling across it: I don't want to hurt you.

Elvira was sitting in the living room, absently massaging her aching leg. She wanted to write Newt, wanted to tell him about MacArthur situation, about the growing unrest in the werewolves of Long Island, about a lot of things. But she knew it was silly, that his boat would dock soon and he would barely have time to reply before he would actually be here, in front of her, staring eye to eye for the first time in their acquaintanceship. It was a heady thought, knowing that she would be able to just talk to him about these things too.

There was a loud crack as Iliana Apparated into the middle of the living room, she and Elvira being the only two capable of such a thing, and Elvira looked up curiously.

"Back from teaching so..." Elvira paled at the sight of Iliana's face, her hair a mess and her cheeks streaked with tears. Her shoulders shuddered with suppressed sobs and instantly Elvira was on her feet, aches of a night tending bar forgotten.

"What happened?" she demanded, instinctively snatching up her cane and twirling it to reveal her wand. "What's wrong, Iliana?"

"I-It's Credence," Iliana whimpered, seeming barely able to get the words out around her feelings.

Elvira swore softly. "What's happened? Is it his Ma? Did she hurt him?"

"No, it was me..."

The fire in the grate leaped higher in response to the surge of magic Elvira let off as her anger flared. "Did she come after you?" she asked, her voice deadly calm.

"I did it..."

Elvira felt sick. "You went after his Ma?" If Iliana had done that then the fact that Mary Lou Barebone deserved to be sent straight to Hell in a handbasket didn't mater, MACUSA would still be after Iliana's blood.

"I kissed him!"

Once upon a time, Elvira had ridden a bucking bronco at a rodeo and there had been a moment when the horse leaped straight up into the air to try and buck her off, and when it came down, she had felt like her stomach had been left behind, her neck snapped so sharply that she felt dizzy and light-headed. She felt like that now, like she'd just been bucked straight out of understanding the conversation.

"You... kissed Credence?" she asked uncertainly, and Iliana nodded, sinking into a chair. Elvira floundered for a moment, because this was very much not her area of expertise and neither had it been her fathers. Her mother had left before Elvira had any interest in boys, so she'd never had a woman's wisdom to rely on either.

"This is a problem," Elvira said, though it was more question than statement in actuality.

Iliana nodded helplessly. "You know what his situation is, you know what he's dealing with! And then I come in and I'm nice to him and it sounds so arrogant to say aloud but I'm scared that's all it is, that once he's... I don't know, once he's better, once he's away from Mary Lou and functioning on his own that he won't feel the same. That he'll..."

"That he'll break your heart," Elvira finished softly, able to follow Iliana's somewhat meandering train of reasoning after knowing her for so many years.

"And that's so selfish of me! After all he's been through he deserves to be happy even if it's not with me and I can't deny him that! I feel like... like I owe it to him to let him... play the field, I suppose, much as it hurts. And I swore to myself I wouldn't do anything other than teach him, than be his friend, but Ellie, you should have seen how he looked at me!" she moaned, and Elvira was able to pick up from the way she was talking that whatever the Barebone boy felt for her sister was wholeheartedly reciprocated, a sentiment she had been entirely unaware of. "Like he... like he... like he loved me!"

Elvira didn't know what to say, but the best she could come up with was, "And what if he does?"

Iliana shook her head furiously. "You've seen what that house is like, I don't know if he even knows what love is, familial, romantic, platonic, any of it!"

Elvira stared at her sister skeptically, finally lowering her wand. She concealed it inside her cane once more with a flick of her wrist and sat back down on the sofa, resuming her massaging absently. "That's... a little presumptive of you, Annie."

"I know!" Iliana insisted. She was starting to gather herself, to pull out of the initial burst of emotion and settle herself down. This time when she wiped the tears from her face, new ones didn't fall. "I know, don't think I don't, but at the same time I feel like I need to protect him, protect both of us. I told him that we needed time to think about things reasonably, to be apart. We've been together for hours every night for days now..."

"Wow. Days." Elvira said dully.

Honestly, she didn't know what the right answer was here. Telling Iliana to avoid Credence, while it might be safer in terms of MACUSA, seemed cruel. Telling her to go and be with him also seemed to be overlooking some valid points Iliana had raised. Telling her to follow her heart felt unbearably sappy and not at all actually useful.

"If you feel like you need time, then you need time," Elvira said slowly, puzzling her way through the words as she said them to try and make her thoughts come together into something cohesive. "It's not just him that needs looking after. You're allowed to look out for yourself as well. It's not a matter of who has been through more, you both have an equal right to feel whatever it is you're feeling, and if you feel like you need time to think through things, then it would be a bit manipulative of Credence to demand you ignore that feeling and run off into the sunset with him, wouldn't it? And I don't think it would be entirely healthy for you to constantly put your own needs and emotions aside for him, either." Elvira reached out, placing her hand on Iliana's knee. She remembered words that she had last heard her mother scream at her father, her justification for abandoning their family when Iliana was brought home, changing them from words of wrath to words of love.

"He's allowed to do what he wants, but so are you."

Iliana looked up at her sister. "That's not an answer. Tell me what I should do?" she pleaded, and Elvira shook her head, offering a wry smile.

"You think I've got a clue? There's no simple answer, not to this."

Newt stood at the rail of the passenger ship. The lights were bright in the distance as they sailed through the shallower water. They would be in New York about noon the following day, and he was shaking he was so excited. Not just about Elvira, but about releasing Frank, about seeing someplace new, about making new discoveries about American magical creatures... there was so much to do, to be excited about, but unsurprisingly, Elvira was the closest thing to his mind right now. He would be seeing her tomorrow, in less than 24 hours, and he felt like he was about to faint.

He was excited, certainly, he'd always been a bit excitable, particularly when it came to his creatures. But he was also starting to feel the slow creeping of uncertainty and social awkwardness curling in the pit of his stomach. For all she'd claimed not to care about such things, it was entirely different in person when compared to pen and paper. He could toss a draft of a letter if he didn't like how it sounded, but he couldn't take back spoken words. What if he offended her? What if he made her mad? What if he...

What if he wasn't what she expected?

She had a picture, and he supposed it was a decent one too, but that was a picture that would one day go on the back of a book jacket. That was... that was Mr. Scamander, who was commissioned to write a definitive work on the subject of magical creatures, not Newt, who was scrawny and gangly and didn't know how to talk to people.

He was just Newt, and just Newt had never impressed anybody.