Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMR4M7EDEDWXWP8NNA6W8EB

The damp cold of the abandoned Tube station seeped through the sole of Detective Harlow Quinn's boots, a persistent chill that had nothing to do with the London weather above. She checked her watch, the worn leather strap stiff against her wrist, the face glowing faintly in the beam of her torch. 03:14. Enough time for the shift change to bury the paperwork, not enough time to make sense of the corpse lying ten feet away on the tracks. Quinn holstered her light and stepped forward, her movement precise, economical. At five-nine, she towered over the scene techs who were currently packing up their kits with uneasy glances toward the tunnel shadows. She crouched, the knees of her trousers grazing the ballast. The body was a male, mid-thirties, dressed in a suit that cost more than Quinn's annual salary. There was no blood. No bruising. No sign of struggle. He looked like he was sleeping, save for the pallor of his skin and the stillness of his chest. Cause of death remains unknown, the preliminary report had said. Quinn hated those words. They were a placeholder for failure. You're looking at it wrong, Detective. The voice came from behind her, slight and tremulous. Quinn didn't startle. She turned her head slowly, her sharp jawline cutting a hard profile against the tunnel wall. Eva Kowalski stood near the edge of the platform, clutching a worn leather satchel to her chest like a shield. The young woman's curly red hair was frizzing in the humidity, and she pushed her round glasses up the bridge of her nose with a shaking hand. Quinn stood, brushing dust from her hands. I'm looking at a dead man in a closed station, Kowalski. That's the only way that matters. Eva tucked a stray curl behind her left ear, a nervous tic Quinn had noted in their previous meetings. The British Museum researcher wasn't police, but she had clearance Quinn didn't fully understand, granted by superiors who spoke in hushed tones about restricted archives. It's not a closed station, Eva said, her green eyes wide behind the lenses. Not really. Not tonight. Quinn crossed her arms. Explain. Eva stepped closer, though she kept her distance from the body. The air pressure dropped. Can't you feel it? The static. It's not electrical. It's residual energy. This location... it's a bleed point. Quinn scanned the tiled walls. White ceramic, cracked and grimy, covered in decades of graffiti. Nothing suggested a bleed point whatever that meant. It suggested neglect. It suggested a place where things went to die. Three years ago, DS Morris had vanished near a similar location. The file was cold, sealed, and buried under layers of bureaucratic concrete. Quinn hadn't forgotten. Energy doesn't kill men in suits, Quinn said flatly. Bullets do. Knives do. Poison does. Sometimes, Eva insisted, her voice gaining a fraction of strength. Sometimes the door opens where it shouldn't. She unbuckled her satchel and rummaged inside, pulling out a small brass object. Quinn's eyes narrowed. It was a compass, but unlike any navigation tool she'd seen in eighteen years of service. The casing was thick with patina, a deep verdigris eating at the edges of the metal. The face was etched with sigils that hurt the eyes if she focused on them too long. Where did you get that? Quinn asked, her hand drifting instinctively toward her belt. Evidence, Eva said quickly. Seized from a suspect last week. It's attuned. Watch. Eva set the compass on a flat concrete slab near the tracks. The needle didn't settle north. It spun, lazy at first, then accelerating into a blur. It wasn't searching for magnetic pole. It was hunting. Quinn watched the needle. She watched the dust motes dancing in the beam of the overhead work light. She watched Eva's hands, trembling slightly as she tucked her hair behind her ear again. It points to rifts, Eva whispered. Portals. Quinn leaned in. The needle was vibrating now, humming against the concrete. It pointed directly at the wall behind the corpse. Quinn moved around the body, positioning herself between the dead man and the tiles. She pulled her torch again, sweeping the beam across the ceramic. Nothing. Just grout and grime. If there was a door, Quinn said, there would be a draft. A change in temperature. Disturbance in the dust. She shone the light at the base of the wall. The dust layer was thick, undisturbed gray fuzz accumulated over years of abandonment. Except for one spot. Directly behind the victim's heels, the dust was swept clean in a perfect arc. Quinn knelt again, pulling a magnifying loupe from her pocket. She inspected the tiles. There were microscopic scratches on the glaze, faint lines radiating from a central point hidden behind the man's shoulder. He didn't walk here, Quinn murmured. No, Eva said. He fell out. Quinn ignored the implication. She focused on the physical. The dust arc. The scratches. The position of the body. He landed on his back. His shoes were clean, but the soles showed scuff marks consistent with friction burns, not walking. Quinn stood and walked to the wall. She pressed her palm against the tiles. Cold. Solid. But the compass needle spiked, swinging wildly toward her hand before settling back on the wall. You said this market moves, Quinn said, recalling the intel she'd scraped together from informants who smelled of sulfur and fear. The Veil Market. Eva nodded, clutching her satchel tighter. It moves every full moon. Tonight is the full moon. This station... it's the anchor. Quinn looked at the dead man's hands. His fingers were curled inward, gripping nothing. She pried the left hand open. Embedded in the palm, pressed deep into the flesh as if it had been forced there by immense pressure, was a sliver of white material. Bone. Quinn pulled her multi-tool and carefully extracted the fragment. It was small, carved with a rune that matched the etching on the compass face. Entry requirement, Quinn said, her voice low. A bone token. He tried to leave, Eva said softly. But the market closes. If you're still inside when the shift happens... You get left behind, Quinn finished. Or you get spit out. She looked from the bone fragment to the compass, then to Eva. The young researcher was watching her with a mixture of fear and hope. Eva knew the rules of this world. Quinn only knew the rules of evidence. But here, the evidence was rewriting the rulebook. The dust wasn't disturbed by wind. It was displaced by displacement. Matter moving where matter shouldn't be. The friction burns on the shoes confirmed high-velocity arrival. The bone token confirmed intent. This wasn't a murder scene in the traditional sense. It was an accident. A border control incident. Quinn dropped the bone fragment into an evidence bag and sealed it. She pocketed the compass, ignoring Eva's sharp intake of breath. I'm confiscating this, Quinn said. But you need it to find the others, Eva said, stepping forward. If the market moved, there might be more left behind. More people who didn't make the exit. Quinn looked at the compass in her hand. The verdigris felt warm against her skin. She thought of Morris. Three years. No body. No evidence. Just a gap in the world where a partner used to be. If there are others, Quinn said, meeting Eva's green eyes, I'll find them. But I do it my way. No sigils. No rituals. We follow the dust. Eva hesitated, then nodded, tucking her hair behind her ear one last time. Okay. Quinn turned back to the tunnel, the compass heavy in her pocket. The needle pressed against her thigh, vibrating like a second heartbeat. The evidence didn't add up to a standard homicide, but it added up to something. A pattern. A location. A method. She clicked off her torch, plunging the platform into darkness save for the work lights. The shadows seemed to stretch longer than they should, reaching for the tracks. Quinn didn't flinch. She checked her watch again. 03:22. Time to go to work.