AI The stairs smelled of wet concrete and iron. Quinn moved down them like a thumb finding a groove—precise, deliberate. Her boot knocked against old tiles, hollow-sounding. The market sat below in a pocket of stale air and fairy lights, stalls half-collapsed, tarps sagging with grime. String bulbs cast everything in the colour of old copper. People with their faces hidden in scarves had wandered away at the sight of police tape; the hush left the place like a curtain drawn.
Quinn kept her hands out of her pockets. Her watch rested against the leather of her left wrist, scuffed and familiar . She let the light trace the sharp line of her jaw, and she let her eyes list the scene fast—stall names spray-painted in languages she didn't recognise, a scattering of coins that gleamed too clean to be old, a chalk circle at the far end.
Police uniforms clustered near the circle. Forensics had a white tent over a body slumped against a brass cart. The corpse leaned like a broken scarecrow, knees tucked, hands splayed. Blood had stained the market’s page—dark starbursts on pages of a pamphlet she'd never seen. Quinn crouched a single, fluid motion, boots finding purchase on the damp flagstone. Her fingers hovered above the shoulder, careful of the angle of muscle, of the chill .
No pulse .
She let that be a statement. "He’s been dead longer than anyone here says."
A woman shifted beside her, fingers twisting a curl behind her left ear. Glasses reflected the string-light glare. "They were trading in pain-relievers. A guy in a hood said he'd get them for a price. Then this." She tapped her satchel with a forefinger, the leather making a small complaint. "I pulled the pamphlet from his hand. It smelled of varnish and lemon."
"Varnish and lemon," Quinn echoed, tasting the words . She ran a thumb over the edge of the pamphlet. The pages had been torn from a cheap devotional book—Latin prayers printed on the margins—and there was no singe on them. The chalk circle showed no char, the ash in it soft and powdery like ground paper.
Eva—Eva's voice held a tremor Quinn recognised: the excitement that came when research found a hook to bite. "It looks like a consecration. The sigils—"
Quinn looked at the sigils. They were neat, repeated patterns drawn in a steady hand. The lines grouped around the feet, as if to bind rather than to call. The chalk had been smudged in places, the smears too ordered to be accidental. Quinn traced the outermost line with a fingertip glove.
Not ash. Ground paper. "Pages are in his satchel," she said. "He drew with the paper from the same book he was carrying."
Eva blinked, glasses slipping down the bridge of her nose. "A ritualist would use consecrated paper."
"He used what was handy," Quinn said. The words didn't dismiss Eva's perspective. They sharpened it. "Conjured laundry is still laundry."
A uniform kneaded at the corpse's wrist. "No wallet, no token," he reported. "We checked pockets. No bone token to get in."
Quinn's jaw tightened against a memory that wouldn't quit: a partner who’d gone quiet three years ago, a case that smelled of things that didn't belong in a police folder. She kept the memory folded inside the muscle of her neck. It had weight . It had teeth. "Check again," she ordered. "Palms, inside boots, up the sleeves. And the stall's ledger—did anyone buy anything today?"
The ledger lay open on the cart, its lines blurred with a slick that looked like sealing wax . Quinn smudged it with a gloved thumb. The script was a single sloping hand. Names, numbers. Under one line, a small brass thing sat crooked on the page: a compass, no bigger than a coin, its casing green with verdigris.
Quinn picked it up. The brass was cold. Etched sigils ringed the face, and the needle trembled like an insect pinned to a map. It wasn't pointing to anything familiar . The needle spun once and stopped dead at the edge of the chalk circle. A bead of resin stuck to its point.
Eva's breath came soft. "A Veil Compass," she said. "They shouldn't be here."
"Shouldn't be," Quinn echoed . She turned the compass between forefinger and thumb. The patina marked it older than its maker's breath; the face bore careful markings—protective, not directional. Whoever had left it wanted it seen.
"Why would a vendor have one?" Eva asked. Her green eyes darted over the scene like an index finger, cataloguing.
Quinn closed her fingers. The needle sat true toward nothing Quinn could name except the drain of instinct that had steered her through eighteen years. The compass was meant to point at rifts, at tears. This needle lay pinned to the circle hemming the corpse.
"Because someone wanted the compass to point at the circle," Quinn said. "Or they didn't want the compass to point where it naturally did."
"Magnet?" Eva offered.
Quinn checked the edge of the brass with careful pressure, feeling for seams. No seam. No recent solder. The verdigris had grown into the etches. "If it's a magnet, it's a poor one." She flipped the compass face-up again and watched the needle settle against the same smudge of chalk. "It doesn't line up with any obvious seam. The resin's fresh."
"Resin from adhesives." Eva reached to bud the resin with the tip of her button. Her fingers hovered, then stilled. "Or wax. Or something organic. Where would you get that here?"
Quinn's eyes skittered to the tarps hung between stalls. A stall with jars of preserved things sat to the left; another displayed bones, small and catalogued with tags. A vendor's cart still had a label: Shade artisan, handcrafted. Quinn did not let "Shade" make a ripple on her face. Shade artisans were the market's makers. They made compasses, they made locks, and they made trouble.
"Ask the artisan who sold compasses here," she said. "Pull any CCTV in the surrounding area, even the Tube cameras. Who accessed this station today? Who's been in and out? The market moves at a full moon. Someone tracked it and set a trap."
A technician rubbed a gloved finger across the corpse's throat, the skin resisting like an old seam. "No defensive wounds," she said. "No signs of a scuffle. His hands are clean."
"That doesn't add up," Quinn said. "If he were assassinated in a crowd, someone would have tried to defend themselves. If it was a ritual, there would be burn marks or singing. If he died of natural causes, why the circle? Who called this in?"
A man's voice came from over the tent, heavy with a bored authority. "Maybe he died somewhere else and was placed here to send a message."
Quinn looked up at him with a small, tired tilt. "And yet whoever placed him here left the compass. Why leave that, if the point is the message?" She thumbed the needle again . "Unless the message was twofold. Unless they wanted the compass to say: look here."
Eva leaned closer. "If it was a message, it's one meant for those who'd recognise the Compass' signature. The needle points at rifts. You don't leave a Compass to point at a mundane corpse unless you're telling someone where the tear is."
"Or unless you want us to think where the tear is." Quinn's eyes scanned the circle again, slow as a clock's sweep. The chalk ring had been drawn with a steady hand, but the outermost arcs bore tiny breaks—interruptions so slight you could miss them unless you watched for rhythm. Two breaks repeated four times, at roughly compass-points on the circle.
"Someone traced it twice," Quinn said. "Someone drew the circle with the hand dominant on their left side."
Eva's mouth opened, then closed. "Ambidextrous?"
"No. Left-handed."
The technician frowned. "How can you tell that?"
Quinn stretched her fingers against the cool stone and mimed the motion. "Left-handed lines tend to pull toward the knuckle angle. Watch." She made the arc with her left hand, the motion tight and efficient . The breaks appeared in the same places. "Whoever made this didn't just draw the circle; they rehearsed it. See—small scuff marks at the outer edges where chalk was wiped and re-applied. They practised in situ."
Eva nodded once. "A performer, or someone careful."
Quinn tugged at the corpse's sleeve. The fabric gave with a dry squeak. Under the cuff, a bit of linen ribbon clung to the wrist. Clean, trimmed, the sort you'd find on vendor goods rather than on a ritualist's attire. She slipped a gloved finger beneath it and felt for something else—something the hand might have held and not let go.
A scar on the thumb caught her eye, crescent and pale. She tilted the hand toward the string of light. The tip of the thumb had a textured pad, callused in a way that suggested a tool, a consistent use.
"Tool-user," she said. "Tradesman. Craftsman."
Eva glanced up from the compass. "A Shade artisan?"
Quinn's mouth compressed. "Perhaps. Someone precise. Someone who handled brass like a man handling a scalpel." She turned the compass over to the place where the resins clung and scraped a gloved nail at the lacquer. The tendon in her wrist popped. The resin came away in a clean blossom, revealing a hairline scratch under the finish—too straight, too modern to come from age. Recent. Manufactured.
"Made recently," she murmured. "Not a vintage piece misused. Someone made it to look old."
Eva's hand hovered over the satchel at her hip. "If they wanted to stage a supernatural link, they'd plant old artefacts."
"They didn't want to stage a link; they wanted to hide one," Quinn said. "Whoever made this needed us to look at the compass and at the circle and to accept a single narrative. But the object itself betrays its maker."
A junior officer returned with a report clipped on a board. "Witness says he saw a woman with a bone token leave ten minutes before the body was found. Dark coat, hands in pockets. No further description. The vendor two stalls down paid her rent, said she was late. He bolted—"
Quinn's jaw worked. Bone tokens meant access. They meant inside knowledge. She had a memory of a bone token once, of the warmth it had left when pressed into a palm. "Ten minutes," she said. "Then someone with access walked out while the body was left where they'd planned and the compass placed in a way to mislead."
"Or to guide," Eva said softly . She pulled a book pen from her satchel and flipped it open, the page creaking. "Who benefits from a misdirection like that? Who sells the compasses?"
"Artisans in the Market," Quinn said. "And their clients. Who buys rifts? Who would need us pointing somewhere that doesn't exist?"
Silence gathered like a net. Quinn let it sit. Her mind filed impressions—chalk breaks, resin on a modern scratch, the vendor's clean hands, the missing bone token, the witness's woman in a dark coat, the compass's deliberate placement. Each point by itself could hold an answer. All together, they formed a shape.
"Whoever you are," she told the scene, "you made sure this corpse ended where someone would find it. You gave us a compass that lied when you expected us to look. You left the ritual looking valid but not burned. You made a statement for the Market to see."
Eva's fingers found the book again and traced the sigils with a reverent hand. "Or," she said, voice small and abrupt, "you wanted the wrong people to find it."
Quinn looked at Eva. The girl had the hunger of the curious. Quinn had the habit of counting for consequence. She crouched lower so the cord of her neck didn't show the way her face tightened.
"Which wrong people?" she asked.
"People who'd follow superstition," Eva replied. "People who'd circle the chalk and burn the wrong book. People who'd assume a tear opened."
Quinn turned the compass over, studying the etchings. Protective sigils did not announce direction. They shielded. Someone had put a protective face on a directional tool. She replaced the compass back onto the ledger, at an angle that obscured the needle from the body. "Someone shielded the needle so the market's practitioners would think the Compass had done its job: pointed at a rift. But a rift wasn't what mattered."
"Then what did?" Eva asked.
Quinn closed her eyes for a fraction of a breath. Her nostrils cupped the faint lemon varnish Eva had mentioned, the whiff of resin, the metallic tang. She felt the order in the scene, the pattern of imperfection meant to draw attention while hiding the mechanism. She thought of her partner three years gone, of the way a case can be dressed up to kill the curiosity that scratches at it.
"You better get me that witness statement in full," she said. "And the artisan registry for this quarter. Pull whoever's travelled between here and the last market. Check for purchases of brass and modern needles. Someone built a lie in brass and put it here."
A forensics tech lifted a tarp corner and looked toward Quinn. "Fingerprints on the compass are smudged. But there's an oil residue under the lid—mechanical oil. Suggests deliberate tampering. And the corpse? No defence wounds, but there's an incision on the throat. Clean. Not jagged. Surgical."
Quinn's jaw went hard. "Left-handed," she said. "Craftsman. Surgical. Someone who can work brass and can cut down a man with a knife and not leave a mess."
Eva's hand darted to her satchel, fingers rummaging until she pulled free a small slip of paper, edges frayed. She thrust it at Quinn. "There's a name. The ledger lists a name once. It's a buyer for the artisan in the last market. A woman. She paid in bartered goods and asked specifically for a Compass made to 'hide and reveal.'"
Quinn watched Eva's fingers find the spiral of a lock on a vendor's jar—no fidget, just observation. She accepted the paper with the same care she gave evidence. The name printed there was neat, two given names and a surname that sounded like a current: Mara Lind, Merchant.
"Track Mara Lind," Quinn said. "List anyone who asked for 'hide and reveal' compasses. Match payments for modern needles, check recent purchases of resin, of varnish. Pull the vendor's ledger for any irregularities. And find the woman with the bone token."
"You think she's the killer?" Eva asked.
Quinn looked back at the corpse. The man's fingers still curved like he held something that wasn't there. "I don't know what she is yet. But someone sold a lie for money, and someone died because of it." She pushed a hand into the air, a short, sharp arc. "Don't let the sigils pull you into a story that covers the bones."
Eva tucked the slip back into her book, then slid the book into the satchel with a firm motion. "You ever think the bones point both ways?" she asked. "That someone's making shadows to keep a worse truth from being seen?"
Quinn's mouth twitched without becoming a smile. "Shadows are made on purpose."
Footsteps came, heavy. Someone handed Quinn a list on a clipboard. She read names fast, eyes flicking like a cataloguer. Beside her, Eva leaned in until the spatter on the pages snagged a freckle of her cheek. Her voice dropped. "If this one was staged, who wanted the Market spooked? Who profits when the Market closes, or when buyers flee?"
Quinn's mind threaded the actors: artisans, buyers, the woman with a bone token, Mara Lind. She placed them like weights on a scale. The differential came up light in one direction—the Market losing faith. Losing foot traffic. Losing the ability to move goods. "Someone wants to chase the Market out of its place," she said. "Someone with the power to profit from chaos."
"You think it was a frame to close the Market?" Eva asked.
"I think it's a distraction," Quinn said. She rose, the motion precise, the decision narrow. She let the compass rest on the ledger, the needle pointing at the chalk circle like an accusing finger. "Find the woman with the token. Track the artisan's ledger. Bring me the purchaser list for compasses in the last two months. And if anyone else comes in here and wants to perform a rite, stop them. We don't need more narratives."
Eva pulled her satchel up and clicked the strap into place. "I'll get you the artifact list," she promised. "And I'll see if the British Museum recorded anything similar. I can run the sigils through the restricted archives—there are mentions of mimicry rituals."
"Run them," Quinn said. "And keep the mimicry leads separate. If this is a plant, I don't want our people taking the bait."
A shout came from near the mouth of the stairs. Someone had found a caller's footprint in the dust—a narrow heel, recent. Quinn glanced back at the corpse, at the compass, at the broken chalk. The room hummed with small movements. Evidence stacked, misdirection layered on top.
Quinn's eyes pinched. "Everyone who touched this place before forensics gets photographed again. Everyone who left after the woman's passage is a lead until proven otherwise."
She handed the compass gently to a tech. "Take it to the tent. Photograph every angle. No one else handles it until we've got a full chain."
The tech nodded and wrapped the compass in a fresh evidence bag like it was an animal that might bite. Eva straightened up, the satchel weight settling on her shoulder like a comfortable lie. "Quinn," she said, voice soft, "if this is the same hand as three years ago—"
"Then we'll know how it smells," Quinn interrupted, and the word came cold as brakes . She didn't have to say the rest. They both felt the old case tauten in the margins of their minds.
They moved out of the circle together: one hand on a clipboard, the other on a satchel strap. The market's lights swung slightly as the door on their exit shifted the air. The compass lay in the tent, its needle steady now against a backdrop of white. The chalk's lines glowed faint in the string light.
Quinn kept her back to the scene for a long moment and let the place record itself on her skin. She had officers to instruct, lists to demand, and a trail of small, precise movements to lay down behind them. The compass had begun as a lie in brass.
But brass reflected light. Brass could be filed, soldered, set. Someone had set it to say what they needed the world to hear. Quinn's fingers tightened once, then released. She set her jaw and moved with the motion she had always used when a case shifted from the messy and into the machinic.
"Find me the woman with the token," she repeated as they climbed. "And follow every purchase. No matter how small."