AI The compass didn't point north.
Harlow crouched, palm poised over the brass casing as if she could steady the needle with a thought. Her left wrist, the worn leather watch catching a spill of fluorescent light, kept the rhythm of seconds like a metronome. The market's noise — murmured Cantonese, a tinny accordion, the distant drip of something metallic — folded around her but did not intrude. She listened to the quiet the body had left behind.
"Looks like a dealer, doesn't it?" Davies said, stepping close enough that his breath fogged the compass face. He always stepped close. Too close for comfort, the way some people place confidence in proximity.
"No," Harlow said. "Not a dealer."
"You sure? Guy's got vendor tags, stalls overturned, pockets full of—"
A tremor of copper stung her nostrils. Blood, fresh but faint, like someone had dabbed a cloth then walked away. Harlow's fingers brushed the dead man's throat. Skin cold, pulseless. No cut. No clotted wound. The skin bore a shallow spiral, a line of pale raised scar tissue, as if someone had sewn a wound with sunlight.
"Cause of death?" Davies asked.
"Unknown," she said. "And I want that compass secured. It belongs in exhibits, not evidence." She pinched the edge where verdigris bloomed like mould. The face was etched with sigils that read better to a craftsman than to a copper. The needle shivered, then lay taut, pointing not at the platform's dark curve but toward the service tunnel , where tiles had been cleaned recently, grout bright and dry.
Eva pushed past a table of scattered trinkets, satchel thumping her hip, fingers already tucking hair behind her left ear. She wore round glasses that caught the station fluorescents and split them into a constellation across her face. She crouched opposite Harlow, knees close, voice too quick with excitement to be comforting .
"This is bad," she said. "These sigils are protective. Whoever owned the compass intended to find, not to be found."
"Find what?" Davies folded his arms, boots scuffing dust.
"Rifts. Portals. The compass points toward them," Eva said. "It's a Veil Compass. Old market piece, crafted by a Shade artisan. See the patina? Verdigris on brass, not fake."
"Shade artisan?" Davies snorted. "Sounds like a perfume brand."
"Not a joke," Eva said. "Shades are artisans from—" She swallowed, face tightening . "They're not exactly listed on business registries."
Harlow inhaled. The odour beneath the copper, beneath the stale smoke and old meat, slid cold along her spine: ozone, like before a thunderstorm. She had smelled it the night DS Morris died. She had felt it in the car as they drove back to the station, arguing about footprints that led nowhere. She had woken with the sound of water dripping from a shut tap. The memory lodged like a pebble.
"Where's the bone token?" she asked.
Davies flicked through a vendor ledger. "No record. Token shelf's empty." He nodded toward a makeshift stall where fragments of bone lay wired into chains, each tag numbered. "Either the token's been sold off, or someone's been clever."
"Bone tokens are entry keys," Eva said. "The Veil Market only opens to those who can produce them. You can't just walk in."
"Unless you walk in from the other side," Harlow said.
Davies glanced at her. "You mean like through a backdoor?"
"Rift," she said. "Someone opened one."
"Or someone smashed in." Davies craned his neck at the torn tarp that served as the market's outer wall. "There are signs of forced entry. Scrapes, a burst seam. Pretty classic."
Harlow looked past them, at the rows of stalls — jars of quicksilver, a rack of old keys that glittered too cleanly, a heap of rag dolls with pins stuck through their faces, and the body at their feet. The man's eyes were open, pupils widened to black like holes in paper. He wore a vendor's badge threaded on a leather thong, but the badge was blank, the name sanded off. His pockets bulged with notes folded into origami shapes, each spine sealed with wax.
She lifted one open with gloved fingers. A scrap of paper, hurried script, an address in a part of Camden that no longer existed on maps. A time. A name.
"Meet me under the arch," she read aloud . "Two a.m. Bring token."
"Someone set a meeting," Davies said. "Deal went sideways."
"Or they were bait," Eva said. Her fidgeting hands found Harlow's watch , fingers grazing the strap like a child finding an old toy. "The sigils around his wrists are protective runes, but badly done. Like someone copied from a book without understanding the grammar."
"Amateur ritualist," Davies supplied, with a smile that did not reach his eyes. "We bag a wannabe occultist, close the book, tick another one off."
Harlow's gaze moved to the platform tiles. Someone had ground a pattern into them, a shallow groove the colour of ash. The groove began at the arch under which the meeting had been scheduled and sank toward the service tunnel. Near the far wall, tiles looked different, older, not part of the station's mosaic . They hummed under her palm like the skin over a glass bowl.
"Step back," she told the cordon of officers. "All of you. Keep the market perimeter. No one past the blue line."
"Why?" Davies snapped. "You're the one who says they're amateurs. Don't want us to ruin the scene."
"Because amateurs make mistakes," she said. "And professionals exploit them."
Two uniforms obeyed, backing away with the kind of reluctance that came from being hungry for closure. Eva remained, chin clenched, fingers worrying a lock of her red curls.
"You remember Morris?" Harlow asked, not looking at her .
Eva's mouth thinned. "I read his file."
"Do you remember what the tile looked like at the old docks?" Harlow said. "The grout pattern. Not like this station. Pattern moves."
"That was different," Eva said. "Sanskrit circles."
"Different language, same throat," Harlow said. "Morris's diary mentioned rifts like doors wired to noise. He used the phrase 'folds of place.' He found one in a bus depot, right behind a broom cupboard. He wrote, 'It doesn't want me to look.'"
Davies frowned. "You're speculating."
She met his gaze and didn't flinch. "Find me the broom cupboard then. Check CCTV, check Seventeenth Avenue cameras. Someone pulled something out of here. Call forensics to run the tile for residues. And bag that compass. Carefully."
He moved to comply, then stopped, eyebrows climbing. "You're asking us to believe a compass tells the truth."
"It points," she corrected. "It points to the nearest rupture, or it tries. The sigils keep it honest. Whoever had it tonight knew where a rift lay. That's why they had it. That's why he died."
"Maybe he used it to open a rent and fell through," Davies said. "Accident."
"You said he was a dealer," Eva said. "Dealers don't 'fall through.' They disappear when they want to disappear."
"Who sold it to him?" Davies asked. "Who set the meeting?"
Harlow stood. Her boots crunched on something small and glassy. A vial had split, its contents dark and oily along the platform. She smelled it, a metallic tang that made the back of her throat clench. She dipped a gloved finger into the sheen. It warmed undesirably under her touch, like a living thing.
"Acid?" Davies offered.
"No," Eva murmured. "Not acid. Ether, but wrong. Mixed with something living. See these motes? Not dust. Ash from bone, but arranged. A recipe for binding."
"You think this was planned, then," Davies said, and his voice dropped an octave. "Not an invite gone wrong."
"I think someone wanted this body where it would be seen," Harlow said. "Someone wanted us to believe the market did it. They wanted our attention on the wrong thing."
"Why?" Davies asked.
"Because the real doorway is in the tiles." She knelt, traced the groove with a fingertip. "The compass pointed here but not to the outside. It points inward. Something under the station wants a list of names, or bartered goods, something that lives on being traded. If we look at the vendor list, who sold guaranteed entry, who had access to artisans like Shades, we'll find a pattern. Someone with market clout."
"Like a ring leader," Davies said.
"Like a clique," Eva said. "They run the booths. They pick who sees the north hall."
"Then start with vendors who knew the compass maker," Harlow said. "Track sales, trace the bone tokens distribution. One of those tokens must be missing." She straightened and felt the weight of the watch on her wrist, a ballast against the uncanny . "Also contact the Market Liaison. If they silence you, lie. If they react, run."
"That's dramatic," Davies said.
"Needed," she replied. "And get a tile sample, now. Seal the platform."
For a moment the station's noise paused, a held breath. Then a scuffing sound, slow and measured , came from the service tunnel. The compass needle twitched, the etched sigils catching the light with a flash. It pivoted, aligned , pointed not toward the tunnel but to Harlow's left, toward where her colleagues stood behind the cordon. The needle quivered like a bird hearing thunder.
"Did you feel that?" Eva whispered.
"Probably a subway train," Davies said. "Or pigeons. Pigeons with agendas."
The scuffing became a scrape, then a soft, impossible voice like water over stone. Nobody moved. Then the tile nearest Harlow gave a small, patient sigh and slid inward as if answering an unseen hand .
A thin seam opened between the platform and the darkness beyond. From it arose a sound like paper burning softly . The market had smelled ozone earlier; now it smelled like rain on iron and something old waking. A cold draft licked Harlow's wrist, and the hairs at the back of her neck prickled.
"Move back!" she ordered, but her voice scratched thin . The seam widened, revealing a depth that played tricks on the eye, a blackness that did not absorb light so much as rearrange it. The compass needle snapped, spun and then stabbed the air, pointing at Harlow with an insistence that felt personal.
Someone grabbed at the tile edge. A hand, not entirely human, pale and scaled with dust like old vellum, pushed up. It closed on the brass compass between Harlow and the seam. Fingers curled around the casing, and the needle hummed. The hand flexed, as if testing weight . The wrist bore the same spiral scar as the dead man's.
"Shit," Davies said, and his voice was a paper shred . He lunged forward.
Harlow's shoulder slammed into him before she could think. Training took over; she shoved him back with a force that sent him stumbling, saved him from whatever was reaching. The hand slipped, the compass tilted, and a low keening slid from within the seam, like a throat clearing across centuries.
Eva screamed once, a sharp note cut off by a hand clamped across her mouth. The world contracted to the scrape of tiles, the metallic cry of the compass, and the wet sound of something pulling itself through a gap not meant to be crossed lightly . Harlow reached, fingers skimming the brass. The surface was warm, the sigils thrummed against her skin, and a sensation like static crawled up her arm.
"Bag it!" she barked.
An officer half-threw himself forward, plastic evidence bag open, fingers fumbling. The hand closed again, this time on empty air. The compass slid out like a fish escaping a net, landed on the tiles, and rolled to Harlow's boot. The needle stood dead center, pointing inward.
From inside the seam came a voice that was many voices stacked, and it spoke a name, clear as a bell, something Harlow had not heard aloud in three years. She knew immediately it was a test, a lure, a memory bait.
"Harlow Quinn," the seam said.
She had not answered, when the seam exhaled and the darkness breathed closer, smelling of ledger dust and the far-off attic of the Veil Market. The officers around her froze, the tape between them fluttering. Someone cursed, low, and the sound snapped the spell into motion.
The tile clapped down with a sound like a book closing. Blackness retreated, leaving a smear of rainwater and a faint outline like the shadow of a footprint. The compass lay at Harlow's boot, its needle still quivering, and the air tasted of bone dust and copper.
"This is above my pay grade," Davies said.
"No," Harlow said, not sure if she addressed him, the market, or herself . "This is a crime scene."
The compass twitched once more, then stilled, pointing toward the stairwell, toward a corridor that the station planners had promised no longer existed. Through the chaos of uniforms and the flutter of paper tags, a small, plain card caught Harlow's eye where the dead man's hand had clutched it. On it, in cramped ink, was a single word.
Welcome.