Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTYANMADPJ4EMP6D3HA7Z28

Rain slicked the neon, turned the city into a smear of green and sodium-orange. Harlow kept her shoulders down against it, collar raised, leather watch edging wet. The green sign of the Raven's Nest buzzed above the doorway, letters swimming in the rain; a man had slipped out from under it and gone running. Stop. She pushed off the wall and moved. Boots hit puddles with soft, precise rhythms she had drilled into muscle memory. The suspect was already a shape—dark hoodie, fast feet—cutting down a side street that smelled of hot oil and something metallic. He glanced over his shoulder; the hood fell back enough for a flash of hair, a jaw. Not the clique's public face, but someone that knew its angles. You can't run forever. The shout left her without ceremony. He tightened his stride. She kept calling. Not the bland policeman's voice. She sharpened words into questions and accusations and the kind of names that opened doors. Where were you tonight? Who did you meet in there? The man didn't answer. Rain hooded his face. He took a corner too wide and knocked over a stack of milk crates. They exploded into the street like thrown organs. He cut through an alley, then down, steps clattering toward the Tube. Quinn. The voice behind her pulled at her like a hand. She could have waited, radioed for backup, run the risk of him slipping into the crowds. Her watch glinted, a tiny honest circle against her wrist; Morris had talked her into buying it, an afterthought to patch their time together. You remember, she told the rain in a way that sounded like a promise. Morris had fallen because somebody had moved faster, because someone had known things about the dark that she had not yet learned to see. She would not be slow again. He was ahead, stabbing his weight down a filthy set of stairs into the abandoned platform. A spray of cold air hit her face, carrying copper and the deep, old breath of tunnels. Tiles flaked underfoot, paint peeled in strips. Someone had glued flyers to the pillar advertising a band that had stopped playing five years ago. The station signage had been pried down, letters missing like teeth. A yellow line warned about the edge and hope. "Stop!" she called, and it became command. The man dropped to the platform and took off along the tracks, hopping across between sleepers like a trained animal. He moved with a purpose that chewed at her chest—no aimless escape; he was going somewhere specific. Quinn did not follow between the rails. She loved rules in a way that felt like armor; trains had their own lethal certainty. Instead she swung down to the opposite side, boots finding handholds and ledges, breath loud in her ears. Water ticked from the concrete like clockwork. Her leather watch pinned the moment into place. She felt every second as evidence. You shouldn't have seen that door, a voice called from the dark up ahead. It was the man's, closer now, cut with something like amusement. She rounded a concrete pillar and found him at an archway that had been patched with corrugated metal and torn flyers. A hand-lettered sign swung under the metal, stenciled in white on black paper: VEIL MARKET — CLOSES AT MIDNIGHT — ENTRY BY BURIAL TOKEN. Someone had taped over the word "BURIAL" so only "BONE" showed through, the letters crooked like a joke. What did you take? she asked. She let the question land like a weight. He tossed his head and barked a laugh. You had the badge; you had the right to ask. She had the right to answers. He tossed a bone token in the air, letting it catch a lamplight that shouldn't have been there, because unknown things kept lights even where there were no wires. The bone flipped once then dropped into his palm. He held it like an offering. He didn't look frightened. He looked relieved. You going down there? he asked, and his voice made the word an invitation and a dare. Quinn read the smirk packed into it: he expected her to hesitate. She could run back up, radio the station, bring uniforms and policies and the slow bureaucratic logic the world used to keep itself from unraveling. She could hand the chase to someone else, file a report that would collect dust next to Morris's badge. Instead she tightened her grip on the rain-darkened metal rail. Tell me what you saw in there. He bounced the bone in his palm. The marrow had been polished smooth; runes scratched around its curve. She had seen nice things carved from ordinary bone by people who wanted to make pactable bargains. The word "Veil" stuck in her throat like grit. If you wanted to disappear, he'd said once, then he tossed the bone into a rusting slot in the arch. The metal clanged. A notch opened, a seam like the eye of a key flicking. The corridor swallowed the sound. Behind the slot, where public rails died into disuse and pigeons remembered sunlight like a myth, an opening had been cut into the wall. A few steps led down past a curtain pulled across a corridor, sewn from film and shadow. The curtain rippled as if someone had just passed through. Warm air breathed out, smelling of incense and money and wet leather. A low murmur came from inside. Voices layered, trading, bargaining in a language with too many consonants. Someone laughed like a knife. You don't belong there, he said softer, suddenly tired. The bones had that effect; they asked the world to rearrange itself and left their users hollow. She didn't answer for a long beat. The wet of her hair stuck to her skull. The world above roared—tyres, music, the green buzz of the Raven's Nest—but below, in that opened mouth, a different pulse thrummed. Her partner's face slid under the surface of memory: an unlit cigarette tucked into the corner of his cheek, a smirk that had been easy. He had liked the little injustices. He had once said, when the world moved wrong, you either change the world or you leave it. He had chosen wrong and the wrong had chosen back. You think I'm afraid, she said, and it was a lie sharpened into something like truth. She wanted him to hear the lie. He was nowhere to hear it, but the bones listened. He watched her for a long moment. The market's scent pooled from the slit, warm and thick. Somebody beat a small drum inside. You'd better be honest, he said, which read less like a demand than a promise that honesty would not be returned in coins. Harlow slid her hand into her raincoat and found the radio. It was obedient and small, but it had a crack that made the sound fit the place: gritty and immediate. If you go in, you'll cut the case, her voice said into the tiny box after she thumbed it, and the voice on the other end had the soft bureaucratic cadence that lived in briefings. If I don't, he gets away, she answered, and the words were friction and metal. She watched the man's face close like a fist. You could go back and get a warrant, the radio said into her chest, like a hand on her shoulder. Or you could call for backup, wait until there were more of you than them. You couldn't get a warrant for a market that moved every full moon and lived on trade in things that didn't answer to law. She pictured signatures on documents becoming laughter. She pictured Morris on a slab and official hands shrugging themselves small. Quinn's fingers brushed the leather strap of her watch. The second hand ticked with mechanical serenity. She had precise plans for messy things. She measured the distance to the curtain. The bone glinted in the man's hand, an odd and animal thing. The slot had closed behind them with a soft, permanent click. So what do you want to do? the man asked. He sounded almost amused now, the amusement of someone who believed they had given the right answer to a question with only traps. She stared at him. She could feel the weight of procedure pressing behind her, the expectation of patience and caution. She also felt the cold place in her chest left by Morris's absence. Choices lived on that seam. Do what you came to do, she said. There was no softness in the command. He gave a short laugh and stepped aside, making space like an usher. You always did have a good face for trouble, he said. The curtain brushed her skin. It left a softness like a breath, though behind it the air shifted and smelled of resin and wet earth. A light inside was dim and not mechanical; it pulsed the way breathing pulsed. Voices folded into one another: Spanish, something slurred into whispers, laughter that made her teeth ache. A man called a price for an item Harlow could not see. Someone offered a name she recognised, clipped into a coin of gossip. You sure? the man asked again, closer now. He had a sympathy she hadn't expected. Maybe he wanted to watch how she moved in a world he knew. Maybe he wanted to see the law get chewed. I am, she said. The single syllable had the finality of a slide. She stepped through. Darkness gripped her for a breath, the curtain closing soft and thick like a mouth. The corridor narrowed, and then the light shifted—colored wavelengths stitched where the tunnel had once been grey. Stalls revealed themselves, their wares strange and precise: jars packed with folded paper that smelled like old prayers, gloves stitched with hair, a compass that pointed away from north. A vendor turned a skull in his hands like a child with a toy. No one looked up with the civil politeness of normal marketplaces. They looked up with a hunger that measured what you carried and what you owed. You're late, said a voice shaped like copper and smoke. A woman behind a counter lifted her chin and the crowd parted for her. She wore a scarf of many stitches and a laugh that sounded like coinage. She peered at Harlow without surprise. Harlow didn't flatten herself to fit the room. She kept her stance as if the world still agreed that she had the right to be firm. She had no bone token. She had wet hair and a badge folded into her palm like a blade. She had a hunger that had kept her from sleep for three years. Where is he? she asked. Her question moved through the stalls, precise as a blade. A boy at the edge of the market spat something like a warning. Not the words. The motion. Harlow felt the market glance sideways. The woman at the counter clicked a finger and made room as if she were clearing an animal's path. The boy pointed to a shadowed stair at the far end, by a sign nailed to the wall that read CAMDEN. You didn't think the outside would pursue you here, said someone who smelled of diesel and oranges and candles. She walked. Feet felt heavy in the hush. People traded gazes like currency. Some touched her shoulder with questions. No one stopped her. No one traded her a warning that would have deterred her. At the stair, the man who had led her here slid a bone into his pocket with a quiet smile, the token no less ordinary for its runes. He didn't follow her up the last few steps. He stayed where he belonged, at the edge between trade and law. She had decided. She had chosen, with the neat prejudice of someone who kept lists. She had also no illusions. The market had rules; it had teeth. The air at the stair bit like ozone and tobacco. It smelled like the inside of a question. She climbed. Each step echoed against the walls. Her leather watch was damp now, pressed against her wrist like a metronome that called her forward. She felt the market behind her continue its low, hungry business. The curtain sighed closed somewhere further down—the sound of privacy being made. She reached the platform into the market proper and paused, letting the place speak to her. If you leave now, she heard a voice that could have been the radio, could have been the world, could have been the ghost of a partner telling her to be sensible, you hand them a run and you hand yourself an unsolved grave. If you go further, you risk stepping into bargaining that doesn't take your badge for payment, a place that would sooner trade you than confess. You could lose bits of yourself, and there would be no paperwork to claim them back. Harlow rolled her shoulder and flexed the fingers on the hand that rested at her side. The crowd parted an inch as she moved, and that inch was enough. She took one more step forward.