Run: 2026-02-20-01KHY9M29E3THZ5RMM67W4KZV4

Harlow Quinn clutched a weathered bone token in her right hand as she kicked open the rusted metal door of the abandoned Camden Tube station. The damp air hit her first—thick with the ghost of burnt sage and the coppery tang of spilled alchemical fluid—before her flashlight beam carved a narrow path through the darkness. She stood at 5’9”, her Met detective uniform crisp despite the grime clinging to its cuffs, and her closely cropped salt-and-pepper hair caught the faint glow of her light. Her sharp jaw set. She checked her worn leather watch, its strap frayed at the edges from 18 years of fidgeting during stakeouts and crime scene walks. 3:17 a.m. The full moon had dipped below the horizon 12 hours prior; the Veil Market should have cleared every trace of its existence by then. A distant rumble of a passing train above shook the damp tiles, sending a shower of dust from the cracked ceiling onto her shoulder. She brushed it off with a military precision flick of her wrist. Eva Kowalski followed close behind, her curly red hair matted with damp that dripped onto her freckled complexion. She tucked a strand behind her left ear—her nervous habit—before adjusting the strap of her worn leather satchel, its interior bulging with occult texts that thudded against her 5’4” frame with every step. Her round glasses fogged, and she wiped them on her sweater sleeve before glancing at the scattered debris: crushed jars of enchanted thyme, a broken vial oozing neon green fluid that sizzled when it touched a damp tile, and half a dozen bone tokens scattered across the floor—each carved with a tiny, unique sigil marking their owner’s market membership. Harlow’s military precision movements guided her to the body slumped against a chipped platform pillar. The man wore a tattered black cloak, its hem frayed from dragging across the tile, and his fingers curled into a fist at his side. She knelt, her knees creaking faintly, and avoided touching the corpse—coroner’s tape strung between the pillar and a nearby bench marked the perimeter. Her flashlight beam locked on the object peeking from the man’s fist: a small brass compass, its casing coated in a patina of verdigris, its face etched with intricate protective sigils that twisted in the light. She recognized it immediately from the occult case files Eva had shared with her after DS Morris’s death—files that tied the Veil Market to a string of unexplained fatalities across London. Sharp jaw tight, flashlight wandering to the man’s unmarked neck. The coroner’s initial report, faxed to her that morning, had flagged no trauma, no poison, no underlying health conditions that could explain his sudden death. Coroner’s report flagged no cause of death. Market cleared at midnight. His watch—stopped at 2:00 a.m. Eva tucked hair again, pulling a thick ancient history text from her satchel. The book’s spine was faded, its pages crinkled from years of being hauled between the British Museum’s restricted archives and her London flat. She tapped a page marked with a pressed clover, where a matching sigil stared up at them—its lines identical to the ones on the compass. That compass is a Veil Market exclusive. Shade artisans craft them to point to supernatural rifts. The sigils shield the user from the rift’s raw energy; without them, the energy incinerates the user from the inside out. Harlow stood, her military stance rigid, fingers brushing the face of her own watch. She’d found Morris’s body in a similar state three years prior—slumped against a warehouse wall, no cause of death, his watch stopped at 2:00 a.m., a faint sigil etched into his wrist that the coroner had dismissed as a random scratch. She’d spent months chasing dead ends, dismissing the supernatural angle until Eva had presented her with irrefutable evidence from the museum’s archives. Morris’s watch stopped at 2:00 a.m. too. His wrist had a scratch that matched that sigil. Eva’s freckled face creased into a frown, and she set the book down on a nearby bench—its surface sticky with spilled alchemical fluid. She knelt, her glasses slipping down her nose as she leaned in to study the compass. She didn’t touch it—she knew better than to handle enchanted goods without the proper protective gloves, a lesson she’d learned after a faulty alchemical vial burned her palm during a research trip to Oxford. Market rules say stragglers get marked with a branding iron sigil. This man has no mark. Someone wanted him left behind, to be found by the police—someone who knew we’d tie it to Morris’s case. Harlow leaned in, her flashlight beam narrowing on the compass’s sigil until the lines blurred. She spotted it then—a faint scratch cutting through one of the central sigils, its edges filled with a thin layer of dried black fluid that glinted faintly in the light. She’d missed it on her first pass, her mind clouded by the memory of Morris’s cold hand in hers as she’d knelt beside his body. Scratch on the sigil. Dried black fluid. Tampered with. Eva’s eyes widened behind her round glasses, and she tucks hair again—faster this time, a sign of her growing unease. She grabbed her book, flipping to a page with a diagram of banned alchemical fluids, each marked with a warning symbol. That black fluid is banished from the market. It’s made from crushed shadow moss and rift residue—breaks sigil protection in seconds. He didn’t know the compass was altered; he thought it was a legitimate trade. Harlow’s sharp jaw tightened further, and she stepped back, her boots crunching on a crushed alchemical vial that oozed neon green fluid. She glanced at the scattered bone tokens, and her flashlight beam caught one tucked inside the man’s cloak tear—its sigil different from the others, carved with a tiny raven that matched the vendor description Eva had shared with her months prior. Bone token in his cloak tear. Raven sigil. That’s the sabotage vendor you told me about. Eva tucked hair again, her satchel slipping off her shoulder as she leaned in to study the token. She caught the satchel, her fingers fumbling with the strap, and flipped to another page in her book—this one filled with handwritten notes about the raven-sigil vendor, a man named Kael who’d been exiled from the market for selling altered enchanted goods to unsuspecting customers. Kael. He sells altered compasses to tourists and novice occultists. He’s wanted by the market’s enforcers for breaking trade rules; they’ll kill him if they find him. Harlow’s flashlight beam wandered to the door, where the faint glow of dawn began to seep through the cracks. She checked her worn leather watch again—3:45 a.m. The sun would rise in 15 minutes, and the uniformed Met officers she’d delayed would arrive soon. She’d called in a favor from a fellow detective to hold them back, but she didn’t know how long the favor would last. We need to find Kael. He’s the link between this death and Morris’s. Eva pulled a small notebook from her satchel, her freckled fingers scribbling furiously. She wrote down Kael’s description—tall, bald, with a scar across his left cheek, always wearing a raven-feather cloak—and tore the page out, handing it to Harlow. He moves with the market. Next location is unknown, but the Veil Compass—if we fix its sigils—can point us to his current hideout. Harlow took the page, her fingers brushing Eva’s. She glanced at the man’s body, then at the Veil Compass in his fist. She’d spent three years in the dark, chasing the ghost of Morris’s death, but now she had a tangible lead—a compass that could guide her to the man responsible. Fix the sigils. I’ll get a team to secure the compass and the bone token as evidence. Eva tucks hair again, her eyes narrowing as she studied the compass. She pulled a small vial of clear fluid from her satchel—she’d brought it from the museum’s archives, a substance made from pressed moonflower petals that could repair broken sigils without damaging the artifact. She held it up, the fluid glinting in Harlow’s flashlight beam. I need a clean cloth. And a steady hand—one wrong move and the sigils break entirely. Harlow stepped to the bench, grabbing a discarded cotton cloth from a pile of market remnants—its surface free of alchemical residue, a rare find in the cluttered station. She handed it to Eva, her military precision ensuring her fingers didn’t shake. She watched as Eva unscrewed the vial’s cap, the faint smell of jasmine wafting through the air and cutting through the coppery tang of spilled fluid. Hurry. The sun will rise in 10 minutes. The uniforms will be here soon; they’ll dismiss this as a hoax and seal the station. Eva nodded, her freckled face set with determination. She dipped the cloth into the fluid, her fingers steady despite her earlier unease, and leaned in to dab the fluid onto the scratch. The black fluid dissolved instantly, and the sigil’s edges began to glow faintly—a soft gold light that hummed in the quiet station. It’s working. The sigil’s repairing itself. The compass’s needle will start spinning once the sigils are whole. Harlow checked her worn leather watch again—3:50 a.m. The sun was almost up, and she could hear the faint wail of a police siren in the distance. She stepped to the door, her flashlight beam scanning the darkness for any sign of uniformed officers. Uniforms will be here in five minutes. Wrap it up. Eva finished dabbing the fluid, her fingers pulling back as the sigil’s glow faded to a faint hum. She stood, her satchel thudding against her leg, and nodded at Harlow. The Veil Compass now sat in the man’s fist, its sigils intact, its needle beginning to spin slowly—twisting in circles before locking onto a direction: north, toward the Camden Lock. Compass is fixed. Its needle’s locked north. It’ll point us to Kael once we calibrate it with a rift sample. Harlow’s sharp jaw softened for a split second—a rare show of vulnerability tied to the hope that she’d finally get answers about Morris’s death. She grabbed the coroner’s tape, tearing a strip off to secure the compass to the man’s hand, ensuring it wouldn’t be damaged when the coroner’s team arrived. She needed to bring it with her, to have Eva calibrate it once they were safe from the uniformed officers. Grab your books. We’re leaving before the uniforms see us. Eva stuffed her book and notebook back into her satchel, her fingers fumbling with the strap as she hurried toward the door. She glanced at the body one last time, her freckled face creased with sympathy—she’d seen too many victims of the Veil Market’s criminal underbelly during her time at the museum. I’ve got a rift sample in my flat. We can calibrate the compass there. Harlow clutched the bone token she’d picked up earlier, its surface warm against her palm. She stepped through the door, her flashlight beam cutting through the fading darkness, and glanced back at the abandoned Tube station—at the body, the compass, the scattered bone tokens. She knew this was just the beginning, that Kael was only a pawn in a larger game, but for the first time in three years, she had a clear path forward. Lead the way.