Run: 2026-02-20-01KHYAGAD2RY410GY6FG5J3PFP

Harlow’s boot crunched broken tile as she stepped into the abandoned Camden Tube station. The bone token in her right pocket pressed a sharp ridge against her thigh—she’d seized it from a Veil Market peddler six months prior, a loophole to bypass the entry lock he’d bragged about while she cuffed him to a rusted ticket barrier. Her closely cropped salt-and-pepper hair caught the draft from a rusted ventilation shaft; she didn’t flinch, her military precision dictating every micro-movement, every steady breath. Her sharp jaw tightened at the scent of damp moss and burnt wax, a stench unique to the hidden market’s transient lairs—one she’d tracked across three London boroughs in the past year, ever since a tip linked the Veil Market to her partner’s unsolved death. Her worn leather watch glinted under her flashlight beam, its hands ticking in military sync with her steps toward the crime scene tape strung between an old wooden bench and a dented signal post. The tape’s red lettering bled into the damp darkness, but Harlow’s eyes locked on it before her flashlight did—18 years of decorated service had honed her peripheral vision to catch the smallest inconsistencies. She ducked under the tape, her 5’9” frame bending just enough to clear the plastic without brushing it, her boots avoiding the chalk outline’s faded edges. The body belonged to a Shade artisan—she’d spotted the faint iridescent streak in his wrist vein during the initial sweep, a marker no human carried, one she’d only read about in a sealed file from the Met’s occult division (a file she’d stolen after Morris’s death). Forensics had tagged the death natural causes an hour prior, a lazy call based on the lack of visible wounds, but Harlow’s eyes locked on two inconsistencies no lab tech had bothered to note: the sigils carved deep into the granite pillar behind the body, their lines twisted into a pattern she’d never seen, and the small brass object half-buried in the dirt at his feet, its casing dotted with a greenish verdigris patina. A curly red head popped up from beside the brass object. Eva tucked a strand of hair behind her left ear, her round glasses slipping down her freckled nose as she leaned back on her heels, her worn leather satchel—bulging with ancient history tomes from the British Museum’s restricted archives—spilling a tattered copy of *Enchanted Sigils of the Shade* onto the tile. She kicked the book under the bench without looking, a nervous fumble that betrayed her usual academic poise, and wiped her hands on her jeans. The brass object is a Veil Compass. Harlow’s flashlight beam sliced to the object, its light catching the protective sigils etched into its face—sigils she’d seen in that stolen occult file, marked as tools used to track supernatural rifts. She knelt, her movements deliberate, and tilted the compass with her index finger. The needle spun wildly for three beats, then jerked toward the ventilation shaft, its ticking matching the rhythm of her leather watch. Forensics missed the sigils. They didn’t check the pillar beyond the body. Eva pushed her glasses back into place, her green eyes narrowing at the pillar, and pulled the tattered book from under the bench, flipping to a marked page. The carvings aren’t protective. They’re binding. Shade artisans use protective sigils on their compasses, but these pillar sigils are meant to trap a rift’s energy, not direct it. Harlow stood, her sharp jaw set, and crossed her arms. Natural causes my ass. The artisan’s fingers are curled around the compass’s casing. He was holding it when he died. His knuckles are white—he was fighting something. Eva ran a finger over the book’s marked page, her voice tight with the weight of her Oxford master’s in ancient history. The compass’s sigils were supposed to shield him from the rift’s pull. But someone tampered with the pillar sigils. They reversed the binding, turning the rift’s energy inward instead of outward. Harlow’s leather watch ticked louder in her ears, the sound echoing through the empty Tube station. Three years prior, her partner DS Morris had been found slumped against a brick wall in a similar abandoned spot—no wounds, no cause of death, forensics calling it a heart attack. She’d spent every waking hour since digging into the case, uncovering a trail of unsolved deaths linked to the Veil Market, but she’d never connected the sigils until now. She pulled a crumpled photo of Morris from her pocket—his grinning face staring up at her, his arm slung over her shoulder after they’d closed a drug bust—and tucked it back, her movements precise. You’re saying the rift redirected its energy into him? Eva tucked another strand of hair behind her left ear, flipping to another marked page with photos of twisted sigils. The rift’s energy is toxic to Shades. It doesn’t leave wounds, but it burns out their internal energy in seconds. Forensics can’t detect it—they don’t have the tools to test for supernatural trauma. Harlow leaned against the pillar, her 5’9” frame casting a long shadow over the body, and stared at the sigils. She’d seen a faint echo of those lines on the brick wall where Morris had died, a pattern she’d dismissed as graffiti at the time, a mistake born of grief and frustration. She’d stolen the occult file hoping to find answers, but she’d been too blinded by her anger to notice the sigils’ connection. I saw these same twisted lines on Morris’s crime scene wall. I thought they were spray paint. Eva’s green eyes widened, and she pulled a stack of photocopies from her satchel—photos of Morris’s crime scene, marked with red circles around the faint sigils. I cross-referenced the sigils last night. They’re from a banned alchemical text sold only in the Veil Market. The British Museum’s restricted archives have three more cases with identical sigils, all unsolved, all marked natural causes. Harlow’s leather watch ticked as she processed the information, her military training kicking in to organize the chaos of her thoughts. Forensics had written off the artisan’s death as a heart attack, but the sigils and compass proved otherwise. Eva’s interpretation had unlocked a door she’d been kicking at for three years, linking Morris’s death to the Veil Market’s criminal clique. She reached into her pocket, pulling out the stolen occult file—its pages crumpled from being carried in her coat for months—and flipped to a marked section. The file says Shade artisans sell their compasses only to trusted Veil Market vendors. If someone’s tampering with the sigils, they’re either part of the clique or working for them. Eva tucked her hair again, her satchel shifting as she pulled another book from its depths—*Banned Alchemical Substances of the Veil Market*—and flipped to a list of vendors. I have a list of Veil Market vendors who sell the banned text that teaches these binding sigils. They move with the market every full moon, just like the rifts the compasses track. Harlow leaned over Eva’s shoulder, her flashlight beam catching the list of vendors, their names scribbled in Eva’s neat handwriting, next to photos of their bone tokens. She recognized one name—Kael, the peddler she’d seized her bone token from six months prior. He’d bragged about selling “modified tools” to a clique that paid top dollar. Kael’s on the list. He told me he was working for a clique that wanted to “rearrange” the rifts. I thought he was lying. Eva’s round glasses slipped again, and she wiped her nose with her sleeve. He wasn’t lying. The clique’s been altering Veil Compasses and binding sigils to trigger rift explosions. They’re using the Veil Market’s transient locations to avoid detection. Harlow’s flashlight beam sliced through the dark, toward the ventilation shaft where the compass’s needle pointed, the rift’s hidden energy thrumming just out of sight. She’d missed the sigils once before, with Morris, but now she saw the missing link—the clique was using the Veil Market’s tools to create unsolved deaths, covering their tracks with forensics’ lazy natural causes calls. She turned to Eva, her sharp jaw tightening with resolve. We need to track Kael. He’ll lead us to the clique. Eva’s freckled cheeks flushed, and she tucked her hair again, pulling a map of the Veil Market’s past locations from her satchel. The market moves to a new abandoned Tube station next full moon. Kael will be there. I can get us entry with a spare bone token from the archives—one linked to a trusted vendor who owes me a favor. Harlow took the map, her fingers brushing Eva’s, and folded it neatly. She’d spent 18 years chasing loose ends, but now she had a trail—a compass, a list of vendors, a clique linked to Morris’s death. Forensics had missed the evidence, but she’d seen it, thanks to Eva’s occult expertise. She tucked the map into her coat pocket, her movements precise, and turned toward the ventilation shaft, her flashlight beam cutting through the damp darkness to catch the twisted sigils on the pillar once more.