AI Harlow Quinn’s boots clanged on the rusted metal of the Tube platform, each step a staccato beat she’d learned to trust. The cold seeped through the soles, sharp as a blade, even in July. Camden’s hum—rumble of traffic, laughter from pubs, the distant rattle of a bus—faded the deeper she went, swallowed by the tunnel like a breath. She’d seen the call five minutes ago: *unexplained death, Veil Market *. Her gut had twisted. Not *unexplained *. *Wrong *.
The platform was dark, save for a sliver of moonlight slanting through a cracked grate high above. Graffiti scrawled in neon green covered the walls—*CAUTION THE VEIL LURKS HERE *—but the letters were peeling , as if the market’s denizens had scrubbed them clean. She pulled her blazer tighter, the fabric scratchy against her skin. 18 years, and she still didn’t like the dark.
“Quinn.”
She turned. Uniform with a coffee stain on the shoulder stood at the far end of the platform, flashlight beam bobbing. “Detective. You’re earlier than I thought.”
“Can’t sleep. Old habit.” Harlow reached for her badge, the metal warm from her pocket. “What’ve we got?”
The uniform shifted, uncomfortable. “Body’s down here. No ID in his pockets. Just… *nothing *. Not a phone, not a wallet. Clean as a whistle.”
“Clean as a whistle” in a place like this was a red flag. Harlow knelt, the concrete floor crumbling under her knees. The body was a man—late 30s, maybe—lean, with inked tattoos coiling up his neck. His eyes were open, wide, whites clouded over like milk. His tongue jutted from his mouth, blue-tinged at the edges.
“Gonna need your glasses, Kowalski,” the uniform said, and Harlow looked up.
Eva was in her usual getup: a faded Oxford tee, a corduroy jacket too big for her, round glasses sliding down her nose. Her curly red hair stuck up in tufts, a result of tucking it behind her left ear—nervous habit, the one that meant she was about to say something she knew would rattle people. She carried her satchel, the leather frayed at the edges, and when she saw Harlow, her shoulders tensed. “You shouldn’t be here,” she said, setting the satchel down.
“Shouldn’t?” Harlow nodded at the body. “This is what you called about?”
Eva’s fingers brushed the satchel strap. “I—someone sent me a photo. Said it was the market. I didn’t know it was *him *.”
“Who’s him ?”
Eva knelt, her sneakers scuffing the dirt. “Jesse Voss. He ran tours. The ones that *pretend * to be real. Showed people ‘haunted’ spots—old pubs, closed hospitals. But he was also… *connected *. Knew too much about the Veil. Too much, and not the kind that’s safe.” She leaned closer, voice dropping . “See this?” She pointed to the man’s throat. A ring of bruises, purple and black, coiled like a snake. “Not a hand. The Veil doesn’t bruise like that. It *marks *.”
Harlow frowned. “Marks?”
Eva pulled a magnifying glass from her satchel—old, brass, with a cracked lens—and held it up. “Look at the skin. The bruises aren’t raised. They’re… *etched *. Like the ink was burned into him .” She tapped the man’s chest . “And this.” A dark, circular mark, the size of a palm, centered on his sternum. The edges were ragged, as if something had torn away a piece of him . “That’s a fade. A Shade sign. They use it to keep the dead from crossing. So the body stays.”
“Shades,” Harlow said, bitter . Three years ago, DS Morris had walked into a warehouse “crime scene” and never walked out. The files said “suicide,” but the coroner’s report had a line—*unexplained tissue degradation*—that no one had ever followed up. Harlow had kept the case open.
Eva flinched. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
“I believe you’ve got a master’s in Ancient History from Oxford and work in the British Museum’s restricted archives. Not everyone’s a fool.” Harlow stood, dusting off her knees. “What kills with a Shade fade, then?”
“Something that wanted him *silent *. Real silent .” Eva leaned in, her breath warm against Harlow’s ear . “And something that’s *new *. Shades don’t use fades for years. Not unless they’re scared.”
Harlow stepped back. “Why’d you send me the photo?”
Eva grabbed her satchel, the zip stuck. “I don’t know. Maybe because you’re the only cop who doesn’t laugh when I talk about the Veil. Maybe because… I’m scared.” She looked up, her green eyes wide behind the glasses. “I saw Jesse last week. He was at the market. Said he had something to show me. Something ‘game-changing.’ That was the last time I heard from him .”
Harlow’s hand went to her watch —the worn leather band, frayed at the edges, Morris’s. She’d started wearing it after he died. “The entry requirement’s a bone token,” she said. “You think he had one?”
Eva nodded. “Jesse had connections. If he needed to get in, he’d have one. But… look at the body.” She pressed a piece of paper into Harlow’s hand. It was a sketch, done in pencil, of a man with a bone token in his palm. The token was carved with runes, familiar from Morris’s case files. “He had that.”
Harlow tucked the sketch away. “Where’s the real thing?”
Eva bit her lip. “I don’t know. But I think… I think he didn’t get to use it.” She pointed to the man’s pocket. Harlow knelt, pulled it open. The fabric was torn , as if something had clawed its way out. Nothing inside.
“Quinn?”
She stood, her head spinning. The air felt different—thick, like static. Her throat tightened. *Morris’s warehouse had felt like this.* “What is it?”
Eva followed her gaze, her face paler. “The compass.”
Harlow fumbled for the leather case in her pocket. The Veil Compass—Morris had found it, buried in the wreckage of the warehouse. It had hummed then, too, like it was alive. She pulled it out, and the needle began to spin, faster and faster, pointing not at the platform, but at the wall behind them .
“The wall,” Harlow said.
Eva nodded. “The market’s entrance is always a rift. They hide it, but the compass—” She stopped, the word raw in her mouth.
Harlow approached the wall, her boots slipping on a puddle of water. The concrete was wet, glistening , as if someone had poured a bucket of oil. She pressed her palm to it. The wall rippled, like heat above a fire, and a gap opened—black, bottomless, with tendrils of light snaking through.
“Jesse was transporting something,” Eva said, her voice small . “Through the rift. The Shades didn’t want him to, so they took him .”
Harlow stared into the rift. She thought she saw faces—Morris’s, laughing, then screaming. A voice, low and guttural, whispering *you’re next *. She closed her eyes, took a breath. When she opened them, the compass stopped spinning, pointing directly at the gap.
“Whatever he was moving,” she said, “it’s gone. But the rift’s still open. For now.”
Eva sat on the edge of the platform, her glasses askew. “You gonna tell them? The brass? That the Veil’s real? That people die because of it?”
Harlow thought of Morris, of the way the files had been labeled “closed” the next day, of the silence that had settled over the station. “Not yet,” she said. “First, we find the item. Then, we close the rift. And then…” She didn’t finish. She didn’t need to.
Eva stood, slinging her satchel over her shoulder. “I’ll help. I know the market. I can—”
Harlow put a hand on her arm. “You stay here. For now. If you go in, you’ll be seen. And the Shades won’t care if you’re an archivist. They’ll take you, too.”
Eva nodded, her lip quivering. “Be careful, Harlow. Please.”
Harlow pulled out her phone, dialing. “Uniform, I need backup. And send for a forensics team—photo package, latent prints, check the rift. It’s active.” She hung up, watching the wall ripple as the compass continued to pulse .
Her watch beeped—7:17. Morris had died at 7:19, she’d noted in her journal. Coincidence? Maybe. But Harlow wasn’t a gambler. She wasn’t going to wait another three years to find out.
She reached into her pocket, pulled out the sketch of the bone token, and stared at it. The runes glowed, faintly, in the dark.
*Game-changing *, Jesse had called it.
Harlow smiled, cold and sharp.
Let it be.