Run: 2026-02-24-01KJ8WEXMMHAT871KF916HNSHF

The abandoned Camden Town Tube station smelled of wet stone, ozone, and something else—burnt cinnamon and cold iron. Detective Harlow Quinn flashed the bone token, a yellowed canine tooth strung on a leather cord, at the two figures guarding the arched entrance. They nodded, their faces shadowed by deep hoods, and parted to let her pass down the crumbling staircase. The Veil Market sprawled across the disused platform and tracks. Stalls constructed from salvaged wood and rusted iron sheets glowed with bioluminescent fungi in glass jars. The air hummed with low conversations in languages she didn’t recognize. Harlow adjusted the strap of her kit bag, her movements precise, her salt-and-pepper hair catching the eerie light. Her worn leather watch felt tight on her wrist. The crime scene was at the far end, near a tiled mural of a London map that had been defaced with glowing chalk sigils. A stall lay in disarray, its canvas awning slashed. A uniformed officer from the Specialist Crime Directorate stood awkwardly next to Eva Kowalski, who was crouched, her nose almost touching the ground. Eva looked up as Harlow approached. She tucked a curl of red hair behind her left ear, her round glasses reflecting the fungal glow. Her worn leather satchel, bulging with books, sat at her feet. “Quinn.” “Kowalski. I didn’t expect to see you here.” “The Museum got a call. They thought I might be… relevant.” Eva stood, brushing dust from her knees. “The victim is a Shade artisan named Kael. He’s been stabilised and taken to a… private clinic. He was found unconscious three hours ago. His primary stock is missing.” Harlow surveyed the stall. Shelves were overturned, but the breakage seemed selective. A display case of delicate crystal vials stood untouched. A rack of dried, unidentifiable herbs was undisturbed. The violence was focused on a single, central workbench. “What was taken?” “According to the market ledger, one item. A Veil Compass.” Eva pulled a small notebook from her satchel. “Brass casing, sigil-etched face, points to supernatural rifts. Highly sought after. Kael finished its enchantment yesterday.” Harlow set her kit down. “Witnesses?” “None. The market was between cycles. Only a few custodians were present. They heard a crash, found Kael on the floor, and the compass gone.” “And no one saw anyone enter or leave his stall?” “The stall has no back entrance. The only way in or out is the front.” Eva gestured to the canvas flaps, now torn. “The custodians swear no one passed them.” Harlow’s sharp jaw tightened. She pulled on nitrile gloves. “Let’s see what we have.” The workbench was a chaos of tools: tiny hammers, engraving needles, pots of strange, metallic paste. A heavy lead-lined box, its lid open and empty, sat centered on the bench. Harlow examined it. No scratches around the lock. It had been opened with a key or combination. “He opened it for the thief?” “Or the thief knew the combination,” Eva said. She was studying the floor, her freckled face creased in concentration. “There’s no sign of a struggle. Kael has defensive wounds on his forearms, but they’re shallow. Like he raised his arms once, then dropped.” Harlow moved to where Kael had been found, marked by a faint outline of powdered resin on the stone flags. She crouched, mirroring Eva’s earlier pose. The stone was cold. No blood. She looked back at the workbench. The distance was about six feet. “He was standing here, at the bench. Someone approaches. He raises his arms in a defensive gesture. Then he falls, unconscious. The thief takes the compass from the box and leaves.” She stood, frowning. “But why didn’t he shout? Why no real fight? And how did the thief get in and out without being seen?” “Maybe they didn’t use the front.” Eva’s voice was quiet. Harlow shot her a look. “There’s no other exit, Kowalski. The walls are solid brick. The ceiling is original station archwork. No vents large enough for a child.” “I didn’t say they used an exit.” Eva pointed to the floor directly behind the workbench. “Look at the dust pattern.” Harlow moved closer. The stone flags were covered in a fine, grey dust. Near the wall, it was undisturbed. But in a rough circle about three feet in diameter directly behind the workbench, the dust was… different. It wasn’t swept away. It seemed muted, less granular, as if it had been subjected to a sudden surge of energy. At the circle’s edge, the dust formed tiny, perfect ridges, like frost heave. “Static discharge?” Harlow murmured. “Or a localized atmospheric pressure change.” Eva knelt and pointed to the wall. “See the brickwork?” Harlow leaned in. The mortar between the bricks, old and crumbling everywhere else, was pristine and smooth within the circle’s boundary. Not newer. It was as if the aging process had reversed in that one spot. “This makes no sense,” Harlow said, but her mind was racing. She thought of Morris, her partner. The way he’d been found in that warehouse, the air crackling, the smell of ozone and burnt cinnamon… She shook her head, a sharp, military gesture. “Evidence. Stick to evidence. The thief knocked Kael out, took the compass. The odd dust could be from a tool, a device.” “A device that locally alters time and decay?” Eva’s green eyes were serious behind her glasses. “Harlow, this is a market that sells ghosts’ tears and werewolf bane. The item stolen isn’t a piece of jewelry. It’s a key. It finds weak spots in reality. Whoever took it didn’t need to use the front door. They could have opened a temporary rift right here, stepped through, grabbed the compass, and stepped back. The physiological effects of a micro-rift could cause loss of consciousness without visible injury.” Harlow stared at the perfect circle on the floor. The evidence on the surface didn’t add up—a violent theft with no perpetrator access. But the evidence beneath the surface, the impossible evidence, was starting to shout. “A rift.” The word felt foreign. “You’re saying someone teleported in and out.” “It’s the simplest explanation that fits all the facts. No witnesses because no one walked in. No forced entry on the box because the thief appeared right beside it. Kael dropped because a rift opening this close would release a wave of disorienting energy. The dust and mortar… they’re residual signatures.” Harlow walked a slow circuit around the stall. Her eyes scanned, not for the obvious, but for the contradiction. The untouched crystal vials. The undisturbed herbs. A thief who bypassed easy valuables for one specific, enchanted item. A thief who knew exactly where that item would be. “He opened the box himself,” Harlow said, stopping. She looked at Eva. “You said the wounds were defensive, but shallow. What if he wasn’t defending against a person? What if he was shielding his eyes from a sudden light or an energy surge? From a rift opening right in front of him.” She pictured it. Kael at his bench, the lead box open. A shimmer in the air. A figure stepping through. Kael throws his arms up, not to block a blow, but against the blinding, nauseating light. He collapses. The figure reaches out, takes the compass from the open box, and steps back into the shimmer. Gone. “It fits,” Eva whispered. “It fits the facts here,” Harlow corrected, her voice tight. “But it doesn’t fit any procedure, any known method. It’s not in the manual.” “The manual wasn’t written for places like this.” Harlow’s gaze fell on her own watch, the worn leather strap a reminder of years of procedure, of chain of evidence, of logical steps. Morris had followed procedure. It hadn’t saved him. She looked at the strange circle on the floor, the silent brick wall. The evidence that didn’t add up was the only evidence that did. “We need to find out who knew the compass was finished yesterday,” Harlow said, her tone all business, but her mind was elsewhere, in a warehouse three years past. “And who has the capability to open a door in thin air.”