The radio crackled. “—unauthorised fluctuations near the river. High-priority codes.”
It fit the grim rhythm of the last few months. Calysteri had been quietly vanishing from the city’s edges—mostly the vulnerable, the drifters, the lonely souls who wouldn’t generate a missing persons report until weeks after they were gone. In a city like Ravenholt, people slipped through the cracks every day, but this felt different. For a long time there had been nothing but silence; now, the bodies were finally starting todrop.
Dane’s grip tightened on the wheel. “ACD channels are buzzing. High-priority means Highspire District is watching.”
My stomach turned over. The Arcane Compliance Division. Suits. Bureaucrats. If they were involved, this wasn’t just a body dump.
“They’ve been sniffing around since the third victim,” I said, watching the mist cling to the cranes like wet wool. “If they’re escalating to high-priority codes…”
“Then they’re done observing,” Dane finished grimly. “If Morrow is there, Selene, let me handle it. I’m not in the mood for his condescension.”
“I make no promises.”
Blue lights flashed ahead—a cluster of patrol cars strobing against the warehouse walls. Mira’s forensics van was already parked at a skewed angle near the entrance. Dane killed the engine, and the quiet rushed in, heavy and waiting.
“Ready?” he asked.
I touched the badge at my belt, forcing the exhaustion down, locking it away behind the job.
“Not even slightly.”
Dane smirked. “Good. Keeps you sharp.”
We steppedout into the damp chill. The air tasted of rust and river water, thick enough to coat the back of my throat. I braced myself for the usual psychic noise of a murder scene—the abrasive spikes of panic and morbid curiosity that usually pushed my migraines to an eight. Instead, I found an airless quiet. A uniformed officer lifted the cordon tape without looking twice, nodding at Dane before catching my eye with a deferential tip of his chin.
Inside, the warehouse yawned open like a mouth. High ceilings were lost to shadow, while fluorescent work lights blazed in harshpools across the concrete floor. The smell hit immediately—mildew, diesel, and the copper tang of death.
Mira was crouched near the centre of the space, auburn hair tied back, her slim frame bent neatly over something I couldn’t quite see. She straightened at the sound of our footsteps, brushing dust off her trousers. There was a steadiness to her posture that betrayed her Calysteri heritage. While the rest of us were rattling apart, she remained a living emotional anchor, instinctively dampening the tension filling the cold air.
“Morning,” she said, voice clipped.
“Mira.” Dane’s tone was neutral, but I caught the fraction of a pause before he said her name, his guard shifting a hair lower in a subtle surrender of tension. They were doing that thing again—cautious politeness draped over whatever unresolved mess sat between them.
I pretended not to notice. I had my own problems. As we walked deeper into the warehouse, the sensation in the flesh changed; the dull ache intensified into a low-grade burn, like holding a hand too close to a radiator. Distinct. Localised.
Mira’s gaze flicked between us, bright green eyes alert despite the hour. “Right. So.” She gestured to the far corner, where a sheet lay over a shape too small, too still. “Female. Twenty-four years old. Calysteri. Pure-blood.”
“You got a signature?” Dane asked.
“No,” Mira said, voice tightening. “I identified the blood status through physical markers—bone density, retinal patterns. But the magic?” She looked up, grim. “There is nothing left. It has been emptied entirely. Usually, a Calysteri body hums with residual warmth even after death—an echo of the empathy they carried in life. But this? This is a dry, airless hollow. Six dead in the last four weeks. And she is the first one with zero magical residue.”
Pure-blood.The classification snagged in my chest. If her instincts were honed that keen, she should have felt the danger closing in long before it touched her. They always did.
The word stuck for another reason, too. Technically, I was only half. My mother was the human, Eamon the Calysteri cop who loved her. By all rights, my magic should be diluted—a quiet murmur compared to the resonance of a pure-blood like Mira. But standing here, the emptiness of the dead girl hit me with the force of a kick to the ribs. It screamed against senses that had always been too sharp, too loud, too violent for a half-blood.
I glanced at Dane. He paused, sniffing the air, his wolf tracking the scent of blood or rust. Shrill emptiness clawed at my awareness—a void where life should be. I flinched, stumbling a half-step, hand flying to my temple.
Dane’s head snapped towards me a second later, nostrils flaring as he caught the scent of death I’d felt moments ago. Sometimes, I swore my instincts ran hotter than his wolf. The pressure throbbing behind my eyes confirmed it.
“It’s a void,” I murmured, pushing the sensory overload down. “Something far worse than death.”
“Exactly,” Mira said. “The others had traces. Fractures. Echoes. But this? This is clean. Intentional. It’s an escalation.”
The emptiness of the body tugged at me even from here—a silence where there should be colour, warmth, emotion. It scraped along my ribs like a wrong note in a familiar song. The burning in my skin grew louder, answering that void with heat.
Dane moved closer, hands in his pockets. “Time of death?”
“Between one and three a.m. Body temperature suggests closer to two.” She pulled out her tablet, swiping through notes. “Dog walker found her about an hour ago. Dog bolted. He followed. Found her.”
