I froze, eyes locking onto the monitor. The progress bar on the screen crawled, agonisingly slow.
I straightened, stepping back from the workstation. Beside me, Dane shifted, his posture changing instantly from investigator to guard dog—weight forward, hands loose but ready.
Three figures emerged from the gloom beyond the cordon, silhouetted against the greying morning light. The lead was unmistakable—tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a charcoal wool coat that cost more than my flat and looked entirely immune to the grime of Riverforge.
Darian Morrow.
“Detective Lennox. Detective Rowan.”
Darian Morrow’s voice cut through the damp air like a scalpel.
I turned to face him. He stood just inside the warehouse entrance, flanked by two women. He seemed absurdly out of place in Riverforge—a human in his mid-fifties whose immaculate tailoringand mirror-polished shoes stood in stark contrast to the filthy concrete—but his posture suggested he owned the building, the body, and the air we were breathing.
Chief of the Arcane Compliance Division. The Highspire suits.
Behind him stood Vesper Shade. She moved with the unnerving grace of someone trained to disappear—lithe build, long dark hair, and silver eyes that scanned the warehouse with the precision of a targeting system. Senior Investigator. Umbrakynn. Ignoring me, she looked at Dane like he was a stain on the floor she hadn’t gotten around to scrubbing yet.
The third figure was younger. Human. Chestnut hair pulled into a loose bun, bright green eyes framed by wire-rimmed glasses. Faye Solstice. She clutched a tablet against her chest like a shield, posture hunched as though trying to make herself smaller.
“You can stop logging evidence,” Morrow said, stepping past us, his gaze fixed solely on the sheet covering the body. “This is no longer an MCIU matter.”
“Funny,” I said, moving into his path. “Last I checked, murder was the definition of a major crime.”
“Not when the victim is a magical anomaly. And definitely not when the crime scene creates a dead zone strong enough to wipe the local grid’s sensors.” Morrow stopped, his dark eyes finally flicking to mine. They were flat and dismissive. “We’ve been tracking the energy signature for an hour. We knew about the spike before your dispatch even took the call.”
He snapped his fingers.
Vesper moved forward, dropping a physical file onto a crate with a dull thud, her eyes were fixed on Dane.
“You’re done here,” she said flatly. “Pack up.”
“You’ve been here two minutes,” Dane growled, muscles bunching. The wolf was close to the surface; heat radiated off him in currents. “You haven’t even seen the body. Or the footage.”
“We don’t need to. We’ve seen the other five.” Morrow gesturedto the perimeter. “My team will handle the clean-up. Your cooperation is appreciated, but your presence is… redundant.”
He issued a flat dismissal.
Mira’s knuckles whitened against the edge of her workstation. “I haven’t finished my preliminary —“
“The ACD thanks you for your service, technician.” Morrow turned his back on us, effectively ending the conversation. “Vesper, secure the perimeter. Faye, get the containment unit. I want the evidence sealed before it destabilises any further.”
Morrow’s dismissal sat like lead in my gut. The ACD had arrived with a speed that bordered on the prophetic, a sure sign that the whispers at HQ were right—Highspire’s grip on the Division was tightening into a chokehold. They weren’t here to investigate; they were here to sanitise. Dozens of Calysteri had been reported missing, and likely double that number had vanished without a soul to raise the alarm. Now six people were dead, and with Talia, the killer had finally achieved the impossible—a clinical hollowing of a soul. This was a graduation, a predator refining its technique while the bureaucrats focused on ‘containment’ and political optics.
If I stepped back now, Talia’s death would vanish into a classified archive, buried by the same big-fish corruption that was currently paralysing the police force. The scar continued its constant ache, a stubborn tug of recognition that refused to let me walk away. I’d spent too many years on the docks to let a suit in expensive wool wave a hand and erase a murder. This was my city, my case, and the vacuum pulling at my chest told me I was the only one left who actually cared about the light that had been stolen.
Faye hurried past us towards the evidence crate where Mira left the bag, but as she reached for it, her gaze landed on the laptop screen. The video feed was gone, replaced by a high-resolution close-up of the victim’s forearm.
She stopped.
Her eyes darted from the screen to the shard in the bag, and then to the sheet covering Talia’s arm.
“The sigil pattern,” Faye’s voice was barely audible. The colour drained from her face. “It matches.”
She looked up, eyes wide and terrified, meeting mine for a split second before darting to Morrow’s back.
“Chief,” she stammered. “The geometry… it resembles the archived patterns from the old Purge Cases. The unsolved ones. It’s identical.”
The air in the warehouse went dead still.
