December 24th

Harvest Rosenbloom grumbles under her breath as her boots sink into the snow. Hazel doesn’t even like yams, she thinks. “No one likes yams,” she says to the stillness, which is perhaps a little unfair to the tuber. Truly, it’s not the yams that are bothering her.

It’s the fact that the lack of yams seemed to highlight the lack of other, supposedly essential, items: a pack of white candles, a roll of tape, dish sponges, and an extra bottle of seltzer water. More so, it was the almost immediate shuffling of responsibility that has Harvest crunching through the snow when she would much rather be at home, warm by the fireplace with a book in her lap.

Although the absence of yams was brought up by Hazel with the same tone and gravity as one would discuss the importance of air or clean drinking water, Hazel herself was far too busy to rectify this particular disgrace. “I’m helping Aunt Trixie with something for work,” she said, with a surprising amount of humility.

Hazel, like Harvest, works for the Bureau, an investigative organization whose authority oversees anyone with mischief in their blood—ancient magic passed down by birth, bite, or curse.

However, unlike Harvest, her sister’s employment was not a choice. While Harvest is a trained agent for the Serious Crimes Division, Hazel is a Magi-Tech associate hired as a part of her Bureau-mandated service for her part in a string of high-profile thefts. While Hazel did not participate in the actual heists, she provided weapons and artifacts that allowed the heists to happen—stumping Bureau agents for almost a year.

They could have put her in prison for a few years; instead, someone decided it would behoove them to retain her services for their benefit.

It was probably Aunt Trixie, she thinks. Aunt Trixie is on the Council, which is the governing body of the Bureau. Harvest doesn’t know half of what Aunt Trixie’s job responsibilities include. Her own security clearance is far below that of her aunt.

And her sister’s, apparently, who absconded to the library with Aunt Trixie immediately after voicing her observation about the absence of yams.

Harvest’s father, Theodore, was in his home brewing lab—which is really just the garage—and in the midst of a particularly delicate bottling process that he couldn’t interrupt.

Aunt Bea, Aunt Trixie’s wife, was prepping the turkey. She needed to get it in the oven as soon as possible if it were to be thoroughly cooked in time for dinner. Plus, there’s the pumpkin and apple pies to make and the table still needs to be set and those potatoes won’t scallop themselves.

And so, the responsibility fell onto the shoulders of the youngest Rosenbloom, Harvest. She dutifully bundled herself up and began to make her way to the town square, veering at the last second to take the long way through the pine forest at the heart of the island, hoping to at least savor a few minutes of brisk solitude.

But, of course, the cold soon soured her mood and a thin layer of sweat broke out on her forehead and upper lip, adding a distinctive sense of inconvenience to it all.

Now, as she makes her way through the thick mounds of snow, her boots crunching loudly in the stillness of the early evening, she distracts herself from the trek by allowing her mind to wander where it has wandered a little too frequently as of late: her colleague, Julian Quinn.

Although she passed her agent exam with a high score, she knows she would not be where she’s at in the Bureau without the Whitmore case under her belt—and she is acutely aware that she was only allowed to work on that case because Quinn vouched for her.

Although they haven’t worked together since October, he has become a bit of a landmark among the jumble of desks, computer screens, and whiteboards that fill the SCD office. She would never say so to him, but she has acquired the habit of searching for his tousled bronze hair, looking for the sharp line of his shoulders as he listens to his team talk about whatever murder they’re investigating. Even with her attention being pulled by the email she is answering or something a coworker is saying, she knows when he arrives and when he leaves.

She passes in the shadow of a tall pine tree and glances up as the sharp call of a bird floats down from above as if cheering her on. In the distance, she can see the vague shadow of the hill that marks the very center of Ilton. She’s sure that an island off the coast of Florida shouldn’t have such a varied landscape, but, of course, Ilton is not a normal island. The fae legends say that the twin islands, Ilton and Astra, were brought up from the ocean floor by the High King for his daughters who wouldn’t stop arguing. The islands were populated exclusively by the fae until, one day, they grew bored and moved on, returning to the Fae-Lands in what Harvest vaguely understands as some sort of alternate dimension.

But the lesson Harvest was given as a child from her mother was that it was the mischief in the sand that drew the island’s first residents to the land. She can feel it now, too, as she walks: a familiar buzzing in the air—like tinnitus but a much more welcome affliction. She loves her life on the mainland, in Valkaria, but understands why magical families tend to stay on Ilton. She feels acutely connected to her own magic here.

Continuing through the cluster of trees, she wonders briefly where Quinn is spending Christmas. Doubtless, he won’t be joining a rousing chorus of carols or happily donning a festive sweater. Surely being a centuries-old vampire takes the charm out of such earthly festivities.

Her thoughts return again to early October, when the Whitmore case led them here, to Ilton. They both took small allowances, testing the boundaries between work colleague and friend. Friend and maybe-lover. Really, it was so small, she doubts Quinn even remembers the kiss on his cheek or how he held her as she slept, worn down by anxiety and, unbeknownst to her at the time, the weight of the ethereal chain that linked her soul to their murder victim.

Pulling her thoughts away from Quinn, Harvest slips her phone out of her pocket to check the time, but actually she wants to read the text message she received last night, pondering its phrasing not for the first time since it arrived.

It’s from Dominic, a vampire who owns a bar in a renovated lighthouse on the mainland with the refreshingly straightforward name of the Lighthouse. He is also, for all intents and purposes, Quinn’s brother.

The text message sits between an ongoing conversation with Ronan, her best friend and roommate, and a message from a wrong number. It is brief, to the point, and worded politely enough to give her an out, if she so desires.

There’s a new art exhibition opening at the museum next Friday. Let me know if you want to go. We could grab a drink after.

She would like to think that the message came out of the blue, but, truly, there have been hints for the past few weeks, subtle flirting that has only become more noticeable with every interaction. She started frequenting the Lighthouse after she discovered that they have fried pickles on the menu, but stuck around for the conversations with Dominic, who is friendly, incredibly attractive, and surprisingly funny. Conversations with him always begin authentically and flow seamlessly from topic to topic, no awkward pauses or post-interaction anxiety making her wonder if she said the right thing. Even though he is technically working during these interactions, Dominic doesn’t seem to mind. The conversations are only ever interrupted by a disgruntled customer in need of a refill.

The attention is certainly not unwanted, but her last relationship ended fairly recently and quite acrimoniously. Ronan tells her that she needs to get back out there, but she insists that she’s not ready to start dating again.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Is that still true?

Maybe.

Of course, she knows why she is really hesitating, and she allows herself to think it now, in the silence of the snow and the stillness of the forest.

Quinn.

He had been interested in her before she started seeing her last boyfriend, and now that she is single again, she is waiting to see if he will make a move again.

Not that he’s given her any indication that he would do such a thing. As far as she knows, Quinn is still casually dating Dr. Burrows, the medical examiner who has become somewhat of a friend in the past few months. She and Burrows met up for drinks a week ago and although their conversation stayed far away from Agent Julian Quinn, she also didn’t mention anything to the contrary and Harvest didn’t want to ask.

Before she can type out an answer to Dominic’s message, just to delete it unsent as she has done several times since she received it, she trips on something heavy hiding in the snow. The phone slips out of her hand and, almost without thought, she presses her thumb and forefinger together, the word “Stop” traveling on her breath.

All types of mischief-work require form: something to shape the raw power, like a ritual, a motion of the hand or wand, a glass or copper vessel, or something spoken. It can be as simple as a command or a string of phrases. A story, even. Sometimes it’s something less specific, a memory, or an emotion.

Harvest doesn’t use magic as casually as her family. She doesn’t rely on mischief to do things like open doors or clean the dishes, and, even then, she prefers the more sophisticated arrangements of words she learned as a child—variations of Arabic, Latin, and French twisted together to form the language of witches.

However, the simple command comes to her before she realizes, spurned by the irrational fear of losing her phone. She feels the word burst like a bubble in the middle of her chest, the mischief in her voice burning at the back of her throat.

The phone obeys her command and stops its descent with a jerk.

With a deep breath, she pulls her arm back as if grasping onto an invisible string, and her phone gently floats back up to her hand. She slips it into her pocket as she glances down to see what she tripped over.

She freezes at the sight of a hand, turning white with frost and tinged with blue decay. Bending down, she gently brushes the snow to the side to confirm that it is, in fact, a dead body.

As troubling as this is, Harvest is even more alarmed by the fact that the hand she tripped over is not empty.

Inside the curled, frozen fingers, is a business card with a familiar crest and an even more familiar name.

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Julian Quinn does not care for Christmas.

This is hardly surprising considering that he has lived through more than a thousand years of winter holidays, that, in one way or another, can be considered Christmas.

He remembers the festivals of his youth, days-long and filled with over-indulgence and very public displays of emotions. He remembers the Middle Ages, when Christmas was celebrated in much the same way. The Victorians certainly knew how to celebrate Christmas, as well, but even then, the day was just a normal day to him. There was just more greenery hung up about the place. He’s glad, at least, that the cheerless view of the holiday forced by the Protestant Reformation has been tempered by time, if only because it made the day even more boring. He’d take Christmas in the twenty-first century over that any day: at least now, it’s once again acceptable to drink oneself senseless.

Of course, he can’t get drunk in his state of interminable damnation, but it’s the principle of the matter.

He is sitting at the bar at the Lighthouse, which is quickly filling up. Luckily everyone here seems to share Quinn’s apathy to the winter holiday. He appreciates that there are no Christmas lights, no plastic Santa Clauses, no tinsel, and certainly no Christmas songs. The one concession to the holiday is the wassail which is on special today. Quinn declined a glass when he arrived with a shudder.

Instead, he opted for his standard Midori and Coke, which is a code word for blood. Not that the code is needed at the Lighthouse.

Valkaria may look like an average-sized, rural municipality on the map, insignificant due to its lack of notable landmarks or tourist-worthy attractions, but the reality is that there is an unspoken divide. A line splits the town in half: the north is all magic and mischief while the south is mundane. Normal. Mortal? The mischief-bound community has never settled on a word for those who are non-magical; at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter the language used. The divide must be maintained and so it is, through the continued efforts of the Valkaria’s northern residents. The welcoming symbols are just one of the ways to delineate which side of town is which.

Of course, it’s not the symbol itself that matters, merely the presence of one. All welcoming signs are variations of the symbol for salt, the carved or painted lines denoting a circle of protection that is largely agreed upon more so than physical.

Although it exists in the sliver between magic and non-magic communities of Valkaria, there is a symbol on the door that marks the Lighthouse as a safe space for magical residents of the area. More importantly, the symbol ensures that the building looks derelict and closed to those who do not recognize it.

In other words, there is no need to keep one’s mischief to oneself.

Quinn clinks his glass against Dominic’s in a silent cheers and takes a long sip, savoring the thick liquid. It hits the back of his throat, and he feels his teeth sharpen in response. He knows if he were to smile now, he would look every bit of the vampire that he is: sharp canine teeth, chiseled cheekbones, smoldering amber eyes, slim physique.

When Quinn’s glass is empty, Dominic refills it with Ferro-Kina. “Have you heard from Harvest?” he asks, innocently, as he pours.

But Dominic is far from innocent.

Quinn is aware that his friend is interested in his colleague. On the surface, he supposes this is a good thing. Harvest may not be perfect, but she does generally try to be a good person (the one notable exception being her affair with her sister’s fiance, Ezra, which sounds more torrid than it is). She’s intelligent, empathetic, and—something Quinn holds above all else—a good agent. She deserves a functional, loving relationship, especially considering that her last relationship was the opposite of functional.

Her last boyfriend, Ezra (the aforementioned fiance), had been Quinn’s friend, too, though they haven’t spoken since Ezra was brought in for questioning related to the possible murder of Hazel Rosenbloom.

The murder was a false alarm: it was a murder, but not of Hazel. However, Ezra showed his true colors during the dissolution of his relationship with Harvest, his words harsh and abusive, hinting at something far more controlling than Quinn had realized. Not that Quinn hasn’t said something along the same lines at some point in his existence. For a very brief moment, he held Aristotle’s belief that women are a sort-of defective version of men. He has long since re-examined his position on this matter, acknowledging, irrevocably, the error of his logic.

He isn’t sure when Dominic set his eyes on Harvest. Was it when Dominic saved her from a vampire attack while she was working on the Whitmore case? Was it when he later killed the vampire with a fae-forged dagger? Dominic does like to save people.

“Not lately,” Quinn says, taking a sip of his drink.

“No cases?”

“Not together. She’s been working with Fitz. They just closed a big one.”

Agent Olivia Fitzgerald is the head of the Serious Crimes Division, the largest department within the Bureau. She is technically Quinn’s boss, too. Thankfully, the Bureau has yet to succumb to the overdeveloped departmental structure from which other similar organizations seem to suffer. Quinn’s team exists within SCD, but focuses solely on suspicious deaths while enjoying a fair amount of autonomy. Other teams within the department, like the one Harvest joined, tend to focus more on things like robbery, illegal drugs, kidnapping, and fraud.

He isn’t familiar with the details of the case Harvest had been working on, but he would often see her hunched over her desk, rifling through files or, sometimes, just staring at the photographs and evidence pinned on the bulletin board that housed the components of her case, like mixed-up puzzle pieces waiting for a steady hand.

Her dedication is admirable, but worries him. He doesn’t want her to burn out before her first full year as an agent. He thought about telling her as much, but there never seemed to be an appropriate moment.

If anything, Dominic might help her loosen up, he thinks.

“She’s spending Christmas on Ilton, though.” He absentmindedly twists the ring on his pinky finger, the mischief in the metal a familiar buzz against his skin. “Why?”

Dominic shrugs. “Just curious. How’s Burrows?”

“With her new boyfriend.”

“Ah. And how do you feel about that?”

“It’s fine,” he says. His tone is casual and, for once, it’s not hiding anything underneath. When Burrows broke things off between them a few days ago, he was somewhat relieved to know it was because she found someone else. He cared about her, but he had always viewed their relationship as casual. Although she never said as much, he knows she considered it as more than casual.

He takes a sip of his drink, pausing to savor the immediate hit of floral flavor. He tries not to let it remind him of Harvest—white flowers in the moonlight—and focuses on the bitter, coppery bite at the end.

As if on cue, his phone buzzes, and they both look down to see Harvest’s name. He answers, noting that Dominic has respectfully stepped away. Not that it matters. As a vampire, Dominic has exceptionally sharp hearing, just like Quinn, who has no trouble hearing Harvest over the sounds of the crowd around him.

“I’ve found a body,” she begins. “Male, mid-to-late-fifties maybe, wearing a blue sweater and a gray jacket. He’s clutching your business card.”

He curses under his breath.