The morgue is in the basement of a medical facility across the street from the Bureau building. The name of the parent organization, Periapt Medical, is affixed to the front of the building in large black letters. The building itself is sandwiched between a Chinese restaurant and a mixed-use office building that houses mainly lawyers, psychiatrists, and the occasional designer.

The large concrete structure is beige and unassuming, with an equally bland perspex sign next to the revolving doors listing tenant names. There is no welcoming symbol: it is right in the middle of north Valkaria. The medical examiner’s office is on the second floor, but the morgue and laboratory are in the basement.

Harvest and Quinn ride the elevator down in silence. Harvest looks drained and vulnerable after giving her statement to Fitzgerald. It doesn’t help that the circles under her eyes and the slump of her shoulders make her look like she hasn’t slept in weeks.

She leans against the wall of the elevator, arms wrapped around herself. Quinn can hear her breathing, shallow with exhaustion and a hint of anxiety.

The elevator doors open, and the chill of the morgue seeps into their limbs. Harvest pulls her jacket tighter around herself as she follows Quinn into the anteroom and through the door at the end of the hallway. Harvest stops near the entrance of the room and seems to steel herself against seeing her sister dead, however false the reality. Their victim is on a metal tabletop, a white cloth draped over the more sensitive areas of the body, leaving the rest bare and white. Their rose gold hair is combed neatly and brushed back underneath their shoulders.

Dr. Burrows is there, chatting quietly with Angel, who has their illusion loupe out and is peering through it at the victim, making the occasional note out loud.

“I’ve been mapping the illusion,” says Angel, when Harvest and Quinn approach. “I think it started here, near the belly button. It’s just a guess, but it seems weaker here.”

Normally, Dr. Burrows would have started her postmortem by now, but there didn’t seem to be a point, considering that any samples would match Hazel Rosenbloom’s DNA and any conclusions about the cause of death could be skewed by the illusion.

Besides, it would be impossible to cut through the spell with a physical tool. The illusion is so thick and secure that any cut to the body would still be hidden by the spell. Dr. Burrows has already tried, making a small incision to one of the fingers only to see the thin line disappear as the illusion hastily reformed.

“I did test a sample of blood from the body—one taken from this spot here, where the illusion is thinnest,” says Dr. Burrows. “The blood was mundane. Human. No magic.”

“None at all?” asks Harvest.

“It could be the illusion messing with things,” Angel points out.

Quinn frowns, his arms crossed. “Can the body tell us anything else right now?”

“I’ve tested some DNA I found under the victim’s nails,” says Dr. Burrows stiffly. She ignores Quinn and looks at Harvest as if she had asked the question. “She scratched her attacker while already under the illusion. There wasn’t a match to a particular person in the database, but the DNA profile points to a vampire.”

Dr.Burrows’s manner is so brusque and aloof toward Quinn that even Angel raises an eyebrow at him as if to say, What did you do wrong?

Quinn scowls and lifts a shoulder. I don’t know.

But of course, he does know. Burrows expected him to head back to her condo when he finished up at the Lighthouse. He called Angel and Wild to handle the suspect so that he would be free to take the night off. But, of course, he wanted to view Roderick’s interrogation himself. More so than his absence, it is the lack of communication that has Burrows miffed. He hadn’t even remembered to text her about his change of plans.

This is nothing new, of course. Although Quinn appreciates and occasionally embraces modern-day technology, he often forgets to use it himself. Perhaps if the metal and glass boxes didn’t need to be babysat at all hours and charged every night.

“Boss?”

Angel’s voice draws him from his thoughts, and he realizes that they had asked him a question. Maybe Fitz was being sarcastic earlier. He doesn’t feel as fresh as anything. The blood from last night is wearing off, and he is suddenly painfully aware of the sweet, floral scent of Harvest, of Angel’s heartbeat, and of Burrows’s clenched teeth grating against each other. “Yes,” he says, his face impassive, though he’s not sure what he’s agreeing to.

Harvest takes a deep breath, still fiddling with her lanyard. “I’m not sure what to do,” she admits.

Angel suggests that she use her second-sight to simply make some observations first. She blinks, her eyes turning white, glowing like the blue-tinged fluorescent lights overhead. She kneels until she’s at eye level with the body and purses her lips in concentration.

“You’re right,” she says, glancing up at Angel. “There’s a discrepancy here.” She points toward the belly button. “Not necessarily a weak spot, though. It’s like a starting knot.”

“What does that mean?” asks Quinn.

Angel answers. “Illusions are woven. It’s like knitting a sweater over something.”

“I can unravel it,” says Harvest. “But I know you wanted to preserve the whole thing.”

Angel considers the situation for a beat. “I think it would be worth it to unravel it now, and confirm the identity of the victim, even if we can’t save the original spell.” They look for Quinn’s approval.

Quinn steps back with a nod and an open palm invitation. Burrows joins him in stepping back, letting the two witches unravel the spell only they can see.

“She still looks too pale,” she says softly, clipboard clutched to her chest.

“Her heartbeat is okay, though,” he mumbles back. He tears his gaze away from Angel and Harvest. “I’m sorry about last night. I should have—”

She shakes her head, holding her hand up to stop him from saying anything more. “You had important things to do. I get it.”

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“Don’t make this about her. This has nothing to do with Harvest.”

“I didn’t say it was,” she shoots back. “Funny you thought I meant her.”

“Then what are you saying exactly?”

“I’m saying that there always seems to be something more important to do.”

“It’s not my fault people keep getting murdered.”

She glares at him. “You know that’s not the point.”

He thinks briefly about reaching out to touch her, but her shoulders are so stiff, that he’s fairly certain she would brush his hand away. So, he stuffs his hands in his pockets instead. “Dinner, tomorrow. We’ll talk.”

She gives him a sideways look. “Fine,” she says, turning her back to him as she observes Harvest and Angel.

Suddenly, there is a loud crack of energy that reverberates through the room, and the lights flicker. There’s a soft fizzle and a shift in air pressure as the temperature in the room plummets even further. Harvest is standing over the body, hand out, fingers splayed wide as if she is reaching into something. Angel is looking through their loupe, murmuring directions. There is another crack, and Harvest’s knees buckle slightly. Quinn takes a step forward, but she shakes her head and grips the side of the table with her free hand.

The lights flicker and then die, plunging them into darkness. Not that it matters. The body is now covered in a finely woven net of glowing threads, the light from which casts golden shadows across their faces. There is another crack as one of the glowing threads snaps and disintegrates into nothingness with an electric fizzle.

Quinn has never truly seen magic, though he has felt its presence and seen its aftermath. Yet now, as he stands next to Harvest, he sees a black aura, raised slightly above the body, held together by shimmering threads. Harvest grasps onto it, her hand red as if she’s plunged it into boiling water.

And then she lets it go.

The threads fade, taking the tar-black cloud with it, until there is nothing left. The lights flicker back on slowly.

Harvest takes a shuddering breath and begins to lower her arm. With a wince, she cradles her wrist instead. “It’s not broken,” she says in response to the scrutiny on Quinn’s face. “I think I just sprained it.”

“And gave yourself spell-burn, too,” Burrows says with a frown, looking at the rash already spreading.

Angel is still looking down at the victim. “Yeah, but the illusion is gone.”

Their voice is grim, and when Quinn looks past them to see the true face of the body, he understands why.

This murder victim wasn’t killed with two precise cuts to her wrists. She was beaten first, her face swollen and bruised. The torso is mottled, disintegrating, and swollen with blisters. Her lips are chapped and covered in dried blood—spell-burn, where she must have spoken some kind of spell that was too powerful for her. There is a heavy silence in the air as they take in their true victim.

It’s Harvest who breaks the silence first. “Don’t you recognize her?” She looks up at Quinn, her eyes still glowing, and adds, “It’s Amy, from the souvenir shop.”

----------------------------------------

The breakthrough should have at least been fuel enough for some hard-edged motivation, but, instead, it seems to have only weighed everyone down a bit further. Harvest’s provisional identification is not sufficient to move an investigation along. Angel is already working on contacting the owner of the souvenir shop for Amy’s full name and contact information. Angel won’t tell the owner why they’re asking about Amy though. Not yet. Not until they know for sure.

Harvest stands by her initial assessment that Amy does not possess any magic of her own, despite the evidence of spell-burn. It’s an anomaly, another question to add to the list. It’s possible that the victim still has some connections to the magical side of Valkaria, though. Dr. Burrows begins the process of collecting samples for a DNA match and a full blood work up to look for history of magical signatures.

Quinn puts in a call to the Bureau’s liaison with the Valkaria Police Department, to make sure they cover all bases. SDS can’t do anything until they know more about Amy—until they know whether it falls under the Bureau’s jurisdiction or under VPD.

Harvest relents and lets Quinn drive her to Ronan’s apartment, though she can barely keep her eyes open even on the ten-minute drive. She manages to rouse herself long enough to say goodbye to Quinn and confirm that she’ll see him in the morning and that no, she won’t go out again like last night. Yes, her arm is fine. No, she doesn’t need to see a doctor.

“Not even your girlfriend,” she mumbles to herself as she shuts the car door.

Ronan’s apartment smells like fresh-baked bread, and she takes a deep breath before tossing her keys on the table next to the door. She can hear Ronan moving around in the kitchen and she calls out to let him know that she’s home. He shouts something vague back.

Collapsing on the couch, she closes her eyes and listens to the sounds of Ronan cooking. The soft sizzle of food frying. A bottle of wine is uncorked. The clink of metal against ceramic. The click of the stove as it is turned off.

She feels Ronan move into the living room and she opens her eyes to find a plate of food and a glass of wine being held out in front of her, like an offering. She smiles and shakes her head. “It’s a wonder you’re single. I could get used to this.”

“No offense, Harv, but you’re not really my type.”

She chuckles to herself as she takes a bite of the grilled cheese. She’s exactly his type (or, one of his types anyway), but they’ve known each other for far too long to be anything other than friends. He’s seen her grow up, bore witness to the awkward teenage years, saw her grow out of her childhood crush on him, knows all of her embarrassing stories. She chews and glances at him, suddenly feeling the warmth of his gaze on her wrist.

“How was your day?” he asks, nonchalantly. She can tell he’s itching to know why she left with a perfectly uninjured wrist only to come home with a nasty case of spell-burn. Ronan may be a wolf, but he was raised by witches. He knows the side effect well.

“Go on,” she says, setting the plate down but holding onto the wine. “Ask your questions. Tell me off for putting myself in danger.”

He shakes his head. “I just don’t like to see you hurt, Harv.”

She sighs and lets her head fall back against the couch cushion, eyes half-closed. “I know. I don’t like it either. It’s a side effect of work though.”

Ronan seems to accept this answer, though she knows he is far from mollified. Perhaps, the only downside (if one can call it that), to having a lifelong friend is that they will always feel inordinately responsible for the other person.

“Can I ask you something?” she asks.

“Anything.”

“Do you remember Hazel ever knowing someone named Grayson Locke? Or Amy?”

Ronan shakes his head. “The names aren’t familiar, but…” He leans back too, his shoulder brushing against hers. “I know she was seeing someone,” he says, after a few moments of silence. “I don’t think it was romantic, if it helps any.”

“How do you know that?”

“She told me. Not in so many words. But she would use a lot of vague excuses when she couldn’t hang out. Occasionally she would mention meeting a friend, but never anything more than that.”

“You never told me any of this.”

He runs a hand over his face. “It wasn’t anything specific. For all I know it could have been Ezra she was meeting up with. She knew I didn’t like him and I always wondered if she arranged for us to never interact.” He shifts to look at her. “I am sorry I didn’t tell you. But, to be fair, you didn’t tell me that you and Ezra were…well, that close at the time.”

She takes a sip of her wine to hide her regret. “I hid it well.” She pauses, and then adds, “So did Hazel.”

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think Hazel has stayed away as long as she has because of you and Ezra. I think there was something else going on.” Harvest opens her mouth to reply, but Ronan cuts her off. “You can’t hold all of the weight. You gotta give other people some responsibility too. It’s never one-sided. You hold your guilt in your chest. My aunt would say you need to cough up some of that guilt. Spit it into the earth for the worms to eat.”

She grimaces at the image but laughs just the same. Ronan Kelly’s aunt is a powerful witch. Harvest has only met her a handful of times, and each time, she left with the feeling that she was closer to the earth and to her own magic. “But I suppose you’re right. Or rather, Aunt Moira is right.”

“Aunt Moira is always right,” he says with a delicate southern twang, his voice higher pitched in a fair imitation of the matron witch. “Now, eat your grilled cheese and help me make a very important decision.” He points toward the television, his expression arranged into the most solemn look he can muster. “What are we going to watch tonight?”