The night had long settled and almost everyone in the building had already gone home. Myra tried her best to hide the screams for food her intestines made. She looked at the empty box of doughnuts Ronns had left behind and wondered if she had anything decent left in the fridge or whether she had to take a detour to the supermarket.

There was a moth in the lamp above their heads and it kept going round and round projecting shadows all over the walls. If there was a way to kill it with her thought she would, but she did not wish to show any kind of weakness.

“Can I ask you something?” she said when the hunger got too annoying to ignore.

“What?” Ori returned from the other side.

“What did you do to him?”

“He was alive and well when he got out of here. You have nothing to worry about.”

“Not what I meant. Why did you make him… it’s brutal and I’m pretty sure illegal, Bureau or not. This here is not your playground.”

“I get you are concerned, but Liser is fine. We needed his blood to break the bond, and he was cut where it didn’t hurt too much.”

“You have an answer to everything, don’t you? And what will happen to him now? What crime is he tried with?”

“You can call it something like endangering the public if it makes sense to you that way. But his real punishment will be worse?”

“Why?”

He smiled, somewhat arrogantly, like he was the one dealing justice. “He may get out of prison, but for the rest of his life, he’ll be looking over his shoulder and wondering if he’d become hollow. That he’ll never be able to shake off.”

Stolen story; please report.

She took a deep breath, amazed with how the difference between their ways, boiled down to a single idea. Justice.

“One thing bothers me though. What could be so important they made you stay here? What's really happening in Helden?”

“You are full of questions tonight. Why don’t you save some for tomorrow?”

"And you're avoiding mine," she barked. "Who is Estinar? I mean who is he really? This is the second time he led you by the leash and dropped you off in our laps.”

“Why don’t you ask him instead of pestering me,” Ori returned paying her no mind. He had already made himself at home at his new desk and gave no indication that he was ever going to leave.

“Because I don’t think he’ll tell me anything useful. He has a really peculiar note, you know. Like a coin that has the same face on both sides.” She pulled her feet to the ground and rolled the chair to the side until she could see him well. “Is he one of you, or is he something else?

“What makes you say that?”

“I have a nose for such things, and I’d go as far as to think he is one of the Heralds. Am I right?” she returned looking at the time. She was ready to leave a long time ago, but she could not afford to leave a foreigner all alone with their things.

“I think you have an imagination. It matches your childish nature.”

She frowned, seeing that there was not much of a chance to get him moving without causing a deeper rift. She did not know if she hated his indifference or his arrogance but what she was certain of was that she was not ready to start a war on an empty stomach.

“Did you know that the shift is over? You can go home now,” she said in a pitched tone as if talking to a toddler.

Ori shifted in his chair further away from her and continued to read the old case reports. He did not seem to mind it at all and the pile on his table was big enough to keep him there for several nights.

“Hey. wizard,” Myra yelled, snipping her fingers, like she could do the same things he was able to, “Don’t you have a home?”

“I leave when I’m done with reading. I won’t look at your private things if that’s what you are worried about.”

She sniffed the spite in the air and thought long and hard about what she could do next. The locks on the cabinets were a silly game to magic people and every other thing in the office could as well fall prey to the enemy. She zipped up her jacket and grabbed all the notes she could hold in her arms, whether they mattered or not.

“See you tomorrow, Detective,” Ori said the moment her back was turned.

She smirked sourly and tried opening the door with her foot, but failed and tried with another.

"Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. if you ever try to use magic on me again, I'll kill you."