Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Looking back, the assignment to Celestite Park had been rather out of character in comparison to the Afterlife’s usual jobs; as Megacorporation™’s most elite two-person team, they tended to visit personal dwellings whose residents were willing to pay the higher fee for a more precise, less destructive solution. Though there was some hesitance around hiring unsupervised minors, Jo and Lav had established themselves as the best amongst their competition: they would respect your house and your time, move efficiently, keep the details quiet when the price was high enough, and they had been granted the clearance to skip a lot of the bureaucratic nonsense that the bigger teams were bogged down by. They were the best pick for their specialties, but Jo had gotten it in her head recently that they would benefit from some increased public exposure, and so they had been assigned to the Celestite Park case, odd as it may have been.

First of all, they hadn’t been hired by some snobby homeowner who wanted a quick removal, but rather by the city itself, which, apparently, had seen them as the best fit for the job. As if. Privately, Lav wondered if Megacorp™ had leverage over the city somehow. As they packed their bags, Lav voiced his concerns on the subject: parks were big, open spaces with little space for protection, and they were only a two-person operation. Still, they didn’t have anything else booked for that evening, and if the information the lady that had negotiated the hire had given them was correct, it was nothing more than a Type One spooking the foolish couples that went for late night walks around the pond. The Source would be some bones they could drag up from the water and the case would be over before midnight if they were lucky.

By the time the taxi dropped them off at the entrance to the park, it was already past six: the sun was low, spreading golden light over the autumn leaves that coated the ground, and the park was nearly empty. There was a wrought iron fence that marked the perimeter, which meant it was unlikely the Source was anywhere near the edge, as the iron would have prevented the ghost from manifesting. Thusly, Jo proposed that they began the search in the center and went outward. As the last stragglers trekked past them to the exit, Jo and Lav headed in the opposite direction, through the tree-lined path to the gazebo at the center of the park.

“Could it be here?” Lav wondered aloud as they approached. The gazebo was wooden, its white paint peeling, and lined with neat flower boxes of spider lilies.

“Underneath, maybe,” Jo said. As they stepped up onto the platform, she tested the sturdiness of the wood with her boot. “It could give.” They set their bag down and began rummaging through.

Since Jo had her back turned, Lav took up the role of surveying their surroundings. The paths of the park spoked off from this center in six different directions. One, of course, led back the way they’d come, to the northern entrance. In the other three cardinal directions, he could spot slivers of the iron gates through the trees. To the southeast, the trees thinned to make room for the aforementioned pond, which was dark and indistinguishable from this distance. To the northwest, he knew they’d passed a food stand which had closed up for the night. The rest of the park was just shadows and the murmurs of wind brushing through the leaves.

When Lav turned back, Jo had pulled the chains out of their bag and was arranging them in a circle in the center of the gazebo. This would be their sanctuary, a spot of safety to return to if things went sour later on.

“I think the lake’s probably most likely,” Jo said. “If we can confirm that the Source is in there, we can have the city search it in the morning. They’ll want to dock it from our pay, though.”

“Could they?” Lav asked. He nudged the chains with his foot, evening out the circle.

Jo shrugged and stood up. “It’s easiest if we find the Source ourselves, right?”

Lav nodded, though they weren’t totally sold on the idea of wading through frigid pond water in the middle of the night.

Jo must have sensed Lav’s hesitance, because she turned to Lav, arms folded. “Not up for a swim tonight, Lavender?”

“Not up for freezing to death,” Lav countered, mirroring Jo.

“That’s really interesting, because if I recall correctly, last month it was you who locked yourself in that freezer—”

“Accidentally!”

“—because you were so convinced the Source was in there—”

“It wasn’t an unreasonable assumption,” Lav protested. Well, it might have been slightly unreasonable, but in his defense, it didn’t seem like there were any other good options. And that certainly didn’t mean he was enthusiastic about diving into a dirty pond in search of a corpse.

“If it’s in the lake, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Jo said. They knelt down and retrieved a couple of salt bombs from their bag, then stowed them on their belt opposite their rapier. “Grab a net. And you’ve got the thermometer, right?”

Lav checked the dial at his waist. “It’s about thirteen degrees Celsius. Since we’re outside, it probably won’t—”

“Probably won’t change much, yeah,” Jo filled in. “I’m thinking we walk outward to learn the terrain, then by the time we’re done, the sun will have set and we can narrow it down.”

This was a typical routine for them. Jo had better Sight, so she would Look while Lav Listened, and they would take note of any peculiarities before they had to worry about any major manifestations. They moved in a spiral from the gazebo, disregarding the marked paths and simply marching through the woods between them. When they encountered the pond, they looped around, taking note of the slight dip in temperature at the edge of the water. By the time they reached the wrought iron fence, the sun was barely visible above the horizon, and the park was subsequently empty. About halfway down the northeast path, Jo had seen the death glow of some small animal, but otherwise their initial search had been quite uneventful.

Back at the gazebo, they lit a lantern and sat for a bit. Jo had Lav reach through the nodes the hiring lady had given them, which weren’t very extensive but did suggest yet again that there was trouble with a phantom near the pond.

“We should set up an iron circle there,” Jo said when the notes had been read.

“Did we bring another set of chains?”

In response, Jo pulled open Lav’s bag. Sure enough, there was another set of chains coiled within.

“Did I pack those?” Lav asked.

“I put them in before we left.”

“That would explain the weight. I thought I was just getting weak.”

“I put them in because of the case last month. Remember that Poltergeist threw my bag out the window?”

Lav winced. “Yeah, I remember that. And it wasn’t actually a Poltergeist. That’s why DEPRAC refused to cover it.”

“No, it’s because they don’t like us.”

“But we’re Megacorp™!”

“And the rest of Megacorp™ doesn’t like us either.” Jo handed Lav the chains, and he took the weight into his arms.

“You don’t think it’s a Poltergeist, do you?” Lav asked as they started the trek back to the pond.

“Almost definitely not,” Jo replied. “But I figured with the larger area, it was most likely we’d be split up, and I wanted two chains anyways.”

“You could have…” told me , Lav meant, but they trailed off mid-sentence, holding up a hand to silence Jo. Faintly, from the west, he could hear a murmuring. It was too quiet to make out any words, but even still, they could tell there were two distinct voices. “We’ve got company.”

“Phantom?”

“It’s not an echo. It’s gone now, but it sounded like a conversation.”

“Living, then.” Jo gave a frustrated sigh. “What idiots are wandering in the woods at this hour?”

“Tourists, maybe?” Lav suggested. “Should we talk to them?”

Jo shook their head. “That’s a waste of time. They’ll scare themselves and leave soon enough. Let’s put the chains down.”

The edge of the pond was marshy; the public was meant to stay on the paths, not venture into the cattails. They placed the chains at the edge of the grass and stood for a bit, Looking and Listening. It was getting chillier, but that was mostly due to the sun setting, not anything supernatural. Lav zipped up his coat and Jo pulled her fingerless gloves on. There were the sounds of the city beyond the fence of the park, and a hooting of an owl somewhere, and a sporadic rustling, but besides that, there wasn’t anything Lav could hear. Jo, however, perked up suddenly, gazing out over the water.

“Death glow?” Lav asked.

“Shades,” they replied, pointing. “Two of them. Faint, but getting stronger.”

Lav squinted, but they couldn’t make out anything in the net of shadows across the pond. “The notes made it sound like just one.”

“The notes were also taken from adults’ accounts,” Jo pointed out. “I was thinking it might have been a Lurker, but that’s a common confusion when you can’t really see what’s scaring you.”

“Are we looking for two Sources, then?”

“Possible.” Jo adjusted the rapier at her belt, a nervous tic. “We should have set up on the other side.”

“There was no way for us to know that.”

“I’m saying this retrospectively. You’ve got the net, right?”

Lav checked the pocket of his jacket and felt the coldness of the silver mesh. “Yeah.”

“Good. Here’s the plan: I come in from the left and distract them, you loop around to the right and dig through the mud where they came up from. If you find a source, put the net over, but if I yell to run, you meet me back at the gazebo.”

“Okay,” Lav said. He could see the Shades now; with every second that passed, their forms became clearer. The taller one was a woman in a short dress, the other looked small enough to be a child. They weren’t doing much, just standing there in the reeds looking down at the water before them. Being Type Ones, they wouldn’t become aggressive at Jo’s engagement, but it was possible that would actually make it more difficult to draw them away from their Sources.

“Ready?” Jo whispered.

Lav nodded, bracing himself to run, one hand on his rapier and the other clenching the net in his fist.

“Now!”

Lav took off in a dash over the dark grass around the edge of the pond. They could hear Jo’s footsteps on the other side, matching in stride as they moved in reflections of each other. The wind whistled through Lav’s hair, awakening his sense far better than standing in that iron circle had. He could see the geometric pattern on the taller ghost’s dress, the crystal earrings that swayed as she dipped her head down towards the pond. The kid beside her – he was certain it was a kid now – was holding a paper boat in their hands.

Lav was so locked in on the details of the phantoms, in fact, that he didn’t even see the other figure emerging from the woods until he’d crashed straight into them, sending them both sprawling to the cold wet grass.

The stranger was first to his feet, staggering up and pushing his hair from his face and already complaining. “You know, you really shouldn’t be in the park… this… late. Um.”

“I’m an agent!” Lav exclaimed. He pushed himself up and dusted himself off the best he could, but there was still grass stuck to his skin. So much for their foolproof plan. And who was this guy? Now that Lav had righted himself enough to get a better look at him, he could see that the stranger had a rapier at his waist, meaning he was an agent, but wasn’t wearing the uniform of any agency Lav knew of. He definitely wasn’t a very good agent, because instead of checking that he hadn’t dropped any nets or salt cannisters like Lav was, he was simply staring like an idiot, arms hanging uselessly at his sides.

“You’re an agent,” he said.

“Yep.” Lav turned away from the stranger to see what chaos was unfolding with the Shades without him. Jo was there, cutting sharp lines with their rapier, eyes darting between the ghosts and the mud beneath them.

“It’s nice to meet you,” the stranger said, but Lav was barely listening.

“Yeah, sorry for running into you, have a good night,” he replied quickly, then he was off, sprinting through the reeds to reach Jo, tripping over his feet as he tried to shake the distraction that weird lone agent had caused. Had multiple agencies been contracted for this job? It wasn’t unheard of, but they would have expected to be informed that other agents might be on the scene.

Though the sun was fully set, the Shades were bright enough to light up the area around them. With a nod to Jo, Lav fell to his knees at the edge of the pond and began to pull up reeds, searching for anything out of the ordinary. If the Source – or Sources, rather – were deep at the bottom of the pond, there was nothing they could do to retrieve them, but if Jo saw the ghosts manifest over the mud, it was likely that what they were looking for was buried somewhere in the marsh. Lav tucked the silver net back into his pocket and plunged his hands into the mud.

“Throwing salt!” Jo called, and there was a crackling of a salt bomb striking the wet grass. “Got anything?”

“Just mud,” Lav replied. “And lots of worms.”

“Move a few steps towards me. That’s where I saw them manifest.”

Lav leaned back, wiping his hands on the grass, and looked up. Jo had managed to lure the Shades further from the lake, leaving their point of origin open for Lav to dig. He moved over and had just ripped another handful of weeds from the mud when Jo called out suddenly.

“Great work, Lav!”

Lav opened their mouth to respond, baffled, when they felt the presence of someone approaching beside them.

“Looking for this?”

Lav, who had been just about to snap back, assuming this to be the same stranger that crashed into him on his way here, registered that this was a vastly different voice than he expected and whirled around to face this newcomer. She was holding a bundled silver net in her hands, hair only half tied out of her face and sticking in her mouth, grinning.

Lav stared. “How did – who are—?”

“Lav?” Jo called, now concerned. He stood and backed away from the pond, falling in line with Jo. The newcomer, who had evidently secured the Sources, rose to meet them and extended a hand.

“Nice rapier technique,” she said to Jo. “I’m Rue.”

Jo did not take Rue’s hand. Instead, she took a step back, pushing Lav behind her, and lifted her rapier to the stranger’s throat.

Rue paled, glancing off to the woods to her right. “Sage?”

“What are you doing here?” Jo demanded.

“I’m doing my job,” Rue replied. “Which is probably what you were doing too, right? The old couple down the street hired us because their granddaughter kept seeing a ghost child walking down to the park, so we traced the Source to this old swing set over there, and then turns out there was a second Visitor, so Sage went to the lake to check it out, but I heard something about some tree stump, so I told him that, and I guess he probably found it since the Shades are gone, but I’m sure you would have solved it soon enough anyways, so….” She cut herself off, seeing Jo’s thunderous expression. “Sorry. I’d offer to split the bonus, but we’re kind of low on cash right now. Sorry.” She looked to the woods again, no doubt searching for Sage, who Lav presumed to be the person he’d crashed into earlier.

Jo still didn’t lower her rapier. “We checked the whole park before we started. Where did you set up your iron circle?”

Rue gave a loud gasp. “Oh my God! The iron circle! I knew I was forgetting something. I had the chains packed and everything.”

Jo’s expression was somewhere between baffled and incredulous. “How do you—”

Before they could finish questioning how on Earth an experienced agent could forget to set up an iron circle, Jo’s rapier was knocked away by a second blade. Sage had, at last, emerged from wherever he’d been hiding. He pushed Jo’s blade down to the ground. “Rue, who is—” His gaze fell on Lav. “You! You… um – I didn’t quite get your name.”

“Oh my God,” Jo sighed. “Lav, let’s get out of here.” She sheathed her rapier and took Lav by the wrist, pulling him away before he could demand an explanation.

It would have been a lot easier if they could simply flee the scene and forget about this mess of a case immediately, but unfortunately, Jo and Lav were actual competent agents, and so Jo only dragged Lav to the other side of the pond, where they packed up their iron circle while exchanging sharp looks with the others across the water.

“Completely unprofessional,” Jo was saying as they trekked back to the gazebo. “I wonder how they even managed to get certified.”

“Bribery?” Lav suggested.

“Probably!” They threw their hands up in frustration. “Ugh! This is why no one wants to hire unsupervised agents, they’ve all heard horror stories of total incompetence and they can’t believe that anyone would actually do things by the book on their own.”

“Do you think the lady that hired us also went to them?”

“I doubt it. She seemed to actually know what she was doing, running background checks on us. IF she put even half the effort into screening them, she never would have allowed them to set foot in the park.” Jo sighed again, coiling the second set of chains into her bag. “I doubt they’ve even read the Fittes Manual , running around without even casing the place, wandering on – on, what? Intuition?”

“Blind luck, more likely,” Lav grumbled.

“Right?” Jo exclaimed. “I bet they’ve just opened. The second DEPRAC finds out how they’re doing things, they’ll be shut down immediately.”

They’d reached the gate of the park now, and Jo went to phone a Night Cab while Lav double checked their bags. That was a salt bomb and a whole evening wasted. They’d get the pay promised for showing up, at least, but they’d been counting on securing this Source easily. And it was an easy case! If they’d only had a half hour more to work, they would have tracked those Shades to their Sources without difficulty, and their names would be in the city’s paper.

“It’s groups like those that make DEPRAC dislike us,” Jo said, pocketing their phone. “I know the higher-ups want to assimilate us.”

“Assimilate us?”

“Into one of the bigger teams,” Jo explained. “Beatrix told me. As if we could get anything done then.” She crossed her arms, leaning back against the wrought iron fence, and the cool night breeze fluttered through the stray hairs that had pulled loose from her braids. Her face was hardened into an intense expression that spelled nothing but trouble should they ever cross paths with those agents again. Rue and Sage . They didn’t offer an agency name, but Lav was skilled enough at research that he knew if they’d ever done anything newsworthy, he could find out about it. Though, considering the events of tonight, that was quite unlikely.

Chapter Text

For the better part of its existence, the Underworld had operated as an essentially nameless operation. Rue and Sage were roommates first and agents second, and when they did decide to put their training to use, the name ‘Rue and Sage’ worked perfectly fine. It was only after Dennis and Beau joined, and the base of operations and residence of workers was moved from a tiny flat with overbearing neighbors to a quaint townhouse at the edge of the city, that it became evident they needed a better title to do business under. It might have been Sage who started it; no one could really remember now, but they all gradually began lovingly referring to their slightly dingy, mostly-basement home as the Underworld. It was fitting.

Rue had been aware of Megacorporation™’s elite duo for some months before she actually encountered them, though she didn’t recognize the members themselves at the time. There was an article in some paper about two agents conquering the horrors of some old factory, and Rue took note of it as evidence that this whole Underworld thing had a chance of working. Of course, those two had the advantage of Megacorp™ funding and the best training in the country, but it was the premise that counted. The paper didn’t give many details on the agents themselves beyond a statement from Jo, the agent who had held the rapier to Rue’s throat in Celestite Park, who kept boasting as though they did jobs like this all the time, despite it being – to Rue’s knowledge, at least – the first time the duo had ever gained even the smallest recognition from the press. There wasn’t even a photo of Lav, though he was mentioned by name a couple times. All in all, the impression Rue got from the writer of the article was one of doubt and skepticism at Megacorp™’s decision to send two agents on a case without a supervisor. Sure, there was some controversy surrounding adults’ lack of Talent affecting on-case decision making, but no one dared interpret that to mean supervisors weren’t necessary. She and Sage had not struggled at every case to convince their clients they were capable on their own just to see Megacorp™ pitch the same team structure in what appeared to be little more than a gimmick. Come, hire the elite private team! The price is for the premium experience of course, not all because their DEPRAC insurance is twice as expensive!

From their encounter in Celestite Park, Rue got the feeling that Jo and Lav’s lone status was less to do with their heightened skill and more to do with their inability to cooperate. For God’s sake, who crossed paths with any agent on the job and had the first instinct to hold a rapier to their throat? Perhaps Rue had gotten too comfortable with the peace of the Underworld; this career did tend to attract some violent types. Other than Jo’s aggression, however, there had been nothing out of the ordinary with the Celestite Park case. The encounter had been brief, and they’d contained both Sources without too much fuss, so she didn’t dwell on it. Well, only the normal amount of dwelling that was inescapable when Sage kept making very unsubtle comments on the attractiveness of one of those strange agents, but that was beside the point.

The real trouble began two weeks later, when the Underworld was hired for their most exciting case yet: a suspected Wraith wreaking havoc in an old motel. The client was the owner of the motel, who had been forced to temporarily close the business after a customer had been found ghost-touched in his room. If they were able to vanquish the Visitor, the prize would be great – the biggest payout in the Underworld’s history, in fact.

Suffice to say, the energy that afternoon in the Underworld was frantic.

“You’ve got the chains.”

“I do not have the chains, Rue. Sage packed them already.”

“You were supposed to clean them.”

“I cleaned them yesterday. Ask Beau.”

“Beau said you put them in the cupboard.”

“What?”

“Beau said you put the chains in the cupboard this morning.”

“Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know, that’s why I assumed you still had them!”

“I don’t have them.”

Rue stuck her head out into the hallway. “Sage!”

“What?” he called from upstairs.

“Where are the chains?”

“I put them in my bag already. Do you need them now?”

“Nope, just checking.” Rue turned back to Dennis. “Thank you for cleaning them. Did you clean the rapiers too?”

Dennis frowned. “No. Was I – was I supposed to do that?”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Rue said, and it really was. The nerves of this job were just getting to her. “You already gave me the notes on the Wraith, right?”

Dennis thought for a moment, and in the brief pause in their conversation, there came a crash from upstairs. “Yes, I did,” he said.

“Awesome, thanks.” Rue stepped back out into the hall. “Sage?”

“All good!”

“Okay, if you’re sure!” She returned to the kitchen and plucked a cookie from Dennis’s plate. “What time is it?”

Dennis checked his watch. “Ten ‘til.”  

“Ten ‘til what?” Rue asked through a full mouth.

“’Til six.”

Rue choked on her cookie and stole Dennis’s mug of tea to wash it down. “Six?” she repeated. “Oh my God, we’re so late! Where’s Beau?”

“Beau’s coming?” Dennis asked in alarm.

“No, no, he’s just out buying magnesium flares and – ugh, I know I should have sent him earlier, but I kept going back and forth on it because they’re so expensive and we’ll probably be indoors and everything will be chaotic and it would be so embarrassing to burn a whole motel down on our first Type Two, but it would also be embarrassing to fail because we weren’t prepared, so I told him to get a few and he should he back by now, it’s, what, ten ‘til? Tel ‘til six? We’re going to be late!”

“Correction,” Sage called from the hallway, “we’re going to be fashionably late!”

“That’s not a very good first impression to give!” Rue exclaimed.

“Where’s your bag?” Sage asked.

“It’s—” Rue paused, looking about as if it would suddenly materialize in the kitchen beside her. “I was just packing.”

“It’s here!” called a new voice from down the hall.

“Oh, thank God,” Dennis sighed.

“Beau, can you put the flares in my bag?” Rue called. She grabbed another cookie from Dennis’s plate and shoved it in the pocket of her coat for later. “Are we all ready, then?”

Sage patted his side, where his rapier rested at his belt, then twisted to the mirror on the wall to check his hair. “Uh, just a second…”

Rue raced past him to meet Beau at the front door, where he was carefully arranging four magnesium flares in the outer ouch of her bag. “Thanks, Beau,” she sighed. “You’ll make sure the house doesn’t burn down while we’re gone, right?”

Beau nodded dutifully and retreated to the kitchen as Sage came down the hall, staggering to pull his shoes on as he walked. “Did you call a cab?” he asked.

“Yes, I did,” Rue said. “Oh my God, they’re probably sitting outside wondering where we are.”

“They’re probably happy we’re late since they’ll charge us by the minute,” Sage pointed out, which did not do much to console Rue on their tardiness. The Underworld could not afford to pay a cab to sit in the street outside idly.

“We have to go,” Rue said, grabbing a hair tie from the shelf by the door; she’d have to sort her hair out on the ride there. She grabbed the door knob and glanced back. “Are you ready?”

“So ready,” Sage said, following her out the door. “I’ll tell the driver to speed.”

“Please don’t do that.”

The motel was far on the northern edge of town, so much so that by the time they arrived, the sun was already dipping well below the skyline. The cab deposited them in the center of the overgrown parking lot and was gone before Rue could even offer a tip. During the ride, she’d pulled her hair up into a half-ponytail as per usual, but already the wind was tugging strands loose, so Sage offered to brain it while they sat on the curb and gave the building a once-over.

It was a humble two-story affair, arranged in an L-shape with stairways at either end and a lobby centered on the ground floor of the longer side. The building must have once been painted a delightful blue, but it had long since faded and peeled so much that it gave the distinct impression that the walls themselves had acquired some odd mold. Along these walls, the doors to the rooms contrasted in a deep burgundy, something like thirty of them between the top and bottom floor.

According to their client, there was a fenced-in pool around the back, so that was where Rue and Sage headed first, intending to walk the perimeter of the property before heading into the lobby to set their iron circle. It was most likely that the ghost would manifest near the room in which that customer had died, but it was possible for the Source to be anywhere on the property. Or off the property, for that matter, but that would complicate things, legally. Rue preferred not to consider it.

Sure enough, around the back of the longer section of the building, there was a feeble chain-link fence surrounding a small, uncovered pool. Sage merely jangled the latch of the gate and it fell open, eliciting a concerned look from Rue.

“That probably shouldn’t happen,” she muttered as they stepped through the opening.

“No wonder they’ve got a Visitor problem, with security like this,” Sage joked, tapping the flimsy fence. He turned to Rue, no doubt waiting for a response, but Rue was hardly listening. Instead, she was staring, transfixed by the glow of the pool lights that tinted the water an unnatural shade of bluish green.

Rue took in a breath, feeling the chill of the evening and the rumble of the street fade away in favor of the gentle humming from the pool. She exhaled, and her breath plumed before her. There was a thrumming, almost like a heartbeat but far too slow to be her own. At the corner of the pool, where the water was shallowest, the surface shimmered, no longer lapping at the ladder’s rungs.

Then, all of a sudden, Rue’s ears popped, and the silence was flooded with a great rush of noise: a yell of anguish, a deafening splash, the thud of a body striking the bottom, then silence once more. Rue cried out, throwing herself back away from the pool’s edge and crashing directly into Sage. He stumbled back and steadied her as she struggled to catch her breath.

“You all right?” His hand was on her shoulder, a sense of sturdiness to keep her rooted in the realm of the living.

Rue blinked, and the regular sounds of the motel returned to her: the rumble of the heater, the lapping of the water against the tiled pool sides, the occasional rolling of a car passing by. “The man who died,” she said slowly. “Which room was it?”

“Uh—” Sage dropped his hand and dug into his pockets for his notebook. “Something on the second floor, I think…”

“That one?” Rue asked. She pointed up at the building, at the window that overlooked the pool. It was open a crack, and the glass was fogged over.

Sage glanced between the notebook and the window. “Yes, actually. I think so. How did you…?”

“They’re a murder victim,” Rue said, already heading around the building again with Sage on her heels. “They were pushed out the second story window, into the pool. There isn’t a body, so the Source will be something in that room. Something small enough that it hasn’t been moved by anyone cleaning the room. Behind the furniture, maybe?”

“Or a secret compartment,” Sage suggested. “Are we still setting up an iron circle in the lobby?”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Rue replied. “Though we should also have one in the room we’re searching – did you bring the filings? That’ll be enough, right? For a Type Two? Is it better to have the stronger circle in the lobby or closer to the Source?”

Sage tilted his head in thought. “I actually… have no idea.”

“Filings in the lobby, then? We’re probably less likely to mess them up there.” Rue tucked a stray hair behind her ear as they came upon the lobby doors. “You’ve got the salt cannisters, right? And – oh, did Dennis pack the extra nets? I mean, it’s probably just one Source, and it can’t be very big, so we’re probably fine either way, but—”

“Rue.” Sage was looking at her with a glimmer in his eye. He swung the door to the lobby open with a flourish. “We’ll be fine.”

“Right,” Rue said, stepping through. The second she passed under the doorframe, the air shifted. It was darker in here, with no lights turned on and no radiant glow of streetlights or the setting sun, but the change was deeper than that. The air was dry and stale; it seemed to settle upon every surface like a mold. Rue’s eyes traced upward, following the curve of the ceiling and landing upon the old unlit chandelier that hung over what must have been the reception desk.

She approached with caution, one hand on her rapier. “How long did they say they’ve been closed for?”

“Four days, I think?” Sage replied. His voice came from the left, where he’d wandered over to the breakfast bar.

“There are webs.” She drew her rapier and tapped the tip against the brass chains of the chandelier, coating the end of her blade in a thin netting of spider webs. “Sage, what’s the temperature?” She hooked her rapier back in her belt and sidled past the dark wooden desk to try the door behind. It was locked, of course. Definitely an employees-only situation. Still, she stood for a minute at the door, Listening. It was quiet than the pool outside, so it was much easier to hone in on the supernatural types of sounds. There was a gentle sighing, so slight that it could have merely been the building settling. Then, far off, perhaps even on the other floor, there was a distinctive thud.

“Sage? Have you started on the filings?” She was still looking at that door, squinting at it as if it would reveal its secrets to her under enough scrutiny. Then, suddenly, the silence of the room sent a thrum of panic through her veins, and Rue whirled around. “Sage?”

“Sorry!” Sage exclaimed. He was over by the breakfast bar, kneeling to inspect something at his feet. “Okay, so the good news is we don’t have to worry about the filings.”

Rue crossed the room quickly, sidestepping a rather gaudy fake plant to meet Sage in the dining space. He was uninjured, thankfully, but his brow was knit with worry. And there, lying so unassuming at his feet, was a set of iron chains arranged neatly in a ring around two duffel bags.

“Oh,” Rue said. “So, there’s other agents here?”

“It would appear so.”

“I mean, that’s all right, right? It's kind of weird we haven’t encountered anyone yet, but they’re probably taking it slowly like us – maybe they’re up there, in the room. We should go up there now. I’m not giving up our first Type Two to some random big agency that decided to take over our case.” She snapped her mouth shut, suddenly aware of how worked up this was making her.

“Absolutely,” Sage agreed. “Should we bring our chains up, or—”

“No, there’s no point setting up circles when they’ve already done it. Then we won’t have to have Dennis clean them again. Let’s leave our bags here, just grab some cannisters and nets, and we’ll come back once we’ve got the Source handled. Sage, you’ve got the flares, right?”

“Beau put them in your bag.”

“Oh! Right. Sorry.” She pulled open the exterior pocket of her bag, where the magnesium flares were packed neatly in a grid. “Do you want one or two?”

“Three, please,” Sage replied. “Ask Beau and Dennis who’s got the better aim between us.”

“Beau and Dennis are biased,” Rue retorted, but she handed him three anyways. Sage stood up, pushing his hair out of his face as Rue stuffed a silver net into the pocket of her jeans. There was no time to double-check their supplies or brace themselves in any way. If there was indeed another agency already tackling the room where the Source was, they had a scarce few minutes to catch up before their prize was snatched out of their fingers.

Outside, the chill of the evening was truly beginning to set in, and Rue was thankful that she’d worn an extra layer beneath her coat. Sage, on the other hand, was making a real effort to conceal the fact that he was shivering. He rushed ahead of Rue, taking the steps at the end of the building two at a time as she tailed him, hands gliding over the rough brick walls. It almost felt like a playground game, like there was no danger ahead.

Once up on the second level, while Sage counted the doors from the end, Rue drifted to the railing. The metal was cold, almost biting with its touch, but she rested her forearms against it anyways. A rush of wind swept up in a flurry of fallen leaves that skittered across the parking lot below. It swept up through the bars of the railing and twisted its fingers through Rue’s hair, freeing more strands from the braid and sticking them against her lips. There was a hum rising up from the floor below. Across the street, a Shade drifted listlessly along the forest’s edge. Up in the sky, the moon shone in a thin, piercing crescent.

“It’s this one,” Sage called softly. He was waiting outside the room where the customer had died, his hand hovering just short of the doorknob.

Rue adjusted her jacket and shook herself internally, shedding the anxiety that had laced the evening. “Okay,” she said. “You’ve got the Source, I’ve got the ghost?”

“You’ve got the ghost, I’ve got the ghost when it inevitably overpowers you,” Sage corrected with a sideways smile. Then, before Rue could have the final word in, he opened the door.

The scene inside the motel room was utter chaos. It was genuinely impressive, actually, how quiet the outside had been compared to the commotion within. There was the Wraith, still not at its strongest but raging and sputtering nonetheless, backed into the far corner by none other than Jo of the Afterlife. Their form was good – much better than Rue’s, anyway – and they were therefore doing quite well at keeping the ghost at bay with fast, snapping motions and a confident stance, but they weren’t accomplishing anything besides distracting the Wraith temporarily.

As Rue and Sage rushed into the room, there was a cry of surprise from the bathroom immediately to the left of the entrance, and the other Afterlife agent stumbled out with white dust in their hair and a chisel in their hand.

“You!” he shouted.

At this, Jo paused her engagement with the Wraith to risk a look back and exclaimed in frustration. “You two? What are you doing here?”

“Funny enough, we’re doing our job,” Sage replied. He smiled at the agent who appeared to be covered in powdery tile grout. “Would you mind assistance?”

Jo laughed sharply, cutting a complicated pattern in the air between herself and the Wraith. “As a matter of fact—” The Wraith lunged and they dove away, rolling over the bed “—as a matter of fact, I would mind!”

“You aren’t even looking for the Source,” Rue pointed out. “If you just keep stabbing at it, you’ll only make it angrier.”

“If you must know, I’m keeping it busy,” she replied. “Lav is looking for the Source.”

Presently, Lav was looking at Sage a lot more than searching for the Source, but Rue didn’t want to start an argument. The Wraith shuddered, and its details became more pronounced: it was a young man, perhaps no older than the four of them, with dark voids in his eye sockets, his skin hanging loose.

Jo unhooked a salt cannister from their belt and tossed it, sending the Wraith sputtering the wall. “If you really want to help,” she said, “you can kindly get the hell out of our way.”

“Sorry,” Rue said, stepping forward and drawing her rapier. “My team has spent the last three days preparing for this case; we’re not going to quit just because some stranger has the arrogance to order us to leave.”

Jo rolled their eyes. “You’re so prepared that you showed up over twenty minutes after the first apparition?”

“Twenty minutes?” Rue repeated in alarm. Sure, they’d arrived later than they planned, but that was why they intended to get on the scene much earlier than necessary. The manifestation shouldn’t even have begun yet.

“It’s been coming and going for nearly half an hour,” Jo explained. “If you wanted this case, you should’ve been more punctual.”

“Why are you looking for the Source in the bathroom?” Rue asked. She nodded to the doorway of the bathroom, where Lav still stood, empty-handed. Maybe if she could keep this jerk talking long enough, Sage would figure out where this Source was hidden and it’d be over with.

“It’s much easier to hide objects behind tiles than within a wall,” Jo replied evenly; her voice contained just the slightest hint of patronization. “All of the bedding has been changed by now. We checked the pictures and the furniture—”

“So you don’t actually have any reasoning behind your search,” Rue cut in, earning a cutting glare in return. “We were late because we were investigating the premises before jumping into a rapier fight. Did you Listen by the pool?”

“It’s a drowning victim, I know.”

“Well – well, yeah, you could probably tell that from the way he looks, but it’s not like you can lump all of them together and just, ‘oh, this guy’s a drowning victim so that tells us nothing about where or what his Source is except we’re going to look in the bathroom because that seems the easiest’, I mean if you want to just take a breather for a minute, I could get a better read off of him in person—”

“In person?” they echoed, sounding appalled. “It’s a ghost.”

“A ghost is a dead person,” Rue said, which was a very obvious thing to say but apparently had not occurred to this person. “Listen, I don’t want to fight with you.” She switched her rapier to her other hand and held out her free hand in the offer of a truce. “My name’s Rue.”

“Yes, I know.” They did not take her hand. “The Wraith’s coming back.”

Sure enough, the moment she uttered those words, the drowned man manifested just over her shoulder. Without thinking, Rue thrusted her rapier forward, driving the blade through the ghost’s head and nearly slicing the other agent’s neck in the process. They leapt to action at once, and in one motion managed to knock Rue’s blade away and spin around the face the Wraith.

As the two of them squared their stances against the ghost, there came a call from the bathroom. “Uh, Jo?” It was Lav. “Are you busy?”

“A bit!” Jo called back, ducking under the reach of the Wraith to slip their rapier through his torso.

Jo might have been saying something then, but Rue had stopped listening. Her gaze was fixed on the face of the ghost, taking in every detail. His hair was dark and short, falling just above his eyes in gently curling locks. His cheeks were hollow, and the skin hung from the bones like draped fabric. It was hard to distinguish color in most apparitions, but Rue felt certain that his skin was too pale and his lips were turned blue. More than anything, however, she was looking at his eyes. The skin thinned around the edges of the sockets, wrapping tightly around the bone and giving room for a large, gaping void where his eyeballs should have been. Still, it felt as though he was staring directly at her.

Rue took in a breath, forgetting the nonsense and chaos of the rest of the room, and Listened.

Leave… get out… leave…

It was the usual death loop, harnessed by the anger of a Type Two into a threat much more intense than the meaningly ramblings of the Visitors she’d faced before. Rue’s grip loosened, letting her rapier fall to the carpet with a dull thud, and she stepped closer.

I’ll tell her… I’ll do it… there’s nothing you can do…

A sense of understanding washed over Rue and settled coldly in her gut. Her eyes pricked with tears, and the Wraith still stared. “You had a secret,” she said softly. “Something awful. Something they couldn’t risk getting out.”

Get out… it’s over…

“What was it?”

From behind her, Rue heard a series of quiet footsteps, but she blocked it out. If they found the Source without her, so be it. All of her attention was on the Wraith. Were all Type Twos like this? It felt as though he was speaking directly to her.

It’s over… I’ll do it… there’s nothing you can do…

“I can tell her,” she said, and even she flinched at her words. Making promises to Visitors was dangerous ground. She didn’t even possess the faintest clue what the secret or, or who it was kept from, or who was confronting him. Rue searched her mind for some clue, some indication of what could possibly be so important that someone was willing to kill this poor guy over it. An affair, maybe? She looked to the Wraith for confirmation and was met yet again with those hollow voids for eyes. There was such an aching, overpowering sadness about him, and the longer she gazed at him, the harder it became to breathe, like a pressure was constraining her chest. It was over. It felt as though she herself was drowning.

“Who is she?” Her voice was fainter. More and more, she felt as thought the words were falling out of her rather than her consciously speaking them aloud. She Wraith drew closer. She could practically smell the chlorine that soaked through his ragged clothes. They were pajamas, she realized dimly. Was he attacked in his sleep?

The air was unbearably thick now, bitter cold and somehow still suffocatingly humid. Rue blinked in slow motion. Her arms were dead weights at her sides.

Leave… I’ll tell her…

“Rue!”

She jolted, suddenly snapped out of her stupor by the cry behind her and a popping in her ears, but before she could turn and face whoever was calling, the air in front of her exploded in a brilliant burst of heat and light. Very professionally, Rue screamed in panic and stumbled back, crashing straight into Jo and nearly impaling herself on the other agent’s rapier.

“Sorry!” Lav exclaimed, dashing in from the bathroom just behind Sage. “We could have contained that a minute ago, but he—”

“I wasn’t sure!” Sage protested. “It’s – it’s not a normal Source—”

“If it’s a Source at all, you should contain it immediately,” Jo said with exasperation. “Why on Earth—”

“And your flare was unnecessary and dangerous,” Sage retorted. “I contained it.”

“Far too late!” Lav countered.

“Still—”

“Your partner was ghost locked,” Jo explained. “Would you have rather I let her die?”

Sage sighed, his shoulder’s dropping. “Oh, come on. She wasn’t – you were fine, right, Rue?”

Rue opened her mouth, then closed it again. She was still sitting very undignified on the floor of the motel room, her rapier far out of reach. When she blinked, she was met with the Wraith’s empty eyes.

At once, Sage’s expression shifted. He knelt before her. “Rue. What happened?”

Rue took a deep breath, gathering her words. “I – I Listened,” she said softly. “He spoke to me.”

“Yes, Type Twos tend to do that,” Jo said. “It’s called a death loop.”

“Yes, I know what a death loop is,” Rue shot back.

“That’s why Listening is dangerous,” Jo said, as if she was explaining Talents to a small child.

By the door, Lav shifted from foot to foot. “Jo—”

“What was the Source?” Jo asked Sage. “Why didn’t you contain it?”

Sage held up what appeared to be a book wrapped in his chain net. “It’s a notebook,” he said. “Which, obviously, makes perfect sense for a Source. But I looked inside, just to see. You know, private secrets or wills or whatever. All good reasons for the book to be the Source.”

“And?” Jo prompted.

“And it’s empty. Not a single torn out page.”

It was curious, yes, but not so unbelievable as to assume that it somehow wasn’t the Source. Still, even after the notebook had been sent off to the furnaces and the case’s payout had been split evenly between the agencies, Rue found herself lingering on the words that Wraith had said. Maybe it was just her first Type Two. Maybe all Type Twos were like this. Maybe there had been something specific about this case that bothered her. With nothing written in the notebook, there was no evidence to solve the murder. The case had already been closed.

Lying in bed that night, Rue shivered at the memory of the coldness that had seized her, that helplessness that made her useless to protect herself against the Visitor. This was the price she paid for her skills as a Listener. There was danger, yes, but she could recognize it now, and the next time the Underworld crossed paths with the Afterlife – she was certain it was inevitable – she would not be made to feel so inexperienced.

Chapter Text

It was only meant to be an easy case. Something simple but flashy to get their names ahead of the Underworld in the paper. The two groups had been locked in this rivalry for months now: the Afterlife would chase the Screaming Spirit out of the old museum only to find that on the same night, the Underworld had conquered a Poltergeist a block away. It was driving Jo mad. When the Afterlife was first bought out by Megacorp™, she and Lav hadn’t even completed their fourth grade certification yet. It had appeared, at first, to be a move of sympathy: they had screwed up and forgotten Beatrix’s instructions, and Megacorp™ had swooped in to cover the damages. They liked the Afterlife’s independence, they said, but even agents as skilled as them were doomed to fail without the backing of a bigger agency. Beatrix had adjusted the quickest – Jo suspected she liked the order too much to complain about the oversight – and for the most part, Jo was fine with the arrangement. But the longer this petty rivalry stretched on for, the more her irritation grew. Why were they still being sent after measly Type Ones every night? Why weren’t they ever given a case they could really dig their teeth into? Sure, the Screaming Spirit had been a whirlwind of an evening, but they’d only had a day to research and had been instructed very specifically not to engage with any of the museum’s other Visitors.

So, on the day that they were set to tackle St. Wren’s Cathedral, Jo was not particularly enthusiastic for the case. They took their time getting around in the dormitory wing, trying not to look too hostile to the other Megacorp™ agents scurrying about. The Afterlife occupied a weird position in the eyes of the employees of Megacorp™, and an even weirder one in the eyes of the public. When they’d been bought out, they had no fame to speak of whatsoever, but Megacorp™ made quite a deal about showing them off to investors. Not in person, mind you – God forbid they actually give Jo the chance to do some networking – but in a short-lived advertisement campaign about the program. It sounded like encouragement for other agencies to try the same, but Jo knew that the other groups were just waiting to see how the Afterlife inevitably crashed and burned. Probably, it was never even intended to last this long, just prove to the naysayers that the supervisors were necessary.

At breakfast, Jo and Lav sat at their own table in the corner of the cafeteria. Lav had newspapers spread out over the two empty spots at the table, and was apparently quite invested in some eulogy of one of the cathedral’s groundskeepers.

“Is that our ghost?” Jo asked as they sat.

“Possibly. This was back at the start of the Problem. She kept complaining about spirits in the cemetery, no one believed her, she ended up dead by ghost-touch.”

“There’s a cemetery by the cathedral?”

“It’s walled-off now, but yeah.” He tucked his hand under his chin. “It’s sounding like a Specter. Not aggressive, though.”

Jo tried not to look too disappointed. While the cathedral was good in terms of the notoriety of the location, this would do nothing to boost their reputation. And besides, a case was only thrilling with a little risk of death.

That afternoon, she and Lav trudged down to their basement office at Megacorp™, which was pitched to them as an exclusive headquarters but felt more like being shoved into a broom closet. Per routine, Beatrix came by with the intent to spar with both of them in equal proportions, but clearly favored Jo. Lav was much better at the Listening and finding the Source bit of the job.

“Don’t parry to the left,” Beatrix corrected, snapping Jo out of their thoughts. “It leaves you open.”

“Well, I doubt I’ll be parrying any phantoms,” Jo replied. Still, she corrected herself, moving the rapier to cross her chest. While the mechanics were the same between sparring and fending off an angry spirit, it was quite different where there was no returning rapier to battle with. Part of Jo suspected that Beatrix just enjoyed an excuse to flex her skills. Since the Afterlife was bought out by Megacorp™, Beatrix had been relocated to training the younger kids, which meant a lot of basic movements and reminders not to stab yourself with your rapier. Jo presented a challenge.

“What about a Poltergeist?” Lav suggested from his seat at the old desk.

Jo attacked, and Beatrix only managed to block. “Yes, Lavender, I think a Poltergeist would use an iron rapier to stab at me,” they said sarcastically.

“It doesn’t have to be rapier,” Lav said. “There are plenty of objects that could be used to stab you. And what about the Underworld?”

“What about them?” Jo replied. She ducked under Beatrix’s blade. “I bet Rue would just drop her rapier again.”

“And Sage?”

A slap of metal met her waist. Jo winced – not at the pain, but at her damaged pride. “You distracted me,” she said to Lav as she shook Beatrix’s hand. They stored their rapier back at their belt and slumped into the chair beside him, electing not to answer about Sage. Speaking of distractions.

For a moment, they sat in silence as Jo caught her breath again and wiped the sweat from her brow. Beatrix busied herself in polishing her rapier. Up above, the ceiling creaked with the activity of the building overhead. The basement was quieter, but the temperature varied wildly from freezing cold to sweltering, and the walls were unfinished brick that collected spider webs. If Jo had it their way, they’d have a penthouse office overlooking the whole city. If Jo had it their way, their ‘elite team’ would not be relegated to footnotes and easy jobs.

“Oh my God,” Lav said suddenly.

Jo sat up. “What?”

“St. Wren’s Cathedral is on Spiderlily Lane, isn’t it?”

“Is it?”

Lav slid the folder across to her. “It is.”

And so it was. Spiderlily Lane was, coincidentally, the same road that contained the Underworld’s headquarters. That was, if you could call a little townhouse in need of renovations a headquarters . Neither of them had ever been inside the building, but Jo had scouted it out after their fourth or some encounter. Not in a stalkerish way, of course, but just to see what they were working with, which wasn’t much. That was how they discovered that there were at least two other members of the Underworld’s agency, though they hadn’t managed to get their names. If there were any adults involved in any capacity, Jo hadn’t witnessed it.

Which was fine, of course. Ever since Beatrix had granted Jo and Lav their fourth grade certifications, they’d been operating in a similar way. Still, that did raise the question of where the Underworld got their funding from. They couldn’t possibly keep up with costs using only the case payouts, unless they were working twice as much as it appeared. A trust fund, maybe? A generous and irresponsible parent?

“Do you think they’ll be there too?” Lav wondered.

“God, I hope not,” Jo sighed. “This is supposed to be fast.”

Beatrix cleared her throat.

“I mean, I have no expectations for the timescale of the case,” Jo recited.

“And?” Beatrix prompted.

“And I won’t cut any corners to be done when I expect.”

Beatrix nodded, satisfied. It wasn’t as if Jo was reckless on the job. It was just rather annoying when you go into a job expecting to be out by midnight and end up digging through the backyard garden for several hours under the reproachful watch of a Shade. So, just to speed things up, you think perhaps aggravating the Visitor might give some clue as to the specific location of the Source, and, well…. Besides, that was a long time ago!

It was frustrating. Jo was top of their class in training, won awards in rapier technique – all the fittings for a promising team leader at Megacorp™ – and yet the higher-ups had evidently decided that this ‘elite team’ could only handle the most mundane of Type Twos, maximum. There were kids younger than her going up against Changers and Poltergeists, and she and Lav were relegated to some boring church groundskeeper.

The day passed agonizingly slowly. There was lunch in the cafeteria, where one of the older teams was boasting obnoxiously about their victory over a particularly nasty Specter down at the south edge of town. This was especially bothersome because Jo knew that the Underworld had assisted in that case, but there wasn’t any way to point that out without sounding like a stalker. It wasn’t as if they tracked every single case the Underworld took on. There was just something about that girl, Rue, that bugged Jo. Having strong Talents was good and all, but the more you relied on them, the more vulnerable you became. This went double for Listeners. Beatrix had trained Lav relentlessly on control, on restraint. Rue had apparently not received any of this advice, or at least had not taken any of it to heart, and from their brief encounters, Jo could tell she was exceptionally sensitive. One of these days, Jo just knew she’d see that name in the papers. Another unfortunate incident in a dangerous line of work.

The Underworld’s whole methodology was idiotic. They arrived late on the scene, forgot supplies, and treated Visitors like living people. They acted like they hadn’t even gone through training, which was ridiculous, because if they were actually operating uncertified, they would have certainly been reprimanded by now. Maybe not. Maybe Jo had ought to report them.

The journey to the cathedral was longer than their usual commute. It was far on the very outskirts of the city, where the rent was cheaper and the ghost-lamps barely glowed. Jo got the impression that a long time ago, it had been a grand and esteemed building, but now it was nothing more than a poorly maintained structure only standing due to its clerical status as a historical landmark. All of the cemeteries had long since been blocked off in iron, but the rest of the cathedral was untouched by the Problem. As Jo and Lav stepped through the doorway after bidding farewell to the cab driver, the nerves and malaise that came from entering a haunted place washed over in conjunction with the unmistaken scent of old wood and cobwebs.

“Very cheery looking,” Lav deadpanned.

It was about an hour until sunset, giving them time to walk the place before they had to worry too much about a manifestation. Still, they decided to set up an iron circle by the altar in case things got dicey upstairs.

The pews, though composed of a nice polished chestnut, were coated in a hearty layer of dust. Lav traced a smiley face with his finger. “Probably not a Poltergeist, then.”

There had never been any suspicion in Jo’s mind that their ghost was a Poltergeist. Even adults could usually identify that one. Lav was joking, of course, but Jo really did want to face a Poltergeist someday and she kept just missing her chance. How had the Underworld, of all agencies, already bested one?

The further they walked down the aisle of the cathedral, the darker it became. There were stained glass windows here, along the side walls and over the altar, but the sun was setting from behind them. In the mornings, surely, the place glowed heavenly, but here in the evening, it appeared dull and soaked in shadows.

“Where did that groundskeeper die?” Jo asked as they laid the chains before the altar.

“In some back room, I think,” Lav answered. “Not the cemetery. Not the nave.”

“The Source could still be in here.”

“It could. It’s a large room.”

“And central.” Jo set the bags within the iron circle and stood up. “Do you think whatever killed the groundskeeper is still knocking around?”

Lav shrugged. “If it is, it hasn’t bothered anyone.”

“Besides the groundskeeper.”

“Yeah, besides the groundskeeper.”

On either side of the altar was a stairwell leading down to the basement level and up to the second floor, where the administrative offices of the cathedral were located. While the upper levels had been renovated many times over the years, the basement had apparently gone more or less untouched for centuries. Which was very encouraging, of course, in terms of Sources, and definitely did not send a shiver down Jo’s spine.

The night was only going to get more treacherous from here on out, so Jo made the executive decision to lead them downstairs first. The stairs were made from old stone bricks that sloped downward in the center of each step, giving the impression that their feet were sinking down into the murky grey stone. Along the walls, there were braziers where old fire torches must have been held, but now the only light was the blue-white light of the torch Lav directed into the darkness below.

“Do you think there’s catacombs?” Lav asked as they rounded the curve of the stairs.

“A crypt, you mean?”

“Could be catacombs.”

“I think we would’ve heard of it,” Jo pointed out. “But yes, there’s probably a crypt.”

“They’d have blocked it off somehow.”

“Almost definitely.” If not, they would have a much bigger problem on their hands than a simple vagrant Specter.

At the bottom of the staircase, Jo and Lav paused. The room widened here, far enough that the torch’s light only just grazed the opposite corners. While this basement had allegedly remained untouched by the Problem, it was immediately evident that was not the case. The walls, whose shelves were surely intended to contain religious relics, were now also brimming with bundles of dried lavender. In the center of the room were two stone sarcophagi, both chained heavily in iron.  

Gingerly, Jo stepped into the room. The ceiling was domed and painted with images of gold and florals. As she approached the closest sarcophagus, a breath of icy wind swept through the room, chilling her despite the jacket and gloves that she wore. There was an engraving on the stone lid. Jo scolded herself for never learning Latin.

“This room’s not it, right?” Lav said from the doorway. There was a pinch of fear in his tone that appeared only rarely. “I mean, there’s Sources here, but they’re not our ghost.”

Jo nodded absently. Their fingertips traced over the lid of the sarcophagus, leaving a trail in the dust that had settled overtop. “Okay,” they said at last. “Upstairs, then?”

In comparison to the crypt below, the upper levels of the cathedral felt like a modern office building. There were certainly traces of the old – the art hung on the walls, the creaking door hinges, the stained glass windows – but the inner walls were newer, and there was electricity, though the lights were turned off now. The offices on the first floor held church files and artifacts that were apparently not important enough to live in a museum, and were easy to skim through; the setting sun filtered in through the windows as a measure of their efficiency. Up another staircase, the walls grew closer and the ceiling shorter – this was the left tower, the shorter of the two, which contained one small room where some clergyman might have resided and a wooden ladder that led up to the spire.

“Do you think we have to climb all the way?” Lav asked.

Jo looked up at the distance remaining to the top. “Do we think the Source is up there?”

“Maybe we wait for manifestation.”

“Excellent idea.”

The second tower posed a similar concern. This one stretched even higher, allowing room for the bell that had once chimed every Sunday and was now considered too structurally compromised to touch. This time, the decision was even easier: they got to the point where they could peer up at the spire overhead, then turned back and trudged down again, now all the way down to the ground floor again.

In the apse of the cathedral, Jo and Lav knelt in the iron circle and went through their equipment one last time. They’d each have flares on them, though they’d been strongly encouraged to avoid using them anywhere that wood or paper was present for the sake of preservation. They were mostly carrying salt bombs and silver nets, as well as their rapiers of course.

“Are we thinking bones again?” Lav asked. “A cursed bible, maybe?”

“Implying the existence of un cursed bibles.”

Lav huffed a laugh. They were out of the iron circle now, pacing about the apse while they waited for the ghost to show. “You’d think they’d have sent someone to clear this place by now.”

“No point until someone complains,” Jo said. In this case, it had been a mother who lived in a neighboring house, whose child had been staying awake at night, babbling about an old woman wandering about the cathedral’s grounds.

Jo shook their head as they reached the wall and turned around again. “It’s ridiculous, right? There must be a dozen Sources here, and they only want one. They’re only paying for one.”

“Maybe they can’t afford them all.” Lav was sitting now, drumming his fingers on the steps up to the altar.

“Probably.” Jo crossed their arms. It was irritating nonetheless. They’d do this job and take their pay and then with their luck, the Underworld would clear the rest out the following week.

There was a thump from upstairs. Jo paused their pacing and looked up.

“That our ghost?” Lav asked.

“Hopefully.” Jo drew her rapier and headed for the stairs. “Either way, we’re dealing with it.”

It was colder than it had been when they’d climbed to this floor the first time. Jo mentioned this to Lav, but it could have just been the cold that came with the sun finally finishing setting, not necessarily an indication of anything. Still, they were both on high alert as they trekked down the narrow hallway to the front of the cathedral, where the offices lay.

The thump sound did not come again. Jo squinted through the doorways as they passed, searching for the first hints of an apparition. There was nothing.

“Hear anything?” she murmured.

“Haven’t been trying,” Lav responded. “I could—”

“No. If you can’t now, then it’s not strong enough.” Jo crept towards the right tower, still peering into every office. It was strange that there were no signs of a Visitor this late into the evening. Was it really that weak, or was it purposely evading them?

“There!” Lav exclaimed.

Jo swung around, but saw nothing. “What—”

“A glimpse of it. In here.” Lav led her into the closest office, which was crammed full of bins and moving boxes. Clearly, someone had been in the process of reorganizing. “It was the groundskeeper,” he said. “She must have come from here.”

“Then her Source is in here,” Jo said. “You search, I’ll keep an eye out.”

Lav tipped his head in bemusement. “That’s funny, because if I recall correctly, it was me who just spotted—”

“Oh, shut up,” Jo sighed. Lav knew as well as she did that Jo had the better Sight of the two of them; just because she hadn’t happened to be looking in the correct direction when the ghost manifested did not mean that she wasn’t best suited as lookout. She rolled her eyes and set herself in the corner of the room to best view her surroundings as Lav got to work rifling through the contents of the boxes, searching for something that screamed ‘Source’.

Most of the time, a Source was fairly obvious to identify. It was usually human remains, which made things quite easy, but even when it wasn’t, it was some personal item, probably hidden away somewhere, probably important to the Visitor at hand. It wasn’t going to be some random religious document that meant nothing to a groundskeeper.

That motel case had been on the more difficult end of things in terms of Source-finding. The rooms were cleaned thoroughly, so it had to be something stashed craftily. They had been right about looking in the tile walls of the bathroom, as that was where Sage had pried the notebook from. Was this Source going to be buried in one of these moving boxes, or would it be something more usual, more obvious? The good news was, they would probably have time to check the whole room from floor to ceiling, considering how inactive this Visitor had been so far. Going in, they’d known it wouldn’t be too dangerous, but Jo was starting to think that it wasn’t a Specter at all. A Shade, maybe? That was dreadfully boring.

Jo stuck their head out into the hallway and pointed their torch in either direction. There were some odd shadows towards the front end of the building, but that was more likely to be a quirk of the architecture than a sign of apparition. Perhaps Lav hadn’t actually seen their ghost, only some flash of torchlight, and they were sitting here wasting time searching in vain. And now Jo was thinking about the Underworld’s empty house down the street, waiting for its inhabitants to return from some dangerous and exciting job. How did they get their clients, anyways? People only came to the Afterlife because of the Megacorp™ branding; the Underworld’s reputation was basically nonexistent.

Before she could get too worked up thinking about it, Jo turned back to the office, where Lav had his back to the door, leaned far into a box against the opposite wall.

“This isn’t working,” Jo said. “We need to draw it out again, get a better sense of the location.”

Lav was silent, not even indicating that they’d heard. There came another thump , still from overhead. Jo surveyed the room, but there was still no sign of a Visitor.

“Lav?”

Nothing. A bit of quiet from Lav was far from abnormal, but this was unsettling. Jo adjusted their grip on their rapier and crept forward, waiting for the moment the tension snapped. Their heart was pounding as they reached out with their free hand to tap Lav’s shoulder.

The second Jo’s hand made contact, Lav jolted, shrinking back and twisting around to face her, hand on his rapier. When he caught Jo’s eye, he froze. In the glow of their torchlight, Jo could see the shine of tear tracks down his cheeks.

For a moment, she stared, bewildered. “What – Lav, what are—?”

Then she saw the item clutched in his other hand. It was a hair pin, vintage looking, ornate gold and adorned in gemstones.

“Drop it!” Jo snapped. When Lav didn’t move, they lunged for it and smacked it out of his hands, careful not to let their skin touch it.

Lav shuddered, wrapping his arms around himself. “Holy shit. Oh my God. That was – that was my bad.”

When they were younger, Lav had always had a better sense of Touch than Jo, even more so than Listening, but there was no use in that if you couldn’t control it. Every relic, every wall of a haunted building, was filled with the overpowering emotions of the spirits stored within. Beatrix had trained Lav on control, and while he’d all but mastered it for Listening, he hadn’t had nearly the same success in this field. The best solution was for them to avoid holding Sources and focus on shutting their mind off to the flood.

“Sorry,” Lav said. “I wasn’t concentrating.”

“It’s fine,” said Jo, and it really was, only she couldn’t help but feel like this was exactly the sort of thing that prevented them from being sent on actually challenging jobs. Leaning too hard into your Talent – your sense, that was – would do nothing but prevent you from executing a job efficiently and cleanly.

“This is it,” Lav said, nodding to the hair pin. “It belonged to the groundskeeper.”

“What’d you get off it?”

Lav shrugged. “Basic death stuff. It was her grandmother’s, from her wedding. She wants her daughter to have it.”

“Too bad it’s getting burned, then,” Jo said. That was what happened to all Sources: identified, cataloged, then deposited at the Fittes furnaces.

“Too bad,” said Lav. He wiped at his face with the heel of his hand. “That sucked.”

Jo pulled a silver net out of the pocket of their coat and draped it over the hair pin before carefully lifting it, letting the net wrap all the way around it. Then, just as they pulled the net firmly shut, there was that thump again. Definitely upstairs. Jo held the Source out to Lav. “You want to take it down?” they offered.

Lav gave her a questioning look. “You’re not coming?”

“Not quite yet,” Jo said. “There’s just one thing I have to check.”

Lav looked very much as though they wanted to say more, but didn’t. He only pocketed the Source and picked his rapier up.

“I’ll be down in a sec,” Jo assured him. “And if I’m not, you can come yell at me.”

“You’re going after that sound,” Lav said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.”

“It’s nothing. A bird, probably.”

“Then you won’t mind going ahead,” Jo said with a knowing smile.

Lav rolled his eyes. “You’re just freaked out by the hair pin.”

“Absolutely,” Jo replied. “What if it makes me cry? I’d never live that down.”

“I’d tell Beatrix.”

“I’d kill you to keep you quiet.”

“I believe that,” said Lav. They were at the door of the office now, stepping out into the hall. Lav turned left, back towards the staircase down to the apse. “I’ll see you in a sec!” he called over his shoulder.

“Pick up the chains, will you?”

Lav laughed, but they didn’t give a response, which meant that they absolutely were not going to be picking up those chains without Jo. Fine with her. If her gut was right about this, they’d still be needing them.

At the end of the hall, Jo paused, straining to hear that sound again. There was nothing. Maybe it really was nothing. In that case, they’d be better off joining Lav in packing up, get a good night’s sleep to secure a good performance tomorrow. There weren’t any cases scheduled to work on, but that only meant more time for sparring and posting more advertisements. One would have thought that Megacorp™ would cover the marketing, but after the first month or so, they decided that a weekly stipend for newspaper ads would suffice, which meant that it was Jo and Lav’s job to get the word out that the Afterlife was still accepting clients.

When the sound came again, it was no longer a dull thump , but rather a resounding clanging of the cathedral bell. Jo snapped back to focus, heart pounding, knuckles white around the hilt of her rapier, and sprinted for the right tower.

The stairs were wrought iron, which meant that whatever was up there was probably prevented from escaping to the rest of the cathedral. It was almost like the building itself had a built-in ghost trap. Almost in the sense that if Jo’s assessment was correct and this was indeed a Poltergeist, that iron would do little to contain the Visitor.

As Jo winded up the twisting steps, the clanging only got louder, more incessant. Definitely a Poltergeist. If that historic bell was broken by a Poltergeist on their watch, Jo had no doubt that the Afterlife would be blamed. Perhaps that would finally be a good enough excuse for Megacorp™ to dissolve their branch. With that in mind, Jo doubled their pace.

By the time she reached the bell room, her legs were burning and her back was soaked in cooling sweat. Still, she readied her stance, rapier in hand, and surveyed her surroundings. The tricky thing about Poltergeists was their lack of apparition; it eliminated the risk of ghost-touch, but it made fending one off all that more difficult. Fortunately, Jo had never relied too heavily on her Sight.

The sound of the bell died down as the Poltergeist’s attack faded. Jo stepped away from the stairs to case the room, scanning every nook and cranny for somewhere a Source might be hidden. Besides the cracks between the stone bricks, it was largely barren: a rounded room that stretched upward with only a ladder to reach the top of the pointed spire, with a dust-coated floor and a beam just overhead which held the ancient bell. The bell was bronze, about as wide as Jo’s wingspan, and the beam was rigged in such a way that a person could pull down on a rope opposite the staircase and swing the whole beam to and fro to ring the bell. Which, of course, was not supposed to ring at all anymore on account of being some many centuries old.

With this in mind, Jo walked calmly around the edge of the room to investigate the rope. The most important thing to keep in mind when facing a Poltergeist was to avoid any increase in negative emotion. Many agents died in combat with Poltergeists because they could not keep themselves in check. Jo focused on taking slow, even breaths.

There was nothing much here besides the rope and the beam. Unless the Source was the wheel of the pulley itself, she was looking in the wrong place. Unfortunately, that meant that the Source was almost definitely somewhere between here and the top of the spire.

“Jo?”

Lav was calling from below. That was good; it would help to split the Poltergeist’s attention if she did indeed intend to climb that ladder to the top.

“Right tower!” Jo called back, imbuing their voice with some faux merry to ward off the malaise. At any moment, the Poltergeist could attack again, strengthened by the presence of two agents in its range.

Lav’s head appeared at the top of the stairs. “What are you doing?”

As if in answer, the Poltergeist released a burst of energy, swinging the bell dangerously close to Jo’s face. They dropped to their knees and grinned. “Fighting a Poltergeist, you?”

Lav was staring at the bell. “Okay. Yeah, sure, okay. A Poltergeist.”

“I’m thinking that the Source is up there,” Jo said, pointing up the wooden ladder that ascended the tower. “One of us should climb, the other should keep searching down here. And, you know, possibly hold its attention.”

“I can climb.”

“I was going to volunteer.”

“If the Source is up there, I’d be better at finding it.”

He wasn’t wrong. Unless the Source was something completely obvious, Jo would not be able to identify it, whereas Lav could by Touch alone. Besides, he seemed awfully stressed just being this close to the swinging bell.

“Okay,” said Jo. “When this burst ends, you cross around the bell, and I’ll start digging up floorboards.”

“I don’t think there’s anything under those.”

Jo didn’t either, but it was basically the only option left down here. And if they were trying to draw the Poltergeist’s attention, tearing at the floor was probably a decent way to do it.

The bell’s swinging slowed to a stop, leaving the last sporadic chimes to ricochet around within the close quarters of the tower. Cautiously, Lav began to edge along the stone brick wall, his eyes trained on the bell as if daring it to swing at him. Jo tested the sturdiness of the ladder; it was old, certainly, but the wood was solid, almost petrified. It was bad news for anyone with a fear of heights, but fortunately, Jo and Lav had enough experience sneaking up to the roof of Megacorp™ to ward off any hesitance regarding the climb.

Lav reached the far side of the tower and put their foot on the first rung of the ladder. “Not too bad.”

“Like our old gym,” Jo said, in reference to the place Beatrix had rented to train them before the Afterlife was bought out by Megacorp™.

“A bit taller,” Lav murmured. He was looking straight upward, his jaw clenched.

Jo smirked. “Are you scared, Lavender?”

“Trembling,” Lav said sarcastically. He started up.

There was no telling how much time before the Poltergeist’s next outburst. Jo retrieved the knife from her boot and shimmied it between the floorboards beneath her. The floor was old, but had definitely been refurbished at some point, so it didn’t take too much effort to wedge the blade beneath the plank.

The bell began to swing again. Jo flattened herself against the wall, leaving the plank half-levered but keeping her knife firmly clutched in her hand. Overhead, Lav was making good progress up the tower, towards the shadowy ledge that ringed the base of the pointed spire.

The loose plank wiggled. Jo swore under their breath. They weren’t actually accomplishing anything besides giving the Poltergeist ammunition. Jo crouched down beneath the swinging bell and grabbed hold of the plank to pry it free. The second it was out of the floor, it was wrenched violently out of Jo’s grasp and flew upward, crashing against the tower wall.

“Uh, Jo?” Lav called.

“Sorry!”

“I think—”

Whatever it was Lav thought, Jo couldn’t hear. The clanging of the bell grew louder, almost deafening. With her head pressed against the floor, Jo felt around in the hole left behind by the removed plank and felt nothing but dust and spiderwebs.

“Jo, I think we should go!” Lav shouted.

“What?” Jo cried. They rolled out from beneath the bell and gazed upward at Lav, still clinging to the ladder, leaning back to see the mass of shadows writhing above.

The light flashed off of the bronze surface of the rapidly swinging bell, illuminating the cracks in the stone bricks and the tip of Lav’s rapier and nothing beyond his head. The ringing was unbearable. The wood plank she’d released whirled in a hurricane around the bell. Somewhere, in the back of Jo’s mind, she understood the textbook explanation for the chaos that was unfolding. The Poltergeist hadn’t been the ghost that killed the groundskeeper, of course; she had died by ghost-touch and Poltergeists had no apparition. That meant that this church contained at least one other Visitor, and here it was: a Dark Specter claiming home to the right spire.

Dark Specters manifested in the form of shapeless, moving shadows. They were less directly aggressive than most Specters, but they could change size without warning and were more difficult to see. And while their smaller concentration of ectoplasm meant that their ghost-touch was less severe, it was still incredibly deadly if left untreated.

In other words, it was bad news that one was here, above them, and they were utterly unprepared.

“I think you’re right!” Jo called, though she wasn’t sure that anything could be heard over the clanging of the bell. “Lav, get down here!”

Lav’s foot searched for the next lower rung of the ladder; his head was craned back to stare at the mass of darkness overhead. Jo scrambled to their feet and readied their rapier, though there was little they could do from down here, barely dodging the wildly swinging bell. If the Dark Specter was prohibiting Lav from reaching the Source, then there was little they could do while its manifestation remained.

The Poltergeist settled, leaving the bell to swing on its momentum alone. The flying floorboard clattered loudly at Jo’s feet. As Lav moved back down the ladder as quickly as possible, she retrieved a salt bomb from her belt and wound up to launch it at the writhing darkness. Just before she could loose it, however, the Dark Specter lunged for Lav, doubling in size as it advanced down the tower.

Lav jolted. Their foot missed the rung.

Jo’s ears were ringing, world narrowing to the image of Lav, looking so small as he released his grip on the ladder to avoid the suddenly approaching ghost-fog. Time slowed. There was an echoing of Beatrix’s words in her head somewhere. You’re very ambitious, Jo. That will be your best advantage and your greatest weakness . Why was it that Megacorp™'s favorite teams could go around besting Poltergeists and such without a single hitch, but the moment Jo wanted to prove herself, everything always went wrong? They followed the rules. They read the Fittes Manual front to back, better than most agents could claim. She was top of her class in rapier technique. She’d gone along with the move into Megacorp™, smiled and nodded, made a home out of the dingy basement office. She’d done everything right.

It wasn’t fair.

Lav’s head clipped the bell before he hit the floor. The sound rang out jarringly different than the monotonous clanging that Jo had grown accustomed to, and it snapped time into focus again. She sprinted for him, dropping her rapier as she collapsed to her knees beside him.

“Oh my God. Lav, oh my God.” Their babbling felt disconnected from their body. Their hands fluttered over Lav’s head, finding the stickiness of blood in his hair. “Lav, wake up, please, say something, I don’t—” Jo’s throat closed. What was the procedure here? Why couldn’t they remember?

Lav groaned, and his eyes opened, but only just. Concussion, maybe? Yes, that made sense.

“Keep your eyes open,” Jo instructed. “I’m gonna – I’m gonna get you help. I’m just—”

What could they do? Call an ambulance, obviously, but that would lead to questions about what they were doing in the bell tower when they’d already sealed the Source they’d been hired for, and performing an unsanctioned psychic investigation was grounds for termination of their license, and without that they had nothing .

But what else was there to do? Lav wasn’t talking and he’d hit his head and the Poltergeist would stir up any second and the ghost above was reaching down and they were on the far edge of town with no help, no instruction, no backup.

Jo’s chest constricted. It felt as though their whole body was locking up, refusing to cooperate. It wasn’t quite malaise; there was more panic to it. It was more immediate than creeping fear. There was a sinking in her stomach and a ringing in her head and she was still pawing her hands through Lav’s hair like she could will the bleeding to stop.

“Come on, come on, can you walk?” Her voice sounded too high-pitched, childish. “We need to get out, Lav. We need to—”

The bell swung again and Jo dropped to the floor. The Poltergeist was back, reinvigorated by the heightened emotions it fed off of. The clanging started up again.

“God, will you shut it? ” Jo screamed at the empty air. Ducking under the bell, they dragged Lav across the room, keeping one hand pressed against the wound on his head. There was an idea forming in their head – a terrible one, in Jo’s opinion, but probably their best shot.

The Poltergeist was utterly eating this up, tearing new wood planks free from the floor and slamming them against the bell in an onslaught of bangs and chimes. At the top of the winding stairs, Jo shook Lav’s shoulders as hard as she dared. “Wake up, Lav. Come on, you need to walk.”

Lav’s eyes were open, but he still wasn’t speaking. He made an effort to move, but it was clear he was out of it. Jo shoved her panic down and slung his arm over her shoulder. Either they were making it out together, or they would both trip and die on the stairs down. It was fortunate that Jo was the one who trained with a rapier every day and Lav was the one who sat at the desk looking through newspapers, because he was surprisingly light to carry.

One step at a time . Jo repeated it as a mantra as they started down the wrought iron stairs. The Dark Specter was nearly at the top of the bell now, its dark tendrils curling around the swinging beam. Even beneath the stifling panic, there was some part of Jo that mourned leaving the case prematurely. Then she reminded herself that they hadn’t even been assignment to these Visitors in the first place and it was only through her own naïve impulsiveness that they were in this mess to begin with.

It felt as though the tower itself was swaying; the walls approached and retreated rapidly and without warning. Jo leaned hard against the stone bricks and let Lav lean heavily over her shoulder and pushed through the shaking in her legs because all that mattered now was getting as far from that godforsaken bell tower as possible.

At the foot of the stairs, as they started down the hallway of offices, Lav began to put some effort into walking on his own, which was good because Jo was struggling to breathe again. This cathedral was drowning in dust and spiderwebs, and the stale air was clogging in their lungs like putty.

“Jo?” Lav murmured.

“Almost there,” Jo said. “Just, uh, just one more stairs and a couple houses down.”

“Where are we going?” He was still draped partway over their shoulders, so even though his voice was barely audible, he was speaking directly into Jo’s ear.

“To get help,” Jo answered. She wasn’t exactly very enthusiastic about going to the Underworld – in fact, her body physically recoiled at the thought – but they were the only people she knew who could sort this out without reporting it to DEPRAC. Besides, they were a lot closer than the hospital.

Was this a problem that the Underworld could even solve? Were they just dragging Lav all this way to end up calling an ambulance anyways? Jo racked their brain for the log of every injury they’d witnessed in their time as an agent. The worst ones were always ghost-touch, which could only be fixed with an adrenaline shot and a prayer, and it was hard to remember the non-supernatural ones. There were some sprained ankles and scraped knees, but those just required rest and grit. Once, Jo had fallen down a staircase at an old mill and Lav had been absolutely certain that her arm was broken, but in the end it had amounted to nothing more than a hairline fracture. How bad was a concussion? Had he hurt anything else? Why could she not even remember how high the fall had been?

Somehow, they made it down to the apse again, and Jo nearly walked straight over the chains Lav hadn’t packed up. There was no way in hell she was carrying one of their bags, let alone both. They would just have to leave them and hope no urban spelunkers decided to burgle it while they tried to keep their best friend from dying at their hands.

And oh God , Lav wasn’t really going to die, was he? Jo’s heart was in her throat. Her legs moved her body mechanically down the aisle of the cathedral. It was a simple job. It was a simple job that she just had to overcomplicate, and now Lav’s weight was resting on her shoulders and Beatrix was going to look at her like that and she was going to beg the Underworld for help and Megacorp™ was going to fire her and Lav was dying and she was somehow still thinking about herself and how her life was over.

“Jo, where are we going?”

They were at the doors of the cathedral now, bursting out into the cool night air. At once, the heavy weight of malaise was lifted, and Jo gasped for breath. The ghost-lamp overhead flickered to life.

“Keep your ears open,” Jo said. “We’re almost there.”

This long past curfew, the streets were devoid of human life. The packed townhouses leaned out over the pavement, tilted and crooked with age, and in their shadows were a muddled assortment of Wisps and Shades. They weren’t aggressive, of course, but it was best to keep a distance, so Jo led Lav down the center of the road. The blue-green light of the ghost-lamps skipped over the rough asphalt, illuminating it like an impressionist painting. Jo was biting their lip so hard that their mouth tasted of iron.

The stars were still in the open sky above. Jo could feel them like eyes bearing down on her, on the mess that she’d made of things. Lav’s breathing was growing ragged, and he took every step like it was killing him.

What were they doing? Why on Earth hadn’t Jo just called an ambulance like a normal person? Was her job really more important than Lav’s life?

No. Of course not. Lav was going to be fine and DEPRAC would never hear a word of this.

There it was, indistinguishable from all of the other dilapidated structures: a narrow townhouse adorned in peeling cerulean paint, with an iron fence and a sign above the door that read Underworld Psychic Investigators . The garden looked as though effort had been put into its maintenance, only the person doing the maintaining didn’t have the heart to uproot any of the weeds and had instead incorporated them into the florals. There was a purple towel hanging out of one of the second floor windows.

Jo wasted no time unlatching the gate and crossing the yard. Their legs were trembling under the exhaustion and draining panic, and they could only hold Lav up for so much longer. The Shades in the street drew in with interest, but recoiled at the iron fence.

At the doorstep, Jo steeled herself. The last time she’d encountered the members of the Underworld, it had been mostly glares and snide remarks exchanged with Lav under their breaths. They definitely did not have the sort of agency-to-agency relationship that set the precedent for dramatic, desperate late-night visits, but Jo had little options.

They lifted their fist to the door and knocked.

Chapter Text

Sage was bored. It wasn’t as though there wasn’t anything to do here, but his arms were sore from sparring the dummies and Dennis and Beau were still at the archives and Rue was already asleep. So here he was, lounging on the old sofa in the attic that had been all-but sequestered off as storage, rummaging through Rue’s old comics for something he hadn’t read.

It was important to have something to do during a case, especially while waiting for the first manifestation. For a while, before she’d started drawing, Rue’s had been reading comics. Now they sat up here in boxes, collecting dust.

There was a knock from downstairs. That would be Dennis and Beau, finally back after a long day of research. Their next case was in two days, and it was a big one. It was the reason he’d trained to the point of his arms aching. He was decent at rapier, but he could be better, and they would need all the skill they could muster if they were going to take on the phantom terrorizing the farms to the east. It was probably a Specter, and though the Underworld had faced quite a few Type Twos already, he knew better than to underestimate it. They needed all the information they could get.

The knock came again, louder this time. Had Dennis somehow misplaced his key? Sage groaned and dragged himself up off of the sofa, tucking the comics back into the box and jogging for the stairs before the racket could wake Rue.

The Underworld was four floors in total, including the basement. The top floor was the attic, which was mostly unused. Below that were the bedrooms, and below that the living spaces. The basement was where the actual headquarters of the agency were, though that line had become more than a little blurred in the time since they’d signed the lease. It was cramped and it had more than a minor ant problem, but it was home. It was the first place Sage had lived with the intention of making it home – the first flat he’d rented where he’d ended up rooming with Rue had been an act of desperation, the result of an unbearable need to get out his parents’ house – but this townhouse had been a long thing in the making, a real adult move that legitimized them as an agency and as a family much more than any paperwork or accolades could.

The stairs were old and creaked dramatically, but Sage knew where to step to make the least noise. Not that that was much of a concern now with the thunderous pounding at the door, but it was habit at this point. His hand slid over the recently polished banister as he skipped the last few steps to reach the foyer. Upstairs, he could hear Rue stirring as the knocking continued, unrelenting.

Sage crossed the foyer in two steps, leaping over the shoes that had been left in the center of the hall, and flung the door open. “You know, you can just… call... um.” He froze, his words trailing off as his mouth fell open.

The people standing at the doorstep were not Dennis and Beau.

“He needs help,” Jo said at once. “We were – we were on a case, and he fell, and I don’t – you need to help him.”

Sage blinked slowly. There was Jo, valiant egotistical leader of the Afterlife, looking as though she’d gone a week without sleep: face distraught, posture sagging, rapier gone. And leaning against her, apparently unconscious, was her partner, Lavender.

He didn’t look good. Or, well, of course he looked good , but – the point was, he was in bad shape. Their face was tucked into the crook of Jo’s neck, with one arm slung over her shoulders and the other hanging limply at their side. And his hair… it was disheveled, strands falling over his eyes and sticking to his forehead, and one side was not the usually soft browns and lavenders, but rather a snarl of shining crimson.

Sage stared, uncomprehending.

Jo’s eyes were wide with panic. “ Please .”

Sage was only freed from his stupor by a clattering of noise behind him as Rue burst out of her room, pushing the door so hard it knocked into the poorly positioned bookcase. “Sage, who’s there?” she called.

“Um.” Sage’s mouth was dry. “You, uh, might want to get down here.”

Jo lurched forward, and Sage rushed to catch her, but she braced herself against the doorframe. “Take him,” she said, pushing Lav forward with the urgency of someone seconds from collapse.

“Uh, okay.” Sage’s heart was pounding so hard he was worried he’d pass out, and it would be downright mortifying if he was the one to pass out now. Oblivious to his distress, Jo slung Lav’s other arm over his shoulder, which would not work at all with the height difference, forcing Sage to lean over, and in a split second of hesitation, his mind flooded with the panic of holy shit this is not happening before he made up his mind and scooped Lav’s legs under his arm.

And this was fine, totally, and given the circumstances, he was actually acting remarkably cool for someone with his injured, bleeding, semi-conscious crush draped in his arms. And of course it was this moment that Rue reached the foyer.

“Oh,” she said. “Oh!” Then she saw the state of things. “Oh dear. Oh my God. Oh my God, come in.” She rushed forward, taking charge. “What happened? Was it a case? Why didn’t you call an ambulance? Is he – oh my God, is he bleeding? Put him on the couch, Sage; come in, Jo, you look like a corpse. Or – I mean, you know what I mean. What are you doing here? Set him down, is he awake? Is he—”

“He is,” Jo cut in. “Last I checked, at least. He’s got – he’s got a concussion, he can’t sleep—”

“Come in,” Rue said again. “You can’t stand up right. You need – what happened? Were you ghost-touched?”

“No. I – um – I’ve got to go. I’ve got—” The door slammed.

The sudden silence put a bit of Sage’s brain back into his head, and he finally actually set Lav down on the sofa. It was small enough that Lav’s feet were propped up on the armrest, and his head rested on the pillow, and it was now that Sage remembered he’d been supposed to clean the living room but it was a little late for that.

Lav’s head was bleeding. His eyes were open, but only just. And all Sage could think about was the fact that this was the closest their faces had ever been.

He needed to clean the wound. He needed to know what had caused this wound. Sage looked up, awaiting instructions from Rue, and was met with an empty foyer. She’d gone after Jo, then, meaning Sage was home alone with Lav.

“Okay,” Sage muttered. “Okay, we’re doing this. You… um… stay put.”

As he rose to his feet, he cringed internally. This was his first time speaking to Lav outside the context of a case, and he couldn’t even get his words out. He dashed off into the kitchen before he could overthink leaving Lav alone for even a second.

What was he supposed to do? Clean the wound, keep him awake. An excuse to talk to him, at least. If Lav died on Sage’s watch, he would never forgive himself. Then again, what sort of case caused an injury like this? Rue would get an answer out of Jo. He needed to focus on Lav.

 Which, of course, he was already doing, slamming cabinets open to find clean washcloths and trying to keep his hands still while he reckoned with the fact that the Megacorp™ agent he’d been very casually crushing on for the past few months was suddenly here, lying on his sofa.

Sage returned to the living room with haste.

Lav’s eyes fluttered open as he knelt by their side again. “Hey,” they mumbled. “You’re… um… you’re Sage. From the Underworld.”

Sage’s mind went blank. They knew his name? “Yes. Uh, yeah, that’s me. And you’re Lav. And you’re bleeding.”

“Oh.”

“This might hurt. Sorry.” He lifted the washcloth to Lav’s head, not totally confident in his ability to treat head wounds but trying his best not to show any of that doubt to Lav. Where was Dennis? He’d know what to do. Not that Sage particularly minded being the only here to take care of Lav, but it would all be pointless if Lav died because he didn’t know first aid.

Lav whined in pain as Sage attempted to clean the wound. It was difficult to tell where the cut was through all of the blood matted hair, but Sage was quite positive that if he tried to detangle it with his fingers, he’d lose his mind. Instead, he did his best to mop up the worst of the blood and pressed a new washcloth to the place he estimated the wound to be.

“It’s not that bad,” Sage said encouragingly. “Better than ghost-touch, anyways.” He realized his own words. “I mean, not that it’s not bad for you, I’m sure it hurts, and you’re like, totally so tough.”

“Thanks?” Lav said, though he voiced it more like a question. “Where’s Jo?”

“I don’t know.” Sage glanced to the door, still expecting Rue to barge back inside. “She dropped you off and left, and Rue went after her. She said you fell.”

“Yeah, that sounds right.”

“Do you remember?”

Lav pinched his face in concentration. “Uh…”

“It’s fine if you don’t. Just… take it easy, okay? You’re safe here.”

Lav’s face relaxed again, and they sighed and shut their eyes. “What am I doing here?” they breathed.

“You were on a case,” Sage explained. “Something happened, and Jo brought you here.”

Lav nodded slowly, like the memory was returning. Then his eyes snapped open. “But she hates you guys.”

Something twisted in Sage’s stomach, the reminder that the bitterness between the agencies had not magically dissolved the second the Afterlife set foot on their doorstep. “Right,” he said softly. “Um. Do you?”

“What?”

“Do you hate us?” He hated the way it sounded; this was not making him seem cool in the slightest. Hopefully Lav would forget this whole conversation. Actually, no, he did not hope that, because then they would go back to just seeing each other in passing, only Sage would have this whole memory of sitting by Lav’s side pressing a washcloth to his head and trying to keep him talking, and that would be mortifyingly awkward.

Lav’s shoulders raised into the slightest shrug, then he winced.

“Sorry,” Sage said at once, half-standing already. “I have Tylenol, if you want? Or, actually, Beau might’ve finished it off. I could check?”

“It’s fine,” Lav murmured. “Keep your hand there.”

He sat back down so fast he nearly twisted his ankle. “Okay.”

Lav sighed again, and Sage felt with certainty that his mind had left his body and was floating somewhere up in the cobwebs on the ceiling. Perhaps, if his encounters with the Afterlife had remained few and far between, he could have swallowed this crush and kept a cordial relationship, but the longer Lav stayed here, sprawled on his sofa in concussed delirium, the harder it was getting to keep his head on straight. It was actually probably good Rue wasn’t here; she’d be teasing him relentlessly.

“Hey,” Sage said. “If there’s… if there’s anything you remember—”

“In a church,” Lav mumbled. He gazed at Sage through his eyelashes, his mouth partway open.

Sage’s eyes darted around the room in alarm. “What?”

“On a case,” Lav explained. They looked down. “Jo doesn’t like you.”

“So I’ve heard,” Sage said, flashing a smile that Lav probably didn’t see. “You know, normally, we call an ambulance for this stuff.”

Lav hummed in thought. “Jo’s weird. Where’s Rue?”

“Going after Jo.”

“Makes sense. Your voice is nice.”

Sage felt the last cord of sense snap within his brain. All synapses ceased firing. “I – um – thank you.” He was now all-too-aware of the timbre of his voice, attempting to cultivate it into something suave. “I try.”

“Head’s killing me,” Lav groaned. He turned his face to rest his forehead against Sage’s wrist. “I don’t think Jo’s coming back.”

“I’m sure she’ll come back—”

“No,” Lav cut in. “I think I’m living here now. It’s so quiet. And you’re so nice.”

Sage was still as a statue, petrified that the slightest movement of his arm could compel Lav to pull away. “Um. Thanks.”

Lav’s eyes slipped closed, and as much as Sage wanted to keep his mouth shut and just revel in this moment, he had been given explicit instructions to keep Lav awake. “Hey,” he said. “Lav?” No response. “Lavender?”

Lav opened his eyes again, looking just beneath Sage’s gaze. “No one calls me that. Well, I guess the papers call me that, but they don’t know me. All my friends call me Lav.”

“Does that make us friends?” Sage asked, unable to keep the note of hope out of his tone.

Lav rolled his eyes. “Duh. You think I’d sleep on your couch if we were friends?”

“I don’t know if you’d make it to another house, so—”

“Try me.”

“And you’re not allowed to sleep,” Sage added. “Doctor’s orders.”

Lav squinted at him. “Since when are you a doctor?”

“Since, uh… since Jo dropped you off.” He gave a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry. You’re in good hands.”

“They are good hands,” Lav murmured, so softly that Sage could have sworn he imagined it.

“Um.”

Lav shifted, breaking the contact with Sage’s wrist to settle into the couch cushions. They gazed up at the ceiling with a heavy exhale. “I messed it up.”

“What?” Sage’s hand was still pressing the washcloth against Lav’s head wound. He had no idea if he still needed to be doing that, but he wasn’t inclined to stop.

“The case,” Lav explained. He sounded a lot more lucid now, which Sage took as a good sign. “Jo sent me to find the Source.”

“Oh.” His tone had sobered to the change in conversation. “But you’re so good at—”

“I’m all right,” Lav corrected. His words were still drawn out, not quite slurred but lacking the normal snap that Sage remembered.

“Things happen,” Sage said sagely. “That’s the job. And you’re good. I mean you’re good at your job.”

“Thanks,” Lav sighed. “You’re a pretty good doctor. And an agent. Can I sleep now?”

Sage frowned. “But don’t you love my rousing conversation?” He ran his free hand through his hair and tipped his head in a way he hoped was charming.

“Well, you’re only talking to me to keep me awake,” Lav said flatly. “So I guess by definition, it’s rousing.”

Sage opened his mouth to respond with something very witty about how he was definitely not only talking to Lav to keep them awake, but before he could get a word out, the front door swung open with its signature creak .

Lav sat upright, letting Sage’s hand fall away. “Jo!”

It wasn’t Jo, or even Rue for that matter. Dennis marched straight in, arms full of notebooks, and headed straight for the kitchen like a man on a mission. Just behind him, Beau stepped into the foyer and froze, glancing between Sage and Lav as his face morphed from puzzlement to shock, then finally a splitting grin.

“Is that him?” Beau asked.

“No!” Sage exclaimed, feeling Lav’s look of curiosity. “I mean, yes, but not like that. Where have you been?”

Beau shrugged. “Dennis found something about… cards?”

“Solitaries,” Dennis corrected, coming back into the hallway with a sandwich from the fridge. “Is Rue still asleep?”

“Sage has that boy over,” Beau stage-whispered.

“You’re taking on a Solitary?” Lav asked.

Dennis stared at Lav. “Um, is he bleeding?”

“He got hurt on a case,” Sage explained hurriedly. “Jo brought him here and then ran out and Rue went after them, so I’ve been keeping an eye on him.”

Beau nodded with a knowing smile.

Dennis was not so easily calmed. “Why would the Afterlife come here? Why would Rue go out alone? Do we really want Megacorp™’s attention on us? DEPRAC already wants us shut down, and now—”

“DEPRAC wants you shut down?” Lav asked.

“No, they don’t,” Sage assured them. “Do you want some water? Dennis, can you get—”

He was interrupted by a knock at the door that was definitely too polite to be DEPRAC. He rose to his feet in relief as Beau glanced through the window and grinned.

“Rue’s back!”

Chapter Text

When Jo slammed the door behind her, Rue stood in shock for only a second before chasing after her. It wasn’t a very wise decision, considering Rue hadn’t bothered to grab a rapier and had only just woken up, but Jo was also defenseless and definitely not in the state of mind to be wandering about the streets, no matter how qualified of a team the Afterlife was.

The cool night breeze slipped through the thin layers of Rue’s pajamas and sent goosebumps down her arms. Across the street, where the ghost-lamp was out, the neighbor’s front garden was festering with a gathering of Shades. Their ghost-light bathed the brick house in a faint unearthly hue. Rue grit her teeth, wrapped her arms tightly around her ribcage, and marched down the pavement after Jo.

“Hey!” Rue shouted. “Where are you going?”

Jo ignored her. What was their deal, anyways? What kind of person showed up to a rival agency’s door just to drop off an injured partner and leave? From their sparse interactions over the past few months, Rue had gotten the distinct impression that Jo saw the Underworld as beneath them. The Afterlife had access to practically unlimited resources through Megacorp™; there was no reason for them to come to the Underworld unless they were doing something they weren’t supposed to.

“I won’t call DEPRAC,” Rue tried. She had caught up to Jo now, who was walking briskly with their eyes straight forward, refusing to acknowledge Rue. It was a miserable pace to walk at, but Rue kept it. “What happened?” she asked. “Was it a case? What’d he hit his head on? Is he ghost-touched? Are you?”

“I think you’d be able to tell,” Jo said curtly. “Go home.”

“You haven’t got a rapier, and I doubt you’ve got more than a couple salt-bombs, so if you run into anything besides the dumbest Shade, you’ll be in trouble.”

Jo glanced at Rue and raised an eyebrow. “You’re not too geared up yourself.”

“Well, I was taking a nap two minutes ago, and I don’t tend to sleep with my belt on, and it’s not like I was expecting company.” She gasped for breath. “Can we – can we at least slow down?”

Jo stopped in her tracks and whirled around to face Rue. “For what?” they demanded. “I’m no help to him there. Go back and make sure Sage knows what he’s doing.”

Even if he acted like an idiot about Lav, Sage wasn’t dumb. Rue trusted him to have things handled in the Underworld. Besides, Jo was putting themself in a lot more danger being out here without their rapier.

“Come on,” Rue sighed. “Where are you even going? Won’t Megacorp wonder why you came back without—”

“Shut up,” Jo snapped. They turned away again, gazing at the empty road. The blue-green light of the ghost-lamp poured over their face in flickers. They were swaying where they stood, ever so slightly, leaning harder on one leg. Their lips were twisted in a scowl, eyes dark.

“You’re hurt,” Rue said.

Jo shook her head. “Go home.”

“We can help.” It was an offer she knew Jo would refuse, but she gave it anyways.

“What, you’re doctors now?” Jo asked sarcastically.

“Well, I’d offer to take you to the doctor, but I’m kind of getting the impression that you weren’t totally operating legally, which means you’re going back to Megacorp™ alone and you’re not gonna tell anyone you’re hurt, which is, y’know, bad.” She cringed internally. What a terrifically compelling plea.

“ Go home , Rue.” Jo turned and started down the pavement again, still leaning on that leg.

On the one hand, it was probably a bad idea to spark the anger of the leader of the Afterlife. On the other hand, there was no way Rue could go back to the Underworld knowing Jo was out here on their own, even if they were a bit frustrating to run into on a case.

Rue dashed forward and took hold of Jo’s wrist. “Wait.”

Jo wrenched her arm out of Rue’s grasp, stumbling. Now illuminated by a neighbor’s porchlight, Jo was visibly pallid. Her legs were shaking. “Fuck off,” she growled. Then she turned and vomited into the neighbor’s bush.

“Oh! Okay, um….” Rue went to put her hand on Jo’s back as they crouched down, then thought better of it. “Are you okay? Or – sorry, obviously you’re not…. Do you want water? We have water back home. In the Underworld, I mean. It’s just a few doors down, which, obviously you know that, I mean – I think you should come with me.”

Jo wiped their mouth with the back of their hand and sat down on the pavement with a huff. “I don’t know what your problem is.”

“My problem?” She could have laughed. “You just showed up at my doorstep with a half-unconscious partner and took off! Are you coming back for him? Is DEPRAC after you? How’d he even get hurt? And you’re hurt!”

“I’m fine,” Jo insisted. “There’s nothing you can do.”

“Okay, well that’s just objectively not true. You haven’t got your rapier, and you haven’t called a Night Cab, which means you somehow mean to walk all the way to Megacorp™ unarmed, and you just threw up into my lovely neighbor’s hedges, and you still won’t tell—”

“It’s my fault!” Jo shouted. “Is that what you want? I made a stupid call and I thought that we could handle it and I ruined it. And Lav’s—” Her voice broke, and she snapped her mouth shut. Her glare burned into Rue.

“Okay,” Rue said. She knelt beside Jo, letting the cold concrete dig into her bare knees. She’d grabbed a jacket before dashing after Jo, but she was still in her pajamas, and the wind held a bitter chill. They needed to get back soon before the Shades took notice of them or she lost feeling in her fingers, but Jo was definitely not in a state to be bossed around right now.

“Listen to me,” Rue said gently. “Whatever happened’s not on you. Megacorp™ sent you on that case—”

“No they didn’t,” Jo said. They were staring at their shoes, breathing hard. “I took us up there. It wasn’t part of our assignment, but I – I don’t what I was thinking, I—”

“ Breathe , Jo. Just… um, can I touch you? Or are you gonna throw up again?” At Jo’s scowl, she retreated. “Sorry, that was stupid thing to ask. It’s just I think you’re making yourself sick and you’d feel better if you took a breath and also maybe came back to the Underworld with me, but only if you’re good to walk – which I’m not saying you are or you aren’t, it’s just you just threw up in the bush, so I think—”

“You know, you’re not too good at the calming someone down bit,” Jo said bitterly.

“Right, sorry.” Rue forced her mouth shut. What else was she supposed to do? Jo looked more and more corpse-like by the minute and they were out on the streets alone without their rapiers and Sage was at home shouldering the responsibility of keeping Lav awake in his concussion and it was all a terrible mess of an evening that Rue had no clue how to remedy. When a member of the Underworld was wounded on a case bad enough that they couldn’t heal it at home, they went to DEPRAC, like any normal agents would. And sure, DEPRAC loved to look for ways to shut them down, but so long as all of the damage was done to their own employees, there wasn’t much to squabble over. On the other hand, if the Underworld was somehow blamed for the improper treatment of a concussed agent of Megacorp™, there could be legs to stand on. Was that Jo’s plan? Somehow, Rue highly doubted this was manipulation, but at the end of the day, she didn’t know much more about Jo than the papers disclosed. Was the leader of the supposedly ‘elite team’ fed up with the constant sidelining? Was their solution a spur of the moment decision to pin the blame of a failure on the little Underworld?

Jo huffed a laugh, leaning back against the hedge. “You actually shut up,” they said in disbelief.

“Oh, get over yourself,” Rue shot back, thoroughly sick of Jo’s attitude. “Do you want to come back to the Underworld or do you want me to call DEPRAC?”

Instead of giving an answer, Jo narrowed her eyes at Rue. “I don’t like the way you operate.”

“The feeling’s mutual.”

“I wouldn’t have come if I had any other options.”

“Yes, I got that impression,” Rue replied. “But you did come here and now Lav’s alone with Sage and you look ill.”

“If you didn’t want to leave Sage alone, you shouldn’t have come after me.”

“Okay, well I wasn’t about to let you just go get yourself ghost-touched because you’re too distracted angsting over this great mistake you made. It’s not like none of us have ever messed up on a job before, and just because you think you’re better than us doesn’t mean you are.”

“Wow, thanks.”

“Can you at least come get some water? And some crackers maybe?”

Jo exhaled heavily. Her arms rested on her knees, back pressed into the branches of the hedge. She looked exhausted. “I really messed up,” she whispered.

Rue pressed her lips together, considering how to word this. She got the feeling Jo wouldn’t be too responsive to plain bright positivity, so she took a more grounded approach. “You did,” she said. “You’re not the perfect agent. When I first met you, I got the Source first because you were slower.” Jo opened their mouth to protest, but Rue went on. “Then the second time, I nearly got ghost-touched because I wasn’t careful. And just last month, we rushed into a case before Dennis could finish his research and we thought it was a Specter but it was actually a Changer and we only found that out because—”

“But Lav got hurt,” Jo cut in. “If it was me that fell, that’s one thing, but they were only up there because I wasn’t satisfied with just a Shade.”

“And one time I accidentally sliced Sage with my rapier, so—”

Jo winced. “Yikes.”

“—a concussion’s not that bad, and I’m sure Sage has it all handled; at least he wasn’t ghost-touched because then we would absolutely have to call an ambulance and then it’d depend on where the ghost-touch was because limbs are livable if you get adrenaline fast enough but chest or head are different matters, and I know this isn’t helping, but I’m trying to say that—"

“Rue.”

“What?”

“I said I’ll come with you.”

“Oh.” She blinked. “Oh, great. Do you need a hand?”

Jo shook their head and attempted to stand up just as quickly as Rue did, but they swayed and staggered.

“Okay, take it easy,” Rue said, catching Jo by the elbow just before she took a plunge into the bush. “Are you okay? Are you gonna throw up again?”

“I might if you keep asking me,” Jo grumbled, but there was no bite left to their words.

Rue smiled. “Point taken. Can you walk?”

“Fine enough,” Jo said with a grimace. She extracted herself from Rue’s cautious hold and began the trek back to the Underworld, leaving Rue no choice but to follow close behind, waiting for Jo to collapse.

The wind whistled in Rue’s ears. It was past midnight at this point, deep into the darkest part of the night, when the Visitors would be most active. She spied an image of a small girl sitting in the road, looking up at the night sky and crying. That collection of Shades had moved to the edge of the yard, staring listlessly at the living. Down at the intersection, a pool of shadows gathered. Outside the Underworld, the ghost-lamp switched off.

Rue’s senses were on high alert. There were death glows scattered about like ghastly footprints and her head was a cacophony of overlapping murmurs. Fortunately, the Underworld was not far. Ghost-fog spilled over their lovely garden, entangled with the lilies and clawing long fingers through the fence. Rue pushed open the gate and held it for Jo, who appeared on the verge of vomiting again, despite what they insisted. As she led Jo across the garden, she could hear voices from within: Dennis and Beau had finally returned from their research. Oh, what a surprise that must have been.

Fatigue was wearing on Rue. It felt a massive effort just to climb up the front stairs, but Jo managed it, so she had no right to complain. She lifted her knuckles to the door and knocked lightly, confident that they would hear her if she could hear their muffled words.

Sure enough, the door swung open almost immediately, and they were greeted with Beau’s beaming face. “Rue!” he exclaimed. Then his eyes fell on Jo. “And you brought a… friend?”

“Acquaintance,” Jo corrected. They peered past Beau, no doubt searching for confirmation on Lav’s status.

“Can you get water from the fridge?” Rue asked Beau as she led Jo through the doorway. “And crackers too, or something plain. Is Lav still awake?”

With one look to the living room, she got her answer. Sage was standing by the couch, apparently relieved at Rue’s return, and Lav was sitting upright, looking much better off than she’d last seen him. The color had returned to his face and the blood had stopped soaking his hair, and he appeared more cognizant of his surroundings.

Jo’s face was hard as marble. “Lav.”

Lav blinked at her. “What’s going on?”

“I… um.” Jo looked to Rue.

Recognizing Jo’s paralysis, Rue stepped forward. “You have a concussion,” she said. “We need to monitor you through the night. Jo needs rest too.”

“Water will be fine,” Jo said, but they had to know at this point that Rue was not about to let them waltz on home afterwards.

Dennis retreated to the basement, no doubt to bury himself in research to avoid the chaos that had seized the Underworld. When Beau returned with water and snacks for Jo and Lav, Rue sent him down to join Dennis. Jo was the first to sit, claiming a patch of carpet by the fireplace, and Rue and Sage followed suit as Lav laid back down on the couch. For a while, they sat in a strained silence, punctured only by Rue’s routine check-ins with Lav. Rue tried not to look like she was watching too closely to the bits of food and water Jo was having. The lights overhead hummed gently, letting them know that they were running more power than usual today. Rue stole briefly to the kitchen to put some tea on, and when she came back, Sage had taken over check-in duty.

“Where are we?” Sage asked.

“The Underworld,” Lav replied.

Even after some good sips of water and a cracker or two, Jo still looked cagey when Lav spoke. It took Rue a minute to clock the look, but once she did, she couldn’t unsee it: Jo beheld Lav in the same way that the living did their ghosts, like he haunted the sofa. She did not speak, but she did not look away.

“And what’s your favorite color?” Sage asked.

“Black.”

“Really?”

“No,” Lav snickered. “It’s purple.”

“That’s cool. Purple’s a nice color. I like your hair. Where do you like to eat?”

“Are you sure that’s a question from the list?” Rue asked.

Sage consulted the website on his phone. “Uh… I could have sworn it was on here.”

Jo chewed on another cracker. They still had that sickly look to them, but there was improvement. They hadn’t vomited since that first time, which Rue counted as a win. She hadn’t had to look after a sick person since Dennis caught the flu, and besides, she doubted this was a matter of physical illness. What Jo needed was to relax and stop blaming herself for something that had already happened. Not that Rue could really hold herself above that, but she was more of a pre-worrier than a post-worrier. Whatever happened had happened, and now Jo and Lav were as safe as they could be, and so now the focus was on calming down and keeping watch on Lav.

There was a voice in her head that sounded like Dennis that still urged her to consider the dangerous position the Underworld had found itself in. If there was fire on the Afterlife, it would be far stronger than any of DEPRAC’s gripes with the Underworld; they’d be unwise to be caught within its radius. There was a reason that Jo had refused to call an ambulance, and it wasn’t out of some naïve pride. Having Dennis here already put them in Megacorp™’s bad graces; harboring the Afterlife could be the breaking point. If Megacorp™ wanted them gone, they’d be gone. The same had happened to many of the other small agencies – bought out or disbanded, no longer competition.

At around one-thirty, Jo pushed herself to her feet and wandered off to the kitchen, muttering something about refilling her water. Rue suspected it was more a case of taking a break from the constant glances.

“You can sleep now, if you want. I know you need to catch up from last night.” Sage was speaking under his breath to her. Rue looked up and saw that Lav had drifted off.

“Someone has to be here to keep checking on him,” she pointed out.

Sage ducked his head. “I – y’know, I thought maybe I—”

“You really like them, don’t you?” Rue asked. Of course, she’d already heard plenty about what Sage thought of Lav, but there was a difference between fancying someone you crossed paths with every couple weeks and watching them spend a night on your couch.

Sage was quiet for a bit. It was odd to stay so late into the evening with the overhead lights on. They shined on the dried blood in Lav’s hair and illuminated the dust bunnies they were due to clean. Rue could hear running water from the kitchen – perhaps Jo had been telling the truth after all.

“I can’t talk to him,” Sage said at last.

“Weren’t you talking to him while I was gone?” Rue asked, not quite comprehending what the problem was. If Sage liked this guy so much, wasn’t this the perfect time to speak to them?

Sage shrugged. “I keep tripping up. Or I say something and he doesn’t get it. And I know that’s just because he has a concussion and you’re probably not supposed to try and ask someone out when they have a concussion—”

“You asked him out?”

“No!” Sage exclaimed, then clapped his hand over his mouth. Fortunately, if Jo heard, they decided not to reenter, and Lav didn’t stir. “That’s the problem,” Sage continued. He threw his hands up in frustration. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“I think you might be overthinking it,” Rue said. “Which is how you know it’s bad because it’s usually me overthinking things, isn’t it?”

Sage laughed softly. “Usually, yeah. I don’t know.”

“Well, maybe wait until he’s not concussed, but then I think you should just be direct with him,” Rue said. “Or, actually, don’t listen to me because I’m very tired and if you take my advice and it doesn’t work out then it’s my fault.”

Sage scooted closer to nudge against Rue. “If you’re that tired, you should probably sleep.”

Rue heaved a sigh. Yes, she was definitely exhausted. “You’ll wake me up if anything happens? And you’ll talk to him every couple hours? And you’ll make sure Jo—”

“I’ve got it handled. I promise.”

“Okay. Then I’ll just… rest my eyes….” She leaned her head on Sage’s shoulder and was out like a light.

Rue was awoken to the blaring of a car horn on the road outside. At some point in her sleep, she’d relocated to the floor, where she curled like a cat by the hearth. As she pushed herself into a sitting position, she could feel the imprint of the carpet pressed into her cheek.

Letting the last threads of sleep slip out of her, Rue blinked and surveyed the room. Lav was soundly asleep on the couch, Sage was sprawled out on the floor beside her, and Jo was perched on the armchair, wide awake.

“Good morning,” Rue said, though she hadn’t the faintest idea what hour it was.

“It’s six thirty,” Jo said, as if reading her mind.

“Oh. Are you hungry? What do you eat for breakfast?”

Jo shrugged. “Whatever they serve. I have to get him home.”

“To Megacorp™, you mean.”

“We’re late.”

“Why haven’t you left, then?”

Jo’s gaze strayed to Lav. “He’s got another hour ‘til he has to wake again.”

“That gives you time for breakfast.”

Jo’s eyes snapped to Rue, and though her tone had been controlled, her expression wrung with guilt. “I don’t—”

“I’d be a terrible host if I sent you out on an empty stomach.”

“You’re not our host.”

“You came here, didn’t you?”

“And maybe that was a mistake.”

Rue highly doubted that Jo really believed that, but pushing the issue wouldn’t help anything. Instead, she rose to her feet and crossed to the kitchen to put some tea on. It was a bit earlier than the Underworld’s usual morning routine, but she could always make some more for Dennis and Beau later; no doubt they were worn out from a late night at the archives. Speaking of which, they’d have to sit and discuss the details of that case once Jo and Lav were gone, as they only had a couple days to prepare themselves for what could prove to be a difficult ghost. Rue thought on the information that she did have while she put the tea on and looked out at the back garden. According to the previous resident, it had been some years since anything had bloomed back here, due in part to the shade and in part to what they’d called a ‘supernatural slight’. Nowadays, the backyard of the Underworld was little more than a fenced-in patch of dirt with a clothesline and marked out plot where plants used to grow.

The farms they’d be tackling were out to the east of the city, where iron was scarce and the buildings were few and far between. This meant that extra precautions would have to be taken to avoid catastrophe, which translated to more days for Dennis and Beau to dig up as much as they could about the area’s history. There was a careful balance to be struck with research: too little information left you blind to context, but too much made you think every haunting was a cluster of a dozen ghosts. Rue much preferred to gather an understanding on the site itself using her Listening abilities, but in this case, it was better to be prepared.

When the tea was done, she filled four mugs, optimistic in everyone’s taste, and returned to the living room to find both Lav and Sage awake again.

“Okay, um.” Sage was glancing between his phone and Lav. “Do you want – you should – I mean, if you could arrange the alphabet, would you put – I would put U and I together.” He looked up expectantly. Jo looked like they were going to throw up again.

Lav stared at him. “But they’re not?”

“He seems cognizant,” Rue cut in before things could get worse. “Tea, anyone?”

Jo rose to their feet. “We should get going.”

“Without tea?”

“Do you have to-go cups?” Lav asked.

Rue glanced back to the kitchen. “Um—”

“Here.” Sage took a mug from Rue’s grasp and handed it to Lav. “That just means you have to bring it back.”

“Okay,” Lav said brightly, sounding considerably better than the condition he’d arrived in. Though he took hold of the mug as soon as Sage offered it to him, it took Sage a moment to let go. Rue found herself smiling with some mix of fondness and pity. After the events of this past night, it was all over for him.

“Do you want one too?” Rue asked, holding the mug out for Jo. “If you’re already bringing that one back, you might as well take it, there’s no extra hassle. You don’t even have to come back if just Lav wants to – I mean, not that you’re not invited, but—”

“I’m good, thanks,” Jo said. “I prefer coffee.”

Rue made a mental note for next time, then reminded herself that would almost definitely not be a next time, considering how miserable Jo had seemed through the whole ordeal. Unfortunately, Rue had been seized with the terrible feeling that she actually could really get along with Jo in different circumstances, if Jo wasn’t part of Megacorp™ and generally disdainful towards the skills Rue prided herself in.

“Well, thanks,” Lav said awkwardly as Jo headed for the door.

“Yeah, for sure, no problem,” Sage said. “If you want – um, do you want – in case you want to – if you have—”

“He’s asking for your number,” Rue translated.

“Oh, that’s a good idea,” Lav said, taking Sage’s phone. “That way I can text you when we bring the mug back.”

“Yes. Cool. Okay.”

Rue held her laughter until Jo and Lav were out the door. “Oh, Sage,” she said between her giggles, “you’re unbelievable.”

Chapter Text

“This is actually an interesting case,” Lav said, flipping the newspaper around for Jo to read.

Jo didn’t look up from the old book she’d picked out, only humming in acknowledgement. Defeated, Lav went back to his own reading. They were sat in a quiet corner of the archives, pouring over the notes for about a half dozen different cases assigned to other groups of Megacorp™, grunt work. According to the clerk that handled the communications between the Afterlife and the men in charge of Megacorp™, it was a temporary leave in consideration of Lav’s injury, but both of them suspected that Megacorp™ did not quite buy the excuse of an unfortunate stumble on the way back from the cathedral. What kind of idiot got a concussion from tripping over his own feet on the empty pavement? Privately, Lav wished they’d discussed the alibi a bit more before they were confronted for their tardiness at breakfast, but there was nothing to be done about it now.

“It’s at a circus,” Lav explained, another effort to engage Jo’s attention. Ever since the cathedral case, she’d been acting peculiarly: closed off, frustrated, unresponsible to Lav’s attempts at conversation. Lav had already run through all the reassurances that he was fine, it wasn’t her fault, it was actually a net positive because the tea was very delicious and that Underworld boy was rather cute – Jo abruptly changed the topic at that last point for some reason – but no matter what he said, Jo still looked vaguely ill.

“Can you imagine if the ghost is a clown?” Lav said. “Terrifying.”

Jo sighed. “This is drudgery. This is beneath you.”

“What, researching? We do this all the time.”

“For our own cases. Not for random Megacorp™ kids.”

“ We’re Megacorp™ kids.”

“We’re not – we shouldn’t have to do this. They’re just flexing their power over us. It’s a threat.”

Lav shrugged. “It’s not too bad. I mean, you seem pretty interested in whatever you’re….” He paused, peering closer at Jo’s book. “Hang on. That’s—”

Jo snapped the book shut. “What?”

“You’re researching the cathedral.”

“I was curious—”

“Are we going back?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

Jo narrowed their eyes at him. “Do you… want to?”

On the one hand, it was awfully unsatisfying to leave a site uncleared. On the other hand, Lav’s head still ached a bit. “Best not to,” he said.

“Yes…” Jo murmured, still enthralled by their book. “There isn’t anything more than we already knew. I mean, obviously an old church like that is going to have its fair share of ghosts, so it’s not like we assumed that it was clear. And we followed the protocol for dealing with a Poltergeist, it’s just we weren’t supposed to be fighting it in the first place, but it’s not like that Shade was even close to our skill level, it was insulting, and we should have gone home but I just – ugh , I don’t know what I was—”

“Jo,” Lav cut in. “Don’t you think you’re maybe being a bit hard on yourself?”

“You could have died!” Jo exclaimed. As soon as the words left her lips, she seemed to recognize that she’d just shouted in the archives and lowered her tone. “You could have died, Lav. And it would have been my fault.”

“Oh, come on,” Lav sighed. “I wouldn’t have climbed that ladder if I didn’t want to. And I should have seen the Dark Specter sooner, or – or heard something at least.”

“But I—”

“It’s fine. We all screw up sometimes. And I’m all right, so it doesn’t even matter.”

Jo looked wrecked. “It should have been me.”

“Well, now you’re suffering in this research, which I don’t mind at all, and besides, I got to spend the night—” He cut himself off as Jo rolled their eyes. “What?”

“I hate this.”

“It’ll go by faster if you read the things we’re meant to.”

Jo huffed, but accepted the book Lav offered her. If Megacorp™ was actually just putting them on this task for Lav’s recovery, making a fuss about it would do nothing but raise suspicion. As long as they kept their heads down and completed this research, they’d be back in the field in no time.

It wasn’t bad, being here in the archives. Normally, most of this side of the work was handled by Megacorp™ – dedicated researchers, not just agents on recovery – but before they’d joined Megacorp™, Lav had been the one to study the locations while Jo fine-tuned their rapier skills. The archives were quiet, and the lights were soft and warm, and the air, while stuffy, held the scent of old books. It was the sort of place that made you forget you were in the middle of a bustling city, recovering from a concussion, reading a newspaper on ghost clowns. Alleged ghost clowns. A ghost in a circus that could very well be a clown.

Lav leaned back in his chair and rubbed his temples. Through the warped pane of the old window, the buildings outside were a blur of greys and brick-reds, indistinguishable. He wanted to retire to his room to take a nap, but that would not quell Jo’s worries, so he just screwed his eyes shut and waited for the headache to subside.

That evening, Jo trained harder with Beatrix than ever. She had a fervor to her, something verging on desperation, but rather than let it bleed into her performance in the form of sloppiness and aggression, she moved with fierce intention, brow furrowed and mouth set in a harsh line. In three quick moves, they had disarmed Beatrix and set their blade against her throat.

“Excellent,” said Beatrix. “Again.”

Lav tucked himself further into his little corner, where he’d cleaned the spiderwebs away enough to curl up on the floor. The book propped on his knees was a dreadfully dull read, something about lake spirits in times before the Problem, but after this, there was only one little book remaining in the stack he’d checked out from the archives.

Beatrix pulled a fast move on Jo that sent her stumbling back, striking into the brick wall behind her. She growled in frustration and threw herself back at Beatrix, breathing hard.

It wasn’t totally out of the ordinary for Jo, but it wasn’t good, either. If they weren’t going to accept that Lav didn’t resent them, then this was just something they had to work through on their own. At least she’d stopped ranting about the Underworld for now. It was kind of difficult to take her complaints seriously now that Lav had that image of Sage framed in his memory: the look of worry, the hair frazzled by sleep, the pressure of his hand against Lav’s head. It made Lav want to do something crazy, like call the number that was waiting on his phone. Or deliver back the mug.

Not anything would ever come of it. Lav had seen the way Sage had blushed and stumbled at the arrival of that other boy, Beau. Besides, Lav wasn’t all that interested in dating at the moment. There were far more important things to focus on than fruitless fantasies about an Underworld agent.

“Come on!” Jo shouted, wiping the sweat from their brow. “Give me a challenge!”

Beatrix cut in sharply with her rapier, knocking Jo’s aside. “Right side’s open again.”

Jo’s breath whistled out through her teeth. She lunged forward to disarm Beatrix again.

“Good. Keep your strikes even to either side.”

Jo was better on their left, but they nodded and adjusted their stance. In his own training, Lav had never been instructed to stop favoring his right, but he supposed that was a technique too advanced for his skillset. What exactly was his skillset? Losing control while holding a Source? Falling off a ladder? Reading books already chosen for him? A week ago, he probably would have said his area of expertise was in working with Jo, but clearly that too was lacking.

Lav closed their book and took a breath, leaning their head back to take in the spiderwebs strung up above. Two days had passed since they’d returned that morning, late for breakfast, Lav’s hair bloody, feeling worn-out and ashamed. Still, it felt as though a century lived between them and that first evening cab ride to the cathedral. Things had changed. Even if neither of them put it into words, they could both feel the shift in the air. Beatrix could probably sense it too, though she’d never say a word about it.

The relegation to research was only a temporary inconvenience. The real trouble would come when they were back in the field again and had to face the way things changed. Or, on a lighter note, maybe a case was just the thing to set everything back to normal again. Lav set his book aside and fetched the last thing from the stack, an old leatherbound book that he had no memory of retrieving.

“Find anything else about ghost clowns?” Jo asked, leaning over the back of the chair opposite Lav as Beatrix packed up her rapier.

Beatrix watched Jo sternly with that hawklike gaze, no doubt picking apart the same shift in behavior that Lav had. “I’ll be back this evening.”

“Sounds good,” Jo said, and Beatrix left without another word.

Lav flipped open the last book absently. They could feel Jo’s eyes on them, waiting for them to start the conversation. Lav didn’t know what else they had to say. Things happened and mistakes were made and that was the job and there was nothing to be done. Maybe this break was good for both of them. Maybe he could invite his family down to the city for a visit.

“Um, Lav?”

“Yeah?”

“What is that?”

Lav blinked, staring down at the book in his lap. Its pages had been cut out precisely, leaving a rectangular cavity in the center, a trick book. And there, nestled neatly among the shredded edge of the pages, softly ticking, was an old brass pocket watch.

Without thinking, Lav reached into the book and retrieved the watch, letting the cold chain coil around their wrist. The malaise set in swiftly, like the switching of a light. He shuddered and dropped it back into the book.

Jo jolted forward. “Lav—"

“Don’t touch it,” Lav warned.

Jo sighed and took the book from him. “Well, obviously.” She peered closely at the watch, keeping her hands firmly on the leather cover of the book. “Is it a Source, you think? How’d it get here? You picked out the books, didn’t you?”

“Not that one.”

Jo’s head jerked up and they met Lav’s eyes with intensity. “Someone gave this to you?”

“No. I don’t know. You were there, too.” Suddenly, Lav felt defensive. He definitely would have noticed if some stranger had handed him the book. And yet, somehow, here it was in the stack of books he’d collected.

“That’s dangerous,” Jo said. “This should be in silver. Imagine if you’d opened it after dusk!”

Privately, Lav thought that Jo wasn’t really one to speak on danger, but they had a point. “We should take it to DEPRAC,” he said.

“Absolutely not.” Jo snapped the book shut. “This was intentional. Somebody wanted us to have this, which means it’s either a case to solve or an attack.”

“Or both.”

“Definitely both,” Jo said. She was pacing now, still holding the trick book. Lav could practically see the gears turning in their head. Why would someone sneak a Source into their research books? They hadn’t seen anything written in the book, which led them to lean more towards dangerous prank as opposed to an anonymous client. Who would even want to prank them? The other Megacorp™ kids? Lav didn’t give too much thought to the other agents’ opinion of the Afterlife, but it probably wasn’t good.

Still, it was quite a bit of effort to go through for a simple prank. Where had they even gotten ahold of the Source? All Sources encountered on cases went straight to the Fittes furnaces; smuggling one off of a site was a criminal offense. Unless they hadn’t obtained it directly from a case site. Well, that was also illegal, but perhaps traceable.

“Jo.”

“Yes?”

“Might it have come from a relic-man?” Lav asked.

Jo paused their pacing. “Possibly. But if we’re going to figure out who’s got it out for us, we’d need to know who sold this, and we haven’t got—”

“I. Um. May or may not have a contact.”

Jo spun around to face him. “With the relic-men?”

“I think. He was kind of vague about it, but I guess he was trying to be discreet.” Lav pulled his coat off the chair and fumbled through the pockets. This jacket was excellent for versatility in cases – reversible to a raincoat with zippered pockets, sturdy to stray rapier strikes, a gift from his parents when he’d visited last Christmas – but a plethora of pockets made it dreadful for locating a single slip of paper. “There was this guy,” Lav explained as he searched. “A couple weeks ago, when I was on my way to the archives, he came up and started asking who I was, what I did for a living – I thought he was another agent trying to make a friend, but now I think he was trying to see if I’d want a contact in the relic-men or if I was going to report him. Then he—” at last, Lav fished the slip of paper from his coat “—he gave me this business card.” They held it out to Jo triumphantly.

Jo took the card and frowned. “This is a piece of notebook paper with a name and an address.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure he wasn’t, you know, asking you out?”

“No, he was talking about relics.” Had Lav forgotten to mention that? He’d gone on and on about what cool Sources he’d managed to acquire and how Lav really ought to come and check them out sometime, and then he’d handed them that slip of paper. Business card.

Jo gave him a peculiar look. “Ohhhhkay. So, this guy is a relic-man? He can track where this came from?”

“Possibly,” Lav said, mirroring Jo’s stance to let her know that they were mimicking her word choice. “There’s only one way to find out. Unless you’re still too busy wallowing—”

“I am not —”

“Let’s go, then.” Lav gave Jo a look that demanded a challenge.

They hesitated. “Are you sure you’re all right to?”

“If anything’s giving me a headache, it’s the books,” Lav said. “I think we’re due for some fresh air.”

It was a test of sorts, a measure of just how upset Jo really was. Lav slid his rapier into his belt and pulled his jacket on, giving her ample time to make up her mind. Still, his hand was on the doorknob before she finally spoke.

“If he’s not actually a relic-man, you’re never making the plans again.”

Lav turned and couldn’t help their grin. Jo had that look in her eyes again, the same one she’d used to tease him all those years ago when they’d first started their agent training. She handed Lav the business card and was the first one out the door.

The building where the Afterlife’s headquarters resided was the largest of the three Megacorp™ agency centers. Its architecture was harsh, all strong concrete columns and dull green carpets and the kind of fluorescent lights that made Lav’s head ache even without the concussion; he actually found it a relief that they were set up in the basement, given a degree of separation from the constant commotion of the upper levels. There was a lift down at the very end of the hall, but seeing as it was only one flight to the ground floor, he and Jo always took the stairwell. They rounded up the metal grate steps at a pace that verged on a rush, too aware of the fact that they were technically supposed to still be pouring over those books. Well, if Megacorp™ wanted to keep them, they should have given them a more engaging activity. Or screened their items more carefully.

Sure, it was possible that the pocket watch had slipped in entirely by mistake and there was nothing to be concerned about. It was also possible that Beatrix would take them out for ice cream. Just based on the brief contact he’d had with the Source, Lav knew that it was powerful. It wasn’t the type of object you lost track of. The second their skin had made contact with the smooth brass casing of the watch, their whole body had been flooded with a dizzying nausea. Now that it was safely back in the book, Lav felt fine, but in that moment, he had felt the press of death.

In the cab ride, Jo flipped open the trick book and gazed down at the pocket watch. It was stopped, of course – it was set manually, and obviously hadn’t been recently wound – with the hour and minute hands reading 1:11 There was no second hand.

“Tell me about this Ellis guy,” Jo said, snapping the book closed. “How do you know he’s what he says he is?”

Lav glanced to the cab driver, but they were clearly paying no attention to the conversation of two young agents. “I think he was offering to sell them,” he said. “I asked if there’s anyone he works with or where he gets the relics, but he just kept insisting that I come over and see for myself. So, I guess he’ll be happy to see me.”

Jo gave him a skeptical look. “And there were no ulterior motives?”

“No. I think he’s just eager to show them off.”

“All right.”

The drive was brief; Lav would have liked for it to be a bit longer, actually, to give him time to prepare for a meeting with a relic-man. Supposedly, they were dangerous criminals, but at least from his first impression, this guy seemed harmless enough. Or perhaps that was a front. Regardless, it was best to be on guard.

The house was small, as narrow as the Underworld but lacking in the same verticality. The cab dropped Jo and Lav off on the pavement, leaving them to stand in hesitation together, with Jo holding the trick book and Lav still gripping the business card.

“Rather quaint for a relic-man,” Jo commented as they plunged forward, through the squeaky gate and across the stepping-stones in the garden.

“What did you picture?” Lav asked. “A dungeon?”

“Something less upstanding,” Jo responded with a wrinkled nose. For someone who had barely managed to conceal the questionable legality of their psychic investigation at the cathedral, she was quick to judge. Sure, Jo and Lav, along with every properly trained agent, had been warned against the dangers of relic collectors, but this one hadn’t seemed all that bad. Maybe Jo knew more than she was letting on.

It was too late to rethink this, anyways. Jo’s knuckles struck the bright blue painted door.

After a pause, there came a shuffling of movement on the other side of the door. Lav looked up at the peephole and attempted to appear as though he meant business.

The door swung open, and there was that same peculiar boy that had handed Lav the business card. “Hello. You’re here. Who’s this?” He said this last bit with a nod to Jo.

“This is my friend, Jo,” Lav said. “We came to seek your expertise.”

Ellis cocked his head to study Jo in silence for a moment. Then his eyes landed on the trick book. “Aha! From a case?”

“No, actually,” said Lav, all too aware of the ears of passersby. “Can we talk inside?”

Ellis jerked his head back upright, apparently taken aback. After a pause, he answered, “of course. Make yourself at home. Actually, don’t. There are dangerous… artifacts.”

“Relics?” Jo asked the second the door closed.

“Shh!” Ellis exclaimed, though he did it in a tone that made Lav suspect it was a joke.

“Who’s listening?” Jo asked.

Ellis shrugged. “Tea? Coffee?” He walked backwards, leading Jo and Lav into the living room. Compared to the Underworld, Ellis’s place was pristine, normal to the point of suspicion. The décor looked straight out of a magazine, the sort of knick-knacks that suggested only the blandest of personalities. At a gesture from Ellis, Jo and Lav sat stiffly side by side on the firm white sofa.

“Tea, then?” he said to their nonresponse.

“We’re good, thanks,” Jo said.

“Nice place you’ve got,” said Lav.

“You think?” Ellis asked. He flopped into the chair opposite them, eyeing the trick book. “It seems quite unassuming, right? How many items in this room would you guess are relics?”

Lav’s eyes widened. “You mean…?” Could they really be surrounded by Sources and not know it?

Ellis looked pleased. “I’m fascinated by things that appear ordinary, and yet hold a great danger.”

“Are they secured?” Jo asked.

“Enough,” said Ellis flippantly. “They’re not too strong in their apparitions, only their affects.”

Something about the way he spoke made Lav uneasy. He hadn’t been nearly this unnerving in their first encounter; he’d seemed more anxious to get his words out before Lav went on their way. Lav was suddenly very interested in getting to the point. “You’ll be very interested in the Source we’ve brought, then,” they said.

“Oh?”

Jo flipped open the cover of the trick book, revealing the stopped watch. “Careful,” they said as Ellis reached out giddily, “I wouldn’t touch it if I were you.”

Ellis considered this, then plucked a tissue from the box on the end table and gingerly removed the pocket watch. “And the case?”

“We didn’t get it on a case,” Jo said again.

“Someone gave it to us,” Lav added.

“A gift?” He peered at the pocket watch, then brought it to his ear and listened. “Hm. Do you have enemies?”

Lav opened his mouth to answer, but Jo cut in. “None of your business.” She exchanged a look with Lav.

The corner of Ellis’s mouth twitched upward. “Of course.”

“Do you know where they might have gotten it?” Lav asked.

“Underhanded deal. Case. Auction.” Ellis offered each option with equal weight. “There’d be no tracking it.”

“Unless we knew who sold it,” Jo said.

Ellis shrugged. “Not too much to think about. A prank. You’re likable.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Jo replied.

“We’re known,” Lav said.

“Oh, I know,” said Ellis.

“Is there anything else you can tell us?” Lav asked. He was starting to feel as though this whole visit had been an entertaining but ultimately futile waste of time.

“You could give me your number,” Ellis suggested. “I have ears in places. I’m around. If I hear anything about pocket watches or Afterlifes or enemies, I’ll call. And you can call as well. If you’d like.” He winked.

Jo was staring at Lav very pointedly, but he couldn’t sort out what she wanted him to know. Ellis offered a pad of paper and Lav scribbled down a number.

Jo stood. “Well, thank you for your help. Or an attempt at help.” They held the trick book out and Ellis reluctantly deposited the pocket watch back inside.

Lav nodded. “Thank you.”

Outside, the sun was beginning to set, which meant they had little time to get back to Megacorp before Beatrix might stop by and take note of their absence. As soon as the door fell shut behind them, though, Jo heaved a mighty sigh. “Jesus Christ.”

“What?” Lav asked. “I never promised he’d have answers.”

“Quite a few, in fact,” Jo mumbled, already off across the stepping-stones again. She turned back. “Are you coming?”

Lav followed after them. “God forbid I take my time.”

“Time,” Jo echoed. She flipped open the trick book and gazed down at the watch. “Speaking of time….”

Chapter Text

Sage knew the case was going to be a big one when Dennis and Beau invited him along for their last day of research. Seeing as she was on cleaning duty for the week, Rue was left behind as the three of them staked out a table at the archives. Sage did not see the same appeal in old dusty books that Dennis did, but he enjoyed combing through the newspapers for relevant dates and locations. It was a puzzle of sorts, finding evidence of hauntings before the Problem or past deaths and disappearances that might lend themselves to Visitors. Beau’s job was to keep morale up and remind them to eat and drink.

“Feeling stronger about my prediction,” Dennis said, snapping his book closed.

Sage really hoped that Dennis was wrong for once. The Underworld had never taken on a Solitary, but from the tales he’d heard from other agents back in training, they were seriously no joke. Countless agents went in unprepared, expecting a simple Shade or Specter, and ended in a morgue. The most important part about facing a Solitary was that you didn’t go it alone – that was why all four members of the Underworld would be traveling down to the farm come sunset – and Sage felt confident that the Underworld would not forget that rule. Besides that, all of the usual preparation steps applied, with a special focus on the mental fortitude required to resist their powerful ghost-lock. Sage felt less confident about Dennis and Beau on that; they had field experience, sure, and were certified the same as Sage and Rue, but they hadn’t taken on nearly as many face-to-face confrontations as the other two. There were some things that couldn’t be learned from a book.

“Any names or dates?” Dennis asked Sage.

“Not from the farm itself,” Sage said. “Disappearances in the area, rumors of suicide. There was something about a girl in the eighties.”

“Anything besides that?”

Sage sighed. “Not really. It’s out of town.” Truthfully, he hadn’t gotten that deep into the article, distracted by a mention of lavender in warding off the dead girl’s spirit. Only two days had passed since the Afterlife had come knocking in the middle of the night, but it felt like a century. How long did it take a person to return a borrowed mug? Had they somehow broken the mug? Was the tea bad? Was the mug bad? Was Lav only trying to be polite in accepting Sage’s number? Was he trying to work the nerve up to call? Had he lost the number? Had his phone broken? Was Lav overthinking this even half as much as Sage was?

“Let me see,” said Dennis, taking the newspaper from Sage’s hands, which was probably for the best.

Sage sat back and gazed down the long hall between the bookshelves. How had he managed to let it get this bad? Why hadn’t someone stepped in and shaken some sense into him? Now he was about to face off against one of the deadliest Type Twos, the exact sort that required your head to be on straight, and he was off fantasizing about a purple-haired agent collapsing on his doorstep again. Or, well, preferably coming there of his own accord and of sane mind. And kissing him.

Sage shook his head to rid the thought. Priorities!

Beau was eyeing him oddly. While Sage wasn’t sure that Dennis had any idea about Lav, Beau definitely knew and had spent the past couple days alternating between teasing him and attempting to boost his confidence. Which he did not need boosted, thank you very much; he was well aware of how attractive and good-looking he was, his problem was that Lav was something like three times as good looking – not to mention funny and observant and compassionate – and that sort of made putting words together difficult. It was also difficult to balance the amount of flirting one was allowed to do while the other was suffering a concussion, but Rue and Beau seemed unable to appreciate his efforts.

Needless to say, by the time the three were headed home from the archives around dinnertime, Sage was thinking more about borrowed mugs and Lav’s dopey concussed smile than farm ghosts or girls long dead. Back at the Underworld, Rue was about halfway through the process of cooking dinner; the kitchen smelled of boiled pasta, homemade sauce, and what may have been burning garlic bread.

“Oh, you’re back!” she exclaimed. “Beau, fan the smoke detector.”

“You scorched the bread?” Sage asked, dropping his bag in the hall and rushing in to assist.

Rue handed Sage a ladle. “Check the noodles, will you? No, the bread’s not scorched, the smoke alarm just doesn’t appreciate taste.”

“Of course,” said Sage. He scooped a noodle from the pot and blew on it to cool it. Beau ran past him with a towel, headed toward the smoke detector.

“How was research?” Rue asked. She was stirring the smaller pot, where the sauce was cooking. Rue had made a similar recipe before – apparently, it was a family recipe, though Sage suspected it was heavily modified – and it made his mouth water just smelling it. She nodded to the ladle in his hand, so he ate the noodle.

“Bit firm,” he said. “Research was fine. I think Dennis is right about the Solitary guess.”

“It wasn’t a guess,” Dennis corrected flatly from the stairs. “It was a theory based on research. The books will be in my room if you want to verify.”

“No need,” said Rue. “Al dente, or too firm?”

“Too firm.” Sage handed the ladle back. “Any visitors?”

“The ghostly kind or the Lav kind?”

Sage gave her a look.

“No, they haven’t come by.” She smiled. “I will tell you if he does, you know. If I open the door and Lav is standing there holding that mug and you aren’t home, I will lock him in the basement until you’re home, I swear to—”

“Please don’t do that—”

“Sage, this is serious. I can’t let you make a fool of yourself again. You’ll write a script and you’ll go down there—”

“In the basement, where you’ve kidnapped him?”

“Yes, keep up.” She offered him a spoonful of the sauce. “Blow on it, you’ll burn your tongue. You’ll go down there and deliver your grand love confession, and he can either accept it and you live happily ever after, or he’ll—”

“Stay in your dungeon forever?”

“ No . That’s cooled enough now, tell me if it’s awful.”

“It’s awful.”

“You haven’t even tried it.”

Sage took the spoon from her and tasted the sauce, which was, of course, delicious.

“I will not hold Lav hostage if they reject you,” Rue said. “I’ll let them go with a stern talking to. How is it?”

“Incredible.”

Rue turned to yell over her shoulder. “Beau, I’m opening the oven now!”

“I think he’s been fanning since he got the towel,” Sage said.

“Probably,” Rue sighed. She pulled on an oven mitt and Sage stepped back as she wrenched the old rusty door of the oven open. The garlic bread was not scorched to a crisp as Sage had feared, but instead a nice deep brown, just how he liked it. Rue slid the tray out and set it on the hot pads beside the stove.

“Is it time to eat?” Beau called.

“Almost,” said Rue. “The noodles aren’t quite done, and the bread should cool, but you could set the table?”

“We should eat fast,” said Dennis, reappearing from upstairs. “The drive to the farm is forty minutes and the sun sets in an hour.”

“Does it really?” Rue exclaimed. “Oh, we’re late again.” She shut the oven and pushed her hair out of her face. “Sage—”

“On it.” He flung open the cabinets and took a stack of plates and glasses to the table. The dishware of the Underworld was a gift from Rue’s parents: sturdy blue ceramic with a geometric print, a matching set. It was the sort of thing that made a house feel like a home, Luci had said. Then, on his first day living alone with Rue, Sage had managed to crack one of the bowls on the countertop. It took hours to console him.

Now he laid the plates on each of the four awaiting placemats, neatly centered. Dennis helped Rue strain the noodles and Beau handled the silverware. Fortunately, the smoke alarm did not start blaring at any point, and within a minute, the four of them were seated in their undeclared yet immutable predetermined spots.

“There’s six people who might be our ghost,” Dennis said, straight to business. “I’m leaning towards the man who built the farm back in the 18 th century, but plenty have died there since. Fittes sent a team in five years ago, but they couldn’t pin down anything. According to the press release, they’ve all sworn off every returning.”

“How ominous,” Sage commented.

“The current residents didn’t mention Fittes, did they?” Rue asked.

“No,” said Dennis. “They didn’t know much. If they did, maybe they’d pay us better.”

“The pay is good,” said Rue. “We’re lucky anyone wants to hire us at all, with Megacorp™ taking half the cases in the city. Just because they’ve got a fancy headquarters and half a dozen millionaires paying their funding doesn’t mean they’re so much better. Can you imagine working there?”

“I can,” Dennis muttered. “Miserable. They’re all so snobby.”

“Hey, now,” Sage cut in. “They’re not all —”

“Oh? Do tell?” Across the table, Beau was grinning at him. “Is he still confessing?”

“ Confessing? ” Rue jumped in.

“Concussed,” Sage corrected. “Or – I mean I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“Sure.”

“Five minutes ‘til the cab gets here,” said Dennis.

“Oh my God,” Rue sighed. “We’ll never finish in time!”

“Let’s save it,” Sage said. “We can eat it tonight as a reward.”

“Great idea.”

Cramming four people into a single Night Cab was uncomfortable. Sage knew this, of course, and had mentally prepared himself adequately that afternoon, and yet still it was jarring to jam his legs against the driver’s seat as he attempted to give room in the middle for Rue. Beau sat up with the driver and spent the ride indulged in conversation about topics that Sage was either too tired or too distracted to decipher. Or perhaps Beau was simply talking nonsense.

The drive was forty minutes, and Rue decided to spend most of these forty minutes chatting with Dennis about finance and logistics for the Underworld, so Sage leaned his head against the cool glass of the window and stared out at the passing buildings. Lav had been nice to talk to, even while concussed. They had an effect to them that made Sage’s head spin, some effortless charm that they didn’t even seem to realize they were employing. What Sage would have given to just be able to sit down with him, free from the pretense of a case or a concussion or even a borrowed mug, and just talk. Like a date.

It was really all over for him. This was not supposed to be a normal risk of psychic work. You were only supposed to have to worry about encountering deadly Visitors, not cute rival agents that showed up on your doorstep in the middle of the night with a head wound.

Out the window, Sage watched dense city streets stretch and morph into a rolling countryside. Here in mid-September, the leaves were beginning to turn, forming a gradient of greens and reds and yellows. It reminded Sage of the first time he’d visited Rue’s parents on a quiet autumn day just past three years ago. They’d come and picked the two of them up from the agency where they trained – and met – and tried their best to chat enthusiastically with Sage the whole ride back while Sage sat very still and put on his most polite smile while remembering to breathe. Now, visits with Luci, Ron, and Lena were effortless, but in the beginning, Sage had been certain that for some reason, they would hate him. He wasn’t as prim and polished as Rue appeared. He made bad jokes and broke the rules. At dinner, he’d been so focused on making the best first impression that it had taken him until halfway through the meal to realize that everyone else was joking about Luci’s ‘masterful’ cooking and did not actually expect him to enjoy the dry chicken and overbaked potatoes. It was all silly to think back on now, but at the time, he’d felt like he had shriveled up and died, shrunken in and left his skin behind.

Sage shifted, turning back to watch Beau’s animated expressions as he found some apparent commonality with the cab driver. Dennis’s nose was now buried in a book that Sage did not recall him packing.

Rue nudged him. “Hey. What’s up? You look bothered. Or, no, I don’t mean bothered, I mean you’re—”

“Fine. I’m good.” He stretched his arms out as much as he could in the backseat and yawned. Why was he even thinking about that memory now? That was exactly the sort of thing you did not want to be thinking about when dealing with a Solitary. Maybe he was overthinking it, and that was the problem. Which was bad, because he was not an overthinker, except for sometimes.

Rue was staring at him.

“Are you worried?” he asked. “About the ghost, I mean.”

“Of course,” said Rue. “I mean, obviously it’s almost definitely a Type Two, and it’s probably a kind we’ve never had to face before, and all the things that Dennis says are terrifying, but it’s not like we’re unprepared, I think. Right, Dennis?”

Dennis nodded, though Sage doubted he’d caught even half of that.

“It’s not that I’m not worried,” Rue continued, “but I think we’ll have it handled. We’ve tackled a Poltergeist; how bad can this be?”

Two hours later, the mood had dropped considerably. The last hints of sunlight were nearly extinct now and there was still yet to be even a murmur of a manifestation. The residents had granted them full reign of the farmhouse as well as the barn, and per their rules of no splitting up, they’d taken almost the full two hours to scan it all. Iron circles were set up in the main room of the house and just outside the barn, and supplies had been distributed evenly between the four of them. Now they sat on the old porch in boredom, waiting for the night to get interesting.

Sage leaned on the crumbling stone wall on the west side of the porch and listened to the creaking of the shutters overhead. Beyond the yard, the property stretched plainly in a sea of gently shifting wheat that Sage could imagine running wild through, letting it catch in his clothing and his hair and scratch his skin. With the sun set, the field was dark; it felt as though it held a secret.

“Dennis wants to check the barn again.” Rue appeared at his side suddenly – all that listening to the house and the wind and he’d still missed her.

“Did you hear anything there?”

“Not really, but I can’t get a good read on much at all. If we’d go anywhere, I’d like to see the lake again.”

Lake was putting it generously. At the back side of the property, there was a little manmade pond where ducks might have been raised. In their initial sweep, Rue had paused at the edge of the water, hand held up to indicate a pause, for a few seconds before continuing on.

“I think you’re in charge,” Sage said.

“I’m pretty sure Dennis established a democracy.”

“One vote for the barn, two votes for the pond.”

“Beau will vote with Dennis, so it’s tied.”

“The imaginary person I’ve made up in my head votes pond.”

Rue smiled. “The tie’s broken, then?”

“ So broken,” Sage laughed. “Let’s tell Dennis.”

His chest was still rattling with the echoes of the laugh when they turned around and saw Beau standing there, wide-eyed in the light of his torch, unassuming and utterly alone.

Rue was the first to speak. “Where’s Dennis?”

“He left,” said Beau. “He didn’t want to wait.”

Sage marched forward, swallowing his anger and the accompanying urge to throttle Beau. What happened to staying together? How had they messed it up already? “Where’d he go? Beau, where did he go?”

The panic strangled him. So much for cool under pressure. So much for years of case experience. Beau pointed in a direction but it wasn’t until Rue grabbed his wrist that Sage remembered he could run.

The sky was a black curtain falling from above. The long grass whipped at Sage’s ankles; with every step, the hard earth sent shockwaves through his body, jamming his bones together. Where was Dennis? All that Sage could see ahead was the thin dark line of the horizon, the shifting wheat, the cobblestone wall.

“Sage!”

He whirled around to Rue’s call and saw her silhouette frozen in the mouth of the barn. “Rue?”

The wind tore through her hair, lifting and curling it around her head. She didn’t speak.

“What’s going on?” Beau asked, and Sage jumped at the sound of his voice just over his shoulder.

“Ghost-lock,” he forced out. The malaise was unbearable. He felt the temperature drop, the weight sit firmly in his chest. He couldn’t afford to be seized too.

Sage sprinted forward and grabbed hold of Rue, putting his face in between her and whatever she was seeing. Just as he feared, her eyes were glazed over, swirling voids of white and blue. “Come on, Rue. Snap out of it.”

Beau joined Sage at his side. “I’m sorry,” he said. “What do I do?”

As much as Sage hated to leave Rue, he knew that he’d have a much better shot of saving Dennis than Beau did. “Watch her,” he said. “Don’t let her out of your sight. You got that? You understand?” His tone was sharp, but he had no room for softness with the terror gripping him.

Beau nodded and wrapped his arms around her. Reluctantly, Sage let her go. His hands were shaking, stomach churning. This was what it was like to face a Solitary? Fine. He turned to face the barn.

He’d first met Dennis on the tail end of what was turning out to be a rather miserable day. The bills were adding up and the cases just weren’t coming and as much as he wanted to prove his independence, Rue was ready to ask her parents for help. He told her he was going to look for a cheaper place to buy their salt canisters but ended up spending the evening wandering the park just outside Megacorp™’s campus, wondering why they’d ever thought that they could make it on their own. All of a sudden, he heard a commotion up ahead: angry voices arguing with a young boy stuttering over his words, the occasional defense from a boy he would later learn was Beau. The two of them marched away from the Megacorp™ building with stacks of papers in their arms, Beau nodding along to Dennis’s frustrated rant. He’d just been fired from what should have been a cushy research job on the premise of ‘values antithetical to those of the company’, and he nearly crashed straight into Sage with how distracted he was venting these values aloud. Sage had asked if he needed help carrying his papers. Beau had asked why he hadn’t seen Sage around at Megacorp™, and when Sage had explained that he worked for a small start-up called the Underworld, Dennis’s face had lit up like the sun. Two hours later, over coffee, Sage had asked if Dennis knew how to find cases, and if he’d perhaps be interested in an interview with him and Rue. It took only a week to get from that to Dennis and Beau moving in, and suddenly the Underworld was a decent, humble agency.

Now Sage froze as he tilted his head to see the upper level of the barn, where Dennis stood on the old plank floorboards, emerging from the shadows as he slowly shuffled toward the edge.

Old agent words of teaching came back to him. Solitaries are most powerful for their ghost-lock. A feeling overbearing enough to make you join them. Where was it? Sage hadn’t even seen a visible manifestation, much less any hint as to the location of the Source. Dennis was up there, eyes glazed over, but Sage couldn’t begin to tell what he was looking at. He shut his eyes and tried to Listen, but still nothing. Dennis took another step.

Screw the Source. Screw the ghost entirely. Sage sprinted for the stairs, heart pounding as he heard the creak of the floorboards overhead. As he stumbled to climb the steps as fast as possible, Sage couldn’t help but feel angry. Hadn’t Dennis done the most research on this case? Wouldn’t he have known not to wander off alone? Beneath that anger, though, was only terror. Specters, he could handle. Solitaries, clearly, he could not.

“Dennis!” he shouted as he reached the upper level.

Predictably, Dennis did nothing to indicate he’d even heard. Just as he lifted his foot to take the final step off of the ledge, bound to plummet to the hard concrete floor below, Sage grabbed his wrist and pulled him back. Dennis resisted, still glossy-eyed and unresponsive.

“Come on, Dennis.” Sage tried for a grin, but the malaise made it difficult. It was the usual feeling of hopelessness magnified, an unearthly exhaustion. He tugged Dennis further from the edge, back down to the stairs to safety, begging the life to return to his eyes. Some Visitors’ ghost-lock could only be broken by ending the manifestation, but he still hadn’t a clue where the Source was, and he wouldn’t possibly be able to find it with both Rue and Dennis stuck like this. “Shake it off, man. You’re okay. Look at me.”

Dennis blinked. He looked so frail, suited for archives and the sofa in the Underworld. Why had they even taken him on this case? His gaze still went straight through Sage, locked on something that Sage couldn’t see.

Sage turned to the doorway of the barn with the intention of leaving Dennis with Beau as well, but he only took one step before he stopped abruptly.

There she was, finally. A little girl standing on the edge of the wheat field, hair and dress fluttering in the gentle wind. She had a solemn calmness to her, a maturity far beyond her age. She looked almost like Rue.

The heaviness increased sevenfold. Sage felt that old shame of disappointment burn his face. Who was he even kidding with this whole Underworld thing? They were kids playing adults. He was everything his parents claimed. He was sitting in his bedroom, staring at a number in his phone and telling himself not to call.

It felt as though an iron band had wrapped around his chest and constricted. Everything he felt was cold or numb. The sky was dark and all-encompassing.

And then, as sudden as a light switch flicking on, the feeling left. Sage’s ears popped as the world rushed back to him, and he found himself standing halfway between the barn and the wheat field, arms hanging useless at his sides. He blinked hard to force his vision to focus again and looked back to the porch of the farmhouse, where Beau stood with a triumphant smile, holding a bundled silver net. “I did it! Right?”

Sage sighed and nodded. “You sure did,” he said. He felt light, airy, not sure what to feel now that the grip of death was gone.

“Um.” Behind Sage, Dennis was rubbing his head in confusion. “What just happened?”

“Dennis!” Beau exclaimed, rushing across the yard to envelope him in a signature suffocating Beau hug. “You’re okay!”

Rue followed Beau out of the farmhouse. She caught Sage’s eye and rushed to him. “So sorry! I thought, I don’t know, I should have stuck with you, but I was so worried about Dennis – you got ghost-locked too? Thank God Beau was here, I can’t even imagine – we should eat. I’m starving, you must be starving, and that was awful and I never want to face a Solitary again.”

“The feeling’s mutual,” Sage muttered. “Shall we break out the ice cream after dinner? I think this calls for it.”

“Oh, for certain,” Rue said. “Chocolate, too. I’m not letting any of us go to bed without an unhealthy amount of sugar, it’s a mood lifter. I’ll put tea on. And who knows! Maybe Lav came by with the mug, and you can stop borrowing mine.”

“While we were gone?”

“Maybe not! I’m trying to be helpful here, Sage.”

“I appreciate it. Shall we go?” He looked to the others. Dennis had his head down, but he and Beau gripped each other’s hands with equal fierceness, unwilling to separate again.

Rue nudged Sage as she started towards the farmhouse. “Come on, then. Those iron circles aren’t going to pack themselves.”

Back at the Underworld, their arrival was quiet. Dennis wasn’t talking, just nodding along to Beau’s words. The leftovers from dinner were reheated and spread out on the table once again, what should have been the feast of champions but felt more like a poor replica of Rue’s cooking. Sage traced the flower pattern in his napkin, unable to shake the feeling that if only this had been another case double-booked with the Afterlife, they might have solved it with less heartache. He had the sense that Dennis was not about to join them on another case anytime soon, which meant Beau wouldn’t either, which meant they were once again restrained by the limits of a two-agent team.

After the late second dinner, Rue declared a movie night and brought the ice cream cartons out. Sweets were a must in the Underworld; Sage learned quickly that Rue’s family’s definition of enough sugar stretched much further than his own. The four of them curled up on the sofa together and Beau smacked the back of the television until it worked again and Rue distributed the ice cream, and for an hour or so there was nothing but peace and calm before the doorbell rang.

Beau was the first to his feet. “I’ll get it!”

Sage knew he was trying extra hard to be helpful since letting Dennis out of his sight, but it wasn’t as though he felt like extracting himself from the comfort of the blankets and Rue’s head on his shoulder, so he let Beau go.

“Oh!” Beau exclaimed from the foyer. “You’re the one that Sage keeps—”

“Sorry,” a familiar voice cut in. “I just – I forgot to give this back, and I know I have the number, but I was already in the area, so I thought—”

Sage had already leapt to his feet, throwing the blanket on Rue’s face, and rushed across the living room to lean against the doorframe, flipping his hair over his shoulder. “Heyyy. Hi.”

Lav stood on the step, nose pink from the autumn wind, holding the borrowed mug carefully in both hands. “Hi.”

“Did you like it?” Sage asked. Beau gave him a supportive pat on the back and left him be. Left him alone to put his words in the right order to speak to Lav.

Lav stared at him. “What?”

“The mug. The tea, I mean.”

“Oh, that. It was good.” Lav held out the mug. “Sorry it’s so late.”

“You had a case?”

Lav sighed. “I wish. I’m not allowed until the – you know, ‘til the concussion’s gone. We were at the archives.”

“This late?” Sage asked.

“Got caught up on something,” Lav explained. “Anyways. Here’s your mug.”

Sage took hold of the mug from Lav, letting their fingers brush just enough that it could have been accidental. He smiled. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” Lav hesitated, staring at his shoes. “Thanks for. You know.”

“Yeah, totally,” Sage said breathlessly. “Listen, do you—”

“I should go,” Lav cut in, speaking over him. They took a step back and looked up to flash Sage a polite smile.

“Right.” He hated how deeply the disappointment cut. Of course Lav was just coming back to return the mug. What else would they be here for?

“I’ll see you around,” Lav said, and then he was gone, and Sage was left standing in the doorway with the mug clutched in his hands.

Chapter Text

The day that the Afterlife was cleared for case work, they already had a job lined up. Jo would have liked to have claimed it as her own doing, but the little freedom the Afterlife had been granted in recent months was now thoroughly revoked. That was fine. At least they were permitted to do work again.

It was a humiliatingly easy case. Something given to trainees, not the supposedly ‘elite team’ of Megacorp™. Nothing more than a Shade being a nuisance to the residents of a wealthy neighborhood. Jo and Lav had it wrapped up by midnight.

Back at Megacorp™, Lav packed up for bed, but Jo wasn’t even remotely tired. She took her rapier down to the training dummies in the basement gym, which was virtually deserted this late. There was something therapeutic about the rhythm of the movements, twisting on one foot to slice with the opposite hand, planting a stance in between two dummies to practice fighting on both fronts, so much so that soon enough, Jo had worked up quite a sweat. They sat on the bench beside the door and watched the dummies gently swing, their shadows flickering over the bare concrete.

What was wrong with them? The cathedral case was one thing – a single mistake, perfectly understandable, nothing to lose their mind about – but things just couldn’t seem to go back to normal. Lav was acting skittish and Jo kept apologizing and Megacorp™ was never going to treat them with respect if they kept messing up like this.

Jo sighed and leaned forward, running her hands over her knees. Her limbs were heavy with fatigue but she didn’t want to sleep; she wanted to keep training until her brain stopped spinning in circles. Jo heaved herself to her feet and struck the dummy again, hard. The force shot up their arm and pulled harshly at their shoulder, but Jo didn’t stop. They whirled around, pivoting around the dummy to hit it from behind, then a stab at the one to their left, then a duck—

Jo hissed in pain as their ankle twisted, sending them crashing to the floor. She pushed herself onto her elbows and took a pause, breathing hard. Her hair had come undone and spilled over her face, sticking to her sweaty skin.

“Come on,” Jo muttered to herself through gritted teeth. “You’re better than this.”

With a cry of frustration, Jo stood up and slid her rapier into its sheath as she headed for the door. Screw the dummies. In the morning, they’d make Beatrix spar with them again and they wouldn’t stop until they knew they weren’t incapable. Which was ridiculous, of course, because Jo being so focused on proving herself had been precisely the thing that had gotten Lav hurt, and here she was doing it again. It felt like a storm cloud was wreathing her as she marched down the basement halls, crackling with electricity and threatening a downpour. She didn’t even think about where she was going; it was muscle memory at this point, and being she was quite ready, Jo had arrived outside her dormitory.

Knowing Lav would be in there, hopefully sleeping soundly, Jo did their best to enter quietly. They pulled the door ajar and slipped inside, resting their rapier against Lav’s and stepping out of their shoes before pushing the door closed and turning to face the room.

Jo froze, hands clutched in her half-undone braid. On the upper bunk, Lav was curled up facing the wall, only a glimpse of purple hair visible beneath the covers, and floating above him, bathing the blankets in a soft blue glow, was the spectral image of a fish.

“Hey, Lav?” Jo said carefully. She feared rousing them too abruptly might cause them to sit upright, which would most likely mean a case of ghost-touch to the face, also known as death. Jo swallowed hard and reached backward to grab hold of her rapier again. “Lavender?” she tried again. Nothing. That boy slept like the dead.

Jo inched forward, scanning their surroundings for anything useful. Of course, Megacorp™ didn’t permit its agents to keep salt canisters or flares inside their dormitories, that would be a safety hazard. Never mind the fact that a little rule-breaking salt canister could very well save Lav’s life in this instance.

Cursing the fact that Lav had claimed the top bunk multiple years ago, Jo took a step onto the first rung of the ladder, stabilizing herself with one hand while reaching her rapier up in an attempt to repel the ghost. It was a small fish – a guppy, perhaps? Jo wasn’t well versed in identifying fishes – and it swam about the air above Lav’s head with a sort of carefree attitude, as if it wasn’t presently under impending attack by an iron blade.

Jo climbed up another rung and sliced through it cleanly. “ Lav ,” she hissed as the last wisps of the apparition faded.

Finally, his eyes blinked open. “Yeah? What’s – what are you doing?”

“There’s a ghost in our room.”

Lav shot upright in alarm. “ What? ”

“I dispelled it, but the Source has to be somewhere in here, right?” She climbed down from the ladder and turned her attention to the rest of the room while Lav followed. It was fairly tidy, all things considered, but the dresser had gotten a little bit out of control. Jo traced her hands over the items, searching for something unfamiliar. There was a hairbrush, a stack of papers, a – Jo paused for a moment, fingers tapping the pair of earrings from her mom – and there , there it was: the pocket watch had been left out of a case. Jo snatched it up and whirled around to Lav.

“Where’s the net? Or the book?”

Lav tossed her a silver net. “You said it didn’t need it.”

“I never said that. It’s a Source, Lav.”

“Then why isn’t it in the furnaces?”

Jo shook her head and wrapped the watch in the net. “You could have died.”

“You keep saying that,” Lav said, “but may I reiterate, you said it would be fine.”

Jo put the wrapped watch in her pocket. There was no world in which she would have left this watch out on the dresser overnight, but it wasn’t worth fighting over. “Okay,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

Lav sighed. His hair was a mess, and he was dressed in his pajamas, but his face was flushed with the excitement of the Visitor. “It’s fine,” they said. “It’s not like – duck!”

Jo dropped to the floor with Lav as a blur of light passed overhead. The shape hovered beside the ladder of the bunk, and as Jo’s Sight locked onto it, they saw the feathers unfurl. Jo pushed herself to her feet and readied her rapier. “That’s not a duck, Lav, that’s a swan.”

Lav gave a polite laugh as they grabbed their rapier. “It’s not the pocket watch,” they said.

Jo set her footing and directed her blade at the swan. “It’s a Changer.”

Changers were tricky on a case due to their ability to shapeshift, but in the confines of their dormitory, it’d be no more difficult than any Type Two. Still, they had no salt and no chains, just their rapiers and the silver nets that remained in their pockets out of habit. The top priority here would be identifying the Source – it was in their room, surely, and had to be something brought in recently – but that was rather difficult to do when there was a swan taking up a good portion of the space.

“If we attack it, do you think it might become something smaller?” Lav asked over Jo’s shoulder.

“Perhaps,” Jo said. Still, they hesitated. What if the opposite happened? What if Lav was caught in the cross fire? She held the rapier with both hands and took a step forward. “Lav, I think you should go get help.”

“What?”

“Call for a supervisor. I’ll hold it off.”

“Jo—”

“Lavender.” Jo whipped her head again to face him. He looked stunned, still half-asleep, nowhere near ready for a fight. This would not be a repeat of the cathedral. “ Go .”

With one last worried look, Lav turned and ran.

When Jo looked back to the ghost, it was no longer a grand, majestic swan, but a swarm of little hazy lights that Jo identified only a split second later as rats. They scurried under the furniture and ran over her bedspread, and Jo stumbled back to the doorway to keep distance between herself and the apparition. How could she fight something that could spread over the entire room? What had she or Lav possibly brought into the room that could cause this?

The rats condensed into a fish again, this one large enough to wind its body around the posts of the bed, gliding through the air as if the room was underwater. Jo dashed to the dresser, rifling through the junk that Lav was supposed to have tidied, but everything here had been sitting here for days at least; there was no way there was a Source that had gone undetected. Where else could it be?

At least, for a Type Two, this Changer was relatively passive. Jo carved a defensive motion into the air before them, waiting for the next attack. This was where they really thrived: not a mundane Shade, not a training dummy, but a real Type Two that needed besting. Jo glanced between the Changer and the rest of the room, hoping the Source would miraculously make itself known, but also – a bit childishly – glad it hadn’t, glad it had given them the opportunity to make use of all that rapier technique practice.

It shifted again, morphing smoothly from a fish to a deer, then back to a swan. Jo thrust her rapier forward to dispel the image, then twisted, watching the wisps of ghost-light flee from the iron. Her breaths coursed cleanly through her lungs, a steady rhythm that found cadence with her movements and her beating heart. The world narrowed to her alone with the Changer, stress forgotten.

It lunged for her, now a rabid jackal, and Jo dove out of its path before driving her blade through it again. The jackal dodged and leapt up upon the dresser, mocking her. Its ears twitched as she righted herself.

“Oh, very funny,” Jo said. “You want to show me what’s bringing you?”

The jackal disappeared, and was replaced by a haze of light that grew in size, stretching over the wall and spilling down the dresser drawers. Jo stumbled backward, tracing a sigil with the point of their rapier in an attempt to ward it off, but the shape grew further. What was it? A bear? A shark? All Jo could make out were teeth, which obviously weren’t any more dangerous than regularly shaped apparitions but did not instill confidence.

The door slammed open with a BANG , and a second later, the room erupted in brilliant crimson light. Jo shielded their eyes with their free hand as the older Megacorp™ team entered, taking charge of the situation, and a part of them was furious at Lav for actually obeying them. Now Megacorp™ would be all up in their business, demanding to know how a Source could have ended up in their dorm room, as if they were being purposely neglectful with Sources.

Her hand slipped into her pocket and touched the cool metal of the watch. That was different, of course. That was an ongoing case, one that had clearly just received a new installment. Somebody was after them, Jo was certain of it now.

After thoroughly making a mess of Jo and Lav’s belongings, the clean up team offered up a single finger bone now safely contained in a silver case. Jo stared at it. “Where was this?”

“Under your pillow,” the boy in charge said. “You mean you—”

“Can I take it down?” Jo asked. “I want to know it’s gone.”

The boy looked reluctant – this was definitely against protocol – but ultimately, his laziness won out. “Yeah, sure.” He handed it over.

As the other agents filed out, Lav appeared at Jo’s side. “What was it?”

She passed them the container, then sheathed her rapier. Her shoulders were going to be sore tomorrow. “Come on,” she said. “They’re letting us take it to mail.”

As all Sources were incinerated at the Fittes furnaces, Megacorp™ collected theirs together in the basement mail office before sending a daily package to Fittes. If there ever was a place for scorned agents to get access to Sources, it would be there, but the security there was higher than almost anywhere at Megacorp™. If someone really had stolen the finger bone from there, they were dealing with a very serious enemy.

What if it was the Underworld, somehow? Jo hadn’t really gotten the impression that Rue and Sage hated them all that much in their last encounter, but then again, they hadn’t quite been in the right state of mind. If the Underworld had a contact within Megacorp™, then it was very possible that this was some kind of revenge.

Jo kept their eyes peeled for any sense of danger as they trekked with Lav down the winding basement corridors, but this section of the building was largely deserted.

“Thanks for showing up when you did,” Lav said as they walked. “I would’ve been a goner.”

“It wasn’t aggressive,” Jo said, partially because it was the truth and partially because she did not want to think about either of them being ghost-touched.

“Weird about the watch, though.”

“I wasn’t there, Lav. I couldn’t have left it out.”

“Uh huh.”

Jo shot him a playful glare. “Deny it all you want—”

“Denying? I would never—”

“Undeniably, I wasn’t—”

“But you said it would be fine.”

“That’s ridiculous. I never say anything is fine.”

“Somehow, I doubt that.”

“Either way, we’re here.” She said this at the door to the mail room. “What do you think, we play nice at first?”

Lav’s brow furrowed in confusion, then his eyes widened. “You think the mail workers know who’s sending us Sources?”

“I think they’re as likely to know as that Ellis guy was.”

“Well, in that case, I think we should establish intimidation,” Lav said.

“I like that idea.” Jo knocked hard.

After a scurrying commotion from the other side, the door swung open and the beaming face of the nighttime mailman greeted them. They stuck their hand out. “A pleasure to meet you! The name’s Pluto!”

Jo shook his hand and complied as they were ushered in. The inside of the mail room looked like the visual representation of the contents of a very scattered mind. The walls were piled with mismatched shelving units, the center desk was coated in a thick layer of overlapping envelopes, and the floor was a maze of haphazardly stacked boxes. Pluto guided them to the desk and gestured for them to sit, but there was only one chair for a guest, so Jo and Lav stood.

“Now, I do love visitors,” Pluto said, “but I have an awful lot of work to catch up on, so if you’re—”

“What do you know about this?” Jo demanded, slamming the silver container with the finger bone down on the desk.

Pluto nearly fell out of their chair. “That! It’s a Source, isn’t it? Are you sending it—”

“Don’t play dumb,” Jo cut in. Lav was giving her a look, but she felt that he was picking up on her intention. “Somebody stole it from here.”

“That’s impossible,” said Pluto. “Our security procedures would never allow it.”

“And yet they have,” said Lav. Their arms were crossed, mirroring Jo’s.

Pluto shook his head, fussing over some files on his desk. “I’m sure I would have known if something was stolen. If you’ll – if you’ll just be on your way, I can—”

“You wouldn’t mind if we called security down, then?” Jo asked. “I mean, just to be sure.”

Pluto froze, looking up from their work. “I wouldn’t be so hasty. Or, I wouldn’t be sure that security would even be helpful. Who’s to say.”

Jo narrowed her eyes. “What are you getting at?”

“Nothing. Or maybe something. But probably nothing. If someone else stole that from here, how did it end up in your room?”

“So, you think—” Lav started, but Jo held up a hand, unable to restrain her wild grin.

Pluto stared at them. “What?”

“I never said it was in our room.”

“I—”

“You know exactly where this came from,” Jo said gleefully. “Don’t you?”

Pluto shrunk backward behind his desk, making a pathetic attempt at appearing to be rummaging in the drawers. “Um, well, I really wasn’t supposed to let it on, I think, but he was so vague about it—”

“Who was?” Lav demanded. “Who are you working for?”

“No one,” Pluto said at once.

Jo slammed their hands flat on the desk. “You’re lying.”

“Well, technically, I work for Mercury – or… with Mercury? They run the day shift – but they’re not the one who—”

“Who, then?” Jo asked.

“My predecessor. My old mentor.” Pluto wasn’t looking at either of them anymore, instead glancing skittishly at the cabinet beside them.

“Who?”

“Gally.”

“Where is he?”

Pluto shifted from foot to foot, sinking further into the collar of his shirt. “He’s… how do I put this… dead?”

“Dead,” Lav echoed.

“Since when?” Jo asked.

“Almost a year ago,” Pluto replied. “Except I’ve only just started on her instructions now because I’ve had so much backed up paperwork, but I hope it isn’t too late.”

Jo was getting thoroughly sick of this. “And those instructions were…?”

Pluto’s eyes darted to every corner of the room. They lowered their voice. “It isn’t safe here.”

“Where?”

“You know….” Pluto gave a small gesture to their surroundings.

“The mail room?” Lav asked.

“ No ,” Pluto sighed with exasperation. “The company. Gally said they’re always listening.”

Jo pressed her fingers to her brow to fight the incoming headache. “And this Gally person told you to tell us that it isn’t safe ?”

Pluto nodded.

“And your interpretation of that was to sneak dangerous Sources into our belongings?”

Another nod.

“Okay. Did Gally say anything else? Such as what we’re meant to do about it?”

Pluto heaved a sigh. “Oh, I don’t know. I’d only just started when she… you know.”

“Right.” Jo slid the case with the finger bone into their pocket. “Can you stop?”

“Stop…?”

“Sending us dangerous Sources,” Lav filled in.

“Oh. Okay. So you know you’re not safe?”

“Yes, I’m feeling very unsafe,” Jo said, nodding to Lav to indicate that it was time to go.

“Excellent!” Pluto exclaimed. “Oh, wait! Before you leave, did you want to meet him?”

Jo paused, halfway turned around. “Meet… Gally?”

Pluto nodded eagerly.

“Um. Sure.” Jo exchanged a glance with Lav and was met with an equally bewildered expression.

Pluto spun to face the cabinet they’d been eyeing and pulled the door open to reveal a cluttered mess of folders, papers, stationary, and a very suspicious glass jar. “Hey, Mister Gally!” Pluto exclaimed. “You’ve got visitors!”

Now, Jo had encountered a lot of ghosts in her lifetime, and this line of work was not conducive to the squeamish or the easily frightened. Still, they couldn’t help the gasp they drew as the slimy green contents of the jar were pushed aside to make room for a ghoulish, rotting skull. The apparition was contained inside the jar – a ghost-jar, then – but the ghost-fog billowed densely against the glass, forming the shape of a snarling corpse’s face.

“That’s her Source, then?” Jo asked after the shock had passed.

“Yes,” said Pluto. “If you could please keep it a secret, though – it’s technically illegal for me to still be hanging onto this, but I couldn’t let him go, you know?”

“Of course,” said Jo. “Um. It’s nice to meet you, Gally.”

“Nice to meet you,” Lav echoed. He turned to Jo. “We should go back to bed, probably.”

Jo nodded, taking a step towards the door. “That’s a good idea, I think.”

Back in their dormitory, the team that had secured the Source had done a poor job cleaning up their mess, but Jo definitely did not have the energy to deal with that now. As Lav climbed back into his bunk, she sat atop her blankets and retrieved the Sources from her pocket. The case with the fingerbone went in the nightstand drawer. They weren’t totally sure why they hadn’t given it to Pluto. Maybe the whole dead mentor skull in a jar fiasco was distracting.

They could still read the face of the pocket watch through the silver net it was wrapped in. 1:11. They mouthed the numbers silently. One eleven. For a stopped watch, it still managed to tick.

Chapter Text

Rue was having a difficult day. The Underworld was supposed to have a movie night – move afternoon, really – before the case that evening, but the television was on the fritz and they had hardly enough money to get groceries, much less hire a repairperson, and so instead of movie afternoon, they’d had board game afternoon, which was fine and all except that Dennis was particular about the way that they played board games, and it was apparently unlawful for Sage to fudge a couple dice rolls. Which it was, of course, but the point was that Rue was trying to make everyone happy without letting on how stressed she was about financial things and ghost things and the way that Dennis still seemed to barely contain a shudder at any mention of a case. Tonight’s ghost was located at a library of all things, which Rue thought would be a wonderful one to take Dennis on and get him some more experience, and it wasn’t even supposed to be anything difficult, but he’d spent most of the day shut in his room and made it clear he didn’t want to talk about it.

All of that was fine, of course, but then she’d had to burn the rice and she never burned the rice, she’d just been so distracted with all of the other things that she’d forgotten to set a timer and Sage had forgotten to remind her because he was also distracted trying not to let all of those things overwhelm her, but they still were and he’d also messed up in forgetting to buy butter which meant Beau had to run out at the last second and also their budget was worse than she’d first calculated. Not that they couldn’t afford butter. Butter was nothing. Butter was just one nothing in a pile of a million nothings and eventually those nothings measured up to one big something.

Water under the bridge. They were in the cab now, her and Sage, and they would nail this case and everything would be fine. Rue faced out the window and watched the townhouses pass by as Sage worked her hair into a braid. It was good to take a few minutes just to breathe and feel his hands against her scalp and not think too hard about all of the troublesome things.

“You’re quiet,” Sage commented.

“I’m very deep in thought,” Rue replied. “Talk to me about something. How’s Lav doing?”

“How would I know that?” Sage asked with the slightest hint of irritation.

“Oh, I don’t know, you could try calling him.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“How are you just assuming he doesn’t like you when you haven’t even asked?”

“I could tell,” Sage said with a sigh. “They don’t want anything to do with me.”

“I think that’s very self-deprecating and not very helpful in actually asking him.”

“And have you tried calling Jo?”

Rue whirled around, letting the braid fall undone. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

Sage shrugged. “I don’t know—”

“And how’s the case? Have you read the research?”

“Only the most stereotypical haunted house,” Sage replied. “Some young couple bought some very old place that has a library with a ladder and are shocked it’s turned out haunted.”

“Unbelievable,” said Rue.

Why had Sage asked about Jo? Rue’s only relation to Jo was tangential, in the sense of you are the best friend of the boy my best friend is losing sleep over, nothing more. Besides, Jo was Afterlife and therefore Megacorp™, and the last thing the Underworld needed was more attention from Megacorp™. Still, Rue couldn’t shake that feeling that she would have loved to hang out with Jo in different circumstances. Something less life or death, ideally.

It was raining when they stepped out of the cab, so it was fortunate that this case was purely an indoors sort of deal. The house was gothic in its architecture, though had definitely suffered some recent attempts at remodeling. Rue and Sage hurried under the shelter of the covered porch and waved the cab driver goodbye before knocking.

The lady that greeted them and gave them the brief house tour was nice enough, but was clearly not in the mood for chit-chat, which was a little disappointing. Rue made do by exchanging her commentary with Sage, who was always eager to discuss the fascinating décor and possible Source locations.

“And so all of the manifestations have been in here?” Rue asked as they stood at the doorway to the library.

“Yes,” the lady said with a shudder. “We never set foot in there anymore. Bad feelings, coldness… it’s a difficult feeling to explain.”

“I understand,” Rue said. “Is that all, then?”

They bid the homeowner farewell at a quarter to seven. As the fading sunlight glided through the warbled glass windows, Rue and Sage made a home base in the kitchen: iron circle, tea kettle on, bags set neatly on the table.

The house certainly gave the impression that it had only just recently switched owners. One of the bedrooms was taped out for painting, there were still some boxes in the spare room, and the whole place was far too clean. Apparently, the house had been empty for some time, and little was known about the previous owner. It was peculiar though – from the impression Dennis conveyed to the rest of the Underworld, it was not a case of there being little information to begin with, but rather hints of an intentional effort to erase the house’s history. It was possibly the work of whatever realtor had been tasked with the sale of a very haunted looking house. In that case, it had worked, and now this poor couple had to deal with a trace of the past that could not be so easily discarded.

In the library, Rue sat on the plush armchair and Listened while Sage kept a lookout. The air in this room was definitely colder, but not so much as to cause immediate alarm. The walls were lined in ancient looking bookshelves that stretched far too tall for a person to reach without wheeling around the crooked ladder. Rue could hear the rusty wheels of the ladder shifting within their track. The scent of old books was almost overwhelming. There was a scratching that might have been coming from the desk in the far corner. A movement of air, almost a sigh. A gentle hum.

“Not a lot of activity yet,” Rue murmured. She opened her eyes. “Is the tea done?”

Back in the kitchen, they sipped their tea and chatted about the case. It was peculiar that so little could be found about the previous owner, but one detail stuck out to Rue: all of the books in the library had come with the house. If there was any way to glean some idea of what they’d be dealing with, that was the place to start.

When the tea was done, they made their way back to the library, which had begun to become more lively. Hums and whispers, flicking pages, the occasional thud of a book dropping. Rue relayed these sounds to Sage.

“We should start at the desk, I think,” she said.

“Yeah, sure.” He was distracted again.

The table space of the desk was empty besides a layer of dust, but one tug at the top drawer handle told Rue that there was much that had yet to be cleaned. The first drawer was jammed full of loose leaf paper and spare staples, but the rest were locked tight.

“You haven’t happened to pick up a sudden talent for lock-picking, have you?” Sage joked.

“Not at the moment, no,” Rue said, “but it shouldn’t be too bad, I think we only need a pin or something; it’s not too secure, just enough to keep some nosy guests away, I bet.”

Sage held up a paperclip from the open drawer with raised eyebrows.

Rue snatched it from his hand. “Thanks.” She bent the metal to fit into the pin keyhole. “You do think Dennis is okay, right?”

“Why wouldn’t—”

“I’ve just been so busy, and—” something clicked, but the drawer still wouldn’t budge “—I don’t want to miss something, if he actually does want to go on cases again but we haven’t been letting him—”

“I think he’s happy with his research.”

“But do you know that?”

Sage hesitated. “Well, I guess—”

“No, sorry, I don’t mean to put that on you, I’m just worrying.” She jammed the paperclip in further and heard another click.

“Rue.” Sage’s hand closed over hers. “Everything’s fine.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Can I give it a try?”

With a sigh, Rue released the paperclip, rubbing the red indents out of the pads of her fingers. The house was humming louder now; she needn’t have even focused on Listening to hear it. The couple who’d hired them had given sparse and unhelpful details about the Visitor, but it sounded like a pretty strong Specter. If they were going to find any more information, it would have to be done fast.

At last, there was a click that sounded different from the other clicks, and Sage was sliding the second drawer open before moving to the next. Compared to how jam-packed the first had been, this drawer was practically empty. There was a notebook, which was promising, but when Rue flipped through the pages, they were all utterly blank. There was also a set of pens, which, though nice and ornate, did not provide a lot of insight.

While Sage worked on the next drawer, Rue stepped back and Listened. There were murmurs, certainly, but nothing she could pick out as specific words. Rue’s Sight wasn’t as good as it could have been, but she still gave an effort. There was a pale light in the corner that might have been a death glow. No sign of apparition.

“Got it,” Sage said, and sure enough, the drawer slid open. Rue peered in at the contents while he went on to the last one.

Curiously, there was no sort of ordinary stationary inside. Rather, there were two bronze cylinders that rolled against the side of the drawer as it pulled open. She took one in her hand and felt the heft of it, the balanced weight, the chill of the metal against her skin. There was a switch along the side, and she clicked it without thinking twice.

A fuzzy beam of bluish light spread over the empty desk. “It’s a torch,” Rue said.

Sage looked up. “Not a very good one,” he commented.

Rue hummed in thought, then pointed the light around the darkness of the library. It did a poor job of lighting up the place, and did not reveal any secret figures as she hoped. Perhaps it needed new batteries.

The buzz of the library grew louder, and there, tucked into the bookshelves, watching them, was a splotch of darkness.

“Sage.”

“Yep. Eyes on it.”

Rue switched the torch off, and the edges of the darkness became clearer. It slipped like an ink stain over the books, pooling in the shadows on the floor. “How’s the lock?” she asked.

“Giving me trouble,” Sage muttered. “You think the Source is in here?”

“I suspect it,” Rue said. She was speaking softly, Listening as hard as she could, but this Visitor was not very verbal. She tugged a silver net out of her pocket and tried laying it on each torch, just in case. The apparition remained, inching closer. “Sage?”

She risked a glance down and saw that Sage’s hands were trembling. The paperclip rattled against the walls of the lock. What was wrong? Sure, the malaise was bothersome, but it wasn’t nearly as strong as other cases they’d handled, and Sage probably couldn’t even hear the incessant humming.

“Sage, are you okay?”

“Fine,” he said. “Just annoyed at this lock.”

Sage was not the most convincing liar. Regardless, Rue had it in her mind that the Source was in the desk, and she was going to be sure to check everything before doing something risky like leaving Sage’s side. She wrapped the pens from the second drawer, then the empty notebook, but still nothing. The temperature in the room had dropped considerably.

Then a thought crossed her mind – a memory of some childhood toy – and she snatched the torch again and switched it on. The blue glow spread over the desk, which was now littered in the contents of the drawers. Rue flipped the notebook open to the first page, and sure enough, it was no longer blank.

June 8th – two days before the supposed date. The enemy is skeptical of our recent research topics. It is unclear whether the suspicions have extended to our colleague as well. We have not

“RUE!”

On impulse, she ducked, and a spray of salt filled the air above her. Sage appeared crouched at her side as the shadow loomed overhead.

“The drawer’s open,” he said. “There’s a pendant that I bet’s the Source.”

“I’ll distract it,” Rue said at once. Sage nodded, and she darted across the library, rising to her feet and turning to face the Dark Specter. “Hey!”

No such luck. The shadows stretched over the desk, extinguishing the torch’s glow. Rue gritted her teeth and forced her feet to plant firmly on the ground. The best way to draw a ghost’s attention was not by shouting or making a scene. It was by succumbing to its power.

Biting back every instinct that screamed to do the contrary, Rue found the place in her body where the terror was stored and pried it open, letting the malaise flood her nervous system. As an agent, she had learned to control her fear, at least to some extent, but now she let it seize control. Her legs were rubber. Her breaths stuttered in her chest, short and wet. The shadows reached for her.

Then, all at once, the feeling was gone. Rue’s ears popped, and Sage was there in front of her, features drawn up in concern.

“Are you okay?”

Rue smiled and wiped her eyes. “All good now, thanks. Is the – oh! Sage, I have to show you something!”

She dashed back to the desk, where she knew the notebook with the hidden ink would wait. And there it was, a mess of torn pages and scorching salt. Rue’s heart plummeted. “Oh. Oh, no.”

“What is it?”

“The torch.” The first one was burnt out, but the second still turned on. She shone the light upon the shredded pages, and scraps of sentences appeared.

“Ah,” he said. “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t be,” Rue said. “Obviously you didn’t know, and obviously you had to do something, I just….”

“We’ll take it,” Sage said. “The book and the light. I bet Dennis would love the project.”

Rue nodded. She thumbed through the pages gingerly, catching bits and pieces. References to Megacorp™’s properties. Dates stretching back for decades. And, over and over, the mention of a partner and a colleague. She pressed the book closed, and the light illuminated words scrawled on the back cover: Property of Reality.