Willow flicks the lights on in Laurel's room, making her flinch and nearly fall off her stool. The scholar turns around from her desk, looking at Willow through a pair of tube-shaped telescopic goggles. "What? Why?"

  Willow sighs, and taps her wrist. Laurel pulls up the goggles and takes out her phone, looking back up to Willow. "I'm not busy tomorrow."

  "It's four AM."

  "Need a Sleep sigil?"

  Willow points to the bed. "You need to sleep. Your things aren't going anywhere."

  "Yeah, I will, let me just finish this."

  The former soldier wipes her eyes as she cranes her neck over Laurel's shoulder. A mess of cabling, crystals, rocks, and methodically drawn spell circles are scattered haphazardly across the wooden table.

  "Laurel, honey, this isn't healthy. You've been working all day with your enchantments, and now you're working all night, too."

  "I'm on the verge of a breakthrough here. Let me work."

  Willow sits on Laurel's bed in silence, watching the woman fiddle with a woven cage of copper wiring that tightly binds a pink crystal within. The white desk lamp shines through the crystal as Vale rests it on one of the ritual seals, and begins an incantation.

  "In woven copper's cage confined,

  lay glinting crystal eye,

  In lightning's grasp it stays entwined,

  to strengthen and defy."

  She watches the cable intently, then broadly smiles. "Perfect."

  "What?"

  Vale takes a spool of electrical tape, and starts wrapping whatever it is she's making. "Trust me, this is gonna be really cool."

  "It's quarter past four, now."

  "Just look." Vale taps the tape-swathed crystal, and releases it from her hand. It remains affixed in the air. She then takes the other end of the cable, revealing it to be a charger of some kind, and plugs her phone in. Her phone, too, remains floating in place. "Ta-da!"

  Willow claps a few times, making it seem genuine. "That's amazing."

  "Just a prototype, but thank you."

  Willow lies down in Laurel's bed. "Prototype? Are you allowed to be developing new things?"

  "Yeah, just need Shankar to sign off on the general design, and I can."

  "I'm surprised he did, considering how many other things you've already sent in."

  Vale takes off the goggles, revealing particularly dark circles under her eyes. "He hasn't yet, but he's going to. He's been good about it so far."

  "Wait, you don't have permission?"

  "I mean, technically not yet, so don't show him the cable until he approves it."

  Willow groans, and rolls over. "Please don't do this again. I'd like for you to stay out of prison forever, this time."

  Vale takes her phone back, releases the magic keeping the cable afloat, and drops the ensemble into a desk drawer. "I wouldn't worry too much about it. Alright, I'm gonna get a few hours of sleep. Tomorrow is my first crack at alchemy in a long time."

  Willow sees the light get shut off feels a pair of hands wrap around her, and holds them with her own. "Night, Laurel."

  "Night," Vale replies.

  "Fuck you, Vale! You're not in charge here!"

  "No, fuck you, Garza! I'm trying my damndest out here while you sit behind your laptop pretending to look at a fucking spreadsheet!"

  The room goes quiet. Garza's face turns red. "You think you're so fucking special, huh, occultist? You're a sick bastard who knows way too much about way too much, and I know for a fact you didn't learn it by honest means! What was it, a deal with the fae? Devil knowledge?"

  "It's called research, shithead! It's a real shame that you haven't devoted five percent of the time you spend pretending to know shit to actually learning shit!"

  Garza stomps over to Vale, the two glaring hatefully at each other.

  The tension only grows. Garza's fist tightens. Vale's hands loosen.

  "Just fuck already!" Xavier calls out, making his teacher Ophelia snort.

  Vale turns away in a huff now that the tension is broken, tromping back to Fisher. "Sorry. What were we doing, again?"

  Fisher looks up from their chair at the occultist. Vale is far, far less timid than she used to be, now that there's no threat of immediate jail time. They can use that.

  That is, if Garza would stop riling her up with petty bullshit. Getting comfortable is Vale's biggest weakness, but she gets extremely guarded when agitated.

  With a smile, Fisher gestures at their screen. "Fruitlessly checking over the list of recent magical beast sightings near occult ritual sites for anything of note."

  Vale grunts, and starts to go over them one by one. She seems to hesitate for a half-second at a very vague description with an accompanying photo of a summoning seal, but moves on.

  Damn Garza to hell. Fisher fabricated that one to see if Vale would know the specific ritual in use, since it's tied to a particular grimoire that the Director is eager to learn about. Since she had such a small reaction, they can't be sure if Vale actually knows anything.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  The Director won't be happy.

  Laurel leans over her workbench, intently looking over the list of approved and unapproved requests.

  Of the eight enchanted item descriptions she sent in the last batch, only two were denied: a coin that flips head eighty percent of the time, and a coin that makes you generally luckier. The latter comes with a note that reads:

  'Defacing US currency is illegal, Vale. Also, both coin enchantments you are proposing use occult seals. Those are illegal. Obviously.'

  Laurel leans back in her chair, mildly disappointed. They're not occult, per se, but they are fairly esoteric. She doesn't blame whoever made the decision for leaning on the safe side and not allowing them.

  She looks over at the bag of silver coins she recently purchased. They're useless now, unfortunately, and there's almost five pounds of them.

  Laurel hops up from the stool, and takes the bag outside, intending to sell it back to the place she bought them from at a loss. When she steps outside, though, she sees the first few flakes of snow of the year as they slowly fall from the sky. "Don't cry," she says to herself. Good thing Willow isn't around to tease her for it.

  She takes a deep breath, ready to move on, but is stopped by someone clearing their throat.

  Laurel turns to the side, and sees a bedraggled man shivering in the cold. He seems vaguely familiar. "Hey."

  "H-hello. I came t-to apologize for how rude I was before."

  "Are you the guy from the paint desk?"

  "What? No, I was... b-borrowing the upstairs room."

  A wide smile crosses Laurel's face as she remembers the man, holding open the door for him. "You! I remember you! Hey, don't worry about it. I mean, you basically had two strangers start walking around your home. I'd be a little gruff too."

  He steps inside with her as he rubs his hands along his forearms, though Vale can't tell if it's from the cold or anxiety. "I, uhh... m-mind if I can crash for a couple days?"

  Laurel shrugs, and looks off to the stairs. "I think the room you were using is half full with junk, but you can use the other half."

  "You don't mind?"

  "Nope. I'll let Willow know. By the way, don't touch anything."

  A very hesitant smile struggles against his face. "I'm not dumb enough to steal from someone like you."

  She nods to herself, thinking over an idea. "Cool. Could you do me a favor? After you warm up a little, could you bring this bag to that pawn shop down the street a bit and sell it? I'll tell them I'm sending someone. Just bring back whatever they pay for it."

  He takes the bag from Laurel, and looks inside. "What the shit..."

  "Yeah. Turns out I can't use them, so no point in keeping them."

  "And you're trusting me with these?"

  Laurel runs her hand along a wall of the store, mind already elsewhere. "Sure."

  "You don't even know my name, do you?"

  She shakes her head. "Nope. No pressure to tell me, either."

  "It's Desmond."

  "Sure, sure." Vale waves him along, pulling out her phone and calling Willow.

  She answers on the third ring, hoarsely asking, "Laurel? What's going on? And where are you? It's six in the morning..."

  "I'm at the shop, of course. Hey, that guy who was squatting here is back. He's gonna take the upstairs storage for a while."

  "Don't- Honey, don't do that. There's no way in hell that having a stranger living inside the place with tons of magic floating around is a good idea."

  Laurel looks over at Desmond as she speaks. "Ordinarily I'd agree with you, but this guy was waiting outside for God knows how long. I'm the infamous occultist Vale, remember? No one is gonna get on my bad side."

  "That's not the point. Laurel, you dramatically overestimate how much the average person knows about magic. You cannot let someone untrained hang around potentially unstable magical devices. I'm sorry, but this is a veto from me."

  "Since when do you get a veto?" Vale asks, turning away from the squatter and scowling at the floor.

  "Since we became partners. Or was that just talk?" she asks, the words spearing Vale's brain.

  "I... no, you're right. Damn it." Laurel waves Desmond over, hanging up the phone and preemptively wincing for the awkward situation.

  "Yeah?" Desmond asks. "What's up?"

  Laurel points at the phone in her hand. "I'm really sorry about this, but my business partner said we need the space."

  He sighs. "Damn. Thanks anyway."

  "No problem. How old are you, by the way?"

  "Weird question. No offense."

  "I'm gonna guess twenty-two. You, uhh... you can keep the bag. I've already written off the cost."

  He stands stark, unmoving and with faint breath. "Huh?"

  "I feel bad for promising something and going back on it. Besides, you clearly need it more than me, and I'm not hurting for cash."

  "...is this some kind of joke?"

  "Nope. Plus, it saves me the trip. See you around. Feel free to come here once we open in a week or two if you need to warm up."

  His eyes dart between Laurel, the bag, and the door. "Thanks... I'm gonna go."

  "Yep." With a parting wave, Laurel climbs the stairs and returns to her alchemy lab. Lots to do today.

  Willow pensively taps a stylus on the table next to her tablet. According to her inventory and Laurel's receipts, there's about four thousand dollars in silver coins missing. That's unusual, and they aren't used in any of the approved items. Maybe Laurel stashed them somewhere?

  She gets up with a grunt, scooping up the tablet and looking around for Laurel. She's not in her workshop, which means she's in her alchemy lab.

  As expected, Laurel is there, carefully examining an empty alembic in one hand with a magnifying glass in the other.

  "I'm talking softly so I don't startle you," Willow whispers.

  Laurel glances over, and returns to her study. "Hey. What's up?"

  "Well, we're missing four thousand dollars worth of-"

  "-silver coins. I gave them to Desmond."

  Willow takes a long sigh. "And who is Desmond?"

  "The squatter. I promised him a place to stay, and felt bad when I retracted the offer."

  "So you gave him four thousand dollars in silver?"

  "Yup." Laurel groans, and tosses the alembic into a plastic trash can. "That glassware was thirty bucks, by the way."

  Willow adds the discarded alembic to her inventory spreadsheet. "That was really generous of you, but we can't make that a recurring thing. Your bank account is down to six digits already, and you can't do anything with the occult to bolster it again."

  Without turning around, Vale picks up a different alembic, and starts inspecting it. "Mhmm."

  "...is that a 'yes' mhmm, or a 'whatever' mhmm?"

  "Mhmm." Laurel looks back with an apologetic smile. "I'm joking. I went a little overboard, I know. I'm just focused."

  Willow returns the fleeting grin, and quietly returns to her office. At least she's not doing anything illegal.

  A knock at the door to her shop pulls Laurel away from her potion making. She shuts off the flame and leaves an orange concoction to simmer. She jogs down the stairs, unnerved by the prospect of visitors, particularly since they haven't even put up the sign yet. She opens the door, expecting Counter-Magic to be there.

  Instead, it's two very mundane police officers, and Desmond locked away in their squad car.

  "Sorry to bother you," one of the officers says, a stocky woman with a buzz cut, says, "but we have a man named Desmond Burke here. He was trying to sell stolen merchandise, and claimed you gave it to him."

  "Silver coins, right?" Laurel responds. "Yep, I did."

  The police officers share a look. The other, a clean-cut man who radiates Mormon energy, frowns. "May we come in?"

  Laurel hesitates, but eventually relents. They're not here to take her to prison this time. She holds open the door, letting the two in before forcing it closed with her shoulder.

  "Alright," the Mormon officer says. "Are you being intimidated into saying that? We can help."

  Laurel snorts at that, and lets her amusement turn to a chuckle. "No, officer. No one is going to intimidate me."

  "Alright... we just need some ID to see if you match who Desmond identified you as."

  She shrugs and opens her wallet, offering her parolee ID.

  The officer looks at it, and shows it to his partner. The woman scowls, and speaks again. "What the hell... you're that Vale?"

  "Yep."

  "Bullshit. This isn't funny. Are you working with that Desmond guy somehow?"

  "Huh? No, I just gave him some extra material. I was going to sell it anyway. I have receipts for it."

  "You better."

  Laurel waves as the officers glares at her, releasing Desmond and returning the bag of coins to him before they speed off. With a final look at Desmond, she walks back up to Willow's office, and sets the receipts down. "Glad you kept these."

  "Yeah. Me too."

  Laurel leaves for the alchemy lab again. There's still so much to do...