Hudson wrinkles his nose. “Bitterweed,”he says. “Smells awful, but when the berries are distilled, it makes a highly addictive hallucinogenic.” He looks up at Quinn. “It’s one of the few things that can be fatal to vampires.”

  “It’s fae,” adds Wild. “The drink is barely legal in the Fae-Lands, and most certainly illegal to import here.”

  Emily Iverson’s body lies prone on the carpeted floor in the living room of the tiny, one-bedroom condominium. Beside her, is an unmarked vial, unstoppered and surrounded by a pool of red liquid that looks eerily like blood.

  The smell it gives off, however, is not like blood—but sharp and herbal. He assumes it tastes better than it smells.

  “How much does it take to become fatal?” asks Quinn.

  Hudson stands, eyeing Emily’s body, perhaps calculating her height and weight. “For her? Three vials, give or take.”

  “Have we found any others?”

  Angel shakes their head. “Not yet.”

  “One could have been all it took if she was an addict,” says Wild with a frown. “It happens sometimes. With addicts. They get clean and their tolerance lowers. If they relapse, they go back to using the same amount as before, only…the effects are stronger.”

  Quinn doesn’t miss the curious look in Angel’s eyes as Wild shares this. He’s sure they’re thinking the same thing, wondering how Wild would know something like this. Wild looks young and occasionally seems rather naive since he’s only been in this realm for a handful of years; it’s easy to forget that he could be hundreds of years old and could have lived so many different lives before he made it here, to the strange land of mortals and weird foods like french fries. To be fair, Quinn thinks french fries are a little weird too, and he's still not entirely convinced potatoes are safe to consume.

  “Is there any possible way she could have been forced to drink it?” he asks, even though he’s sure of the answer.

  “No forced entry. No evidence of a struggle.”

  “And no indication that she had been restrained,” adds Hudson.

  “Is there anything to indicate that this is related at all to Professor Jones?”

  “Besides the Garden connection and the fact that Emily is the only one who had access to the camera footage,” begins Angel, “no—but we’re still processing the rest of the apartment.” They glance around the space, which is tidy enough, but crowded with large mismatched furniture: a brown corduroy couch sagging in the middle, a bland plastic end table, a bookshelf with peeling veneer. “I’m sure it won’t take too long.”

  “Does the Garden have a bitterweed plant in their collection?”

  “I can check,” says Wild, tapping on his phone. “There’s a list on their website…” A few more taps, some scrolling. “Yes, but it’s a small specimen due to the laws, and it’s kept behind glass.”

  “Is it the type of thing to be found on the streets?” Quinn has already filled them in on the incident at the school, and Ezra’s suspicions. “Could Emily have been working at the Gardens so that she could have access to the plant? She could have been stealing the berries during her shift and then passing them along to Professor Jones to sell to her students.”

  “I have a contact in Drug Squad,” says Wild. “I’ll give him a call.” Wild steps away, already scrolling through his phone contacts.

  Quinn nods to Angel. “Show me the bedroom.”

  Together they enter the cramped dark room, both slipping on a pair of white cotton gloves. The blinds are closed, thin lines of sunlight peeking through the slats. He doesn’t need a light to see the crumpled bed sheets, to take in the pile of clothes at the foot of the bed. The air smells musty, and Quinn wishes he could open a window to air out the place. “Have Magi-Tech been in yet?”

  “Here,” says Hazel, standing in the doorway. “You haven’t touched anything, right?”

  He rolls his eyes as if to say I’m not an amateur.

  Hazel misses the movement, her attention on the slim black case in her hand. “Where’s Harvest? I need her to wear the glasses.”

  “She’s at home.”

  “Home home or the Lighthouse?”

  “Home. Can you take any…recordings and have her look at them later?”

  “I can try.”

  “Thank you,” he says, watching her type out a message on her phone.

  Angel gets a phone call and steps out of the room leaving him and Hazel alone. He watches idly as she begins to document the space, starting with photographs of the unmade bed, the dresser with its broken handle and half-open top drawer. He peeks into the drawer, but it isn’t open enough for him to see much beyond vague arrangements of fabric which could be any type of apparel, really.

  “Why didn’t you bring Harv with you?” asks Hazel, looking at the screen on the camera.

  “I had already dropped her off.”

  “Are you two still fighting?”

  “We weren’t fighting.”

  “Oh, yes,” she says with huff, her heartbeat increasing. “I suppose you have to talk to her in order to have a fight.”

  He ignores the barb. “Can you take a picture of this dresser so I can look through the drawer?”

  She does as requested and then shoots him a pointed look. “Go ahead.”

  “We weren’t fighting,” he says again, pulling the drawer fully open. It squeaks slightly. “I was just following orders.”

  “And you were ordered to ignore her?”

  “Yes.”

  They share a look, and he watches as realization washes over her face. She raises a shaky hand to her necklace, holding the charm between her thumbs. “Ordered,” she says knowingly. “Aunt Trixie, I bet? And let me guess—Harvest doesn’t know.”

  “And she isn’t going to know, is she?”

  “She deserves to know.”

  “I agree. But I have obligations and I can only stretch the limits so far.”

  “So, what? You’re pushing the rules for this case and then what?”

  “Then nothing. That’s it. This case and then—”

  “You cut her out of your life entirely?” Hazel lets the camera fall, though the strap around her neck keeps it suspended in front of her chest. “She won’t let that happen.”

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  “She doesn’t have a choice.” And then at the sharp look she shoots his way, “I don’t have a choice either.” He pauses, her elevated heart rate loud in the silence. "Are you okay?"

  "I'm fine," she snaps, raising the camera to her face again.

  He leans down to look in the bottom drawer which seems to be a catchall for random items and knickknacks, photographs and ticket stubs and stacks of letters tied together with ribbon. He finds a few empty vials that look similar to the one found next to the body. He calls Hazel over to bag them up. He flips idly through the letters, stopping at an official looking notice of a “disbursement of funds.” The notice is torn in half and he’s missing the top part which he assumes would contain a letterhead with a company logo.

  He makes his way out of the room, still carrying the stack of letters. He finds Angel and Wild standing together talking with Hudson. “Do we have the background check for Emily? Any financial records?”

  “Yes,” says Angel, rifling through their messenger. “I grabbed it before we left.”

  Quinn takes the file folder and begins to flip through. It doesn’t take long for him to find the financial records. Harvest had made a few notes on Emily’s most recent bank statement, circling the deposit from the loan with the words Loan servicer - doesn’t exist.

  He’s not surprised Harvest didn’t find the loan servicer on the internet. The business is only listed in one database and that’s on the Bureau network attached to a separate investigation.

  Wild calls from the kitchen and Quinn, still reading the past due notices from Reynard Industries, makes his way out of the room.

  Wild holds a small jar of dark red berries that are the same color as his wings. “Bitterweed,” he says, sadly. “There are three jars of berries and they’re fresh.”

  Quinn sits heavily in his chair and looks at the whiteboard, wishing the individual elements would just rearrange themselves in a sensible order without their help. He might as well wish for the killer to walk into the Bureau ready to confess—though, to be fair, Quinn has seen that happen on more than one occasion in his two-hundred years as a Bureau agent.

  He twirls his ring around his finger, wishing vaguely that he could take it off, leave it on his desk next to his badge and walk out of the Bureau for good. The thought has been a constant companion for the last two hundred years, but it is never very strong, particularly because he’s no stranger to servitude and, frankly, he’s surprised it took so long for him to end up in shackles again.

  He glances around the office. They’ve only just returned after finishing up at Emily Iverson’s home, and he’s told both Angel and Wild to take fifteen minutes for themselves before they dig into the evidence, before they attempt to piece together what happened.

  On the surface, Emily Iverson’s death could be the missing piece that helps them put the Jones’s investigation to rest. The drug accusation. The sloppy attempt to frame Ezra—both with the letter and the fire. He can almost weave together a plausible story.

  If Professor Jones was selling bitterweed to her students, then Emily was clearly the supplier. Professor Jones arrives at the Gardens on Thursday night to pick up more goods. Something goes wrong—an argument, perhaps—and Professor Jones ends up dead. Emily Iverson gets high off of her own supply, and accidentally overdoses—or perhaps the guilt of Professor Jones’s death drove her to start using again.

  But there was no evidence of blood splatter at the Gardens, and no evidence that she was selling drugs in the first place. Just Ezra’s word. And anyway, he’s not sure the timing would have worked out. If Emily is responsible for Professor Jones’s death, she isn’t the one who sent the note about the affair to Craig. Hudson marks the time of death as a day before Craig claims he received the letter.

  Emily’s link with Reynard Industries doesn’t bode well, either.

  Angel is back at their desk now and Quinn points to the board as he asks, “Do we know why Emily Iverson took out a loan from Reynard Industries?”

  “The paperwork called it a Standardized Personal Loan.”

  “And how many installments were made to her account?”

  “Three,” says Angel, flipping through the paperwork. “The last was a few months back. That’s odd.” Angel hands him a sheet of paper and points to the second paragraph. “There are no repayment terms. It’s less of a loan and more like a payment for something. Just hiding as a loan. Want me to dig into the company a bit more?”

  “No need,” he says, letting the paper fall back onto his desk. He glances around the office; he wants Harvest to be here when he tells his team who’s behind Reynaud Industries, and he’s certain now that the false loan is the detail that will unravel the whole case. “Have you seen Harvest yet?” He vaguely recalls that Hazel texted her earlier, which is the only reason he didn’t do it himself. She should be here, he thinks.

  Angel looks up with a frown, glancing around the office. “Over there,” they say, motioning toward the small break area.

  Quinn is already shaking his head. “That’s Hazel.”

  Hazel, hearing her name, turns around, coffee mug in hand. “Yes?”

  “Oh, sorry,” says Angel. “I thought you were Harvest.”

  Hazel shrugs. “It happens.”

  Yes, it does, thinks Quinn, noting for the first time how alike they look. Not that he would ever be fooled. They smell differently. Harvest is white flowers in moonlight. Hazel is something sharper, like lilac and dew.

  “So where is Harvest?” he asks. “Have you seen her since we got back?” Angel shakes their head.

  He looks over at Hazel and his gaze stays there because something in her expression has shifted. Her heartbeat increases, just enough to let him know that she’s worried. She takes a deep breath and brings a hand to her chest. He takes a few steps closer to her. “What do you know?”

  “Nothing.” She shakes her head and lowers her hand. “Just…just a feeling.”

  “If she is in danger, would it mean the difference between her living or dying?” He clenches his jaw as he watches the conflict dance across her face.

  “It’s a message. An unknown number, but I think…” She angles her phone screen toward him. He reads the words quickly. He’s mildly surprised she’s suspicious of it. It almost reads like a wrong number. Flight to Boston leaves tomorrow. Come with?

  “Is that who I think it is?” he asks her, voice low.

  She nods, fingers tangled in the charm on her necklace. “I think so. He sent it earlier, around the time we were in Emily’s apartment, which is also when I last texted Harvest.” She angles her phone. “See? She read the message I sent right before but hasn’t responded.”

  He whistles to get the office’s attention. “Has anyone seen Harvest?”

  The few agents milling around either shake their heads or look at him in silence. He pulls his phone out of his pocket only to find the screen black and unresponsive to his constant tapping. Quinn has seen technology grow and blossom and he appreciates the benefits to being interconnected. He just always forgets to plug the hunk of metal and plastic in every night. “Hazel, call her. Now.”

  An unnecessary request, really, as Hazel has already pressed the number for her sister and is bringing the phone up to her ear. After a few seconds of silence, she shakes her head. “Voicemail.”

  “Call Ronan.”

  “He won’t answer. It’d be better to call the diner.”

  “Fine. Do that.”

  Quinn watches Hazel as she listens to the phone ring. The call is answered by Kipp, whose cheery voice he can hear even from where he stands. He listens for a brief moment and then begins rifling through his desk drawers for a phone charger.

  “Her badge registered in the system a few hours ago,” says Wild, tapping away on his keyboard. “She left after being in the building for only a few minutes, though.”

  “Where would she go?” he asks Hazel, trying, in vain, to untangle a promising looking cord. When the end doesn’t match the port, he tosses it to the side and begins searching again.

  “The Lighthouse?” she suggests.

  He finds another cord, tests the port, and, finding it a match, begins the annoyingly tedious task of untangling it so that it will reach the outlet underneath his desk.

  Angel takes pity on him and takes the cord, expertly untangling the knots.

  “Where else? Your aunts? Your dad?”

  “I don’t…”

  Quinn’s phone finally turns on and he dials Dominic’s cell. “Dom, is Harv there?”

  It’s quiet wherever Dominic is, so Quinn assumes he’s home and not in the bar. “No, haven’t seen her,” is the reply.

  “Call her. Keep calling her. And when you hear from her, let me know right away.”

  “Is everything okay?” Quinn can hear the alarm in Dominic’s voice, and is sure that his own tone is far from reassuring. But he can’t seem to school his voice into something casual.

  “I don’t know,” he says honestly. “I have to go. Call me as soon as you hear from her.” He disconnects just as Wild looks up from his computer screen.

  “She checked out a car. The GPS tracker says she’s at Valkaria-Grim.”

  “How long has she been there?”

  His emerald eyes dart across the screen. “Three hours.”

  “Could she be…” begins Hazel.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. Meeting with Ezra?”

  “Call him.”

  Hazel sighs and navigates to his phone number. The silence is unbearable as she listens to the phone ring. Then she’s saying very quickly, “Ezra I’m not calling to chat. I just need to know if you’ve seen Harv today. Is she with you?”

  She shakes her head as she ends the call.

  “Right then. I’m heading over there.”

  “Me too,” says Hazel.

  Angel and Wild squeeze into the elevator with them.