This was the third house the officials had cordoned that off this week alone, a troubling trend that cast a shadow over the quaint streets of the old city of Aria. Whispers filled the air as townsfolk exchanged nervous glances and hushed tones. Something unsettling had occurred in this historic district, where cobblestone paths wound through ancient architecture, and the echoes of the past seemed to seep through the very walls.
Bizarre deaths and inexplicable disappearances had become alarmingly common, sending ripples of fear through the community. One moment, people would see a resident enjoying a sunny afternoon at the market; the next, that resident would vanish without a trace, leaving only questions and growing dread.
The atmosphere thickened with an air of mystery, as locals spoke of eerie lights flickering in the night, strange silhouettes moving behind closed windows, and an unsettling feeling that they were being watched. Each house that was cordoned off bore silent witness to secrets buried deep within its foundation, secrets that perhaps should have remained hidden.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, casting long shadows over the city, the once vibrant streets of Aria transformed into a labyrinth of uncertainty. What dark force was at play in this seemingly idyllic town? With mind racing and clinging to dwindling hope, the residents theorized, hoping for a swift revelation of the truth.
Inspector Malachi Graves and his subordinates entered the house carefully, the ancient floorboards protesting beneath their weight with mournful creaks that shattered the unnatural silence. Dust motes danced in the shafts of fading sunlight that sliced through the heavy velvet curtains, casting long shadows across the Victorian foyer. The air hung thick with the scent of old books, dried herbs, and something else—something metallic and wrong that made the hairs on the back of Graves’ neck stand at attention.
“Stay close,” Graves whispered, his voice barely audible yet somehow seeming to echo through the cavernous space. His fingers brushed instinctively against the silver pocket watch in his coat—a talisman against the unexplainable that had saved his life more times than he cared to admit.
The missing woman’s house appeared frozen in time, untouched yet somehow disturbed, as if the very walls held their breath in anticipation. Portraits lining the hallway seemed to track their movements with painted eyes that gleamed too knowingly in the dim light. On the mahogany side table, a teacup still half-full had long gone cold, a perfect crimson lipstick mark preserved on its rim—evidence of an exit too abrupt, too unplanned.
Graves paused at the foot of the grand staircase, his practiced eye catching the faint shimmer of something supernatural clinging to the banister—a residue that ordinary detectives would never notice, but that made his scarred palm burn with recognition. Whatever magic had been worked here was ancient and desperate. The kind that demanded sacrifice.
Inspector Graves told his subordinates that he got a clue, but he needs to confirm it himself. He gave a notebook to Officer Adam. If something happened and he didn’t return in two nights, open the last page of this book.
“Take this,” Graves murmured, pressing a worn leather notebook into Officer Adam’s hands. The younger man’s eyes widened as his fingers closed around the journal, its cover warm to the touch despite the chill permeating the house.
“Sir, I don’t understand. Surely, you’re not going in there alone?” Adam’s voice cracked slightly, betraying his unease.
Graves met his gaze with steel-gray eyes that had witnessed horrors beyond telling. “What I suspect dwells in the upper chambers isn’t something academy training prepares you for.” His scarred fingers tapped the notebook meaningfully. “I’ve got a theory forming, but I need to see it with my own eyes.”
“At least take backup,” Officer Collins interjected, her hand already moving to the ceremonial dagger at her belt—standard issue for the department’s Paranormal Division, though most recruits believed it merely decorative.
Graves shook his head, a ghost of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “If I’m wrong, backup would only complicate matters. If I’m right…” His voice trailed off as he glanced up the winding staircase. “Well, more bodies would just give it what it wants.”
“And the notebook?” Adam asked, his thumb brushing over strange symbols embossed in the leather.
“Insurance,” Graves replied grimly. “If I don’t return in two nights, open it to the last page. Not before. The instructions there will tell you exactly what needs to be done—and whom to contact.” He straightened his coat, withdrawing a small vial of iridescent liquid from an inner pocket. “Some doors, once opened, can’t be closed by conventional means.”
Collins stepped forward; concern etched across her face. “Inspector, the regulations clearly state—”
“Regulations won’t help us find Miss Blackwood,” Graves cut her off, his tone brooking no argument. “Something pulled her through the veil between worlds, and I intend to follow the trail while it’s still fresh.”
—
The cobblestone streets of the old city gave way to narrower passages as one approached its eastern edge, where buildings leaned toward each other like elderly confidants sharing secrets. Here, nestled between a fortune teller’s parlor and an apothecary that had been closed for renovation since before anyone could remember, stood Aria’s Scriptum. The bookstore’s weather-beaten sign swung gently in the fall breeze; its gilded letters faded but still proudly announcing its presence to those who knew where to look.
Inside, seventeen-year-old Alistar Quill moved among the towering shelves with practiced ease, his slender fingers trailing reverently over leather-bound spines that predated his great-grandparents. Unlike the polished magical emporiums downtown that catered to tourists and amateur practitioners, Aria’s Scriptum specialized in genuine artifacts and forgotten texts—knowledge that had grown only more valuable as the modern world increasingly dismissed the old ways.
“That’ll be fourteen sovereigns and three pennies,” Alistar said, carefully wrapping a slim volume in brown paper for an elderly woman whose eyes gleamed with an unnatural violet hue. “And remember, Professor Windemere, the incantations on page sixty-three require juniper ash gathered under a waning gibbous, not waxing as the translation suggests.”
The professor nodded appreciatively, her gnarled fingers depositing an exact change into his palm. “Sharp as your mother was at your age,” she remarked. “How the Quill lineage maintains such precision across generations remains one of the city’s more pleasant mysteries.”
After the bell above the door announced the professor’s departure, Alistar glanced at the ornate clock mounted above the register. Its hands—fashioned from what appeared to be silver but was actually something far more ancient—showed he had precisely forty-three minutes before he needed to meet his sister Ellie at the intersection where the elementary magic school’s enchanted carriage would deposit her. Third grade had been challenging for the youngest Quill; her powers had manifested earlier than anyone in the family’s recorded history, making her both a prodigy and a target for jealousy among her peers.
Alistar began closing up shop, activating the protective runes embedded in the doorframe with a practiced gesture. The responsibility of running the family’s centuries-old business while his parents traveled to distant magical repositories had fallen to him six months ago. He’d expected to resent the burden more, but found instead an unexpected sense of purpose among the ancient texts—as if the store itself had been waiting for him to take his place in the long line of Quill custodians.
As he turned the sign from “Open” to “Returning Soon,” a leather-bound book on the highest shelf trembled almost imperceptibly, its pages ruffling as if disturbed by an unfelt breeze. Alistar froze, watching as a single page tore itself free and floated down like a fall leaf, landing on the counter before him. Upon it, in handwriting he didn’t recognize, was a name that sent a chill down his spine:
Inspector Malachi Graves
“Uncle Graves? What kind of grave thing you’ve done now?” Alistar groaned, staring at the name scrawled across the fallen page. He slapped his forehead dramatically, sending his unruly auburn hair flopping in all directions. “That’s just spectacularly terrible timing. Of course, he’d get himself into mysterious trouble the one month Mother and Father are excavating tombs in the Whispering Desert.”
He paced between the bookshelves, the ancient floorboards creaking in what sounded suspiciously like amusement at his predicament. The last time Uncle Graves had turned up in their lives, Alistar had spent three weeks with blue hair that randomly emitted soap bubbles when he got nervous.
“Mother will absolutely incinerate me if something happens to her brother,” he muttered, eyeing the family portrait hanging crookedly behind the register. His mother’s stern eyes seemed to follow him accusingly, even from the painted canvas. “And that’s assuming Father doesn’t turn me into a decorative bookend first.”
With a resigned sigh, Alistar retrieved a communication talisman from beneath the counter—a polished river stone with a single rune that glowed warm when activated. The Quill family had upgraded to crystal-powered instant messaging devices years ago, but Ellie insisted on using “vintage magic” because she thought it made her seem more sophisticated than her classmates.
“Hey, Ellie-belly,” he spoke into the stone, wincing at the childhood nickname that she’d hex him for using in public. “Change of plans. I’m picking you up early today. Family emergency. The usual kind.”
The stone pulsed twice before his sister’s exasperated voice echoed back: “Is it Uncle Graves again? Did he turn himself invisible? Because Ms. Thornwick says we’re making frog-flight potions today, and I’ve been waiting for ALL SEMESTER.”
“Worse,” Alistar replied, his voice dropping to a more serious tone. “His name just appeared in the shop. The books are… communicating again.”
A long pause followed before Ellie’s voice returned, all traces of childish whining gone. “I’ll be at the east gate in fifteen minutes. Bring the emergency kit.”
Alistar tucked the stone into his pocket and hurried to the back room, pulling out a battered tin lunchbox emblazoned with cartoon dragons. Inside was their “Uncle Graves Emergency Kit,” containing, among other odd items: a vial of salamander tears, a compass that pointed toward the nearest magical disturbance, three different amulets of protection, and a chocolate bar (because, as Ellie had solemnly explained when assembling it, “magical emergencies make you hungry”).
As he locked up the shop, the gravity of the situation settled over him. For all his eccentricities and the chaos that followed him like a faithful shadow, Uncle Graves was the city’s most formidable magical investigator. If something had happened to him—something serious enough to trigger the shop’s ancient warning system—then whatever he was investigating was truly dangerous.
Alistar squared his shoulders, channeling a confidence he didn’t entirely feel. “Right then,” he muttered, adjusting the strap of his messenger bag. “Time to rescue Uncle Graves from whatever eldritch horror or interdimensional anomaly he’s stumbled into this time.”
He paused at the door, glancing back at the fallen page, which now seemed to shimmer with an ominous light.
“And I was really looking forward to having a normal weekend for once. Typical.” Alistar grabbed his magic staff—a gnarled length of blackthorn wood that had once belonged to his great-grandfather—and knocked it against the cobblestones three times in quick succession. Each tap produced a sound far deeper than physics should allow, reverberating through the street like distant thunder.
The air before him shimmered and tore open, revealing a swirling vortex of indigo and silver light. Pedestrians walking past merely sidestepped the supernatural phenomenon without a second glance—one benefit of living in the old quarter was that residents had long since grown accustomed to magical occurrences disrupting their daily routines.
“Right,” Alistar muttered, checking that the emergency kit was secure in his bag. “Here goes nothing.” He stepped through the portal, experiencing the familiar sensation of being simultaneously stretched and compressed, as if his body were being folded like origami before being snapped back into shape.
When the disorientation cleared, he found himself standing at the back of a brightly lit classroom. Sunlight streamed through tall windows enchanted to display scenes from magical history, currently showing a reenactment of the Great Sorting of 1743. Thirty young students sat at desks that hovered a few inches above the floor, their attention now diverted from their lesson to the unexpected visitor in their midst.
At the front of the room, Ms. Thornwick—a witch in her mid-forties with a perpetually amused expression and hair that changed color according to her mood (currently a serene lavender)—merely raised an eyebrow at the interruption. Her wand continued to direct a piece of chalk, which kept writing out the properties of transformation herbs on the blackboard without missing a beat.
“What is happening this time, Ali?” she asked, the corners of her mouth quirking upward. “Did some old professor from the capital ask you to review his paper on the Last Elves’ Rebellion again?” Her tone was light, but her eyes flicked toward the staff in his hand, noting his white-knuckled grip.
In the third row, Ellie Quill—unmistakable with her wild dark curls and the distinctive Quill family eyes that shifted between green and gold depending on the light—was already packing her things, seemingly unsurprised by her brother’s arrival. At nine years old, she had the weary pragmatism of someone three times her age, especially when it came to family matters.
“Not this time, Ms. Thornwick,” Alistar replied with forced casualness, aware that twenty-nine pairs of curiously inexperienced eyes were drinking in every detail of this exchange. The last thing he needed was for Ellie’s classmates to start rumors about whatever trouble Uncle Graves had stumbled into. “Just another family emergency. You know how it is with the Quills.”
Ms. Thornwick’s hair shifted slightly toward a more concerned blue at the temples. Unlike most of the faculty, she was well aware of the Quill family’s more unusual connections to the magical community—including their relationship with the eccentric but brilliant Inspector Graves.
“I see,” she said, her wand making a subtle gesture that caused the classroom windows to darken slightly, as if drawing a privacy curtain. “Ellie, you’re excused for the rest of the day. I’ll have the homework assignments sent to your family talisman.”
Ellie had already reached Alistar’s side, her small satchel slung across her chest. She looked up at her brother with narrowed eyes that demanded an explanation, even as she maintained a carefully neutral expression for her classmates’ benefit.
“Thank you, Ms. Thornwick,” Alistar said with a small bow. “Sorry for the interruption.”
“Not at all,” the teacher replied. Her voice dropped, intended only for the siblings to hear. “If Inspector Graves is involved, I trust you’ll exercise caution.” Her gaze lingered on Ellie for a moment. “Both of you.”
Ellie tugged at her brother’s sleeve, eager to depart before curiosity overcame her classmates’ restraint and questions began flying. “We should go,” she whispered. “You can tell me everything once we’re out of here.”
As they turned to leave through the conventional door rather than creating another portal—school regulations frowned upon multiple dimensional rifts in a single classroom because of the unfortunate incident with the hamster colony last term—Ms. Thornwick called after them.
“Alistar? Ellie?” Her hair had now settled into a determined, deep blue. “Whatever it is… the faculty is at your disposal if needed.” The offer was significant; the school’s teachers represented some of the most powerful practitioners in the region.
Alistar nodded gratefully, even as he guided his sister into the hallway, already mentally calculating their next steps. Behind them, they could hear Ms. Thornwick’s cheerful voice resuming the lesson: “Now, where were we? Ah yes, the surprising medicinal properties of toad perspiration when combined with moonstone…”
Arunametta 