The Cold Stone

Under the season's first snow, Detectives Eddie and Mora meet a reluctant informant in a quiet park, unearthing cryptic details about a magically-charged theft that hints at deeper, more dangerous currents within the city's hidden world.

The cold seeped into Eddie’s bones despite the thick wool of his coat, a familiar ache that had less to do with the temperature and more with the hour. He stomped his feet once, a dull crunch of fresh snow under heavy boots, and blew a plume of white into the still air. Mora, beside him, adjusted her own scarf, pulling it higher to cover her nose. Her breath, too, plumed, then dissipated quickly. She rubbed her gloved hands together, a faint sound of friction, and glanced at her watch. Too early for anyone sensible. Just the dedicated, the desperate, or the damned.

“You think he’ll show?” Mora’s voice was a low murmur, barely disturbing the quiet. It had that edge, a thread of hope that Eddie had mostly worn down years ago.

“Shaun always shows,” Eddie replied, the words a little rougher than he intended. He jammed his hands deeper into his pockets, fingers brushing against the cold, smooth metal of his badge. “Eventually. Like a bad habit you can’t quite kick.” He scanned the path leading from the main park entrance, where a lone lamppost cast a yellow-white disc onto the unbroken snow.

A figure detached itself from the deeper shadows of a cluster of fir trees, moving slowly, a hunched silhouette against the pale grey sky. It was Shaun. He wore a threadbare trench coat, too thin for the biting cold, and a knitted toque pulled low over his ears. He walked with a slight shuffle, as if each step cost him something. Mora straightened, her posture subtly shifting, readying herself. Eddie just watched, a practised stillness settling over him.

Shaun reached the bench, hesitating a moment before he brushed the dusting of snow from the seat with a gloved hand – a thin, worn leather glove that seemed to do little good. He didn’t quite look at them, his gaze flitting over their shoulders, past the skeletal trees, towards the vague promise of morning light. The hawthorn branches above him, heavy with snow, sagged mournfully.

“You’re early,” Shaun rasped, his voice gravelly, dry. He sat down heavily, wincing slightly as he did. The bench groaned, a faint, protesting creak in the frosty air. A small, irrelevant detail, but it snagged in Eddie’s mind, making him wonder how old the wood was, how many lives had pressed against its planks.

“You’re later than we’d hoped,” Mora countered smoothly, taking the seat opposite Shaun, leaving Eddie to stand, a silent, imposing presence. Her breath steamed, a fleeting cloud between them. “We have questions, Shaun. About the… collection.”

Shaun shivered, pulling the lapels of his coat tighter. He still hadn’t made direct eye contact. Eddie wondered if it was fear, or just the ingrained habit of someone who moved in shadows. “Always questions. Never… answers, not the kind you want.” He squinted, his eyes crinkling at the corners, bloodshot. The smell of damp earth and something vaguely metallic hung around him, mixed with stale tobacco.

“Try us,” Eddie said, his voice calm, low. He didn’t press, not yet. Pushing Shaun too hard was like trying to force a fragile lock – you’d just break the mechanism.

Shaun shifted, fidgeting with the frayed edge of his sleeve. “It went down… two nights ago. Just like I heard it would. The whispers were true.” He paused, picking at a loose thread. “The Whispering Compass. Gone. Clean as a whistle.”

Mora leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. “The Compass? Not the Amulet of Sybiel?” Her tone was surprised, a momentary flicker of her internal thought process breaking through her professional calm. Eddie saw it, a brief tightening around her eyes.

Shaun finally looked up, his gaze landing briefly on Mora, then skittering away. “No, not the Amulet. Everyone thought that was the prize. Distraction. Brilliant, really. While everyone watched the main stage, the real show… it happened in the side theatre. Always does.” He gave a mirthless chuckle, a dry, rattling sound.

Eddie processed this. The Whispering Compass. A lesser-known artefact, but potent. Used for locating subtle magical emanations, or perhaps, for tracking individuals with strong magical signatures. Not something one would steal for petty cash. “Who was it?” he asked. “Who had the reach, the nerve, for a snatch like that?”

Shaun hugged himself, as if trying to ward off more than just the cold. “The Collector. That’s what they’re calling him. Or her. No one knows. Just… a shadow that moves through the hidden places. And they’re building something, Inspector. A power. Piece by piece.” His voice had dropped to an almost inaudible whisper, a stark contrast to the surrounding silence.

“The Collector,” Mora repeated, a frown forming between her brows. “Anything on who they’re working with? A specific guild? A patron?”

“Too slick. Too clever,” Shaun mumbled, shaking his head. “The word is… elemental. Ice. They say the air in the vault, after, it was… sharp. Like slivers. Burned your lungs, some said.” He looked at Eddie then, a flicker of genuine fear in his eyes. “This isn’t just about collecting, Inspector. It’s about… control.”

Eddie felt a familiar knot tighten in his gut. Elemental ice magic. Rare, dangerous, and difficult to trace without the right contacts. Another dead end in a long line of them, another thread unravelled only to reveal more tangled yarn. “And the auction? Where was this ‘side theatre’?”

Shaun sighed, a puff of visible breath. “Under the old textile mill. The abandoned one, on the river bend. You won’t find anything now. They clear everything out. Ghost market. Blink and it’s gone.” He gestured vaguely with a gloved hand towards the river, a dark line in the distance.

“Of course,” Mora muttered, a note of exasperation in her voice. “Always the ghost markets. Always out of reach.” She pulled her notebook from her pocket, the leather cold and stiff. “Any specific magical signature? Beyond ‘sharp air’?”

---

Shaun considered, chewing on his lip, a small sound. “A scent, maybe. Like… a forge in deep winter. Cold iron, fresh-struck, mixed with pine resin. Strong, they said. Made the eyes water.” He shivered again. “And a sound. Like a wind chime, but made of teeth. Sharp. Gone as quickly as it came.”

Eddie ran a hand over his stubbled jaw. Cold iron, pine resin, a wind chime of teeth. It wasn’t much, but it was more than they’d had. A distinctive magical residue, perhaps. He thought of the file back at the precinct, the reports of similar, smaller thefts over the last few months. Minor artefacts, trinkets of power, dismissed by many as isolated incidents. Now, with the Whispering Compass, it was clear. A pattern. A build-up.

“Shaun, this Collector,” Eddie pressed, his voice firm but not harsh. “What do they want with these things? What’s the endgame?”

Shaun looked away again, focused intently on a solitary robin hopping on the snow-covered ground, its breast a startling splash of colour against the white. He was stalling. “I don’t know. Not for profit, not just for power, I don’t think. It’s… something else. Something older.” He coughed, a dry, hacking sound. “The Compass, it doesn’t just track. It guides. Guides to… other places.”

“Other places?” Mora asked, her pen hovering over her notebook. Her eyes were sharp, probing.

“The liminal,” Shaun whispered, almost to himself. “The thin spots. Between here and there. Between now and… then.” He finally looked at Eddie, a desperate plea in his eyes. “You chase a thief, Inspector. But this one… this one is chasing something that shouldn’t be woken.” He paused, then, with a quick, nervous motion, reached into his coat and pulled out a small, folded piece of paper. His fingers trembled as he handed it to Mora. “There’s talk of another gathering. Tonight. Black Sun Gallery, downtown. They’re moving fast.”

Mora took the paper, her brow furrowed. The address was scrawled in hurried, almost illegible script. “Thank you, Shaun.”

Shaun pushed himself up from the bench, his movements stiff and laboured. “Be careful. The ice is getting thinner, Inspector. For all of us.” He gave them one last, lingering look, then shuffled back into the fading shadows, dissolving into the gloom as quietly as he had arrived. The robin took flight, startled, and disappeared behind a skeletal birch.

Eddie watched him go, then turned to Mora. “Black Sun Gallery. Heard of it?”

Mora shook her head, tucking the paper into her notebook. “No, but the name sounds right. The kind of place they’d hold an unsanctioned magical market.” She shivered, not entirely from the cold. “Elemental ice, cold iron, pine resin… it sounds like a very specific kind of practitioner. Something… old world. Northern European, maybe.”

“Good,” Eddie said, a faint glimmer of satisfaction in his eyes. He appreciated Mora’s quick connections, her mind like a finely tuned instrument. “Look into any reports of similar signatures, anything unusual. And get a warrant for the Black Sun. Tonight, we pay them a visit.” He started walking, his boots crunching rhythmically in the snow. The air was getting colder, the scent of fresh snow giving way to a sharper, more metallic tang.

Mora hurried to catch up, her breath pluming again. “Think we’ll find anything?”

“Maybe a lead. Maybe nothing,” Eddie admitted, a sigh escaping him. “But we’ll show them we’re still here. That the mundanes, as they like to call us, are watching.” He glanced up at the sky, where the first hint of orange was beginning to bleed into the grey, painting the undersides of the low-hanging clouds. It was a beautiful, desolate sight. The cold was a reminder, sharp and clear. This case, like the winter, was only just beginning, and already the foundations felt brittle. The stolen Compass, the shadow of The Collector, the whispered warnings of thin places – it all felt like pieces of a much larger puzzle, one they were only beginning to glimpse the edges of. He hoped they were strong enough to put it together before whatever Shaun feared, whatever ancient power was stirring, finally awoke. And the thought, an unwelcome guest, arrived: what if the Compass wasn’t being used to find something, but to open a door?

The first faint rays of sunlight, weak and pale, touched the snowy branches of the hawthorn, turning the ice crystals to tiny, glittering diamonds. The beauty felt misplaced, a cruel mockery of the chill in his heart. Eddie thought about Shaun’s words, 'chasing something that shouldn’t be woken.' The cold seemed to deepen, not just outside, but within him, a premonition of something vast and ancient stirring in the dark places of the world. They were just scratching the surface, and what lay beneath promised to be far more dangerous than a simple theft.