"Where grows the sallow weeping fruit which marks the serpent's way,

  betwixt the bitter aching stone and pliant seelie bay,

  lies oft forgotten morning dew and newly burgeoned light,

  may by that glistening be solved my disarraying plight."

  Laurel looks down at the broom beneath her hands, biting her lip. "Damn it."

  She picks up the broom and sets it aside, looking at the chalk drawing below: a four pointed star bisected by a thin line capped with a circle. On each of the four points lies an object: a cup of water, a pinch of soil, a cup of milk, and a small flashlight.

  Laurel looks over her notes, mumbling to herself. "Maybe I need loamier soil..."

  Willow walks into the second floor room, smiling her beautiful smile as she looks down at the mess. "Whatcha got there?"

  "A stupid enchantment. I'm trying to make a broom that doesn't need a dustpan, and traps the dirt until you shake it off somewhere else. It's being a huge pain in the ass, and it isn't helped by the fact I'm terrible with iambic heptameter. What am I doing wrong with this?"

  Willow sets down a tray of food Laurel only now notices. "Maybe," Willow says, "you're just overthinking it."

  "I'm not overthinking it! I'm invoking the right essences, directing them, and I have the cardinalities that- wait, perfect!"

  Laurel strips the top slice of bread from the sandwich Willow brought, and squishes it down into the cup of milk. "Duh, I was using the milk as an offering, not as a hearth!"

  "...what?"

  "Hang on..." Laurel looks over a series of star charts off to her left side, and slightly adjusts a planisphere to her right. "Yeah, this should work. Thanks, Willow. I can always count on you."

  "For sure."

  Willow quietly hums as she starts putting small signs inside the new display cases, describing the contents within. It's funny how much some of them resemble the scammy garbage in new age shops, like the 'Selenite of Good Health', a crystal that supposedly makes you less likely to catch diseases. If Laurel is actually making those, though, she might have to steal one.

  It'll be a few weeks until the shop officially opens, since enchanting complex items takes even a skilled enchanter like Laurel at least a few hours. In the meantime, Willow is working on a strategy to keep assholes from spoiling her friend's dream. Now that Willow's officially retired from Counter-Magic, she's been given a small pension and veteran status. It's the latter one that's powerful, especially in Utah. Sure, fundies might try and fuck with Vale, but who would dare target a veteran-owned business in Utah, of all places?

  Still, that leaves quite a lot of free time... Willow wipes her slightly sticky hands on her pants after affixing the last label. She's earned a vacation.

  Laurel hesitates outside a new building, anxiously rubbing her arm. It's closer to her magic shop than the last anti-occult HQ would have been, but this one is more ominous. Namely, it's next door to a church, and located in the back of a religious bookstore. Something about it seems... off, though. Like the customers are always a little too picturesque.

  It's probably just paranoia. Laurel walks around to the rear of the building and slides through the 'Employees Only' door, closing it softly behind her.

  Garza's eyes immediately lock on to her. "Vale. About fucking time."

  Laurel smiles at all the other faces turning to her, Baker and Ophelia among them. "Hello, Garza. I'm here to help. What's going on?"

  "No shit you're here to help."

  "Are you going to be this much of a prick the entire time I'm here?"

  Garza displays the panic button, held by a keychain that dangles back and forth like a pendulum. "Watch what you say, diabolist."

  "You got it put on a keychain? That's... sad, and honestly kind of creepy. Garza, I'm here to help, but there's no clause stating I have to get on my knees for you. I'm not a soldier. I'm a consultant."

  Garza swings the button into his hand, and presses it.

  Laurel instinctively flinches, bringing herself to the floor to prevent the fall when collapsing. She waits for a moment, knees bent, hands ready to grab the dusty carpet. Another few seconds pass. Nothing happens. Surprisingly, Counter-Magic didn't lie about disabling her implant. Not wanting to jinx it, she rises with a smile, more relieved than cocky. "So, where should I start? "

  Garza clicks the button a few more times for good measure, before hurling it at Laurel's head. She tries and fails to catch it, but picks it up after it collides with her shoulder. Probably for the best that she keep it: she's going to need exposure therapy with the damn thing, or she'll be flinching at every click sound for the rest of her life.

  Once Garza calms himself enough to speak, he directs her to Baker. Laurel hides her smugness while she plants herself into the chair next to the analyst. "Good to see you again, Baker."

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  Baker smiles, but his eyes seem determined not to look at her for more than a fleeting second. "You too, Vale. You look good. Happy, even."

  "I am, actually. I'm starting a magic shop with Willow. I have an actual shot at life again."

  "You earned it. Am I crazy, or are you and Willow, like..." He interlocks his fingers, glancing at Laurel again.

  "You aren't crazy." Stern focus marks her expression, which refuses to lift.

  "Thought so. Laurel, I have to say something. I'm sorry for not standing up for you, or for fighting for you to stay out of prison after."

  Laurel's skin crawls, like countless bugs with pointed legs. She was hoping no one would start this bullshit. "I didn't expect you to. So what are you working on? What's this?"

  Baker turns off his monitor, and swivels on his chair to face her. "Seriously. I'm sorry. I wish I did more."

  It's Laurel's turn to look away, drawing her shoulders inward and bending her neck to her lap. "Okay."

  "I... I hope you can forgive me."

  Laurel rolls her chair back an inch. "Sure. I'm gonna go see what Ophelia needs. Call me over when you need me, alright?"

  He leans in closer. "I had no idea that's what they were doing. I-"

  "Look," Laurel says, standing up. "I'm fine. You're fine. But don't come to me asking to assuage your guilty conscience after this, okay? I just want to move on. It's nothing about you specifically, so if me saying 'you're forgiven' means you feel better, then you're forgiven. Please understand, I'm trying to avoid any form of real connection with active Counter-Magic personnel. Never again."

  Baker says nothing, too fixated on the faint mist in Laurel's eyes.

  She turns away from him, and finds a seat next to Ophelia instead.

  Laurel smiles and greets Ophelia, but the gesture is hollow, despite her best effort. Ophelia stood up to Garza, but not to his authority. The only to do that was Willow.

  It strikes her just how big of a risk Willow took for her sake. Her job, her reputation, everything.

  "Hey, Laurel," Ophelia says, gently touching Laurel's arm. "You alright?"

  Laurel pulls her arms into her lap. "I think so. For now."

  "I overheard what you said to Baker, and you're right to say it. I won't cross the line. Now, can you tell me what this is?

  Laurel takes a look at the photograph. It doesn't take more than a second. Even though she's never seen this before, it exudes that baleful yearning and beckoning all devil-based magic does. "Devil summoning ritual, with the same bizarre spell patterning on the doorknob Willow showed me. Now that I'm getting a clearer view, I think I understand what's happening. It's a kind of alchemical spellcasting. I don't know how else to describe it, but the logic makes a kind of twisted sense here. The squared circle as bounds, the symbol for salt is repeated at the vertices of the triangle within the circle, and it invokes earth and fire with the leviathan cross a half-dozen times around the whole thing. Honestly, this is entirely foreign to me, and gives me a headache to look at. I don't understand where the power comes from in the circle, or how someone would even cast it..."

  Ophelia huffs, and sets it aside. "If you don't know, no one here does."

  Laurel trods into her apartment, arms loose and her posture slightly bent. Thank the stars Willow's already here.

  "Willow, I need help."

  Willow looks up from her novel, but maintains her cross-legged position on the couch. "How so?"

  "It's part of the occult investigation. There's a whole field that's entirely unknown out there that at least one person is working with. My brain was desperately trying to dissect those circles, figure out how and why they work, reverse-engineer what they even are. But that's all occult research, which I'm obviously not allowed to do."

  "And how can I help?"

  "I don't know. Distract me somehow?"

  She pats the spot on the couch next to her, letting Laurel sink in. "Okay... what's the deal with the anima mundi? Why did you want to find it?"

  Laurel suddenly tenses, her hands gripping her knees. "...maybe a different topic?"

  "Why not? Is it something bad?"

  "Do I have to talk about this?"

  "Well, no, but-"

  "Good." Willow cuddles closer to Laurel, but the occultist's body remains taut. Willow sets her book aside, and pets Laurel's head. "Hey. Don't worry. I won't pry anymore."

  "Good... good."

  There's an overbearing silence as Laurel remains stiff in Willow's arms, the anxious atmosphere stubbornly refusing to lighten. Willow kisses the top of Laurel's head. "Did you want to do something to get your mind off of-"

  "Connection."

  "...what?"

  "The anima mundi. No one has ever reached it before. I wanted to be the one to connect with the world, to dissolve into it and become one with it, in a way that wasn't... I don't know. That desire to truly, fundamentally understand things. It's conceited and arrogant to assume I would find that, or even deserve it, but I wanted that knowledge, that connection. I wanted to finally see what the point of everything is."

  "You thought you could find a universal meaning?"

  "No, not a universal meaning. A meaning for myself. A reason to... I don't want to talk about this. It's complicated."

  Willow holds Laurel closely, letting the occultist's head rest across her chest. "Okay. I'm always willing to listen, but I'll never force you to talk."

  Laurel lets her eyes drift closed. "Thanks."

  "Always."

  California's MBR Director takes a long drink of high-quality rum, one of his few remaining pleasures. Why is Selcan here? What could that foul creature possibly want?

  It's been centuries since they first met. He was just a cabin boy back then, bouncing from ship to ship as new ones drifted in and old ones limped away. The Caribbean never had a shortage of pirating vessels, and as such, he never had a shortage of work.

  Some captains were good, some never paid, one threw him overboard because he forgot to clean the quartermaster's boots. One ship, the Strange Brew, had a particularly unintelligent captain whose name he's long forgotten.

  Magic was still unknown to the public back then, just whispered tales around the docks; duppy and sea monsters, mostly.

  He was cleaning the deck on a humid day in the tail end of summer. Water was choppier than expected, but not noteworthy, he remembers. A small fishing ship appeared, and without any notable defenses, the captain ordered it plundered. Some of the crew grumbled about wasting their time on fish, but the captain was insistent. As it turned out, it was run by merchants trying to hide in plain sight. They found and secured quite a bounty destined for England: a bunch of precious gems, and a strange book.

  The captain couldn't read, unsurprisingly. In fact, the only one on board who could was himself; having picked it up from his father before being orphaned by smallpox. He looked it over, and it was obviously some kind of magic. He lied and said it was a fiction novel, and the captain let him keep it in place of his pay for the short voyage...

  The Director takes a stiff gulp straight from the bottle of rum, and wipes his mouth on his suit sleeve. Now isn't the time to reminisce.

  Vale had said there was a devil summoning circle months ago, and it just so happened to coincide with Selcan's appearance. Now there's even more of the same azothian spellcasting, something he hasn't seen anyone but Selcan teach to others. The doorknob, another circle...

  That damned occultist. Vale has to be hiding something major, and must know more about Selcan than she's letting on. And now she's setting up some sort of store. Why? To what end?

  He picks up his phone, and dials his go-to agent. If there's one person who's good at blending in, it's Fisher.