I looked around in the darkness, already starting to shiver. It had rained while I’d been on the train, and puddles were scattered around the platform; not enough to flood the place, but enough that the wind blowing off the stone was freezing cold. I looked around and tried to figure out what to do. Okay, so I was a Keeper—sort of—and I was investigating a crime scene. What was I supposed to do?

I’d come here with vague plans of finding witnesses, but as I looked around it became clear that that wasn’t going to work. In the few minutes I’d been standing at the station I hadn’t seen another living soul, and if there were any construction workers still on site I couldn’t see them. Instead I focused on my magesight, trying to sense magic. Stone beneath me, cold and immobile, chill air whistling around, the silent menace of the electrical rails and wires. Nothing powerful enough to tell me anything. Spells can leave residue, but it takes repetition and time—one-off magical events have to be extraordinarily powerful to stick around. Nothing like that here.

I walked up and down the platform, trying different angles, hoping to get lucky. I didn’t. Another passenger arrived and waited on the platform as I walked up and down it. A train arrived. She got on; one other person got off. I kept searching. The wind got colder, and so did I.

My nose and ears were starting to go numb. Times like this make me wish I were a fire or an ice mage. I took out my phone and called Caldera; it rang for what felt like much too long before Caldera picked up. “Hey.”

“Hi,” I said. “Look, seeing as this is my first solo job and all, mind giving me some pointers?”

“Just a sec,” Caldera said. There was a lot of noise in the background, voices and glasses clinking. Wherever Caldera was, it sounded warm, comfortable, and a much nicer place to be than here. “Didn’t catch that, say again?”

I took a breath, restraining the urge to hate her. “What the hell am I supposed to be doing here?”

“You’re at the station?”

“It’s cold, wet, and empty, and there’s sod-all to find.”

“Magesight?”

“Comes up blank. Look, you know about this stuff. What do you do when you’re sent out somewhere where there’s nothing to see?”

“You got the report, didn’t you?”

A train pulled up at the platform in a swell of light and noise. The doors opened with a hiss and I edged closer, hoping the air from inside would be a little warmer. It didn’t help much. “It just says ‘investigate.’”

“Hey, you’re a diviner. You’re supposed to be good at this.”

“Oh, sure.” The doors shut and the train pulled away, accelerating into the darkness. I walked after it, heading up the platform. “I’ll use my divination and look into the future. Hey, you know what, I’m seeing the future right now. If I stand here and wait, then in three minutes a train’s going to come. And after that, another train’s going to come. Here, I’ll let you guess what’s going to happen afterwards. I’ll give you a hint—there’s a train.”