Ori avoided the intense gaze of people as the Captain introduced him to everyone at the station like he was a celebrity coming in for a visit. Some gawked in awe, some whispered in the corners and others regretted waking up that morning. Whether it was dread, admiration, or hate, there was no room left for indifference.

  He did not care. Getting out of that place before his mind got skewed by the chaos and the noise was very high on his list of priorities.

  "BORDERLINE DIVISION"

  The letters were printed on a piece of paper and taped to the door at the very end of the hallway. The word "DIVISION" was crossed out with a thin red line and in small, ugly handwritten letters another inscription stood underneath that read: "disorder".

  The cramped office behind that door turned out to be the worst part.

  Standing in the middle, Ori helplessly eyed the whiteboard at his side, hoping to avoid accidentally rubbing his sleeves against it and swiping away a family of spiders.

  He tried his best to remain calm and professional but the smell of someone's feet made him a little dizzy.

  "I know this is temporary, but please do your best to make our guest feel welcome," said the Captain straightening the king's portrait that hung by a thin nail from the wall. "I assume you already know all about him, but this is Orelin… umm… Avenolis?"

  He stopped and cleared his throat looking back at Ori with an uncomfortable expression.

  "Orelin Avenonilanis," Ori returned with a polite nod. "Special Investigator with the Bureau of Magical Investigations."

  "Right. These are detectives Linne Ronns and Malox Kallis, a part of our Special Crimes Division, better known as the Borderline."

  "How powerful are you then?" asked Ronns the moment he got the chance to speak. His face had a wide childish smile engraved on it, stretching the mayonnaise stain on his cheek. "Can you summon fire? Can you cast a curse? Remove a curse? Raise the dead?"

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  "Ronns," croaked the Captain, fluttering his hand in the air. "Don't."

  "It's a very relative matter," returned Ori, almost prophetically. "Magic has strict rules and the extent of one's ability depends on both their gift and their resolve to pursue its mastery. I am merely an investigator and I cannot testify to real power. Those who could have long been -" A gust of wind cut him off before he finished.

  "Apparently, not very powerful," said Myra as she stormed into the office. "He ended up here with us."

  She did not bother to look at either Ori or the captain and dropped a heavy box on her desk.

  "Tamon, I thought we had an agreement," the Captain said loudly enough to make the windows rattle. "This is important."

  "Apologies, Captain. I got carried away," said Myra shrugging her shoulders, and quickly pulling the dusty files out of the box. She put them on her desk side by side until she found the one she was looking for. "Sorry, I didn't make it to the introductions. And sorry, I'm a little rude to strangers," she added, winking aggressively.

  "It's alright," said Ori. "I'm used to it already."

  "As if. That would take a thousand years." She flipped through a dusty orange file before slamming it back together. Then, like a casino card dealer, she handed each of them a copy of their own. "This is all we have from last time. I had to bribe the archivist in Glamstone to let me borrow it because bureaucracy is alive and well. We need to go through everything again, thoroughly."

  "Finally a real case," said Kallis, clearing his desk and pulling his fingers, the sound of which instantly made Ronns shiver and distance himself away.

  "I hate you when you do that," Ronns mumbled from behind the monitors.

  "I hate you all the time," Kallis returned mockingly.

  "Children," Ori murmured, bowing his head in defeat.

  "Right, everything's settled then," the Captain said as he reached for the door. "Keep me in the loop with anything worthwhile."

  Myra blew the dust off the last stash of papers and threw the box under the table. She prepared to take a deep dive down memory lane but the Captain stopped her before she landed in her seat.

  He had his phone in one hand and the knob in the other.

  "Looks like you need to go see Dr.Katen," he said reading through what looked like a long text message.

  "They have something?" Myra cried as her pupils widened in excitement.

  "DNA results are in, but there's probably more," he said pacing down the hallway.

  "Finally." She grabbed her coat from the chair and headed for the door, but Ori was quicker on his feet.

  She tried shoving him aside but the space was too narrow for both of them.

  "Captain, do I have to take the wizard to the morgue?" she said with flattened lips and little patience for people who dressed like funerals were in style.

  The Captain remained silent to her plead for help, shaking his head as he disappeared down the hallway.