uinn looked up. There was a green tinge in the sky. It hung sick and heavy in the air, clouded and heavy with humidity. It wasn’t the kind of wet weather that Quinn usually enjoyed, not with the way the moisture clung at him through the swampland, cloying and unseasonably warm, the rain only ever drizzling and spitting weakly. It had been days of stepping back and forth between London and the swamps with very little to show for it — yet. Quinn was on the precipice of discovery and he knew it, and putting up with warm stifling weather was hardly the most difficult thing he’d had to do. The wind picked up and what should have been a relief against his clammy skin only added to the strangeness, tugged his hair and brought with it a scent of something that Quinn could only think was a warning. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t likely to listen to it. Swamp water swelled beneath the little dinghy he’d absconded with, but his tree tether kept them steady. Quinn wasn’t going anywhere just yet — he was waiting. Across the way he could see it, the ramshackle pier jutting out from a waterside cabin. It had stilts extending into the swamp, the sides of it overgrown with thick verdant green. In the dim yellow twilight, the cabin sat dark. As far as Quinn could tell from his perch in the little boat, it was empty, and had been for as long as he’d been sitting there — hours now, biding his time as carefully as possible. As reckless as he was wont to be, Quinn wasn’t interested in putting his greater efforts at risk, and he knew who he’d been following, whose movements through the swamps he’d been tracing. Adnos Praxis wasn’t an easy man to find, wasn’t a man that seemed to exist in most places, and wasn’t somebody to be underestimated — this Quinn knew to be true. What was available to be read about him was few and far between and relatively unhelpful, but every bit of documentation he could source all pointed to the same thing — that Praxis, as a practicing dark wizard, had remained one step of MACUSA for as long as anybody could remember, and anyone they sent after him disappeared. Or turned up years later, changed in a way that Quinn still couldn’t quite put his finger on. Either way, this was a story ripe for taking, an investigation that Quinn couldn’t shake, and when he got his nose on something he knew he couldn’t let it go until he’d dug and dug and — well. Whatever came from that would have to remain to be seen. All his efforts had not been a waste. They’d led him to that place, that boat on the swamp, the buzzing of mosquitos in his peripherals, his jacket strewn over the bench, black long-sleeved damp with sweat and rain and clinging to him. It had led him to the cabin, and if Quinn’s dingy-bar-sourced tips could be believed, this was Praxis’ base of Louisiana operations. Temporary. Perhaps he’d already found what he came to find and had left again. But Quinn, as the sun sank below heavy clouds in the distance, turning the sky’s green a shade of strange purple, lifted a smooth-edged piece of coloured glass from his pocket to his eye. Peering through the spyglass, the cabin looked more than the ramshackle hut it might have appeared to be to any average person wandering by. Thin, wispy strips of light played over it, a glittering silver web that encased it from the pier to the roof and the woods around it. Traps. Alarms. Quinn had gotten through worse. He lowered the glass and surveyed the area around him. There was no movement but for the trees and the swamp and the wind and rain, and Quinn couldn’t smell anyone on approach. He was aware, however, that the present weather obscured scent more than he would like — but he’d been over a week at this, and he needed to push forward. He could hear Sylvain’s voice in his head, Thea’s, Maggie’s — all of them said the same thing. Quinn pushed it aside. The light grew dimmer in the sky, to a heavy, oppressive grey, and he tugged his rope loose from the nearest spindly tree poking out of the thick swamp water, and with his paddle pushed off and into the open. A white, long-necked bird took off from the tree branches behind him — Quinn halted, looked at the movement, and continued onwards. There was nothing else but the eddies of the water around the wide brim of his paddle. In the water he paused, stopped, and raised his hands with focus, fingertips tracing lines in the air before him. His casting still wasn’t what it once was, not since before his hands had been broken, but he took his time, expended energy — sliced a streak through where he remembered the closest magical cobwebs would be. Quinn examined and confirmed with his spyglass, and pushed on through the gap he’d made. He smoothly pulled up to the edge of the pier and clambered out with his jacket in tow. Quinn shrugged it on. The air was still thick with humidity but with night came a cooler edge to it, and in all black it hid him against the backdrop of trees and shadow. He turned back to the boat, and with a little flick of one hand sent it sailing through the water — alone and empty, this time, to hide itself amidst the copse of gnarled swamp trees.

At every few feet, he paused to check his spyglass, and when necessary lifted a hand to cut through more tethers. It was an effort to mend them back together once he’d stepped through, but Quinn made sure to do it — to cover his tracks. Praxis would know if he looked closely, would see the little bindings where Quinn’s magic had tied them back together, glowing gold against the white — but it wouldn’t be at first glance. That was all Quinn needed. He would be in and out again in no time at all. He’d waited long enough, planned ahead — he had everything he needed, and something in his gut told him that what he wanted would be behind those doors ahead of him. A trap needed breaking when he reached them, but it took no longer than he expected, and then beyond that he needed to go about it the old way — by pulling out a set of lock picking tools from his pocket and setting to work carefully engaging the inner mechanisms of the door. It was as dark inside as he anticipated, and he hesitated at the doorway, listening intently for the sounds of any life. There was nothing, no creaks but the aching, shifting movement of the wood with the wind outside. He didn’t relax. Quinn crept through, every step silent, well-placed and careful. The place had furniture but felt, for the most part, unused. There were no drying dishes in the kitchen, no shape or leftover warmth of anybody on the couch in the living area. It was clean and perfectly normal. Floorboards creaked beneath his boots as he moved and Quinn’s heart stayed high in his throat, but he pushed onwards until he’d circled every inch of the lower floor — and then he came to the staircase. The steps disappeared up into inky black, and through his spyglass Quinn could see the layers of traps littered above him; they all disappeared into the hallway beyond. That was where he needed to go. He knew that wholeheartedly, and took himself carefully each and every step, his hands out, fingers twitching through every trap-break he could muster. There were open doors along the way; a bedroom, a bathroom, but at the end of the hallway there was another closed door, and Quinn’s instinct tugged him to it. By the time he’d made his way through the hallway to the door at the end of it — locked and trapped too, of course — he was sweating from exhaustion and not just the humidity. The effort was excruciating, and his hands were aching, but then he was through the door and that was it — he'd stepped into what he knew to be the right place. It was lived-in; at least in the way that someone had been here. Quinn could smell it. It was darker than the rest of the cabin in that room, and a chill stole through him when his gaze settled on the strange shapes that he could see bracketing the walls, twisted iron and bars — cages, of varying sizes. He crossed the distance to them immediately, and relaxed — partially — when he found them to be empty. Opposite the empty cages sat a desk piled with parchment, and Quinn crossed to it, delicately pulling on gloves as he brushed his hands against the collection of information there. He frowned. Le Feu Follet. As he read the words scribbled down, again, Quinn’s blood ran cold. It was research — mountains upon mountains of detailed notes on the fairies that dwelled in these swamps; primarily their weaknesses, their strengths, how best to capture them, and theories that — Quinn swallowed — theories for how one might possess their magic, suck it from their very beings. There were sketches, too, beautiful to horrifying at the same time, and Quinn felt something heavy and sick hit the pit of his stomach. It was at that moment that the door downstairs opened. Quinn froze, all the breath leaving him at once. He hadn’t heard anyone outside, hadn’t smelled anything — and he should have. He should have. Nobody was that silent. Nobody could — his throat had gone thick with panic, sweat cold down his spine. Thump, thump, thump. Quinn couldn’t tell if it was his heart or the sounds of boots falling on the wooden floors below. He focused, heard the movement then, the careful stepping. Perhaps, Quinn thought foolishly, they didn’t yet know that he was there. His timing was, as ever, terrible. “Ah,” said a muffled voice from downstairs, an echo far away. “A guest.”

He'd never moved so quickly in his life. Without thought, without planning, he took what he could fit into the pockets of his jacket — piles of parchments of information, handwritten notes, thoughts, identifying features of local fairies, anything that he could abscond with that would slow Praxis down when it came to whatever it was that he was planning. He twisted around, past the desk and to the window. One sharp movement of his elbow broke it open, and he pulled himself out, onto the ledge, and then — he looked back. At the remaining bits of parchment pieces on the table, on the cages at the far end of the room, at the sounds of someone thumping up the stairs, and Quinn gave no thought to what he did next. He gave a sharp snap of his fingers, lit a plume of flame between them, and set the desk ablaze. A shape burst through the doorway just as Quinn slid down the cabin’s slanted, mossy roof and fell into the thick copse of trees around it. He staggered, hissed, a sharp aching bolt twisting up through his leg from his ankle, but he surged forward through the thick growth of trees and slippery mud that surrounded the cabin. The rain had taken up more than a drizzle now, a steady flow splashing into his face as he bolted. There was no time to whip out his spyglass again. Quinn ducked through trees and branches as best he could, one hand lifted to send some exhausted crackling energy through ahead of him to clear the way of any unseen magic. He didn’t look back, only beat his way through the night as quickly as he could, but caught a glimpse of red from his peripherals before it hit him. It struck him in the shoulder, a crackle of violent energy that sent him staggering sideways with a fresh flash of agony down his spine — but it hadn’t been to knock him down, it had been to redirect him. The snare caught him before he could do anything to stop it. It came unseen through the air to his left, like a whip, a cord of magical energy that wrapped itself around his wrist and hauled backwards with such incredible ferociousness that Quinn was knocked clean from his feet. He landed hard on his back in the mud, arm angled up above him, the bit of glowing magic thread snagged about it tightening. Quinn scrambled, blood rushing in his ears, heart pumping. When he tried to haul himself to his feet, the snare tightened and hauled him down again. He was nothing but a rabbit in a trap. A laugh came from far behind. The magic thread tightened again, and this time it went white-hot against his skin, like a wire cage around his forearm, blistering and painful and tightening every second. He threw his free hand over his mouth to keep from screaming, then rolled over into the muck, grit his teeth and slammed his palm against the snare and tore at it with every ounce of magical energy that he could muster. The tether of it snapped, suddenly, but some painful heat still remained wrapped around his arm, searing away the material of his jacket and shirt beneath. Quinn didn’t give himself a moment to breathe, just hauled himself back to his feet. There, he could see the figure — in the trees, so close, and as the rain grew heavier and a flash of lightning illuminated them above the swamp, he caught a glimpse of white teeth curled in a sharp smile. Behind it all, the cabin burned. Quinn ran. He didn’t slow, didn’t look back again. He clutched his aching arm to his chest, his shoulder blooming with fresh heat and the hot wet feeling of blood mixed with rain, and disappeared through the trees, and raced, and raced, and raced. He didn’t stop until he came to a road, and there found the flickering lights of a Muggle gas station. It was empty at that hour, isolated and strange, but Quinn was out of breath, his legs gone cold and numb underneath him, and adrenaline was what took him to the door of the bathroom around the outside of the station. One sharp tug from his good hand wrenched the lock from the door — not pretty, but desperate times called for desperate measures — and Quinn staggered inside, hit first by the stench and the dreary dank green of the bathroom, stained sinks and urinals that hadn’t been cleaned since — well, Quinn didn’t want to guess. The hair on the back of his neck still stood on end. He could feel him, behind him — still coming, a slow approach, like he figured he had Quinn cornered and all it would take was time. Quinn cast one last look out the broken bathroom doorway, stared at the edge of the woods, and then threw himself, clambering, over the closest sink, praying that the mirror attached to it was real, thrust his hand against it — and with every last ounce of his energy, stepped through. The mirror rippled and took him home. The broken door banged in the wind, and the figure watched from the woods, smiling.