The station's fluorescent lights made everyone look like they'd been stored.
Preserved.
Lena sat at her desk with her coat still on, snow melting into a dark patch on the carpet beneath her boots. She didn't take it off because taking it off meant settling.
And settling meant listening.
She didn't want to listen.
Tormod hung his coat on the back of a chair like he was planning to stay.
Hauge didn't sit.
She stood with her arms folded, scanning the room, as if a homicide bullpen might contain pathogens.
"It's a police station," Tormod muttered.
"It's a building full of stress," Hauge replied. "Same thing."
Lena opened a browser and pulled up the public registry. Then she opened the internal database. Then she opened a third tab—auction listings.
Everything left traces.
If you knew where to look.
Her fingers moved on autopilot.
Agnete Voss.
Her mother's full name still looked wrong on a screen, like a label on a jar.
Dr. Agnete Voss.
Retired.
Estate filed.
Property transferred.
Lena felt something in her chest tighten.
Her mother wasn't dead.
Not officially.
But she'd disappeared from Lena's life the way dead people did: leaving behind objects and rooms that no longer warmed.
Tormod watched her cursor hover.
"You sure you want to dig into her?" he asked.
Lena didn't look up. "I don't want to. But the case wants me to."
Hauge's eyes flicked to her. "Don't anthropomorphize it."
Lena's mouth went hard. "Fine. The killer wants me to."
She clicked.
The registry produced a list of sales.
Small.
Quiet.
Not a public auction.
A private liquidation through a firm in Åsane.
She stared at the firm's name.
FJORDVIK VURDERING.
Valuation.
Appraisal.
The kind of place that photographed your mother's belongings and put them on a website with clean white backgrounds.
Lena clicked again.
A PDF.
Inventory summary.
Furniture.
Books.
Medical equipment.
Boxes labeled "glass."
Her throat tightened.
Hauge leaned over her shoulder without asking. "It's common," she said. "People die, their objects scatter."
"She didn't die," Lena said.
Hauge's eyes narrowed. "She might as well have for you."
Lena didn't answer.
Because that was true.
Tormod shifted in his chair. "Can you get the detailed listing?"
Lena scrolled.
Most entries were generic.
Box of books.
Assorted kitchenware.
But one line stopped her.
HAND-BLOWN GLASS FIGURINES — SET OF FIVE — SIGNED.
Lena's vision tunneled.
Hauge spoke quietly. "There it is."
Tormod leaned closer. "Signed how?"
Lena tapped the screen where the note said: A.V. etched on base.
Signed.
As if her mother had been an artist.
As if her mother had wanted her initials on something fragile.
Hauge pointed to the buyer line.
Redacted.
"Great," Tormod said. "Anonymous."
"Not anonymous to the firm," Lena said.
She copied the firm's number and dialed.
It rang twice.
A woman answered with a practiced voice. "Fjordvik Vurdering, this is Sigrid."
Lena kept her tone neutral. "Detective Voss, Bergen police. We're investigating a homicide. I need buyer details for an item in your liquidation inventory."
A pause.
"Do you have a warrant?" Sigrid asked.
Lena didn't blink. "I can have one in an hour. Or you can help me now and not have uniformed officers in your office tonight."
Tormod winced slightly.
Hauge didn't react.
Another pause.
Sigrid sighed. "Which item?"
"Hand-blown glass figurines. Set of five. Signed A.V."
Silence.
Then: "Those?"
The shift in Sigrid's voice made Lena's skin prickle.
"Yes," Lena said.
Sigrid lowered her voice. "They weren't in the public listing."
Lena's heart rate stayed steady, but the room sharpened.
"Why not?"
"Because they were… sensitive," Sigrid said.
"Sensitive how?"
Sigrid hesitated. "They were already spoken for."
"By who?"
"I can't say."
"You can," Lena replied. "You're choosing not to."
A breath.
"Detective," Sigrid said, "I don't want trouble."
"You already have it," Lena said.
Sigrid went quiet for a long moment.
Then she whispered, "A man came in person. Before we even finished the inventory. He knew the figurines existed."
Lena's stomach turned.
"How?" Tormod mouthed.
Lena held up a finger, eyes on the desk.
Sigrid continued. "He had a photo. Of them on a shelf. He said he was collecting items of 'cultural significance.'"
"Name," Lena said.
"He didn't give one," Sigrid replied quickly. "He paid in cash."
"Receipt?"
"Yes."
"Then you have something," Lena said.
Sigrid's breath hit the phone. "He wasn't… normal."
Lena felt Hauge's attention shift.
"What do you mean?" Lena asked.
Sigrid swallowed. You could hear it. "It was the cold," she said. "He walked into our office and the air changed. Like a freezer door opened. And his hands—"
"Gloves," Lena said.
"Yes," Sigrid whispered. "Black gloves. He didn't take them off. Not even to count cash."
Lena's mind flashed to the fogged car.
The balaclava.
The mitten on the dashboard.
She kept her voice steady. "Did he leave a phone number?"
"No."
"An address?"
Sigrid hesitated, then said, "He gave us a delivery location. A storage unit. He said he didn't want the set at home."
"Where?"
Sigrid read it out.
Lena wrote it down.
A storage facility near Laksevåg.
Unit 217.
Keycode pickup.
A date.
Two days before Eva Nordheim vanished.
Tormod's face tightened when he saw the date.
Hauge leaned in. "The ledger," she murmured.
Lena asked into the phone, "Did you ever see his face?"
"No," Sigrid said. "Hat. Scarf. And… something else."
"What?"
"He had a small glass piece in his pocket," Sigrid said. "He kept touching it through the coat like a worry stone."
Lena's pulse nudged.
"What shape?"
Sigrid exhaled. "A church."
Lena's eyes met Tormod's.
Stave.
Sigrid's voice trembled. "Detective—if you go there, don't go alone."
"I won't," Lena lied.
She hung up.
The room was loud for a second—computers, radios, distant voices—then it went quiet again inside her head.
Tormod said, "Storage unit. That's our next stop."
"Yes," Lena replied.
Hauge's gaze was sharp. "It's also a trap."
"Everything is," Lena said.
Hauge didn't argue.
Tormod reached into his pocket and pulled out a granola bar.
He set it on Lena's desk.
Lena stared at it like it was evidence.
"Eat," Tormod said.
"I'm not hungry."
"That's not the point."
She took it.
Her hands didn't shake.
She unwrapped it and took a bite.
Dry oats.
Honey.
A little salt.
She chewed because chewing was a kind of obedience, and sometimes obedience kept you alive.
Hauge watched her as if noting vital signs.
Lena swallowed and opened a new window.
Storage facility.
She pulled up the map.
Cameras on the street.
Entrance and exit.
A place where someone could watch you arrive.
She printed the layout.
Then she pulled up CCTV requests.
Then she pulled up the missing persons list.
Because NOT THE FIRST kept echoing.
If Eva wasn't the first, then who had been?
She filtered by hypothermia.
By missing.
By found outdoors in unnatural poses.
A list appeared.
Three in the last month.
All dismissed as accidents.
A drunk who'd slept outside.
A homeless man found near the harbor.
An elderly woman who'd wandered from a care home.
Lena's eyes moved over the details.
All had something in common.
Their hands.
Folded.
Not all.
But two.
And one had a note in the report: "object near body, removed by unknown."
Lena's stomach tightened.
Tormod read over her shoulder. "Object near body?"
"Yes," Lena said.
Hauge's voice was low. "Kaspersen's unit might have removed it."
"Or the killer did," Tormod said.
Lena stared at the list.
It was a ledger.
Not just in glass.
In paperwork.
In the city's habit of calling ritual an accident.
Her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A single line.
UNIT 217 IS EMPTY.
Lena's jaw clenched.
Tormod saw her expression. "What?"
"Nothing," Lena said.
Hauge's eyes narrowed. "It's not nothing."
Lena exhaled.
Fine.
She held the phone out.
Tormod read.
His face hardened. "He's ahead."
Hauge nodded once. "He's controlling curiosity."
Lena put the phone down.
"I'm still going," she said.
"Of course you are," Tormod replied.
Hauge stepped forward. "If we go, we go with protocols. Two exits. Radio silence except coded check-ins. Body cams."
"We're homicide, not a war unit," Tormod said.
Hauge met his gaze. "You're not listening. This isn't about violence. It's about attention. Body cams are attention."
Tormod frowned. "So we don't record?"
Hauge shook her head. "We record with controlled custody. We don't stream. We don't leak. We don't let a pattern spread."
Lena's skin prickled.
Pattern.
Again.
She wanted to hate it.
But it fit.
She stood.
"Let's move," she said.
---
The storage facility in Laksevåg sat between a tire shop and an empty warehouse. The sign was blue and white and cheerful, the kind of optimism that never survived the first winter.
Snow had collected at the edges of the driveway. The gate code keypad was crusted with ice.
Lena parked across the street in a spot with a clear line of sight.
Tormod killed the engine.
They sat for a moment, watching.
No cars moving.
No people.
Only a security light blinking at the corner of a fence.
Hauge sat in the back seat because she'd insisted, her medical bag between her boots.
"This is absurd," Tormod murmured.
"It's a trap," Hauge replied.
Lena watched the facility like it might blink first.
Her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photo.
The entrance.
From a higher angle.
As if taken from a rooftop.
A new message.
DON'T BRING HER.
Lena felt her throat tighten.
Tormod saw her face. "What now?"
Lena showed him.
Tormod swore.
Hauge's eyes were flat. "He doesn't want a witness who understands bodies," she said.
"He doesn't want you," Lena corrected.
Hauge looked at Lena. "Then he's afraid of me."
Lena didn't answer.
She didn't like the idea of fear in the killer's mind.
Fear meant unpredictability.
It meant mistakes.
It meant escalation.
Tormod opened the glove box and pulled out two pairs of latex gloves.
He handed one to Lena.
She put them on.
The snap of latex sounded too loud.
They got out.
The cold hit Lena's lungs like a reminder.
Not just cold.
That wrong cold.
The kind that came with a freezer door.
Hauge followed, ignoring the text like it was a symptom.
They crossed the street.
Snow squeaked under boots.
The keypad by the gate was slick.
Lena punched in the code Sigrid had given.
The gate slid open with a grind.
They walked in.
Rows of storage units stretched like teeth.
Metal doors.
Numbers.
Locks.
The air smelled of dust and oil.
Unit 217 was down the second row.
The padlock was new.
Too new.
Tormod crouched, examining it. "Someone replaced it," he said.
"Recently," Lena replied.
Hauge's voice was low. "He wants us to open it."
Lena looked at the lock.
She could feel the eyes that weren't visible.
A camera.
A phone.
A scope.
Attention.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out her own small tool kit.
She didn't like breaking locks.
But she liked being told what she couldn't do even less.
Tormod put a hand on her wrist. "Wait."
Lena looked at him.
He nodded toward the roofline.
A small security camera sat above the aisle.
It was pointed directly at them.
Hauge spoke quietly. "Wave," she said.
"What?" Tormod asked.
"Wave like you're on TV," Hauge said. "Give him what he wants."
Lena felt her stomach tighten.
She hated how it made sense.
She raised her hand and waved at the camera.
Then she looked straight into the lens.
"You're late," she said aloud, voice flat.
Tormod stared at her. "Did you just—"
"Shut up," Lena murmured.
Her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A single line.
GOOD.
The word crawled under her skin.
Hauge's voice was a whisper. "He's here," she said.
Lena's pulse stayed steady.
She knelt and worked the lock.
Pick.
Turn.
The metal clicked.
She pulled the lock free.
Tormod's breath was loud beside her.
She lifted the roll-up door.
It rose with a grinding squeal.
Inside, the unit was empty.
Except for one thing.
A small wooden shelf.
And on the shelf, a single glass object.
Not frozen.
Bare.
A stave church icon.
The same steep roofline.
Clear glass.
A.V. etched into the base.
And beneath it, a new mark.
A number.
217.
Lena's throat tightened.
A unit number.
A label.
Not a time.
Not a date.
A location.
Like the killer was building coordinates.
Hauge stepped closer, eyes narrowed. "Don't touch," she said.
Lena didn't.
She stared.
Because the church was not just glass.
It was cold.
Frost clung to it in tiny feathers even though the unit was above freezing.
Her breath fogged.
Tormod whispered, "That's impossible."
Hauge didn't answer.
She reached into her bag and pulled out an infrared thermometer.
She aimed it at the church.
The screen blinked.
-12°C.
Inside the unit.
Without ice.
Lena's skin prickled.
Hauge's voice was careful. "It's acting as an anchor."
Lena looked at her. "Anchor for what?"
Hauge's eyes stayed on the church. "For the pattern. For the cold. For attention."
Lena wanted to laugh.
Instead she felt a familiar nausea.
Not from gore.
From meaning.
Her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A final line.
KEEP IT.
Lena stared at the church.
A saint.
A token.
A command.
Tormod's voice was tight. "We bag it."
Hauge shook her head. "If we move it, we move the anchor. We bring it to the station. We bring it to your desk. We invite the cold in."
Lena's hands flexed inside latex.
The killer wanted her to take it.
Kaspersen wanted her to surrender it.
Hauge wanted her to leave it.
Everyone wanted to control the object.
No one wanted to admit what it meant.
Lena leaned forward.
She didn't touch the church.
But she spoke to it.
"No," she said quietly.
For a second the air in the unit felt thinner.
Like the cold had inhaled.
Then the overhead security light flickered.
Once.
Twice.
It went out.
The aisle went dim.
And somewhere above them, on the roof, Lena heard a slow scrape.
Not wind.
Footsteps.
Tormod raised his head.
Hauge's eyes widened for the first time.
Lena felt her pulse climb.
Not fear.
Action.
She backed out of the unit.
"Move," she said.
Tormod grabbed Hauge's arm and pulled her into the aisle.
The scrape above them stopped.
Silence.
Then a voice, muffled, from above.
Not loud.
Not urgent.
Patient.
"Keeper," it said.
---
The roofline above the storage aisle was corrugated metal, slick with snow and ice. The sound of the voice had come from somewhere up there, but when Lena looked, all she saw was the edge of a vent pipe and a sagging gutter.
Tormod drew his service pistol, not dramatic about it. Just practical.
Hauge's hand was on her medical bag strap like it could become a weapon.
Lena didn't draw.
She didn't want the killer to see a gun.
She wanted him to see her eyes.
She stepped into the aisle, letting the overhead lightless dimness make shapes out of nothing.
"Show yourself," Tormod said.
No answer.
The security camera above them clicked softly.
Not the normal buzz.
A click like a shutter.
Lena felt her skin tighten.
A photograph.
A moment captured.
Attention turned into evidence.
Hauge whispered, "Don't speak his name."
"I don't have his name," Tormod said.
"That's the point," Hauge replied.
Lena's phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A new photo.
Their backs.
From behind.
Close.
Too close.
The edge of a black glove in frame.
A message beneath it.
TURN AROUND.
Lena didn't.
She didn't like being told what to do.
But she liked being predictable even less.
She moved instead—two steps sideways, out of the camera's centerline.
Tormod adjusted with her, instinctively mirroring.
Hauge stayed behind them, pressed to the wall.
From above, a small scrape.
A piece of snow fell, dusting Tormod's shoulder.
He didn't flinch.
Lena tilted her head and listened.
Not footsteps now.
Breathing.
Slow.
Measured.
Someone lying flat on the roof.
Waiting.
Lena raised her voice, calm and flat. "You left the church here," she said.
Silence.
"You wanted me to find it," Lena continued.
A pause.
Then, from the roof edge, a low chuckle.
It sounded like cold air moving through glass.
"You don't want it," the voice said.
Tormod aimed upward. "Police! Show yourself!"
The voice ignored him.
"You don't want it," it repeated, speaking to Lena alone. "But you'll keep it anyway."
Lena swallowed.
"Why," she said.
The question wasn't for closure.
It was for calibration.
She needed to hear how it answered.
The voice above her was patient. "Because you remember," it said. "And remembering is a kind of keeping."
Lena felt her teeth itch.
Hauge whispered, barely audible, "He's pushing you into a role."
Lena didn't respond.
She stared at the unit.
The church sat on the shelf like a tiny altar.
Frost still feathered its edges.
As if it were exhaling cold.
Lena spoke to the roof. "You bought the set."
Another chuckle. "Bought. Took. Kept. They're the same word in winter."
Tormod's voice was hard. "You killed Nordheim."
Silence.
Not denial.
Not confirmation.
Just silence that felt like a hand closing.
Then, softly: "She wasn't the first."
Lena's stomach tightened.
NOT THE FIRST.
A phrase the killer had already given her.
Now it sounded like pride.
Or warning.
She forced her voice to stay level. "What's the ledger for?"
The voice seemed amused. "You saw the date," it said. "You saw the time. You saw the place."
"You're building coordinates," Lena replied.
A pause.
Then: "Good."
Hauge's breath hissed. "He's testing comprehension."
Lena's hands flexed.
"What happens when you finish?" she asked.
The air seemed to thicken.
Even Tormod didn't speak.
From above, the voice lowered. "Then the city freezes in the right order," it said.
Lena felt cold spread up her spine.
The right order.
Like a ritual.
Like a sequence.
Like a set being assembled until it clicked.
Tormod stepped forward. "Enough. Get down here."
A soft scrape.
A shadow moved at the roof edge.
Lena saw it—just a sliver. Black fabric. A gloved hand gripping the gutter.
Then something fell.
Not a person.
A small object.
It bounced once in the aisle and skittered to Lena's feet.
A glass mitten.
Clear.
Perfect.
No ice.
And yet, frost feathered its edges the same way it had on the church.
Hauge's voice went sharp. "Do not touch it."
Tormod cursed. "How—"
The roofline above them was empty.
No head.
No hand.
Only wind and snow.
Lena stared at the mitten.
She felt, absurdly, like it was looking up at her.
Not alive.
But attentive.
Her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A single line.
TWO PIECES.
The killer was counting.
Lena's throat tightened.
Tormod looked up and down the aisle. "He's gone," he said.
"He's nearby," Hauge corrected.
Lena crouched without thinking, then stopped.
Latex-gloved fingers hovering over the glass.
Touching it felt like accepting it.
Like stepping into the role.
Keeper.
Tormod whispered, "Bag it."
Hauge shook her head, eyes wide now. "If you bag it, you bring it."
"And if we leave it," Tormod snapped, "he comes back for it."
Hauge's jaw tightened. "Or he wants us to leave it so it continues anchoring."
Lena stayed crouched, thinking.
This was the first time the killer had been this close.
Close enough to drop an object.
Close enough to whisper.
Close enough to control.
Her sobriety, her schedule, her attention.
If she made the wrong move, she'd spend the next week chasing shadows.
If she made the right move, she might still spend the next week chasing shadows.
But at least she'd choose.
She stood.
"We don't take either piece," Lena said.
Tormod stared at her. "Lena—"
"We document," Lena continued. "We photograph. We measure temperature. We log."
Hauge nodded slowly. "Controlled attention," she murmured.
Tormod's mouth went hard. "And then what? We walk away?"
"Yes," Lena said.
Tormod looked at the glass mitten, then at the glass church.
He looked like a man being asked to leave a weapon in an alley.
But he nodded.
Hauge moved first.
She pulled out a small tripod and a camera attachment from her bag—medical documentation gear, the kind used to record bruises and wounds with scale.
Lena watched her hands. Steady.
Hauge photographed the church from three angles.
Then the mitten.
Then she aimed the infrared thermometer.
-12°C on the church.
-12°C on the mitten.
Ambient air: 1°C.
Impossible.
Hauge's voice was almost reverent. "They're synchronized," she said.
Lena stared.
Two pieces.
A set of five.
Whale.
Church.
Mitten.
Two more.
Boat.
Reindeer.
Or whatever her memory had invented.
Tormod spoke, low. "If we leave them, he might take them and disappear."
Lena nodded. "Yes."
"And if we take them, he comes with them," Hauge said.
Lena looked at Hauge. "He comes anyway."
Hauge's eyes flicked to Lena's phone.
To the texts.
To the photos.
"Yes," Hauge admitted.
Lena stood in the aisle and listened.
No footsteps.
No voice.
Just wind pushing snow against metal.
She felt the pull of it—the desire to chase the roof, to search the perimeter, to find something and make it physical.
Tormod touched her elbow. "We can't outrun him," he said quietly.
Lena's jaw tightened. "No."
"We can only outthink," Tormod added.
Lena looked at the glass church.
And realized something with a bitter clarity.
The killer wasn't only outthinking.
He was writing a script.
And she was expected to read her lines.
Hauge packed her gear, brisk now.
"Leave," she said.
They closed the unit door.
They re-locked it with the new padlock.
They walked back to the gate.
Lena felt eyes on her the entire way.
Not from the camera.
From somewhere else.
From the cold itself.
At the gate, Lena turned and looked back down the aisle.
Rows of doors.
Numbers.
Snow blowing in.
A place where anyone could hide.
A place where two glass saints sat in a locked unit, colder than the air.
She knew, with a certainty that made her stomach turn, that leaving them was not defiance.
It was participation.
She was keeping them by knowing where they were.
That was the trap.
Memory.
Attention.
Keeping.
Her phone buzzed as they reached the car.
Unknown number.
A new message.
YOU DID WELL.
Lena stared at the words.
Praise.
Reward.
Training.
Her skin crawled.
Tormod opened the car door for her without comment.
Hauge got in the back, silent.
They drove away with heater blasting and still Lena felt cold.
Not because of weather.
Because of the feeling of being shaped.
Back at the station, Hagen was waiting.
He stood near the entrance with his hands in his pockets, his face carved from fatigue.
He looked at Lena's coat, at Tormod's tense jaw, at Hauge's pallor.
"Tell me," he said.
Lena met his eyes.
"There's a taskforce," she said first.
Hagen's face tightened. "Kaspersen."
"You know him," Lena said.
"I know the idea of him," Hagen replied. "He shows up when the mayor wants something invisible handled quietly."
Hauge's voice was sharp. "He called this 'anomalous.'"
Hagen's eyes flicked to her. "He would."
Lena didn't waste time. "Agnete's estate liquidation," she said. "A firm in Åsane. The glass set was taken before inventory finished. Buyer used cash. Delivery to storage unit 217."
Hagen's mouth went hard. "We can subpoena the firm."
"We can," Lena agreed. "But he's ahead. He's texting me. He's watching."
Hagen's expression shifted. "You got texts?"
"Yes," Lena said.
Hagen didn't ask for details in the lobby. Good.
Tormod said, "Unit 217 was empty—except it wasn't. Two glass pieces, colder than the air. Anchors."
Hagen blinked once. "Anchors."
Hauge answered him like it was a medical term. "Objects maintaining sub-zero temperature without phase-change. It implies energy exchange we can't account for. Yet."
Hagen stared at them.
Then he rubbed his face with one hand.
"Okay," he said finally. "Okay. We keep this inside homicide. No mayor. No taskforce. No press."
"Kaspersen won't like that," Tormod said.
"I don't care," Hagen replied.
Lena felt a small, unexpected relief.
Not warmth.
But a human ally.
Hagen looked at Lena. "You're still on leave."
"I know," Lena said.
"But you're on this," Hagen continued.
Lena didn't argue.
Hagen lowered his voice. "And you need to tell me about the texts."
Lena nodded.
She followed him into his office.
The door shut.
The station noise dropped.
For a moment, it was just two people and a case.
Hagen sat.
Lena stayed standing.
He held out his hand. "Phone."
Lena's throat tightened.
Her phone was a boundary.
But the boundary was already compromised.
She handed it over.
Hagen scrolled.
His face went still.
Timestamps.
Photos.
The window.
The apartment.
The storage facility.
Her hand.
The word VIGIL.
The praise.
YOU DID WELL.
Hagen set the phone on the desk carefully, like it might bite.
"This is personal," he said.
"Yes," Lena replied.
Hagen's gaze sharpened. "He's training you."
Lena's mouth went hard. "I know."
Hagen leaned back. "You want to drink."
It wasn't a question.
Lena stared at him.
He'd seen her before.
Not drunk.
But hungry.
She didn't deny it. Denial was for people who still believed lies worked.
"Yes," she said.
Hagen nodded once. "Then we do this slow. We don't give him acceleration. We don't let him weaponize your sobriety."
Lena exhaled.
Hagen continued, voice low. "We also assume he has access. Camera feeds. Clerk systems. Maybe even our internal network."
Tormod's jaw tightened. "How?"
Hagen shrugged. "People are sloppy. And winter makes people lazier."
Hauge spoke quietly. "Or the pattern does."
Hagen's eyes flicked to her. "You believe in this?"
"I believe in evidence," Hauge replied. "And the evidence says those objects were colder than physics allows."
Hagen stared at the ceiling for a moment.
Then he said, "Okay. We treat it like a suspect with resources we don't understand."
Lena nodded.
Hagen pointed at her phone. "New protocol. You don't respond. You don't engage. You forward everything to me and Tormod. Understood?"
Lena's jaw tightened.
Not because it was wrong.
Because part of her wanted to engage.
Wanted to talk back.
Wanted to prove she wasn't his puppet.
But that want was the hook.
"Yes," Lena said.
Hagen nodded. "Good."
He leaned forward. "Now tell me about your mother. Start from the shelf."
Lena felt her throat close.
The shelf.
The glass.
Her childhood.
The part of her she kept frozen.
She stared at the wall behind Hagen.
Then she spoke, quietly.
"There were five," she said. "A set. Hand-blown. She kept them behind her desk. Like… like saints."
Hauge's eyes sharpened.
Tormod watched her with something that might have been gentleness.
Lena continued. "I wasn't supposed to touch them. I did anyway. The whale chipped once. She was angry. Not loud. Just… cold."
Hagen's face didn't move.
He listened.
Lena swallowed. "She said glass remembers. That it holds shape. That if you keep something long enough, it keeps you back."
Silence.
Hauge whispered, "Glass Saints."
Lena nodded.
Hagen exhaled slowly.
Outside the office window, the station's parking lot lights glowed through falling snow.
Lena felt the city around them tightening.
Winter arriving in the wrong order.
And somewhere, in a locked storage unit, a church and a mitten sat colder than the air.
Waiting.
Keeping.