Mia M Dre's Arc

Chapter 1 of 13

Mia spread the merchant's ledger across her workbench, careful to keep the stolen pages dry. She'd taken them two nights ago when he left his office unlocked—a risk, but one that paid off. Her finger traced down the columns until she found it: the entry for her grandmother's comb, purchased three weeks before she ever brought it to the surface. He'd known what he was looking for. He'd known it belonged to her family. She pulled the shell mirror closer, its frame cool against her palm. The surface shimmered, and the merchant's vault appeared in the glass. There it was—the comb with its jeweled shell crown, the center stone chipped from when her great-great-grandmother dropped it during a storm. That tiny flaw made it unmistakable. The merchant had commissioned a replica beside it, perfect and flawless. He was planning to swap them. Mia opened the small vial she'd set aside three days ago. The shimmer dust inside caught the light, the same powder she'd found on the ledger pages. She'd seen it before—on letters her grandmother received years ago, before she passed. Someone had been writing to her family. Someone had been asking about heirlooms. She corked the vial and locked it in her drawer. This wasn't a theft of opportunity. This was planned, personal, and it went back further than she'd thought. Thursday's retrieval just became more complicated—but also more necessary. Her mother could never know how deep this went.