Neon Sentinel's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Neon Sentinel had three photographs of three different men, and any one of them could be the boss of the syndicate bleeding Lacuna dry. She spread them on the bar at the rooftop lounge in Crownfall, where the air smelled like rain and cold gin. For six weeks she had shadowed the syndicate through the flooded district, watched their runners empty warehouses, watched their enforcers break the fingers of dockworkers who used to pay her rent. She wanted the neon throne at the top of that ladder. She wanted to sit in it herself and drag the city back into balance. But if she moved on the wrong face, the real boss would smell it and vanish into another district before morning, and every friend she had put at risk would be exposed for nothing. Jolt Jinx had told her, before she left the safehouse, that guessing was the same as losing. Neon Sentinel agreed. That was why she was here, on Velvet Mirage's roof, about to spend something she could not get back. Velvet came to the bar without hurry. She looked at the three photographs, then at Neon Sentinel, and slid two of them off the counter with one finger. "Relax. I already know why you came." She tapped the remaining photograph, a thin man with a scar under his jaw. "He signs the orders. The other two sign for him when he wants to be somewhere else." Neon Sentinel studied the face and felt the weeks of surveillance settle into one clean line. "What does this cost me?" Velvet smiled without teeth. "A favor. Named later. You'll know when I ask." Neon Sentinel thought of Jolt Jinx, of Mothbreaker, of Gearspark Aviatrix, of every name Velvet already held on a string upstairs. She picked up the photograph anyway and put it in her jacket. "Named later," she said. Velvet watched her cross the roof to the stairs. Below, the neon of Lacuna pulsed in the wet street, and Neon Sentinel now knew exactly which throat to reach for, and exactly who she owed for the knowing.