Velvet Mirage's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Velvet Mirage stood at the rail of her rooftop lounge in Crownfall and counted the people below who owed her a favor. She counted eleven before she stopped. Every one of them thought they were her closest friend. Every one of them was wrong. Tonight she needed a target big enough to end all of it, one last score that would let her walk out of Lacuna without a shadow following her, and she did not have one yet. She had been building the exit for a year. A styling debt from a pageant girl. A powder that stopped a shift before a storm. A chart to a drowned throne. A guard schedule slipped to a succubus who wanted a viscount dead. Small trades, all of them, but stacked right they became a ladder. The trouble was the last rung. Without a mark worth the noise, her enemies would still know where to look when the lights went out. Omaha came up the stairs from the club below, tail flicking, glitter still on her collarbone. She set a folded napkin on the bar in front of Velvet. "Marina paid a visit," she said. "Left this. Says she heard something at the pageant afterparty she thought you'd want." Velvet opened the napkin. A name was written across it in eyeliner pencil. The name belonged to a surface council auditor, the one who signed off on the seized desalination plant and every quiet skim above it. Marina had listed a date, a private dining room, and the price the auditor charged to lose a file. Velvet read it twice. It was the sound of a door opening. Inferno Diva was already in the corner booth, legs crossed, ordering something the bar did not stock. She lifted her glass when Velvet looked over. "You have your face on," she said. "The one you wear when someone is about to lose everything." Velvet slid the napkin across the table. Inferno read it and laughed low. "Sweetheart. That is not a target. That is a whole religion to burn down." Zira stood by the window, wet hair dark against her shoulder, watching the street the way she watched deep water. Velvet joined her. "I need the council and the underground crew pointing at each other when I leave," Velvet said. Zira did not turn. "The auditor touches both," she said. "Take him. They will each think the other moved first." She paused. "I owe you a favor. Use it here." Velvet folded the napkin and put it inside her jacket. She had her mark. She had a succubus who wanted a stage, a siren who wanted a debt closed, and a catgirl who could move a room without anyone noticing the door. The heist had a shape now. She looked once more at the eleven below who trusted her, and began, in her head, to sort which of them she would leave holding the blame.