Jewel Brandt pressed her brush to the tower wall and got nothing but a dry scrape. She stepped back and looked up. Ten stories of grime and dead neon rose above her, and she meant to paint every foot of it. She wanted the mural to glow so bright the whole city of Sapbleed would see it from the streets below. She had planned this for months. Now her last can of neon paint sputtered out in her hand. She shook the can. Empty. The three others at her feet were empty too. Without fresh paint, the wall would stay a smear of dull pink where she'd started. The one place that sold neon pigment had closed weeks ago. She had checked. She had asked everyone quiet enough to answer a quiet girl. A whir came from behind a rusted pipe. Inker Wells rolled out, its round white head tilted, yellow eyes glowing. The little robot had followed Jewel for a season now, always hunting ink and paint to bring her. It held up a cracked jar of blue. "Found this by the old lamp," Inker said, cheerful. "Half full. Maybe less. Maybe more if I shake it right." Jewel took the jar. The blue was thick and old, but it still glowed faintly in her palm. "It's not enough for a wall," she said. "I need gallons." Inker's chest screen flashed a small frown, then a grin. "Then follow me. I found something better than a jar." The robot led her past the tower's base and through a gap in a fence. Jewel stopped. Ahead stood a cluster of trees, but not real ones. Their trunks glowed like poured glass. Their branches burned pink, green, and blue, a canopy of living light. She had heard stories of a glowing grove and never believed them. "The sap," Inker said. It tapped a trunk. A bead of bright liquid welled up, humming with color. "It glows on its own. I tested a drop. It sticks like paint and never dies." Jewel dipped her brush into the bead. She swept it across a stone. The line blazed, brighter than any can she had ever bought. Her breath caught. This was better than paint. This would glow forever. She pulled an empty can from her bag and held it under the trunk. The sap dripped slow, one drop at a time. She filled the can halfway before the flow stopped. Then the trunk went dark where she had cut it. A low crack ran up the bark. Around the grove, other trees flickered, as if warning her. Jewel capped the can. She had her paint now, brighter than she dreamed. But the grove had gone dim in a wide circle, and something deep in the trees began to hum louder. Whatever lived in that light had noticed her.

Jewel set the half-full jar on the tower's base and did the math in her head. Ten stories of wall. One jar of glowing sap. She swept a test line across the stone and it blazed, brighter than any paint she had bought. But one jar would cover a doorway, not a tower. She turned back toward the grove and stopped. The trees still hummed where she had cut them, and a dark ring spread through their light. Taking more would kill that glow. She could not do it again. "Don't," Inker said. The little robot rolled between her and the fence, yellow eyes bright. Its chest screen flashed a hard red line. "You heard the trees. You cut one and the whole grove went sick. Cut another and I don't know what wakes up." It had guided her here, hunting paint for her all season, and now it blocked her path. Jewel knelt to its level. "Then where do I get gallons?" Inker's screen flickered to a small grin. "There's a market underground. People trade paint, ink, all of it. Follow me." It led her down a stairwell she had never noticed. At the bottom glowed a doorway ringed in bright signs. Inside, stalls packed the tunnel wall to wall. Vendors hawked jars, cans, and pigments that lit their faces. Jewel held out her half-full jar of grove sap. A vendor's eyes went wide at the eternal glow. She traded the jar for six large cans of neon paint. Real paint, more than she had owned in months. Not sap, but enough to start climbing the tower again. She hugged the cans to her chest and turned to leave. Two figures blocked the market doorway. White armored suits, blue lines running down their arms and legs. Their helmets hid their faces. The taller one stepped forward first. "That tower is off limits," he said. His voice came flat through the helmet. "You've been painting it. Stop." Jewel's grip tightened on the cans. "It's abandoned." "It's ours to guard," the second one said. He held up a slate. On it glowed a photo of her pink smear high on the wall. "We tracked your marks. We know your face." The first one, Sentinel White, reached for her cans. Jewel pulled back. Inker rolled between them, screen flashing bright, and the sudden light made both guards flinch. In that half-second Jewel ran. She dodged past Cipher Knox, up the stairs, out into the night, cans banging against her side. She did not stop until the market glow faded behind her. She leaned against a wall, breathing hard. Six cans of paint sat safe at her feet. She had her supply at last. But now the tower had guards, and they knew her face. Climbing it in daylight was over. Whatever she painted next, she would have to do it in the dark, with someone watching for her.