with my mother.” Some of her braid has fallen out, and she tucks it back behind her ear. Her voice is low and filled with snarled edges, like she’s used it far more than she’s used to. “Sixteen years ago, Mom was at the top of her game. She ran a crew called the Burners, she’d carved her place in these streets, and she felt secure enough in her territory and her place at the top to have me.”
Wen’s smile goes soft. “She raised me for my bloodright like a proper heir. Kept me at her knee whenever she held court, even though I was so young that most of it went over my head. She wanted me to take her place someday—wanted to give me the whole city. She’d tuck me into bed each night with that promise. And for eight years, she kept me safe, ran her little empire, and pushed her borders. She wanted the whole north side. She should have gotten it.”
My gaze flicks to Gal. Already my palms are sweating. Already I want him to stop her from saying what comes next. She shouldn’t have to relive it for his entertainment. But Gal doesn’t know what she’s about to go through. Gal’s parents are still alive.
“When I was eight years old, the north side cracked open. It was summer, and everything…boiled. I was locked in a dark, cool room for most of the day, waiting for Mom to come off the streets. She’d always sweep in with her hair plastered to her face, her body armor stinking from whatever she’d sweated and whomever she’d gutted.”
Wen breaks off, frowning. The distant noise of traffic fills the missing space her voice leaves, and it takes her a while to find her next words.
“I never thought I’d miss that smell.”
Gal looks like he’s on the edge of asking a question, but I roll my foot, nudging his hip and giving him the slightest shake of my head. She doesn’t need to say any more.
“When a boss falls, whoever struck them down snaps up their people. Their lieutenants, their foot soldiers, even the kids who do the running. So when Mom went, I went to Dago Korsa. There wasn’t anywhere else for me to go anyway—I had no papers, couldn’t make any other kinds of arrangements. It’s a rusted thing that I’m actually grateful he’s not worse. Not the sort that puts kids to work doing…well, what you hear about kids being forced to do sometimes. Dago Korsa uses the littlest morsels as an information network. Had us sweeping the streets with open ears, begging for our meals while trying to wheedle information out of anyone we could. And I can look back at that and think it wasn’t that bad, but…”
But it was the end of the world. It was the lowest thing, bending to serve the man who’d stolen her bloodright, stolen her entire reason for being. Who’d slaughtered her mother. Who ran the streets she’d been born to inherit. I close my eyes.
“Korsa knew he had to watch out for me. I learned fast not to scramble any information I ran—the punishment was always far worse than anything they gave the other kids.”
Her fingers tap a series of scars that run along the back of her shoulder.
“I guess all of that was to make it seem generous when an apprentice mechanic position opened up in one of his chop shops and he graciously suggested I should be the one to fill it. And it worked, for a time. I was content there. I felt like I was carving my own place. Stopped thinking I was owed stuff because of my mother’s blood. I got good at tricking out Cutter junkers, and nobody beat me if I screwed up. Korsa’s play for my loyalty worked. Until it didn’t.”
She stares at her feet. Her shoes are nearly worn through, covered in scuff marks, her laces tattered at the ends.
“A ship I worked on crashed during an important run. Boss was on board and everything. I didn’t make the mistake that brought it down, but that didn’t matter. Korsa knew exactly how it read, and he leaned hard into what he could