our whereabouts. She takes a step closer to the dumpster, squinting at something on the ground, then peeking around behind the thing until she’s looking right through us.
One of the other cops calls out to her, and I flinch, my shoe making the faintest scuffing sound . . . but she pulls away and turns back to her counterparts, meeting them back in the middle of the alley. They talk too quietly for me to hear well, but it sounds like they’re trying to assign blame for losing me. Just as I’m starting to go light-headed from the lack of breath, they turn to leave, disappearing back in the direction I ran from.
Once they’ve been gone for two full minutes, I shake off Ania’s hand and step away to get some space, taking a few deep breaths.
“Thanks,” I say, still keeping an eye on the mouth of the alley. “Let’s get to Mattie’s. I want this maz off my back and those credits in our account.”
Ania nods vaguely, zoned out in that way that means she’s doing something on her lenses, her slim legs crossed at the ankles, where expensive skinny jeans and low boots let a strip of warm brown skin peek out. The yellowy light from the streetlamp shines through her hazy cloud of curls, wrapping each dark strand in threads of gold. We seriously just left the sewers forty-five minutes ago—how the hell does she look so put together? She must have ditched her sewage-covered rain boots somewhere.
Ania snaps back to reality and dodges my gaze in a way that I know means she was just messaging Jaesin about me. She turns to lead the way back to our drop point, and I scowl at the back of her head, dashing off a quick message to Remi as I follow.
(private) you: Hey, sorry, ran into some trouble. It’s fine now. Heading to the drop point.
(private) Remi: GOOD because I have something that will make you die
DIZZY LOOK
The next message is a link to a news article: “Tifa and the Flower Girls to Play Two Surprise Shows in Kyrkarta on Aeraday and Firaday.” A photo quickly follows: Remi with their hands pressed to their cheeks, screaming at the camera.
(private) Remi: WE ARE GOING
I’m heckin serious I don’t care what Jaesin and Ania say
I bite my lip and clear the notification away, swallowing down the knot in my throat. Of course we’ll go. One last chance to dance with Remi before they leave, the bass pounding in our chests, singing in our blood. I start to reply, then delete it.
Later. I’ll deal with it later.
We cross the block to the next intersection, moving slowly to take advantage of any lingering effects from the concealment spell. It won’t do any good if we run screaming down the street, but if we’re chill, it might help an errant gaze or two slide past us. A few minutes of tense silence later, we arrive at a nondescript elevator that takes us up twenty levels.
A quick walk across one of the thousands of breezeways connecting the buildings of Kyrkarta, and we come to a darkened flower shop with loud, busy arrangements filling the front window. The CLOSED message glows bright in one corner, but the door opens anyway, held by a guy a few years older than us with tawny skin and way more piercings than me. Mattie, our client for this job. He’s got a siphoning crew of his own, but they couldn’t get it together in time to pull off this job for whatever reason, so they contracted it out to us. Their loss.
It’s a big haul, and the particular combo of maz strains they requested took us to a part of the city we’d never hit before. Maz Management Corporation’s system looks the same no matter where you are, though: pipes in sewers, hiking through sludge, Ania and Jaesin watching our backs while I hack the security and Remi draws out the maz in manageable quantities. We got it done, despite the trouble at the end.
“Where’s the goods?” Mattie asks as he leads us into the back. His sweet old mother who owns the shop would skin him alive if she knew that “staying late to clean the shop” actually meant “conducting illegal business in the stockroom.” I let the pack slip down my arms and swing it up onto a work top littered with trimmed stems, wilting leaves, and shed petals.
“I didn’t realize I was supposed to walk in