The kettle clicks off like a punctuation mark. Ira wraps both hands around the chipped mug and lets the jasmine steam climb her face. Morning has found the apartment in pale stripes through the blinds; dust spins slow in the slats of light. Her body is a ledger of soreness from the journey the day before—calves rope-tight, shoulders grainy with ache, hands humming as if the bones themselves remember last night's work and want more of it.
On the counter is the physical evidence of what she'd otherwise have chalked up to a dream: the cut lock, the halved fork, the deadbolt disk with its fragile crescent. Proof. On the inside flap of a ramen box: The Glass Orchard — underlined twice.
The Glass Orchard was one of the Bone Collector's crown jewels, a greenhouse-fronted warehouse that disguised itself as vertical farming while hiding row upon row of vivisection labs. Ira had delivered there enough times to smell the bleach and copper in its vents, to see the crates stamped with his insignia, to hear faint animal cries muffled by the glass. It was one of his four great income streams that kept him fat with wealth but were evil as sin—this one built on contracts for testing drugs, cosmetics, and food chemicals—grafting tissues and breeding hybrids that never saw sunlight. For Ira, it was more than just another Pouuer nightmare. It was a fortress of locks, latches, and sealed doors. Which meant it was suddenly vulnerable to her. If she could master cutting through steel, the Orchard could be the first place she turned her claws against him.
She eats standing, hunched in her hoodie, sipping broth straight from the pot because dishes feel like a luxury activity for a future self with more time. She'd called in sick today—the first time she ever had—and the guilt nags at her even as the steam warms her face. She'll have to fill J in; it was only a matter of time. She couldn't keep something this big from her. But urgency pounds louder than guilt. All the times she'd turned away from suffering and done nothing felt like they'd risen to a crescendo, a fever pitch that demanded she do as much as she could, right now, without stopping. It felt stronger than an urge—it was an instinct that couldn't be refused.
The pothos leaf near the sink has unfurled further overnight, pale and brave. She fills it with water apologetically. "I'll do better from now on," she promises the plant. Then she pockets the cut lock, slides a graphite pencil behind her ear, and knots her sneakers.
She pauses for a breath outside her bathroom door. She thinks of her ring, waiting mute in the bathroom drawer. She ignores it.
Outside, Noctreign's day is its usual dawn: the city's perpetual twilight adjusted a notch brighter. The rain has paused but left everything slick as if newly varnished. A tram cables its insect whine above her head; a vendor rolls up a steel shutter with the grunt. Her breath fogs in front of her as she shoulders her delivery bag—not for deliveries today, but because bags give you permission to move like you belong and the ability to blend in.
She starts with the simple thing: walk. Let the city settle around her. Let her pace become the old rhythm. She takes the back routes she learned when she first started delivering, the ones with the loose grates and the missing step and the cat that naps on the steam pipe three doors down from the pawnshop. She rations her attention—half outward, scanning, half inward, listening to the new slight pressure beneath her shoulder blades, the bold readiness in her hands.
She keeps her talons retracted until she's sure no one is watching. Then, in the mouth of an alley that smells of frying oil and wet cardboard, she presses her thoughts along the tendons of each finger. The keratin answers. Click—not a sound, but a joint's satisfaction. Black curves bloom from her nails, neat and precise. She flexes once. They catch the light in thin, cold crescents.
"Okay," eyebrows raising in approval. "We behave."
Her first test is relatively risk free: a hulking, abandoned cooler padlocked to a railing behind an old noodle stall. The lock is rusted shut. She braces the shackle against the edge and sets her right index talon at the thinnest point, remembering the feeling from last night, that grain that becomes surrender.
"Steady," she tells herself. She pushes. The talon kisses steel. Resistance first, then a quick slide, clean as a seam ripper through thread. The lock gives with a small sigh. She catches the shackle before it clatters to the concrete, lowering it into her palm like it might bruise.
She glances around. No one. She flips the cooler lid. Nothing inside but a broken ladle and a smell like old brine. But it doesn't matter—that's not the point. She closes it again and threads the cut lock through so it looks untouched. Her heart is beating too fast for such a small act. She walks it off, re-pockets the lock—warm now with her heat—and keeps moving.
A grin spreads across her face as she notes to herself her first win: she's successfully broken a lock, in public, without detection.
She reaches the Soup District and ducks into a quiet alley to draws a crude map on the inside of her wrist with pen: three blocks of rough squares and a small circle for Zannie's, then an arrow toward Pouuer.
She keeps her eyes open for more items—metal scrap, a length of abandoned chain, anything to learn on. The city offers willingly: bent rebar behind a construction fence, a chain-link section propped against a dumpster. She works fast, quiet, surgical. Rebar: a notch here, a notch there, wedges bend easier after a clean score. Chain-link: snip a single ring and the whole square loosens; she rethreads it and crimps it closed with her thumb so it looks intact. Each success is a notch of breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. Each failure (one stubborn bolt in a rusted bracket refuses her twice) is a note in a new grammar she is learning to read with her hands.
By mid-morning the city has warmed into itself. She slides into Umami Hollow through the back door for a long overdue check in with J. The kitchen breathes steam and garlic; the floor sweats with damp. J is exactly where she always is at this hour: elbow-deep in prep, knife a metronome, sleeves rolled.
J is exactly where she always is at this hour: elbow-deep in prep, knife a metronome, sleeves rolled. The steam curls around her like she belongs to it; pale hair is damp at the temples, tall and slender enough to look half-carved from light. Ira leans against the doorframe until J finally glances up.
"I thought you were sick," J says, flicking a pepper's stem into the compost. The dryness is there, but her eyes linger a beat longer than the words.
"I lied," Ira admits. The words land heavier than she means them to. "First time ever."
J stills, knife hovering. The humor fades, leaving something sharper. "First time lying? Or first time calling in sick?"
"Both," Ira answers, still leaning against the doorframe.
"What's going on?"
Ira exhales hard through her nose. "Something happened last night. Something I can't keep to myself forever. I'm not—normal." She sets the cut lock on the counter; metal clinks against steel. "This is mine."
J studies the lock, then her, then the faint tremor in her hands. Her knife never leaves her grip. "You broke it?"
"Cut it." Ira flexes her fingers, then tucks them into her hoodie pocket before her claws answer on instinct. "Clean through."
Steam hisses between them. J doesn't smile, doesn't frown, just watches her like a riddle that might yet solve itself. "And you're telling me because—?"
"Because I don't want to lie to you anymore," Ira says. "But I also don't know how far I can pull you into what I'm going to do without burning you."
J accepts this, or at least lets it stand. She turns back to the cutting board; the knife resumes its steady tick. "Well. I get burned enough as it is." She gestures at the patchwork of scars down her forearm, small evidence of years spent wrestling steam and steel.
"What do you need from me?"
"Just for you to know that I'm changing. And…I'm going through something."
"Mm." J murmurs as she continues to chop. "Is that all?"
Silence follows. Soup broth bubbles; J's methodical cutting fills the room's quiet like a metronome.
Ira swallows hard. This is the part she needs to ask. "Have you ever been robbed?"
At that, J stops cutting and looks up, large dark eyes narrowing with concern.
"Robbed?"
Ira nods, nervous. J studies her face for a moment, then looks down to continue cutting. "Once or twice. Why?"
"How did they do it? Get in undetected, I mean?"
"Ira—" J starts, looking up at Ira again.
"Please. I know it's weird. Just tell me."
J arches a brow and keeps her gaze on Ira. She sighs pointedly, but says finally: "Depends on the place. Most buildings lie about their strongest point. Glass doors look vulnerable but they're alarmed. Back doors are solid, but the hinges are usually cheap or rusted. From there, you want the vents, the ladders—the things no one guards until it's too late. That's how they got into my place, at least."
Ira nods, storing every word.
"And if I ask why you're suddenly thinking like a thief?" J says.
"You don't," Ira answers too fast. Her throat pinches, but she manages a crooked smile. "Not yet."
J holds her gaze a long beat, then slices through another pepper with deliberate precision. "Fine. Then don't get caught. I'd be annoyed if you missed any more shifts. I need you, you know."
"I know," Ira says softly. She lingers, watching J work, wishing she could stay in that warmth a little longer.
"Well, I've got today covered for you," J adds, not looking up. "So go on. Make it count."
"Thanks, J."
"And Ira?"
"Yeah?"
"You'll tell me the rest. Soon."
"Of course."
She slips out quickly, before the guilt can follow her out the door.