The marbled streets rushed under her, each pebble; gold, silver, titanium, and tungsten. They were just tiny rocks bordering the path, insignificant wealth stepped on in the shadows of the glass-towering banks that loomed over the courtyard.

  And frazzling her neurons.

  Pillars of Neurite servers jutted out of the platform.

  Each bolted in webs of buzzing signals.

  The outward data packets like a drill on her skull.

  With her head spinning, a whiplash of voices. She hated it here. She wanted to leave already. This is why all Neurweavers hated the stock exchange.

  But the quiet and orderly demons in the meeting pods and business suits thought otherwise. This was Avaritia, the city of wealth and greed. A place of dreams, riches or hell. A gamble that many chose. A fool’s errand.

  But catching her attention was the reason the servers existed. The stacks of Dark Glass tablets flicked through data like it was writing in real-time. Here, everything was exact, down to the last billionth decimal point.

  All synced to the master core. A device, the sole and only one in the underworld. Break that, and you’d have an economic crash that didn’t just doom this city, it ruined every kingdom, every demon, every shard in fingertips.

  So to say it was under protection was an understatement. If she so much as sneezed near it, the seven armies of every monarch would come to watch her beheading. The data, so immense, so fuming insane, you have to be mad just to comprehend it, much less restore it.

  “The market value is the rise for once,” Rosalind said.

  Cass stared at the glowing red boards. Every single value was tanking, the falling numbers even something an idiot would avoid. Then she watched the woman click 'buy'.

  “What! Are you insane?” Cass’s scales shot pale, “How much did you just—“

  She had to buy almost two-thirds of the stock. Cass shook her head, wishing it were not true, the feeling that guards were coming to drag them out any moment. Every shard she ever earned, logged and taken as interest, a debt generations were doomed to pay.

  “I don’t know you, I don’t know you. I’m not part of this!” Cass yelled.

  But Rosalind only smiled, the very real guards now shifting to regard her, the investors smiling with amusement.

  Cass darted her eyes to an exit, a way out they hadn’t blocked.

  Not again. Not this time.

  She will not be sold again.

  She would never trust anyone ever again.

  She had to run. Had to—

  “Three… two…” Rosalind muttered.

  Cass blinked—

  Then roar. A sudden, building-wide scream erupted as the boards turned blinding white. Green numbers shot up like rockets. A chaos of demons shoved each other to hit ‘BUY’.

  “These servers have gotten slow.” Rosalind said, “Just like the fools that followed trends.”

  And like she were orchestrating a theatre with thousands of demons, she flicked her finger. The numbers changed, and the horde switched between bonds, contractors, and whatever Rosalind felt like.

  Her debt rose and burned with every loan. Every shard, like sweat dripping down skin. The horrors of the gamble, like a leech sucking her blood. They were doomed. She had just escaped one owner to wind up owned by another.

  “Rosa!” Shouted Lucien. “What are you doing?”

  But Rosalind didn’t turn.

  “Patience. Patience.” The woman whispered. “You need to give them hope. Before you crush it.”

  Then, as a spear crashed next to them, the looming demon knight of Avaritia, ready to demand payment.

  “ROSA!” Lucien shouted.

  Then, letting out a sigh, she pressed ‘Sell’. But not just one stock, all of them. Then came the scream—raw, universal.

  Demons turned feral. A tidal wave of red crashed across the screens.

  Rosalind smiled, sharp, sinister and loving every second of it. The bodies, the howls like flopping fish, the guards turning to deal with the chaos. In a second, the desprate flow of shards, all sold as fast as they had been brought. The whole exchange tanking the few Rosalind has picked.

  But worst of them all. All the gambles that were lost, cries of poor demons frothed on the perfect glass floor, guards using brooms to push the fools who bet it all. Men, women and every aspiring demon, racking up the debt, Rosalind had taken out.

  Then, as the chaos thinned and the floors were scrubbed clean of the poor and begging, Cass saw them.

  The high-floor investors.

  Not shouting. Not rushing. Just watching.

  Eyes calculating. Fangs grinding.

  One of them nodded once. Just once.

  And Cass shivered.

  Why did she have a bad feeling?

  But Lucien didn’t care for that. He moved like a bull in a tea house and snatched the tablet from Rosalind’s fingers.

  “What if you didn’t win?” he snapped. “Are you trying to get us all killed?”

  Rosalind’s tail wagged, almost like she wanted him to slap her. Hell, Cass wanted to have a go herself.

  “But I didn’t”, the woman said.

  She took back the glass, with a slippery touch, Lucien too speechless to resist.

  “We are going to need some funds, in this city, you know.” She mused. “I just sorted that.”

  Cass looked up again—

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  The penthouse was dark.

  Empty.

  Silent.

  Then she saw it.

  The mark.

  Etched in the glass like a bullet to her heart.

  A symbol she knew too well.

  The Circle.

  Her breath caught.

  Cass glanced at Rosalind.

  Still smug. Still standing.

  Did she know what she’d done?

  “Rosa—”

  “Now to more important things,” Rosalind said. “We can’t roam freely dressed like beggars.”

  Lucien sighed, “You don’t suggest we—”

  “A little shopping won’t kill us, Lu. Besides, would you rather have me walk around flashing my bright yellow leg?”

  Rosalind pulled up her tattered dress.

  “Stop stop!” Lucien yelped, “No need to demonstrate.”

  Rosalind frowned, pointing to the full-length trousers, boots, a belt hiding under her skirt, and a strange-filled capsule tucked like grenades at her hip.

  “Do you really think I’m some maiden, Lu?” She stared down the fairy, her icy glare forcing Lucien’s feet back. “The only thing that matters to me is preventing another war. Don’t misunderstand my intent. Don’t think you’re not expendable.”

  And with that, the white haired Valkar turned, boots marching, her dress stained in soot.

  Lucien left like a tape left on pause, eyes rewinding the moments he messed up.

  Cass didn’t even know what, just happened.

  Why Rosalind both reached for this man, yet, stabbed him at every step?

  But she followed the woman anyway.

  Then, wandering the bustling market streets, she frowned at the Black Season banners glued to anything that would stick. Cheap, low and like a knife in your pocket. They would rob you with deals, bargains and hidden costs. It was a scam. An annual event designed to suck the population dry. The complete opposite of the trickle-down economy they promised.

  The rich didn’t spend their shards locally; they roamed Amorica’s nightlife, dined at Gourmandia restaurants, and lived in Vangloria void scrappers. Avaritia made its money on days like this, with silky interest rates and too-good-to-turn-down contracts. Then dialled them up until you are the last asset left to sell.

  It was the one shard of wisdom Amara had drilled into her. Don’t trust a good deal.

  She watched Rosalind slice through the crowd like a battering ram, each demon, in her way, trying and regretting, offering her a deal. Amara had been foolish like that, too, Rosalind, the high-end client who hired Amara to serve on a warship. Now look at her, her corpse resting at the bottom of the void.

  Cass wouldn’t make that mistake.

  And catching up to the Vampire’s pace, she attached herself to the woman’s side, watching the eyes that parsed her existence. Most seemed to linger, like flies caught in a Succubus’s web, the daring ones, flinching from Vampiric fangs. It almost made her want ot try making that face, replicate the sneer Rosalind pulled off.

  How could someone be this intimidating? How could she get that?

  But Cass was only a Siren at best, a demon of temptation and melody. It was hardly a threatening repuation. At best, they might laugh at her claws. Worse, they come closer.

  Then, parting the demon crowd like a sea, Rosalind stopped at a fine textile shop. Bodies, moving around them like a ring of air, like the woman was cursed, like a mistouch could kill them.

  And speaking of killing, Cass peeked over her shoulder, her green eyes scanning for any signs of them. The Circle made good on their debts and made an example of those who dared test them. However, as the shopkeeper moved to approach Rosalind.

  Call it instinct, call it anxiety. It didn’t matter.

  Cass grabbed Rosalind’s arm, “I know a good place, let’s—”

  But like iron drilled into the underworld’s crust, Rosalind remained still, the squeak of words getting a raised eyebrow.

  “Do you think you know better than me?” her face said.

  The dark-eyed merchant stepped closer. His yellowed fangs reeked of something sour and synthetic, like breath freshener in a brothel

  “Why, why?” He said. “The little one must not know I’m the best in town.” He stepped another icky step, “Let me show you why my deals are too good to be true.”

  “Do you have Durg silk, weaved straight from an arachnid’s sack?” Cass blurted.

  The merchant paused, “I urm… Durg silk is overrated.”

  Rosalind pulled Cass’s grip off, Cass floundering to tell, to tell her it was a trap.

  “Rosa!” Cass said.

  “No!” the woman growled, her tail slapping the air like a whip. “Durg silk is not overrated. It’s the minimum.”

  The merchant shouted, but Rosalind’s finger pressed to his throat before a sound could come out.

  “One word and you never speak again.” She hissed.

  Then, with a waltz that dared anyone to mess with her, she pulled Cass along and returned to the street. Cass walked, pulled by the arm, the soft pull nothing like the march of her boots, eyes that never looked down but somehow saw everything.

  “So, where is the shop you mentioned?” Rosalind said, “Or was his breath that bad?”

  “No”, Cass squeaked, “It should be further ahead.”

  Cass couldn’t see her face, but she knew those lips were grinning, knew from the fingers tugging her along. Her scales flushed pink. Why did that bother her so much?