I stand on the edge of a penthouse roof deep within the Electric Town. My wine glass tilts from side to side, aimlessly moving the golden liquid inside like a fluid joystick. Violent rain lashes the invisible repulsorfield that forms a bubble over the rooftop. Horrible night for a party, really. Which is exactly why I chose it.

Five streets away, the Metro Blockhouse spears out of the Electric Town skyline. My master looms somewhere in its highest layers. There are pro fights tonight, as there always are, but he doesn’t deign to watch the smaller fish of the major leagues. If they want his attention, they have to earn the right to stand on his doorstep and meet him on the field of battle.

Few have ever had the bravery for that.

Far fewer the idiocy.

Back in the warmly-lit pavilion at the center of the rooftop, Valance cajoles Aurix and Felix into a toast to the nearby throne of our world. Other university fighters from our classes at Concordia populate the rest of the party, watching the two boys with envy. Valance’s attention is freely given, but her toasts are a far rarer treat.

I glance over my shoulder and watch without joining as the three tilt their glasses back. The city silhouettes them with neon brilliance, small haloes of color highlighting their features. Valance is the center of attention- it’s a rare night that she isn’t. Her languid steps draw every eye as her dress shifts between her legs. It’s a vicious cut that only a woman with hips like hers could manage.

It's hard to look at her any other way than the one she invites. Rather than spurn her upbringing as one of the elite courtesans who belonged to the undercity syndicate Dynasty, Valance embraces it. She draws strength from a past that would horrify others. A child of the Orange’s brothels, she was elevated to one of the highest positions an indentured servant can hold- and even then, she was little more than a glorified gift for the influential figures Dynasty needed courted. That changed the day I found her during one of my raids for Jolie.

Valance may be the most eyecatching figure in attendance, but there are absences that are even more notable than her presence. Gami’s higher freelancers currently staying in the capital, who would help evaluate the new additions to the Shadows- the Titan pilot Kalavakus, and Aster, the assassin who helped train my sister- are missing, as are the Mobiak and Cal herself; the last to no dismay of those smitten by her eternal aloofness. Our peers from the university league make up the entire party. We drain glasses full of glowing golden champagne, a gift from the champion, like it’s liquid fire. Some more daringly than others. Though we all split into laughter when Felix can’t stomach more than a sip.

The party retreats to a hedge-lined plaza of fire pits and string lights near the edge of the roof when the celebrations begin in earnest. I must lag too far behind, or perhaps there’s some slip in my mind’s protective walls, because Valance falls behind the others and purposefully slips her arm inside mine.

“Quite the view, isn’t it?” she says, taking another sip from her glass. “Growing up in the Vents, I never imagined I’d see the city from a penthouse.”

I disguise my mood with a raised eyebrow. “I didn’t take you for the sentimental type.”

Valance hooks her wizarding hat on one finger and rakes the other hand through my hair, pressing close. A frisky smile playing along her lips.

“You didn’t take me for a lot of things.”

We sit with Felix and Aurix around one of the crackling fire pits that lights the rooftop. Warmth spills over the party in waves of orange light, illuminating pockets of cordial laughter and murmured conversations. It’s an easy mood tonight. The university warriors who aren’t here to curry favor with Gami’s prized disciples are no strangers to gatherings like these. Valance’s telekinetic control passes out more drinks. When she makes a pointed nudge at the glass I hold, I finally cast my thoughts aside, testing the golden liquor with a grimace.

It’s worse than I thought it would be. Expensive things always are.

“It’s a shame the Mobiak couldn’t join us,” Felix says, looking out over the cityscape. “I was hoping to pick its brain a bit. So many Venter legends about that thing. Does it even speak? It doesn’t seem like it does.”

Valance dismisses his worries with a casual wave. “It’s making a little detour on my behalf, is all. It’ll be here. Though its ability to communicate depends entirely on your ability to handle canines.”

My ears perk up as she plucks the rest of the drink from my fingers, sliding into the chair beside mine. Felix passes a small tumbler to Aurix and slumps into the couch beside him. The two boys couldn’t be more unalike if they tried. One thin and slight, a poet’s grace to his fingers. Noble green eyes that belong in the highest levels of the Metro Blockhouse, just as his grandfather’s did. The other looks so uncomfortably out of place in his stuffy formal shirt that I’d chuckle if I weren’t relying on his silence.

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Aurix is a pendulum of charisma. Attractive yet surly, compelling yet awkward. Tonight is no exception. This party is his first real taste of the capital’s higher society. An outlander by birth, he plays well enough with the jocular behavior of our university peers, but the silver-tongued barbs and clever retorts are completely lost on him. Still, I’m surprised at how well he plays to our ruse. Stealing the others’ attention by genetic virtue, like a noble-bred lion who landed in a pack of jackals. As personable as his father, though only when he’s elbow-deep in describing the nuance of battle. You can see the kind of man he’ll one day be in the college boy he is now.

Aurix’s story is interrupted when the penthouse door creaks open on the other side of the rooftop. Heads turn. I alone watch the fire.

Wet slaps echo up the stairs as the bedraggled, water-soaked shadow of my little sister climbs into view. Cal wears an undercity rendition of her usual boyish fashion, jacket and slacks clinging to her slight frame. Black hair plasters to her face. Yellow eyes gleam with lethal determination beneath her bangs. Her ponytail droops low. Her usual meticulousness and care for appearances is all but gone; her knifelike personality on full display tonight. Dumping the rainwater from her boots, she squelches her way over to join us by the fires like she owns the entire skyscraper, only belatedly stopping to trade a formal peck on the cheek with Valance.

“My, if the cat didn’t drag herself in after all,” Valance leadingly says. “I was starting to think you weren’t coming, Cal.”

“You thought I’d miss this big of a night? That’s sweet.” Cal drops onto the couch beside Felix, ignorant of how the smaller boy squirms awkwardly to make space. She rakishly loosens another button of her shirt as she meets my gaze across the fire. “I always make time for family.”

Ironic.

The others talk and crowd around her, but she has no patience for them. No interest. Her answers are mere formalities, laughter and smirks that reassure and flirt while saying nothing at all. Her true focus is narrowed only on me. Waiting for a gap to corner me in some break during the party. Driven like a bullet in the chamber. She spares a modicum of her attention for Aurix as she kicks her feet up on a small table, investigating the familiarity she no doubt senses in his smaller aspects. The way he sits with one arm thrown back. The pattern his fingers drum when they tap on the arm of his chair. All pointless minutiae individually, pieces of a puzzle she shouldn’t understand. They haven’t met before.

Yet she does understand. Or she senses something off about him, and he her. They start smiling daggers at each other while Cal carelessly insults Aurix to his face by asking how he managed to get invited to the party, and he responds with a tiny shrug.

“Thane and I are training partners,” he grunts. “Though I still find it hard to land a hit on him. You and I might be a better fit. Or maybe that friend of yours? The one you brought by the gym the other day.”

And there it is.

So Cal was there too. Conveniently unmentioned, just like most of the things she did with Tay before bringing her to the gala. Seeing the potential disaster incoming, I silence Felix with a single look. He blanches straight to white. Aurix is another story. He’s not bad at verbal fencing. But compared to an enigma like Cal who lives her life wrapped in more half-truths than full ones, he can’t help but arouse suspicion in the other people listening. He’s a bull in a china shop who could give away every one of our plots with the wrong word.

Cal sidesteps his query and pilots the conversation back to a course that won’t get a second glance from Valance- her only real threat at this party, given that I can’t finish our little sibling dispute in front of witnesses. She plays it smartly, giving nothing away that Valance might pick up on as being unusual. She takes her time untying her scarf and starts wringing it out like a human neck as she responds to Aurix.

“Oh, I’d be a terrible training partner. I’m on the admin track. I can’t even fight,” Cal cheerily lies through her teeth. Poking the bear. “Must be quite the jump for a low ranker like you, going from dorm life to this kind of party.”

“Only in your city,” Aurix fires back. “My mom’s a bigshot back home. I have to go to plenty of this kind of thing.”

Valance interrupts them by delicately floating a glass of liquor to her own hand, taking it over to Cal on foot. The two girls exchange quick looks. Valance’s more curious, Cal’s more guarded. I prod along the conversation so my silence doesn’t draw suspicion.

“I thought you’d recognize him sooner, Cal. I’m disappointed.”

“Don’t pick on her too harshly, Thane. Cal is quite busy with her roommate these days,” Valance chuckles. She sways back and settles on the arm of my chair, looking to Aurix. “I’ve always wanted to hear some confirmation from the lion’s mouth myself. Heaven knows Thane wouldn’t tell a secret to an empty room if it didn’t tell him one first.”

I don’t stop her from asking. I’m interested less in Aurix’s response, more in how quickly Cal’s attitude changes. My sister finally deigns to give a more analytical look to the muscular fighter, trying to match pieces to his puzzle at a rapidity only rivaled by my own mind.

Her eyes narrow in recognition after only a few moments. There are few in the capital who wouldn’t at least recognize the colors of Aurix’s eyes if they paid the dark hue any attention. And I know Cal saw that same shade of midnight blue every day of her internship.

Aurix’s chagrin, carefully poised between embarrassment and rankled pride, follows an acknowledging dip of his head. “It’s not some secret that only Thane knows. Just something I don’t like making a big deal out of. My father was-”

“-Mars Mons,” Cal sighs.

He nods, and I watch as my little sister’s stomach drops straight to the Abyss.