Mia

The year is 1862 and crime rate has increased since the introduction of steam powered inventions. Steam hissed through the alleys like restless ghosts, and the markets of the City clattered with brass, gears, and hungry eyes. Mia moved through it all like smoke, quick fingers, quicker smile, parasol spinning lazily at her shoulder. But tonight she wasn’t hunting purses. She was hunting answers. Jax had vanished the moment Celestine’s questions cut too close. Rumor whispered he’d fled underground, hiding from the shadowed patrons known only as The Elite. The same people who had quietly funded his experiments. For weeks Mia had felt the old pull, the instinct to run jobs for him, to slip through windows and steal parts like she always had. But Celestine’s words had lingered like a stubborn bruise. He didn’t need you, Mia. He used you. So Mia did what she did best. She stole. But this time it wasn’t for Jax. In the dead hours before dawn she slipped into his abandoned laboratory. The glasshouses were cracked, the mechanical vines twitching weakly in the moonlight. Weapons grown from ironwood petals hung silent on their racks. Her fingers brushed the workbench. Blueprints. Ledgers. Names. Proof. The Funny thing about pickpockets, is they always know where the good stuff’s hidden. By sunrise Jax would finally feel what it meant to lose control. Mia tucked the papers into her coat and stepped back into the fog. For the first time in years, she wasn’t running errands. She was choosing her own path.