CHAPTER 1
SABLE
The air in Glindora stinks like ambition and burnt sugar.
I pull my coat tighter around my waist, the collar brushing my jaw, and navigate the cracked pavement like I’m on a catwalk instead of wading through a glorified sewage vein pretending to be a district. Neon bleeds from flickering signs overhead—GLO-XO TINTS,GENMOD IMPLANT DYES,SPICY OIL NOODZ 2—each one pulsing in a different rhythm like they’re trying to outshine each other and failing miserably.
It’s loud, sticky, and full of bad decisions. It’s also the only place on Novaria Prime where you can get what I’m looking for.
I don’t belong here. Not in this part of town. Not anymore.
But the Dolce & Goblonnox Velvra-9s are rumored to have surfaced, and I’d walk across plasma to get them.
My compad buzzes again, angry and insistent on my wrist.
JACEY [9:31PM]:
Girl. Tell me you arenotin Glindora. You said you were going home. If you die over shoes I am not doing your funeral lashes.
I flick the message away without answering. If I text her back, I’ll lose my nerve. And besides, I already had lashes done last week. She knows this.
My boots—sensible, matte-black with reinforced soles—make a soft crunch on the grit underfoot. Glindora’s alleys are the kind of places where the grime never leaves, it just mutates. I keep moving past glowstick-peddling teenagers, a guy selling unlicensed tattoos from a folding chair, and a stand selling something called “bio-churros” that I don’t dare investigate.
Two turns later, the alley widens into a narrow cul-de-sac wrapped in LED vines and sketchy art installations made out of scrap circuit boards. Tucked into the back wall is a storefront with no name, no windows, and one buzzing sensor door. Just a black steel panel with a pulsing red dot in the center.
This is it.
The boutique.
I press my hand to the panel.
It scans my palm—doesn’t ask my name, doesn’t offer a greeting—and the door slides open with a sound like a mechanical hiss telling me to keep quiet.
Inside, the shop is cold, dark, and smells faintly like ozone and old velvet. Light panels glow along the floor, casting just enough illumination to see the racks—glittering, chaotic, all clearly illegal.
A thin woman stands behind the glass case at the far end, her arms folded like she’s permanently unimpressed. Her hair is coiled in gold wire, and her irises flash with aftermarket prism tech that makes her look like a snake in heat.
“You walk or window?” she asks, her accent clipped and manufactured.
I nod once. “Walk.”
“First time?”
“No.”
She gestures me forward. I approach, not even bothering to look at the other displays. I know what I came for.
And there they are.
The Velvra-9s sit under the glass like a holy relic. Gleaming chrome heel with the iconic upward twist. Shimmer-reactive fabric in a shade of burgundy so dark it looks black until the light catches it. Double ankle straps with tiny D&G insignia clasps. They look untouched, like time paused the moment they were boxed.
“I heard they were seized,” I murmur, crouching slightly to see them better.
“They were,” the woman replies. “Customs lost the manifest in a fire.”
Of course they did.
I straighten. “How much?”
