The victory at the festival was a week old, but the chill from Julian's stare had lingered. The Community Mana Well blueprint was brilliant, but it required components the MMA-controlled markets didn't stock. Leo needed an edge. An off-the-books source.
Elara had just grunted and scribbled an address on a scrap of paper. "Don't say I never gave you anything. And don't blame me when she melts your face off."
The address led to a basement bar tucked under a rusted bridge, a flickering neon sign spelling out "The Unraveled Sleeve." The air inside crackled with ozone and the scent of burnt sugar. Leo had to step around a puddle of shimmering, sentient goo to get to the counter.
The owner, a woman with hair the color of a storm cloud and a web of silver piercings along one ear, was not serving drinks. She was nose-to-nose with a flickering ball of light that zipped angrily around her head.
"—and if you don't stabilize your frequency, I'm bottling you and selling you as a disco ball to a goblin rave!" she snapped, jabbing a screwdriver at the spirit.
The light spirit buzzed, shedding sparks of indignant magenta.
Leo cleared his throat.
The woman—Zara Vex—turned, her gaze sharp enough to cut glass. "What?"
"I'm looking for Zara. Elara sent me."
Her eyes narrowed, scanning him up and down. They lingered on the ornate tamper at his belt, and a smirk twisted her lips. "Oh, I know what you are. You're Arthur's boy. The one with the pretty little cage in his head."
Leo stiffened. "It's a System. It helps."
"It gives you training wheels and calls it genius," she shot back, turning back to her work. With a final, precise tap of her screwdriver on the spirit's core, the flickering stopped. The light settled into a steady, warm gold, humming contentedly. She shooed it away. It was a fix that was part mechanics, part sheer force of will. Pure, beautiful chaos.
"That's what real magic looks like," Zara said, wiping her hands on her oil-stained coveralls. "A lightning strike. Unpredictable. Alive. Not some warm, steady hand-holding nonsense."
"That 'nonsense' just won the Festival of Hearts," Leo countered, his voice tight.
"Congratulations. You gave people a nice, safe feeling. Julian's machines can do that with the right chemical compounds." She leaned on the counter, her voice dropping. "Your System builds a better birdhouse. My magic teaches the bird to set its own damn cage on fire."
The words hit a nerve. Was that all he was doing? Just a more comfortable version of the corporate model?
"But we're burning the same people," Leo said, the realization clear in his voice. "Julian. The MMA. The sterile magic."
Zara studied him for a long moment, the mockery in her eyes softening into something like assessment. She reached under the counter and slapped a small, rough-hewn pouch onto the bar. It smelled of damp earth and thunderstorms.
"Wild-thistle pods," she said. "Grows where lightning strikes the same spot twice. It'll rip the 'safe' right out of any brew and show people what they're really feeling. If you're brave enough to use it."
Leo picked up the pouch. It tingled against his palm, a wild, untamed energy.
"It's a start," he said.
"It's a test," Zara corrected, already turning away. "Now get out. You're letting the organized air in."