The soot-stained cobblestones of the Tinbone Alley did not hold secrets for Luenna, they only held memories of grit and survival. The air down here was thick, smelling of damp limestone and the metallic tang of coal smoke she remembered all too well.
She trudged through the narrow alleyway that led away from the Gravenreach, her feet found the familiar divots in the stone by muscle memory alone. Another fourteen-hour shift at the Capital in the Middle District was over. Her hands were raw from scrubbing the marble floors of the gilded class, and her back ached with a dull rhythm.
For the amount she was paid, she was fairly certain she was being robbed in broad daylight. Just politely, and with polished floors. Still… it was the best job she had managed to keep. Which said more about the others than she liked to admit.
She had done worse. Far worse. The kind of work that left more than her hands sore, the kind that taught her quickly how cheap a human life could be when weighed against coin. At least there, she was only exhausted. Not endangered.
…Most days.
Despite her fatigue, her hand remained steady beneath the folds of her drab apron, white-knuckled around the hilt of a rusted iron dagger. Tinbone Alley did not offer the luxury of feeling safe. Not to anyone. And especially not to a girl walking home alone after dark.
The walk itself should have taken no more than an hour by distance, it was the shortest route between the Middle District and the Lower, but time always felt heavier here, as if the alley insisted on stretching every step just to remind you what you were risking by taking it.
Luenna knew these streets. She knew which shadows breathed and which ones were just tricks of the dim gaslight. This was the territory of the desperate, of men with hollow stomachs and even hollower hearts who spent their nights waiting for easy prey.
"Easy money," she mumbled bitterly, her thumb tracing the pommel of her blade.
She would be lying if she said the thought of turning the knife on a wealthy merchant had not crossed her mind on nights, usually around the time her stomach started growling loud enough to qualify as a public disturbance. But one look at her own thin wrists was enough to kill that fantasy.
She was not a predator. She was the sort of girl who would lunge, miss, and get knocked flat before she could even mutter a threat. Besides, if her mother were still alive to see her become a common thug, the disappointment would hurt worse than any beating.
And really, dying of shame was not how Luenna intended to go.
Well…
This was the reality of the Lower District of the Underworld, where there were far more empty stomachs than full purses, and even more people desperate enough to pretend otherwise. If hunger were currency, they would all be obscenely rich by now. Including her.
As if pulled by habit, she tilted her head back to look up. The full moon hung above, pale and distant, before her thoughts drifted to the sanctuary they called the Upperworld, which from down here was nothing more than an unreachable stretch of darkness.
She had never been there, not even the Upper District above the Middle, but everyone spoke of it the same way: as something beyond comparison. Not just more refined, not just more wealthy, but something fundamentally different.
A sprawling, floating gothic expanse of silver spires and eternal gardens, suspended by ancient magic and unbearable arrogance, far beyond even the gilded precision of the Middle District, and so elevated it made even the Upper District of the Underworld feel like a shadow pretending to be height.
At least, that was what they said. Luenna would not know. She had never even stepped foot near the Great Lift, let alone inside it.
But she had heard stories. Everyone had.
The ladies in the mansion where she worked loved to talk when the wine loosened their tongues. With soft, dreamy voices, they recount tales that did not belong to people like her.
They spoke of The Selection, of those rare, lucky few chosen to ascend. Of a man, her employer's grandfather, who had once gone up as nothing more than a vegetable seller and returned dripping in gold, his name rewritten into something that belonged in ledgers and not alleyways.
They always told it like a miracle. Like proof that the heavens above could reach down and pluck a life clean out of the dirt.
Luenna had scrubbed their floors while they said it, hands raw and knees aching, and thought about how convenient that miracles always seem to happen to someone else.
The Selection only applied to the Upper and Middle Districts. As they said, the clean tiers of the Underworld where names were recorded properly, bloodlines were traced, and even suffering came with paperwork.
The Lower District was not part of it. It only existed in the margins of governance where laws softened into suggestions and oversight thinned into neglect. Even those distant, predatory powers that occasionally descended to claim "Tithes" from humanity rarely acknowledged the Depth.
Some people whispered it was inefficiency. Others said it was contamination. The uglier voices, the ones spoken only behind sealed doors, claimed their blood was unsuitable. Too diluted. Too unstable. Not worth the attention.
So the Lower District remained untouched by even the things that fed on everyone else.
But still, to the humans below, the Upperworld was a mythic heaven. They said the fountains there flowed with wine, the streets were paved with crushed pearls, and the sun—the real sun—kissed the skin of the vampires who ruled it.
Many dreamed of climbing the hierarchy. To live amongst the vampire was not a curse, it was opportunity, power, and survival dressed in silk. And the worst part was… they were not wrong.
If you are chosen, a single favour could turn into a contract. A contract could become a patron. And a patron, if they found you interesting enough, could lift you out of the mud in a single night, trading years of hunger for a place at a table that never ran empty.
She could not blame them for wanting it. Not when the alternative was scraping through another day and calling it living.
But in her mind, the hierarchy was a mercy. Because if the vampires descended, humans would not just lose their coins, they would lose their lives.
"Better they stay up there in their paradise," Luenna whispered to the smog. "At least if they're in the clouds, they aren't down here drinking us dry."
She had heard too many stories growing up, whispered in dim corners and passed between trembling mouths. Stories of bodies found bloodless in alleys not unlike this one. Of people taken in the night, their screams swallowed by the dark, never to be seen again. Of eyes glowing red just before everything went black.
And The Selection…
Not all who were chosen returned wrapped in gold and glory like that grandfather. For every story of fortune, there were ten that ended in silence. Names that simply stopped being spoken. Faces that faded from memory as if they had never existed at all.
Only the heavens above knew what truly happened to them.
Luenna had no desire to find out.
She hugged her arms to herself, letting the chill seep through her thin apron. The alleys of the Underworld were never kind, but tonight they felt unusually quiet. For some odd reason, every shadow seemed to twitch, every distant echo of stone on stone set her teeth on edge.
Then came the faintest sound of clicking boots against cobblestones. One step, two step, then it stopped. Luenna's heart did the same.
From the darkness of a recessed doorway, three figures stepped out.
Here they comes, the desperate men.
The one in the center, wearing a moth-eaten velvet coat that he clearly thought made him look like royalty, stepped into the light with a yellow-toothed grin.
Luenna's stomach twisted at the sight. These men were twice her size, shoulders broad enough to block out the dim light, hands thick and capable of far more than a pinch.
It was not the first time. Nights like this had found her before too many times, in too many alleys, with too many men who wore that same look in their eyes. She knew what came next. She knew the rhythm of it, the way danger closed in.
But she had also learned long ago that fear was a luxury she could not afford. Panic would get her nowhere. It will only get her hurt, or worse. So she inhaled, letting her shoulders relax just enough to appear calm.
"Rough shift, lady?" the leader drawled, his cronies flanking him with practiced ease. "You look heavy. Why don't we lighten your load?"
Luenna swallowed, forcing the tremor from her voice. "I'm a maid from the Capital," she said, her voice remarkably level even as she took a slow step backward. "I carry scrub brushes and lye. Unless you're looking to start a cleaning business, move along."
That earn a surprised look from the thugs.
"She's got a tongue on her," the one to the left with a long scar along his cheek chuckled, cracking his knuckles. "I bet she's hiding a silver coin or two from the Master's table."
"Or maybe she keeps it in that tight little apron of hers," the one on the right sneered, leaning in, sniffing like she was a piece of meat. "C'mon, don't be shy. I can smell your silver from here."
"I don't have any money!" She snapped, her back hitting a cold brick wall. "I earn copper. It's already spent on rent!"
But they did not listen.
They moved like a coordinated wave. Two of them pinned her arms against the rough brick as she let go of her dagger. She had no choice; her hands shook too violently to hold it steady, and the thought of dropping it where they could grab it made her stomach twist.
Luenna's nose wrinkled as the stench hit her. They smelled of cigarette smoke, sour sweat, and cheap alcohol. She had fought off rats that smelled less foul.
"Let go!" She writhed as rough, calloused hands began a frantic, disrespectful search, tearing at her pockets and roaming over her waist.
"Nothing in the pockets," the leader muttered, his hand moving toward her bodice. "Maybe she's keeping the gold somewhere warm?"
The indignity sparked a flash of white-hot rage that overrode her fear. As the leader leaned in, his breath smelling of sour ale, Luenna gathered every ounce of strength in her legs and—
CRACK.