The riot broke like a wave just a block over. Screams, fire-crack bursts of mageia, the hollow clatter of clubs against bone. Somewhere close, someone howled the words "Down with the eagle!" until their voice cracked. The smell of smoke rode heavy on the air.

  Nyxie didn’t flinch.

  She crouched in the nook of a crumbling stairwell, arms wrapped tight around her knees, her fur clumped and dull beneath a month of city grime. Her stomach gnawed at itself. Hunger had long since turned sharp and hollow, dulling now to a constant, dragging weight. She listened to the chaos in the next block with the same indifference she gave the rats nosing at the edge of her pallet.

  What was there left to care about?

  Her tail twitched weakly. Reflex. Habit. The city had stripped everything else away.

  She tried, in those early days. The park—if you could call that patch of threadbare grass beneath the iron eagle statues a park—was the only place anything green dared grow. She’d crept there at dawn, slipping between iron fences to chew bark from the sad little trees that lined the paths. But even that food tasted stale. Old. Dead. Like it hadn’t remembered what sun felt like in years. The Black Cloaks caught her twice, boots cracking against her ribs, hissing threats through gritted teeth. "Try that again, beast, and we’ll break your tail."

  The city wasn’t made for maenads. Nothing living thrived here. And without something alive—sap, root, something fresh from the earth—her body couldn’t take in food the way others did. Bread turned to ash in her mouth. Meat made her vomit. Even the dryads, for all their forest blood, could at least eat the sad cabbages and carrots the empire doled out.

  She couldn’t. Not here.

  The mageia fire marks still faintly traced her wrists, burned in from the raid. A month. A month since the griffins. Since the nets. Since they tore her from the treetops, away from the alchemy fires and the songs. Her people scattered, vanished into the empire’s dark corners. No word. No sign.

  Her head lolled back against the stone, eyes half-lidded as another blast rocked the block over. She barely blinked.

  "You look like rot, sister."

  The voice was warm honey. Sweet, slick, dangerous. Nyxie turned her head, slow, blinking to clear the blur. Two maenads stood framed in the mouth of the alleyway, silhouettes sleek and sure. Their clothes looked strange to Nyxie—garments made for humans, tight dresses with little holes cut out for their tails. It clung awkwardly to their sleek fur, flashy and gaudy, nothing like the simple bindings of leaves and bark maenads wove back home. This was... a bit much.

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  Flaxia—tall, fur glossy gray with alchemical stains dappling her cheeks like freckles—grinned down at her, the strange human dress hugging her frame unnaturally. There was warmth in her gaze, something soft beneath the sharpness, like she pitied what she saw. Behind her leaned another, darker-furred, her posture casual, but her gaze sharp as glass.

  "Hells," Flaxia murmured, crouching with feline grace. "You look worse than last week."

  Nyxie swallowed, throat raw. "You... I remember."

  "Of course you do." Flaxia tilted her head, flashing teeth in something like a smile. "Matiran’s too small to forget faces. Even pretty ones like yours."

  Nyxie felt her tail twitch again, curling tighter around her shins. "I can’t eat here. There’s nothing alive."

  "Yeah," Flaxia sighed, sitting cross-legged, tail flicking behind her. "City's like that. Chokes the life right out of you. But we've been managing."

  The other maenad—Sagariphis, Nyxie thought her name was, though the haze dulled details—flicked ash from a thin rolled cigarette, exhaling slow. Her gaze cut sharp, a smirk playing at the corner of her mouth as though she were sizing Nyxie up, savoring the weakness. "You need a better way."

  Nyxie blinked, slow. "Better way?"

  "To eat. To live."

  "I can’t trade," Nyxie rasped. "Can’t work."

  Flaxia's grin widened. "Oh, you can work, sister. All of us can."

  Nyxie frowned, confusion dull in her fogged mind. "What work?"

  Flaxia glanced at Sagariphis, then leaned in close, voice low, intimate. "We dance. We let the other races touch. They pay well."

  Nyxie's ears twitched. "Touch?"

  Flaxia nodded, brushing a stray lock from Nyxie’s face. "They like the feel of us. Our fur. Our scent. They want to press close. Put their fingers, their tongues... their little pee-sticks... into us."

  Nyxie recoiled faintly, nose wrinkling. "Mating?"

  Sagariphis chuckled darkly, leaning in close enough that Nyxie caught the tang of bitter smoke on her breath. "Their kind of mating. Not ours. They don't know how we do it. They think this is how." Her eyes gleamed, hungry, as if the thought of Nyxie's confusion delighted her.

  Flaxia tilted her head, smiling without warmth. "But it doesn’t hurt. Not really. Just feels... weird. Wrong. But not pain."

  Nyxie hugged her knees tighter, staring down at her scraped, dirt-streaked arms. Her belly twisted, hollow and raw.

  "They pay?"

  Flaxia's voice softened, coaxing. "More than enough. Enough to fill that stomach. Enough to keep your tail high and your fur slick."

  Nyxie trembled. A memory of the forest flickered—the scent of damp earth, the rustle of leaves. She clung to it, but it slipped like water through her claws. "It’s wrong."

  Flaxia reached out, brushing a gentle claw beneath her chin, lifting Nyxie's gaze with a softness that felt genuine, a flicker of kindness. "So is starving."

  The sounds of the riot faded behind them, swallowed by the city walls. In the hollow quiet of the alley, Nyxie felt the weight of choice press down, heavier than hunger.

  Flaxia smiled, standing and offering a hand, her pity softening the edge of her voice. "Come on, sister. Let's get you fed." Sagariphis just grinned, flicking her cigarette into the gutter, eyes sharp with amusement. "This'll be fun."

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