The rumor started as a market whisper.
Then a street song sung too softly.
By dusk it had become a map of absence: beast-women were disappearing—dockside washerwomen, caravan guards, seamstresses, three students from the academy's night classes. No bodies. No notes. Just quiet where laughter used to be.
Shin listened from a tea stall beneath a lantern of green glass, coatdress buttoned, gloves off. The vendor poured dark brew with shaking hands.
"They don't run," he murmured. "They're taken. Scent dies in the alley like the wind forgot them."
Shin set a black coin on the counter and spoke as gently as steam.
"We'll find them. And the ones who took them will never work a door again."
Her eyes lifted.The investigation began.
— MISSION BRIEF: "Silent Lattice" —
Objective: Track and stop the disappearances of beast-women across Aurellian ports and border towns.Suspected Pattern: Night shifts, scent-masking incense, no struggle signs, falsified work vouchers.Constraints: Civilians unharmed. Recover living victims first.Commander: ShinField Leads: Silenne, Petal, Lio, FangShadow Cover: Petal-12 "Echo Petal," Shadow-3, Shadow-8Whisperguard: Whisper 4 & 7 (tail-safety + relay)OpsNet Nodes: Rali (Whisperer), Nyen (Veilbinder), Krell (Engineer), Hollen (Medicae)
First Thread: Scent That Isn't
Fang and Lio traced three alleys where the last footprints of a fox-eared courier ended. The air smelled… wrong. Like flowers that never grew in this season.
Fang sniffed the brick, the gutters, the rain-swollen rope.
"Moonlily ash. Kills scent trails for six hours.""And this," Lio said, pinching silver grit, "is coin-jammer dust."
He stood, face hardening.
"Someone studied us."
Second Thread: Paper That Lies
Petal slipped into the registrar's office as a bored clerk; Silenne leaned over her shoulder, both women breathing the same patient rhythm as forged job vouchers unfolded in their hands.
Each voucher stamped with a triangle of delicate filigree and two engraved letters:
O R.
"Orchid Ring," Silenne said, jaw tight. "I thought we burned them out at Sable Spire."
Petal's eyes cooled.
"They grew back. In a different garden."
Third Thread: Voices We Trust
At a dockside clinic, Agent M (Revna) wrapped a blanket around a trembling wolf-kin child found beneath a boardwalk. Her mother—one of the missing—had pressed a coin into the child's paw before vanishing.
Shin crouched to the child's height, coat brushing stone.
"Your mother gave you this to keep you brave.""She said the people in black help," the child whispered. "Like… shadows that don't hurt."
Shin's voice warmed.
"That's exactly the kind of shadow we are."
The child pointed at the coin's edge, where a smear of pale dust clung.
"That's what the cart smelled like."
Shin lifted it to the light.
"Moonlily—and sailor's tar."
She stood.
"They're moving them by water."
The Net Tightens
OpsNet whispered through the Black Vein:
Rali seeded rumors; a name surfaced: "Glass Tailor."
Nyen mapped alleys that curved wrong; three formed a glyph—a teleport lattice keyed to moon phases.
Krell disassembled a broken collar with a coin-jammer core. Its rune signature matched the Orchid Ring auctions.
Whisper 7 shadowed a foreman who never blinked at night; his pockets rattled with triangle-stamped vouchers.
At the water's edge, Shadow Petal watched a barge roll out under no flag, its deck stacked with crates labeled "soapstone." She saw a tail tip catch between slats, twitch once, then go still.
Her comm clicked twice.
"Targets confirmed," she breathed."Hearts aboard."
Planning Table: Sanctum War Hall
Silenne laid the city scrawl over a sea chart.Lio placed pins.Fang circled guard rotations with a claw tip.
Shin sipped from a porcelain cup, then set it down with finality.
"Two elements. We cut the lattice so no one vanishes again. And we breach the barge to bring them home."
She divided the board with a gloved finger.
"Petal, Shadows 3 and 8: lattice break.Silenne, Lio, Fang: barge intercept.Whisperguard floats both teams—if one call goes dark, you pull the thread and undo the knot."
Silenne met her eyes.
"You're with…?"
Shin smiled—soft, warlike.
"I'll be where the first chain breaks."
Night Fall: Two Fronts
(1) The Lattice)Petal's team slipped incense bombs into the glyph corners; moonlily ash turned back on its makers as dispel smoke bled through alley seams. Runes reversed with a hiss, teleport anchors collapsing without detonating.
— SYSTEM: [ LATTICE DOWN: 1/3 ]— [ 2/3 ]— [ 3/3 ] COMPLETE
A last sigil flared, lunging for Petal's coin. Shadow-12 cut it mid-leap; the spell died like a moth in rain.
(2) The Barge)Mist hugged the river as Silenne and Lio rode in on a tug of darkness, Fang prowling along the stern line. Krell's magnet clamps kissed iron. Whisper 4's pulse kept the watchmen blinking slow, like sleep remembered them.
Silenne's blade slid a lock apart.They opened a crate.
Eyes. Dozens. Exhausted, furious, alive.
"S.I.N," Silenne whispered. "We're taking you home."
A woman with lynx ears looked up, voice shredded but steady.
"They harvest voices," she rasped. "Sell them as song charms. We screamed into glass. Then… nothing."
Lio's jaw tightened. Fang's claws flexed.Silenne touched the collar and closed her eyes—then cut it so cleanly it fell like a bad dream.
Boss of the Hour: The Glass Tailor
He stepped from the wheelhouse in a white apron, eyes rimmed with ash, fingers stained with glittering dust.
"I cut silence to fit kings."
He snapped a wire; the deck glyphs surged, hurling the barge toward mid-river where a gate threatened to bloom.
Silenne moved. He moved faster—no blade, just thread and glass.
Shin arrived like a quiet verdict—heels on wet iron, coat a line of night.
"You owe this river back its voices," she said, fear turned off.
The Tailor flicked a filament at her throat.
Shin took a single step. The line missed.The second she caught between two gloved fingers—and rewrote.
— REWRITE: Clause Reversal —Extraction thread becomes return thread.
The filament snapped back, lashing the gate lattice until it ate itself and died in a shower of mute sparks.
Silenne's sword kissed the man's wrist. Fang's knee sent him down. Lio pinned his arm with a coil of rope line.
He stared up at Shin, eyes glassy with disbelief.
"What are you?"
Shin poured a little river water over a collar core. It hissed and went dark.
"The part of civilization that remembers what it promised."
— SYSTEM NOTIFICATION —
[ Operation: "Silent Lattice" – COMPLETE ]
Teleport Network: Dismantled (3/3)Barge Interdiction: Successful (42 survivors rescued)Collars Neutralized: 39Mastermind: Glass Tailor – Captured (Alive)Evidence Packaged: OR vouchers, rune ash, buyer ledgersPassive Gained: Voice Returner II – Survivors recover faster in S.I.N careStanding Order: Hunt remaining Orchid Ring cells
The rescued filed through Sanctum's infirmary. Agent M sang under her breath; Revna's light stitched throats back to songs they'd been forced to sell. Ops Medicae brewed sleep into cups. Shadows kept watch like quiet doorways.
The wolf-kin child found her mother. They held each other and didn't let go for a long time.
On the river wall, Shin stood beside Silenne, steam rising from two cups in the cold.
"You chose your place well," Silenne said. "Where the first chain breaks."
Shin's smile reached her eyes.
"I like beginnings."
Silenne nudged her shoulder. "And endings?"
"Those, I leave open—so people can walk through."
The rescues on the river should have ended the whispers.
They didn't.
By week's end, OpsNet reports piled like frost: more beast-women missing—market apprentices, dock callers, inn servers. And a new sighting: a fox-eared woman in a gray maid's dress, working inside House Vesper, home of Lord Malvayne Vesper—collector of rare "artifacts," patron of "obedience arts."
Shin stood at the Sanctum map, coatdress perfect, tea untouched.
"He's not buying voices," she said softly. "He's buying lives."
Silenne, beside her: "We go quiet?"
"We go precise."
— MISSION SLIP: "Glass & Gray" —
Target: Lord Malvayne Vesper (Evil Noble)Objective: Confirm identity of maid; extract all captives; secure ledgers; disable obedience networkInfil Team: Shin (as visiting countess), Silenne (bodyguard), Petal (in-house maid), Shadow-12 (roofline)Support: Whisper 4 & 7 (perimeter tail), Krell (lock rigs), Agent M (medical), Nyen (veilfields)
Arrival
House Vesper opened like a knife—long, black stone corridors and white-iron gates. Music glinted from a winter salon; guests floated in silks and teeth.
The butler bowed to "Countess Shin Dhim."
She smiled with velvet accuracy.
"Your master's collection is famous," she said. "I hear he curates service."
A flick of her fan hid the way her eyes mapped exits, sigils, chokepoints.
Silenne walked a half-step behind, hand near hilt, expression cool thunder.
Petal vanished through the scullery door in plain gray, head bowed—another quiet maid among many.
The Maid
She found her near the garden corridor: a fox-kin woman with trimmed ears, eyes glazed like winter glass, hands red from polishing silver she couldn't remember touching.
Petal brushed past, whispering with a coin-pulse no one could hear.
"If you hear me, drop the cloth."
Nothing.
Petal's gaze slid to the girl's collar: a thin band of gray crystal threaded with runes that crawled under the skin—Mirror-Stitch Glamour. It didn't silence the voice.
It rewrote the self.
Petal swallowed. "I've got her," she breathed. "Name tag reads 'Mira.' The stitch says 'No-Name.'"
Silenne's reply clicked once in her ear. Shin's voice followed, calm as porcelain.
"On my mark."
Dinner with a Villain
Lord Malvayne was all smiles and lacquered malice. He kissed the air near Shin's hand.
"Countess, your beauty frights my mirrors."
"Mirrors don't frighten," Shin said gently. "They reflect."
He laughed too loudly. "A collector, I see."
"Of promises kept."
A hidden door breathed on her left. Floor runes hummed under the table's feet. Behind a lattice, she heard a single, choked cough.
Shin set down her cup. The room cooled.
"Let's skip dessert."
Cut the Thread
Signal.
Silenne tipped the table with one hand; the concealed runes shattered under weight.
Petal slipped a silk thread under the fox-kin's collar, sliding a tiny coin between crystal and skin.
Shadow-12 dropped through a skylight like a falling petal, pinning two ward-magi with threadline cuffs.
The collar tightened—biting into flesh.
Petal hissed. "It's keyed to the house. If we break it hard, it'll take her memories with it."
Shin's voice, right behind her now:
"Then we won't break it hard."
She touched the band with two gloved fingers.
— SKILL: Clause Reversal → Mirror-Stitch: Unweave
Glamour returns to source; identity returns to owner.
The crystal collar went dull, then fell, harmless as a ring of frost. The fox-woman staggered; Petal caught her.
"Name," Shin asked softly.
A pause. The woman blinked—slow, waking.
"S… Sori. My name is Sori."
Petal smiled like a sunrise you can hide in a pocket. "Welcome back, Sori."
Malvayne's Last Courtesy
He tried to run.
Silenne closed the salon door with one fingertip and walked him backward into a velvet chair.
"Sit," she suggested.
He sat.
"Do you know who I am?" he whispered, a smear of pride still clinging.
Shin poured herself fresh tea in his cup. Sipped. Set it down.
"A man who forgot civilization is a promise to the powerless."
Her eyes never left his. Fear stayed turned off.
"You're going to give me the ledgers, the names, the vault, and the key to anyone you bought a self from. Then you're going to sign away this house to the women who worked here. After that, you're going to learn how to sweep."
He laughed, thin. "You can't—"
Silenne laid a pen on the table. Petal placed the first ledger beside it. Shadow-12 tightened the thread cuffs until they sang.
He signed.
Below the Floor
Whisperguard pulled up panel after panel; a hidden dormitory unfolded—cots, quiet slippers, a bookshelf of blank journals. Agent M moved like light through fog, touching throats, humming names back to mouths.
Krell pried a wall safe open: vouchers, a triangle stamp—Orchid Ring—and a ledger titled, in precise hand, "Mirror Garden."
Shin's brow cooled. "We have our root."
— SYSTEM NOTIFICATION —
[ Operation: "Glass & Gray" – COMPLETE ]
Captives Recovered: 19Collars Unwoven: 19 / 19Mastermind: Lord Malvayne Vesper – Bound, Signed Confession, Assets SeizedEvidence: "Mirror Garden" ledger; OR stamps; buyer listPassive: Identity Anchor – Future Mirror-Stitch effects resist by +35% on S.I.N operatives and protected civiliansFollow-On Target: Orchid Ring: Mirror Garden Hub
When the Night Loosened
Sori stood in the courtyard, collarless, a scarf around her throat. She touched Petal's hand like she couldn't believe it was solid.
"I thought I'd… fade."
"You didn't," Petal said. "You were just… waiting where you could still be found."
Silenne approached Shin at the gate, moonlight threading their silhouettes into one shape.
"You look like you want to burn this house."
Shin's smile was small and surgical. "I already did. On paper."
She turned her face toward the river wind.
"Tomorrow we cut the garden's root."
Silenne's hand brushed hers, quick, private. "Together."
"Always," Shin said.
She lifted her tea for one last, quiet sip—and the night felt a fraction more civilized than it had an hour before.