Chapter 2
She’s Not Getting Away
LUNE
When I was young, barely old enough to know multi-plication tables, barely adept enough to write 冰 without confusing it with 水, the moon had kneeled outside my windowsill and whispered into my ear.
You’ll be someone important.
A pinky promise from the universe. It was a silver lifeline spilled over my hands, distracting me from the battling voices outside my room, asking me to grab on and pull.
Now, in the crimson swathe of police lights, there’s no moon to save me from a sweaty, stiff-lipped officer and an escaping, increasingly infuriating Fox criminal.
The second Raven crashed through the front door of the building, the magic holding me dissipated. But by the time my head stopped swimming, which is unfortunately a different timeline altogether, the police were outside and the Fox was gone.
I temper my irritation with a tug on my moonstone necklace, as if the stored lunar energy in it could calm me down.
It doesn’t work, though the familiar motion of my thumb against its chain calms me.
‘Sorry, but why can’t I help? You know the Sentinels have full jurisdiction over any descendant-related crime, and I have strict instructions to retrieve those blueprints. ’
The officer sighs and adjusts his hat. I hear the police tearing after Raven, their sirens blending into the noise of the city, and there’s a pounding in my ears that sounds like anxiety.
‘Heart rate rising rapidly,’ ALFRED says. The voice may belong to an AI, but it’s become comforting over the years. Not now, though. ‘Notifying Niko.’
‘Do not—’ I protest, but the officer begins to speak, and I have to take a very deep breath to focus.
‘Look, Kiran is on this case, and we only need one Sentinel to help. I know we all report to the government eventually, but involving more than one Sentinel at a time disrupts our formations and plans.’
‘Officer—’ I start, but I’m interrupted again.
‘Niko’s looking for you,’ ALFRED says in my ear. ‘They have assigned Kiran to retrieve the blueprints, and request your immediate return home.’
My head throbs as I relent and excuse myself, pretending the churning in my gut is concussion-grade nausea from being slammed into a wall and not, in fact, the thought of facing Niko after I’ve lost the blueprints.
They won’t be mad. As the founder of Singapore’s Sentinel trio, Niko is sorely acquainted with how quickly missions can go sideways.
Still, after programming my blasters into flight and tracking a route back to Lain Co.
, I unclasp my blasters and sword by my windowsill.
Edge my thumb under the clasp of my armour and snap it off, chucking it by my bed.
Wipe the sweat from my forehead and straighten my shoulders the way my mother trained me to, as if Niko would ever require that of me, as if they weren’t the one who saved me from her in the first place.
I check myself in the bedroom mirror before I leave, smoothing the frays of my ponytail down with a flat hand like I’ve wrapped Lune up and I’m pressing the final crease into her package, tucking her away for the next time she’s needed.
Nothing shows I’m a Sentinel now. My lunar powers stay firmly lodged in my chest, kept just out of reach from the normalcy of Tia Njauw.
Without my armour or my helmet, I feel like a hermit crab without a shell, my flesh exposed.
All the crime-fighting and training sessions with Niko haven’t been enough to whittle the give from my muscles, my shoulders stubbornly gentle and my tummy soft.
I slip out of my room and pad down the stretching hallway of intricate wall lights, grounding myself on the cold marble tile.
Lain Co.’s luxurious penthouse used to belong to Niko’s parents.
When their parents passed, they’d revamped it into a home for themself and their partner Kiran, then converted Lain Co.
from a technological company into a research centre.
Its motto became ‘By descendants, for descendants’, and it focused on research and development for descendant- and magic-related technology while, of course, handling all needs for its local team of Sentinels: Niko and Kiran.
Fast-forward a couple of years and they’d taken me in like their own, turning the Lain Co. penthouse into my home too.
I find Niko in their usual state: pacing the living room in boxers, their dark brows furrowed.
Small in stature (just under my nose), their movements are woven with grace but their frame is skulking and hunched, like their body has grown over their twenty-five years to reject softness.
Even their hair, recently trimmed by the ears but overgrown practically everywhere else, lies black and spiky against their skull.
They run their thumb over the scar that stretches over their collarbone, a nervous habit.
The frown on Niko’s face, usually clumsy from disuse, has grown near-permanent over the last month.
A month ago, an American mission to the moon brought in a new strain of moonstones, and descendants have begun to realize there’s a lot more power in the pure stones than initially thought.
Charged under the moon, moonstones radiate a solar-type light, mild and stable, and crucial after the last global energy crisis.
With this new strain seemingly much more potent, and since Lain Co. is the only research centre for descendant technology in all of Southeast Asia, Niko’s been pressured almost brutally by both the public and the government to figure out exactly how much more power these moonstones hold.
I stand behind the couch and rest my hands on the pillows. ‘Magic Department bothering you again?’ I ask.
They twist round with a shout and a fast right hook, almost clipping my cheek.
As the only recorded nymph descendant in Singapore, Niko’s existence carries stereotypes of grace, beauty and purity – but fact could not be further from fiction.
The only assets Niko got from their Indonesian ancestor Dewi Nawang Wulan were charm, the ability to manipulate their environment, super-strength and a pretty face.
I’m sure they crushed grace, beauty and purity in the womb.
The second Niko realizes it’s me, their eyes widen. ‘Sorry, didn’t realize you were home. And no, Teacup, I’m more concerned about you.’
Their gaze cuts to the living-room projector, which is when I realize they’re watching the footage from the camera in my helmet. Embarrassing.
I shift my weight. ‘I’m okay, just sorry I lost the blueprints. I know they’re important.’
Niko sighs and buries their head in their hands.
‘The Magic Department won’t be happy, true, but I called you back because I want you to focus on something more important than those blueprints – the gala.
Our sources have intelligence that suggests Raven will be at the gala tonight, where we’ll have a higher chance of cornering her.
I saw you take a couple of hits – are you sure you’re up for tonight’s mission? ’
Of course I am. The gala is the biggest media event of the year for the Sentinels, and considering how the moonstones from the American mission are being analysed by Lain Co.
, we’ve suspected Raven would crash the gala – she’d be camouflaged amongst the influx of people in the company, and Lain Co.
’s moonstones and research would be ripe for the picking.
It’s put me on edge for weeks. The Fox clan seems to have taken an interest in the moonstones, and Raven has helmed every heist. Catching her has quickly risen to top priority.
I don’t realize how quiet I’ve gone until Niko collapses on the couch and rests a hand on my wrist.
I meet their gaze and almost flinch. Their face carries a concern so heavy that their usually bright features struggle, working through worry lines clumsily.
‘You sure everything’s all right?’ I ask.
Niko’s lips part. The unease in their expression gains a new flatmate: reluctance.
‘It’s difficult. You already know these new moonstones have an ability to harness lunar energy like no other element we’ve seen.
They’re practically a power source, and with the amount that the Foxes have gathered, and the information from those blueprints they took today .
. .’ Niko rests their elbows on their knees, fixing their eyes on the projector.
‘I think I have an idea of what’s going on, but I’ll have to discuss it with Kiran.
We’ll brief you tomorrow. For now, tonight is about damage control, which means finding Raven and appeasing the CEO who was caught up in the heist. I heard he’s been shaken by what happened. ’
Moonstones have always been scarce, given they’re only ever retrieved during space missions to the moon (see also: not very frequent).
The government has pledged to spend the next decade working on using moonstones for renewable energy, and Lain Co.
and the Sentinels have worked right by their side for moonstone research and protection.
It helps that moonstones give me energy with every sunrise and moonset. As a descendant of Chang’e, my veins are steeped in magic, but my energy waxes and wanes with the moon cycle. I touch the moonstone hung round my neck. Without it, I’d barely have enough energy to get through the day.
So what on earth do the Foxes want with them?
Worry twitches in my calf. I fence it in like always, resist the urge to shake it out of my legs. ‘Remind me about the plan for tonight?’ The need to catch Raven turns my voice desperate, and I don’t bother hiding it.
At this, Niko perks up with pre-hunt excitement.
‘We have yaoguai in place, and our guest list says we’ll have four-hundred-odd people.
The Descendant Department granted us a honing spell to mark Raven’s general position once the yaoguai find her, and Kiran and I will force her out of the gala hall and into the lift lobby.
All exits will be blocked off, and ALFRED has been programmed to send the lift straight to the lab’s lobby, where—’
‘I’ll be waiting to get her. Got it. But the spell isn’t totally accurate, right? We won’t know exactly where she is.’
‘Raven’s smart.’ Niko fiddles with the projector remote, and blows up a grainy image of Raven’s shifty gaze into an HD horror on the wall. ‘Once she sees the spell, she’s going to try to run. It’ll be obvious.’
‘Who’ll run?’ The lift dings an unwelcome arrival, and I register the voice – familiar, cocky, snappy – like poison in my gut.