Snow dribbled down the young thief's neck and back. It sent icy shivers across his hunched body. His hands remained warm, though. His black beanie stretched between them, acting as a tent and shield for the fragile linkcard he typed into. The card's display glowed white and blue, making controls easy to read even in the alley's deep shadows. As his fingers danced, he sucked on the sore in his cheek. Done.

He ran the routine to set off the first house's alarms. Silence reigned in the night air. "Rot it!" he murmured.

Snow crunched as his small group shifted uneasily. Karsya, his second-in-command, snorted. Hand on her hip, she slid into his field of vision. "What, M'yu? Feeling the need to add some theatrics to your triumph?"

"Shut up." My'u muttered, but a smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. Then it faded. "We have an actual problem this time."

Karsya leaned in, her hair slipping over M'yu's shoulder. He tipped the screen of the linkcard toward her. The word ERROR hovered a nail's breadth off the card, and beneath that, port connection out of bounds.

Karsya's scoff puffed hot against his face. "No. No, we tested the distance earlier—"

"It wasn't snowing earlier." He stowed the linkcard in his coat, fingers slipping deftly into the hidden pocket.

"You—" Karsya drew herself up, silhouette straight-backed and imperial enough, M'yu could almost forget she wasn't part of the Cap Houses. Growing up, she'd slaved in the Magnate's mansion, and dealing with spoiled brats had trained her well enough that if you dressed her up and swapped her out for one of them now, M'yu wasn't sure even their own mothers would know the difference.

"You didn't account for the all-eternal, ever-capping snow?" Her voice burned colder than the ice, and she kicked one of the three-foot drifts along the alleyside. As snow sprayed up, Lania, the youngest of their group, yelped and jumped back.

"Who's being theatrical now?" M'yu tugged on a pair of worn, mismatched gloves and dug through his pockets. "Save your voice. You'll need it to yell at the Caps later."

His eyes flicked up to Karsya's. Her glare slowly melted, and they both grinned, teeth flashing in the dark like skulls. Past her, though, the other three huddled together, jaws chattering and eyes downcast.

"Hey," M'yu called softly. His step crunched on the snow. "Come on, now. It's just a hiccup. Plan goes same as ever."

The older two glanced up, but Lania's too-large boot just scuffed the ground. "Plan was for the group to be twice as big," she muttered.

"So?" He toed her boot with his own. "Group don't have to be twice as big long as it's twice as brave."

"Aw, cut the rot, M'yu," complained Dahnko, one of the older boys.

Still, Lania's eyes lifted, and M'yu nodded at her. "You got this," he promised.

"And what about you?" Karsya drawled behind him, fake Cap accent thick. "Do you 'got' this?"

M'yu glanced over his shoulder and held up the witchcandy he'd pulled from his pocket earlier. "When do I not?"

A wicked grin split her face. "You cannot be seriously thinking of doing magic right now. You need your brain to code, idiot."

The sore in his mouth twanged, and he ran his tongue over it as if to shut it up. "Who says I can't have both?"

"M'yu—"

He slipped past her, hands spread out. "We've been practicing this for weeks. I could run these routines in my sleep."

"I still think we should just set the Magnate's house on fire." Her gaze dropped to his, her warm brown eyes deadly serious. "He deserves worse."

The boys muttered agreement, and a chill ran through M'yu. Her and him had argued about this for the last week, and more and more as victory drew closer. She thought he was too soft on the Caps because of what'd happened when he was thirteen, shortly after his uncle died. He thought she didn't know what she was asking for—it was one thing to see it and another to do it.

But for now, he just rolled his eyes. "Like you'd be able to get that close. We stick to the plan, yeah? Make a fuss, get the card, get out. That easy."

One of the boys opened his mouth, and M'yu forestalled whatever trouble he was about to propose by raising his little bit of witchcandy in the air. A piece of the mushroom's stalk crumbled over his glove; his teeth grit at the waste, but he forced his lips into a smile. "Up with the innocent!" he whispered.

"Down with the powerful!" they softly called back.

M'yu tipped his head back and crumbled the mushroom into his mouth. It hit sharp and gritty on his tongue, like a hot meal in a thousand little bites. The growing hole in his cheek burned, and he swallowed quickly. The key, his mom used to say, is not to savor it. Your stomach can handle it; your mouth can't.

Karsya stepped close and gripped his wrist. His soaked coat pressed against his arm, and the back of his neck warmed. "Stay safe, alright?"

The witchcandy already sloshed in his thoughts like melting snow. He nodded tightly, trying to form the effect into some coherent shape. Karsya released him, and he squeezed his eyes shut. The cold air stabbed his nostrils as he breathed in deep. In school, they'd always said the witchcandy was just a chemical effect—pick the right strain of mushroom, the right amount, and a biologically average individual, and you'd get a clinical, predictable outcome. His mom had always couched it in layers of art and feeling and mysticism.

He thought about it in terms of control.

Spiders could churn proteins together to form a substance stronger than steel; rock lizards could force the color of their skin to match their surroundings; fireflies could produce light more efficiently than any electricity source. All chemicals under control, changing their environment. What stopped him from changing his?

M'yu breathed out in a slow stream, and a dark mist poured from his lips. It flowed down, hazing the outline of his form. Lania giggled, and the sound reverberated in his head, loud and bright and everything. Control. The world swayed, laughter pitching higher. He steeled his mind, blocked out everything but the feeling of his shoes against the ground and the witchcandy running through his veins. Control. He turned, blowing another black cloud in front of him, and slipped out of the safety of the alley.

The streetlights burned bright here, puddles of glaring yellow against the snow. Along the row, elegant, snow-covered houses spilled light like fancy frosted cakes. Shadows were scarce, so M'yu made his own. Breathing steadily, the witchcandy mist surrounded him, and he kept to the edges of the light. The snow fell harder, and his eyes blurred with the motion, white streaks filling his vision and expanding in dancing fractals...

M'yu clamped his jaw tight, forcing his vision to clear. Control. A hundred yards down, the Cap soldiers stood guard over a grand, usually empty house. M'yu scoffed. He'd lured the show-offs here to stake him out, and they couldn't even bother to keep a low profile. He pushed back a rush of excitement. Whether they were sloppy or not, a mistake for him here, now, would destroy months of careful, dangerous planning, throw away every hope he'd had for the last two cold, hungry years, and get him killed—or worse, enslaved.

The mist slacked off, and he blew out hard, covering himself in the security of shadows.

Two doors nearer than the Cap's hideout stood the tallest, brightest house in the entire Gloam and M'yu's first target: the local Magnate's mansion. That house had guards too, but they leaned against the walls and huddled under the eaves, talking to each other in slurred words. Bottles of truffle beer that a flirting Karsya had brought them earlier lay empty at their feet. He crept closer, staying low and occasionally peering into his coat to check his connection.

When he was starting to wonder if he was going to have to go knock on their capping door to get a signal, the error message finally disappeared. The witchcandy buzzed in his veins, blurring the code on the screen. He took a deep breath in, blew mist out, and hit 'run.'

The lights in the Magnate's house went dark, his security system blaring. Inside, a girl shrieked, and her cry rang in M'yu's head like a routine he couldn't quit. Control. He tucked the linkcard back in his pocket and ran low down the street, hurrying to get out of his gang's way.

As he slid into a different alley, one with a good view of the Cap's hideout, the hollers of Lania and the two boys rang out behind him. Rocks thunked against wooden walls; glass shattered. Hands shaking, M'yu pulled the card back out and prepped the next routine.

He'd prodded the empty house's security system several times over the last week. Before they'd ever rolled in, he'd already scoped out all the weaknesses in the sensors and the cameras—and more importantly, the potential ways they might upgrade on arrival. He had an off switch memorized for each scenario he knew and a counterattack for the ones he couldn't possibly know. Now, as he connected his stolen linkcard to their house, he scanned their system, searching for their chosen buffs.

He blinked. Blinked again. Control, he scolded himself. But it wasn't the witchcandy messing with him. There really was nothing new showing on the system. The rotting Caps had waltzed into his part of town, looking for him, and they didn't even have the decency to prep their own defenses.

A thrill ran through him. Maybe his folks really did stand a chance.

As the Magnate's house continued to scream, M'yu tapped into the Cap house's windows and typed out the code to unlock them all.

"What are you just standing there for?" Karsya shrieked, and M'yu jumped. But of course, she was across the street, pretending to be a lady in her newly purchased silk gown, berating the Cap soldiers. "My father will have your heads! They're attacking our house, and you're just standing—"

But what guards weren't taken in by the motivation of earning the Magnate's favor were certainly motivated by earning his ire because half the force detached from their station and ran down the street.

M'yu knocked out their sensors and cameras in a single, clever line of code, stowed his card, and dashed across the street. He blew out the end of his dwindling witchcandy, not that it made much difference; what guards hadn't abandoned their post were ogling the spectacle. M'yu swallowed thickly as he pushed a side window open. Things had just begun and time was already running out. If his vandalizing friends hadn't run off already—and they rotting well should've—then they would soon.

Lifting himself through the window, M'yu descended into an empty living room. Inside, the Magnate's alarm was a muted noise, no more noticeable than a hover gliding down the road. He was out of tricks now; the witchcandy was a useless trickle from his mouth, the linkcard limited to unlocking doors and doing things that would only serve to wake the Caps up. He was back to wits and good old-fashioned sneaking. He tested his shoes on the ground, winced at the scrape the snow made against the wood, and tugged them off.

Glancing either way, he hurried through the halls.

His goal was upstairs, the upper right room. Since it had the largest windows, he figured when the Caps descended, whichever self-important snot was the most important of the bunch would take up residence there. And that was the man's linkcard they needed. M'yu's card must have belonged to some Capital engineer at some point, but he was a gnat in the grand scheme of things. And M'yu didn't want to break into buildings.

M'yu wanted to break the whole system.

He ducked around corners, checking for guards, but all their soldiers must have been outside or asleep. A laugh burbled in his chest, and he swallowed it down. Arrogant, arrogant snots!

House quiet, he crept up to the second floor. Tables in alcoves along the wall held vases and busts of the Tsaright that were probably worth more than most people's lives. A window capped the hall, letting in the meager moonlight. Below, the Magnate's house was dark, the soldiers crawling around its base. It would be a matter of minutes—maybe less—before they disabled the alarm and realized the offenders had already run off. M'yu set his shoes down and hurried to his target door, slipping out the linkcard for one final unlock.

From one of the alcoves, a shadowed figure peeled into the hallway. "Are you sure you want to do that?"