Mina gains Domino from rejected complaint tickets. The review residue points toward Clarence Vale.
Rainwater poured through the Underpass Bazaar in shining ropes, and Mr. Grit used both asphalt hands to shove Mina Park behind a noodle stall before the floating receipt bit her.
The receipt snapped its paper teeth where her wrist had been. Its ink read VALE in reverse, then blurred into a smear of gold. All around them, monster clients haggled under plastic tarps: a moth woman selling burnt lightbulbs, a horned courier licking stamps, three puddles arguing over a single umbrella. Mina's support-line queue kept vibrating in her coat pocket even though she had pulled the battery out five minutes ago.
"You said this was a market," Mina hissed.
"It is," Mr. Grit said. "Everything here wants exact change."
The receipt lunged again. Mina slapped it with the duplicate complaint ticket from One-Star Support. Paper hit paper. The ticket hissed, turned gray, and trapped the receipt flat against a crate of curse melons.
A woman behind the crate clapped once. She had nine brass finger caps, one missing finger, and a smile sharp enough to cut rain. "That was either skill or panic."
"Panic is my most trained department," Mina said.
"Orla Ninefingers." The woman lifted the pinned receipt with silver tongs. "I sell case clues, not comfort. Your asphalt friend owes me for bringing trouble under my roof."
Mr. Grit bristled. A pebble fell from his shoulder into a soup pot. "I am a customer."
"You are a leak with opinions."
Mina stepped between them before the soup became a lawsuit. "I need to know who altered his one-star review."
Orla's gaze dropped to Mina's headset, still clamped around her neck. "One-Star Support sent a child?"
"One-Star Support sent no one. I followed the evidence."
"Same thing, more overtime." Orla set the receipt under a magnifying lens made from a frozen raindrop. Gold dust crawled along the paper edge like tiny insects. "A true complaint has weight. This was filed by Mr. Grit, then shaved. Someone changed the customer rating after the summon."
Mina took out her phone. It showed no battery, no signal, and thirteen missed calls from Juno. The support-line queue opened anyway.
CALLER: UNKNOWN
REVIEW: ONE STAR
ISSUE: HANDLER IS ASKING QUESTIONS ABOVE HER WAGE.
Orla whistled. "That is fast retaliation."
"Can you trace it?"
"Can you pay?"
Mina had seven dollars, a transit card, and Aunt Nari's text about rice prices. Mr. Grit looked at her, then peeled a strip of yellow lane paint from his own cheek and dropped it on Orla's counter.
Orla's smile vanished. "That hurts."
"So did being called decorative."
The leverage changed hands. Orla picked up the paint strip with more respect than she had shown either of them. "Fine. One clue for one humiliation."
She pressed the strip against the receipt. The gold dust flared into the shape of an eyelash. Mina leaned closer. Not Clarence's full seal, but a charm fragment used by noble summoners to make bad ratings look like grateful feedback. The residue twitched toward Ivorystone Tower before snapping back.
"Aureate Circle," Mina said.
"A junior hand," Orla corrected. "Too messy for Selene Ivory. Too vain for a clerk. Clarence Vale enjoys leaving perfume on a theft."
Mr. Grit's mouth opened in a tarry grin. "I knew I hated him with accuracy."
Something brushed Mina's ankle. She looked down.
A cat made of folded complaint tickets sat in the gutter, its ears stapled from rejection slips. It had ink blotches for eyes and a tail made of call logs. The paper cat chewed the corner of the unknown one-star ticket, swallowed, and coughed up a neat black pawprint on Mina's shoe.
Orla backed away. "That is not mine."
The cat blinked. On its forehead, a label appeared: DOMINO. RETURNED MAIL. NO HANDLER.
Mina crouched. "Did the queue send you?"
Domino opened its paper mouth and released a dial tone. Then it pounced on the gold eyelash residue. The residue squealed. The cat bit it in half.
Orla stared. "Rejected complaint tickets do not usually make familiars."
"Do they usually eat forged customer ratings?"
"No. They usually become municipal confetti."
Mr. Grit leaned down. Domino hissed a printed NO at him.
Mina picked up the cat because no one else looked willing. It weighed less than a menu and shivered with every vibration from her dead phone. A warm line of ink ran from its paw to the captured receipt, then toward Clarence Vale's account name.
"If I take Domino," Mina said, "does that count as stealing from the market?"
Orla slid the frozen magnifier away. "If that thing chose you, the market is relieved."
Mina tucked Domino inside her coat. The cat immediately bit through her pocket lining and settled against the phone, purring in busy-signal clicks. Cost noted: one coat pocket, possibly one normal life.
Her queue flashed again.
CALLER: CLARENCE VALE
REVIEW: PENDING
ISSUE: RATE MY SERVICE BEFORE SUNRISE.
Mr. Grit cracked his knuckles. Rain popped on the hot tar of his hands.
Mina stared at the new ticket, then at the gold eyelash residue fading on the crate. Clarence was not hiding now. He was daring a night-shift worker to touch the score that made him untouchable.
Domino coughed once.
A live complaint ticket landed in Mina's palm, already bleeding five gold stars.