NOTE: This may not be the final revision, published form may vary.

"I think that is about everything."

The last words on the case hung in the stale office air. I leaned forward, elbows on the scarred wood of my desk, feeling the nostalgia of the moment settling in.

Mira gave a slow nod, the kind that takes its time peeling through layers of thought. “And you didn’t even embellish too much.”

"So, Ms.—"

"Akasha," she cut in, her voice smooth as aged whiskey. "Just Akasha. No need for the formalities. We’re well past the handshake stage."

"Guess you right," Mira said with a faint smile playing on her lips, a mirror to my own.

"As I was about to ask," I continued, "anything else the DuskWire Gazette needs to know before the ink hits the presses?"

She paused, pen hovering mid-air, and lifted her eyes from the pad she'd been furiously scratching on. They bored into me, a jackhammer on a cold street. "Yeah, two things. First, why'd you leave Lucien breathing? The man tried to put you in the ground three times over."

"Ah," I drawled, leaning back, my boots finding their perch on the desk's edge. "Did he now? More like an inconvenience. Besides, we were hired to find him, not play judge, jury, and executioner."

"So, you're an altruistic PI, then?"

"Is that your second question, sweetheart? Because I’ve heard better from drunk cabbies at 3 AM."

"No," she smirked. "Professional curiosity."

I gave a shrug. "Let's just say I dance to my own tune. Somewhere between a saint and a son of a bitch."

"Fair enough." She tapped her pen against the pad. "The second question, more of an observation, really, and it's been gnawing at me for hours: neither of you smoke. No nicotine stains, no tell-tale scent. Yet in the story, there’s smokes everywhere. Why was it a point in the telling of the tale?"

A genuine laugh barked from my throat. "Poetic license, doll. Figured your audience would appreciate a little grit in their morning paper. Make them feel like they’re close to danger without getting their shoes dirty."

She jotted a note, her pen scratching like a rat in the walls. "I think the Gazette would be interested in running more than just this story... if you're amenable."

Mira rose and swatted at my boots, a wordless command. She then turned to Akasha, gesturing toward a stack of files that loomed like gravestones. 

“Well,” she said, “judging by that mess, there’s stories waiting to be told.”

I looked at them both and let the grin stretch across my face. "Because DuskWire never sleeps, and neither do we."