Caladon, a mobile city of Victoria. In one of its corners lies an Infected district where the Infected live gathered together. The chimneys of the Originium factories belch smoke all night long, and workers coming off their shifts drift toward a single old shop.

That shop is the 'Green Spark.' Everyone takes it for a bar, but it's really a botanical-lamp craft shop, and behind the counter stands a Feline Infected girl, Susie Glitter. She has an Arts that sends sparks flying from her fingertips, and she smiles easily.

Susie has held a dream for a long time: to buy this shop and begin a life under her own name. And now, at last, that dream is almost within her grasp.

6,500 pounds — that scrap of paper was a bridge across to her dream

Fried fins, bland potato soup, and flavorless fruit wine are all the shop has to offer. Even so, it had its regulars — the Infected Stone and Bean, and Jims, who isn't Infected yet dropped by every day. Even on days when she was beaten in the streets for being Infected, in this shop at least Susie could smile.

For the Infected, a dream is a luxury. Most just fill their bellies however they can and live waiting for their illness to deepen. Even so, Susie scrimped for years and saved up 6,500 pounds.

On the appointed day, the shop's owner was supposed to come. But who showed up was a regular — Bitter Root, a 'specialist' from Rhodes Island. As it turned out, the Green Spark was a Rhodes Island asset, and he was its owner.

Susie said she wanted to open a hair salon. Her father had been a barber.

Cutting hair may seem like a trivial thing… but someone who wants to make themselves look nice surely still believes in life.

— Susie

The contract was signed without fuss. The regulars crowded in to celebrate, and Susie ended up in tears. Tomorrow she'd be the manager. For an Infected, this was almost too luxurious a happiness.

But the next morning, smoke rose into the sky

A great fire shattered the peaceful morning.

The sign reading 'Green Spark' was left as nothing but a charred fragment, and the walls and roof had melted away. The place that until yesterday had been her dream and her future was now a ruin.

Someone had set the fire, and no one even knew why.

The will that had held the girl up could no longer support her frail body. Susie sank down where she stood.

To the girl standing at the building's edge, a stranger — a witch — spoke

A few days later, in an abandoned district on the city's outskirts. Susie stood precariously at the window of a collapsed building.

Haze appeared before her — a Feline witch who wanders Caladon, doting tenderly on stray cats and Infected children.

In truth, Haze was in the final stage of Oripathy. She had come to this deserted place to quietly end her life. And of all things, she had run into a child about to jump.

Haze scolded Susie. Someone else destroyed your dream — so why are you trying to ruin the last thing you have left?

If you've lost something, go take it back. The one who ought to fall off this building is the bastard who wrecked your dream. Isn't that right?

— Haze

The moment Susie finally changed her mind, Haze collapsed. Dark red blood ran from her mouth and nose. Any Infected knows exactly what that means.

Susie hoisted the witch onto her back and ran into the city, crying out for anyone — anyone at all — to save her. Just then, Red, an Infected laborer who liked to sit alone in the shop reading books, appeared.

Burning down the shop wasn't an accident — it was the crumb of a certain plan

In front of the burned shop, the mounted officer Grani clenched her fist. She was one of the few peacekeepers willing to help the Infected district.

At the scene were fragments of a military incendiary shell. The guard corps wanted to write it off as an accident and bury it, but Grani dug in.

The incendiary shell came from the military factory of Count Bishmar. And the captain of the guard corps was Bishmar's nephew.

Around the same time, there was a kidnapping aimed at the aged Councilman Angst. Rioters disguised as Infected seized the Rhodes Island specialist Skyfire instead of the councilman and dragged her off to an empty factory.

That was a grave mistake. Skyfire was a Caster of the Mountvellan family, and after incinerating the entire stockpile of explosives with her flames to neutralize them, she subdued the rioters outright.

The pieces fell into place. Bishmar had siphoned off the factory's equipment with the city council's money, then meant to blow up the factory and pin it on 'the Infected' to cover up his embezzlement.

The fire at the Green Spark was an incendiary shell hurled by two of the rioters preparing that plan as they chased the fleeing Haze. Susie's dream, which had nothing to do with any of it, had been caught up in someone else's scheme and burned away.

In an underground passage, sparks flew

In the meantime, Susie had gone missing. To press her about the 'witness' he'd written into his report, the captain of the guard had dragged Susie into the underground logistics passage.

The shop owner Quercus made her move. Known as the 'Druid of Gododdin,' she was in truth a courier of Rhodes Island.

Just then an explosion far off shook the underground. The hideout where Grani had been cornering the rioters had blown up entirely, together with the Originium explosives piled inside. The collapsing structural floor came down on the guard captain.

In the chaos, Red appeared and flung Susie to safety. As it turned out, he was a formidable man who wielded a flaming sword.

And then Susie came face to face with Bishmar, who had survived.

A man who had burned down a shop and tried to harm countless innocent Infected, all for mere money. Sparks flew from every inch of Susie's body. She seized the councilman by the throat.

Who are you… to ruin my everyday life. Who do you think you are……

— Susie

As Bishmar foamed at the mouth and his breath grew faint, Quercus rushed over and threw her arms around Susie. Even as the sparks seared her flesh, she would not let go.

Someone like this… isn't even worth killing. Let's go home.

— Quercus

There was no Green Spark left to go home to, Susie sobbed quietly.

Even in the ashes, a flame remained

Bishmar was taken into custody, and the guard corps was handed over to the mounted police. Councilman Angst's proposal passed by a margin of exactly one vote.

The 153-year-old Councilman Angst said he would step down next year. Saying he had no attachment left to his title or his station, he left behind just a single line.

The times must change, Mountvellan.

— Councilman Angst

Susie became a 'city hero,' but all she held in her hands was one large certificate. Haze survived — Rhodes Island had treated her acute attack.

Quercus asked her: how about making drinks somewhere else, and trying her hand at cutting hair? Wouldn't she like to pay Rhodes Island a visit?

Looking back, this city was full of hidden hands — Rhodes Island's Bitter Root and Quercus, and even Red and Bean of Reunion, who had shed their emblem to quietly prop up the Infected district.

Far out in the wastes, a suspicious merchant known as 'the Canned One' was extending a hand to Reunion, saying the world was falling apart. For better or worse, someone had to do something, he said.

At the end of the black storm clouds, a flame still glimmers.

— Cannot

The 'Green Spark' was reduced to ashes. But the green flame of that name has not yet gone out — neither on Susie's fingertips nor in this dark city.