Juno Vale

Finder — locates and lifts curios, mostly for other people, occasionally for herself

Juno Vale is the best finder in Cinderwick, a fact she will tell you herself, usually while climbing out a window. Late twenties, quick hands and a quicker mouth, she can read a lock, a mark, or a room in about the time it takes you to sit down. She works freelance, stays broke on purpose (money you keep is money the Ordinal can trace), and treats every job as a chance to prove she is smarter than everyone who ever doubted her.

What she wants (and needs)

Wants: the one big score — the job that puts her out of reach of the Ordinal for good, so she never has to take orders again.
Needs: to let someone in. Juno works alone because the last person she trusted sold her to the Ordinal for the price of a night-mail ticket. Alone has kept her free. It has also kept her stuck.

The flaw that costs her

She can’t walk away from a dare — from the impossible lock, the room she’s not supposed to be in, the job everyone says can’t be done. It’s why she’s the best. It’s also exactly the hook the Ordinal will use to reel her in, and she’ll see it coming and take the job anyway.

Contradiction

Trusts no one, and yet cannot stop collecting people — the mudlark she slips coins to, the fence she pretends to only tolerate. She calls it leverage. It is, more honestly, the family she won’t admit she’s building.

Voice

Wry, fast, first-person past tense. Notices exits, tells, and the price of everything. Deflects feeling with a joke — but the joke is always aimed a little at herself.

Appears in

The Cinderwick Job novelette