Brasswick was never silent.The city groaned and breathed like a living machine, its veins filled with steam, its bones of iron and copper riveted tight. The night air hung thick with soot and vapor, the gaslamps glowing faintly through the rolling fog that clung to every narrow street like a secret. Carriages clattered on cobblestones, their wheels hissing as they passed beneath whirring sky-rails, while automaton watchmen clicked in mechanical patrols.
Yet beneath the mechanical heartbeat of the Empire, whispers stirred — whispers of the Phantom Engineer.
Detective Elric Veyne knew those whispers well. A man of sharp cheekbones, silvered spectacles, and a cane more ornate than his modest salary could afford, he had chased criminals of every breed through Brasswick's labyrinth of gears and shadows. But this enemy was different. Always unseen, always two steps ahead. Factories would implode without warning. Vaults would be emptied while their locks remained sealed. And now, even those who possessed the Gift — men and women touched by forces beyond science — were being hunted like prey.
The Empire's gifted, or Anomalists, were rare but feared: a woman who could bend flames into shapes like glass; a boy whose touch pulled secrets from paper and ink; a soldier who healed from bullets before they left a scar. They were as much distrusted as they were needed. And someone was killing them.
Tonight, in the old quarter, another body had been found.
Elric tightened his cloak against the wet air as he descended the crooked steps to the alley. A constable with brass epaulettes tipped his cap.
"Third one this week, sir. Same mark."
Elric's cane tapped sharply against the stones as he crouched beside the corpse. A young man, pale, his lifeless eyes wide with shock. Etched upon the throat, in ink darker than blood, was the sigil that had become all too familiar: a single gear, broken cleanly in half.
The Phantom Engineer's signature.
But there was something worse. Elric lifted the young man's hand, stiffening under rigor. The skin bore faint burns, as if lightning had danced across his veins. An Anomalist, then. Another one gone.
The constable shifted nervously."How does he keep doing it, sir? Even the gifted… even them he finds a way to—"
Elric stood abruptly, his voice low."He doesn't just kill them, Constable. He studies them. Learns them. Outsmarts them. And if we do not discover how, he will have every last Anomalist in the Empire broken upon his gears."
Above them, hidden in the fog, a faint sound echoed: the turning of unseen clockwork. A laugh, soft as steam escaping a valve.
The Phantom Engineer was listening.