By dusk, the city's old gearworks loomed ahead: a derelict foundry of rusted teeth and broken pistons. Its windows were dark eyes, its chimneys coughing smoke long after the factory was abandoned.
Elric and Selene crept inside. The air was thick with oil and mildew. Rows of broken machines stood like giants fallen to rust. But deeper within, light glimmered: lanterns burning over a grotesque tableau.
Bodies — Anomalists — were strapped to iron frames. Wires burrowed into their flesh, their veins alight with faint electric glow. Their eyes were open but lifeless, their gifts drained like coal from a furnace.
Selene gasped, her hand trembling at her lips."He's… studying us. Taking what makes us alive and feeding it to his machines."
Elric bent over a control panel, brass dials humming faintly. "No. Not feeding. Learning. Every gift broken down, made mechanical."
The air hissed. A gear above them turned, though no hand touched it. Steam belched from pipes. The entire foundry shuddered to life around them.
"Welcome, Detective," a voice purred from the walls themselves. Metallic, yet taunting."Welcome, thief. Do forgive the mess. One cannot craft perfection without spare parts."
The floor buckled. Pistons slammed downward, gears spun like jaws closing. Elric grabbed Selene's hand and ran as the foundry collapsed around them in a storm of grinding iron.
They burst through a shattered doorway, the night air filling their lungs as the gearhouse groaned and caved behind them. In the smoke, Elric swore he heard it — the laugh of the Phantom Engineer, carried on steam.