The workshop smelled of oil and burnt copper. Cogwheels, tiny as clock hands and vast as carriage wheels, lay scattered in neatly chaotic piles. Steam hissed softly from a kettle balanced precariously atop an engine, and on every surface lay half-assembled inventions: insect-like automatons, lenses of greenish glass, and coils of wire that hummed faintly as if alive.
Amid this chaos stood Dr. Evangeline Crowthorne, sleeves rolled to her elbows, smudges of soot across her pale cheek. She had the air of someone listening to music only she could hear. Her hands moved quickly, tightening a gear here, adjusting a piston there, while her lips murmured faintly — not to herself, but to the machine.
"Machines whisper," Selene muttered under her breath, arms folded as she leaned in the doorway. "Wonderful. She's mad."
"She's gifted," Elric corrected. "Listen."
As though to prove his point, Evangeline touched the copper chassis of a clockwork bird. It shivered once, then sprang to life, wings fluttering. It perched upon her shoulder, chittering like a living thing.
Elric stepped forward. "Dr. Crowthorne, I presume."
She turned, eyes bright with curiosity. "Detective Veyne. And you brought guests. A soldier who heals faster than a stitcher can blink, and a thief who dances in shadows. Yes, I've heard of you. All of you."
Hollis stiffened. "Heard from whom?"
Evangeline's expression darkened. "My father. He was taken two nights ago. By men who left behind the mark of the broken gear."
A silence fell. Then she lifted a bundle of papers, thrusting them toward Elric. "Before they came, he left these. Blueprints, coded, hidden in the teeth of a gear. He told me only one thing: 'The city itself is being rewritten.'"
Elric unfolded the papers. Lines, circles, calculations. A map, but not of streets — of power conduits, steam lines, gearworks beneath the city. And on them, symbols. Dozens of them.
Selene leaned in, whispering: "He's building something. Something enormous."
Evangeline's eyes flicked to hers. "And if we don't stop him, Brasswick will not belong to men anymore. It will belong to the Machine."