The dawn after Brasswick's collapse brought not silence, but a sound that was almost worse: the crackle of dying fires, the groans of falling masonry, and the low, ceaseless weeping of a city that did not yet know whether it still lived.
From the heights of Parliament Hill, one could look across the span of Brasswick and mistake it for a corpse. Entire districts had folded into themselves, swallowed by rivers of brass that had cooled into jagged scars of metal. The grand spires that had once defined the skyline—those proud testaments to the city's ambition—now lay snapped, leaning like drunken giants into the haze. Smoke rose in lazy plumes from a hundred scattered fires, curling into the pale light of morning.
Yet amid ruin, movement persisted. The living always cling harder in the shadow of death.
In Cinder Market, merchants had cleared rubble enough to set up makeshift stalls. They sold broken cogs polished into trinkets, boots pulled from the dead, bread that tasted of soot. Children darted between them, their faces streaked with ash, scavenging copper pipe or lengths of wire to trade for food. In alleys, women boiled river water black with oil, straining it through cloth so their families might drink. Every corner hummed with the stubborn persistence of survival.
But survival is not healing.
The people of Brasswick whispered as they worked. Whispered of the thing that had risen from their city's bones, that terrible colossus of brass and flame that had turned streets into veins and homes into sinew. Some spoke of it with awe, others with terror. Most with silence, for silence cost nothing, and words could summon fear back from memory. Yet among the murmurs there was always one name, passed in hushed reverence and unease alike: Elric Veyne.
The detective sat in the back of a tavern rebuilt from the bones of a burned tenement. Its sign still bore scorch marks, its roof patched with tarpaulin. Inside, the air was thick with the smell of smoke and the sweetness of cheap brandy. A single gaslamp glowed in defiance against cracked walls, its flame flickering with every draft.
Elric nursed a glass of amber liquor, his hat low, his cane propped against the table. He listened, though he pretended not to.
At a table nearby, three dockworkers huddled close over mugs of sour beer. Their voices were rough, their hands scarred from hauling crates now buried in rivers of cooled brass.
"They say he outwitted it," one murmured. "The god of gears. A man with no gift, no flame, no shadow—just riddles and chalk. Outwitted it, and lived."
"Or cursed us with ruin," another growled. "If he'd failed, maybe the Machine would've ended us clean. Instead, here we rot."
The third spat on the floor, shaking his head. "I saw him. Saw the detective, I swear it. Standing calm while the sky split open. A man doesn't walk away from that and stay a man. Mark me: he's touched by it. Touched by the Phantom."
Elric sipped his brandy, expression unreadable. He had heard such talk often in the weeks since the collapse. Myths sprout quickest in broken soil, and men clung to them as if they could be rope across a chasm. But myths were lies. Lies dressed prettily, lies that spared them from facing the harder truth: survival had not been victory.
The tavern door creaked open, letting in a shaft of pale morning light. Selene slipped inside, her cloak ragged, her boots scuffed, the faint shimmer of shadow still curling at her heels. Yet even her gift was faltering; her shadows no longer hissed and writhed with vigor but fluttered like smoke in dying wind.
She crossed the room and dropped into the chair across from Elric. For a moment, they sat in silence, the air between them heavy with things neither wished to say. Finally, she smirked faintly, though her eyes were dull.
"They've made you myth," she said.
Elric glanced toward the dockworkers still muttering over their beer. "Then let them. A myth bleeds less than the man who bore it."
Selene leaned forward, elbows on the table. "The council is reforming. What's left of it. They're calling survivors from every quarter to Parliament Hall—or what's left of Parliament Hall. And the word is, they want you."
He raised an eyebrow. "Want me?"
"A seat. A voice. Perhaps even more." She shrugged, her shadows twitching faintly at the gesture. "The detective who outwitted a god. They think survival makes you fit to govern."
Elric drained the last of his brandy and set the glass down with a soft click. His gray eyes lifted to hers, steady, unflinching. "I am no governor. Brasswick has had enough of rulers who thought themselves flawless."
Selene studied him for a moment, then smiled—tired, sharp. "Maybe. But myths are rarely given the luxury of choosing their own stage."
Her words lingered as the tavern's walls creaked with the settling of beams. At first, Elric thought little of it. Buildings groaned often in Brasswick's ruin. Yet as he listened, his brow furrowed. The sound came not at random but in rhythm. A steady, patient rhythm.
Tap. Pause. Tap. Pause. Tap.
Like a gear turning far below, unseen.
Elric's hand closed around his cane, its weight suddenly heavier in his grasp. He said nothing. But his silence spoke.
And in the distance, beyond the tavern walls, the fog shifted with the faintest echo of metal.