Amir moved deeper into the street, letting the crowd flow around him. He was just another working stiff now, dressed in his practical clothes, his flat cap pulled low. No one looked at him twice. No one cared. That was the beauty of Steelhaven—in a city of millions, you could disappear completely.
The Ironheart District was waking up in earnest now. The street was filling with bodies—factory workers trudging toward their shifts, street vendors hawking their wares, children darting between legs on errands for their parents. The noise was building: the clang of boots on metal plates, the shouts of vendors, the hiss of steam vents, the distant roar of factory machinery grinding through another day.
Amir passed a street preacher standing on a wooden crate, his voice hoarse from shouting. "The Gears are turning against us! The gods demand sacrifice, but what have we given? Only our souls, ground into the machine!" A small crowd had gathered, listening with the polite indifference of people who'd heard it all before. Amir didn't slow. Prophets and madmen were a dime a dozen in this city.
He walked past a small shrine built into the side of a building—a stone alcove dedicated to the Iron Mourner. Someone had left offerings: a handful of coins, wilted flowers, a scrap of paper with a prayer written in shaky handwriting. The shrine was stained with soot, the carved face of the god barely visible beneath decades of grime.
The morning light was weak, filtered through layers of smog until it was barely more than a grey haze. It gave everything a dreamlike quality, as if the world were slowly drowning in industrial exhaust. The buildings seemed to fade into the distance, the people seemed like ghosts moving through fog.
Amir's mind was still half-trapped in the dream. The plane crash. The pilot's face, young and terrified, digging burning crystals from his own leg. The brother being eaten alive by those clicking nightmare creatures. The wyvern's eyes—burning green, intelligent, hungry. He kept replaying it, trying to understand what he'd seen, why it had felt so real. Not like his other nightmares. Not like trauma replaying itself. This was something else. Something he'd witnessed but hadn't lived.
Why did I see that?
He was so lost in thought that he didn't notice the figure stepping out from a side alley until it was too late.
The collision wasn't violent—just a glancing impact of shoulders—but it was enough. The woman stumbled slightly, her balance thrown off, and something fell from her hands.
A purse. Small, leather, worn but well-maintained. It hit the metal pavement with a soft thunk and skidded a few feet before coming to rest near Amir's boot.
"Shit—sorry, I wasn't—" Amir started, already bending down to retrieve it.
His fingers closed around the leather strap. He straightened, turning to hand it back, an apology already forming on his lips.
And then he looked at her.
The apology died.
She was standing there, one hand raised slightly as if to steady herself, and Amir's brain simply... stopped processing.
Beautiful didn't cover it. That word was too small, too common, worn smooth by overuse. This was something else. This was the kind of beauty that made you forget how to breathe, that rewired your brain's priorities in real-time, that made every other face you'd ever seen feel like a rough draft.
She was tall—maybe five-foot-nine, close to his own height—with a build that suggested both strength and grace. Not delicate. Not fragile. But undeniably, devastatingly feminine.
Her hair was dark auburn, the color of polished mahogany or aged wine, falling in loose waves past her shoulders. It caught the weak morning light and threw back hints of copper and gold, as if small fires were burning just beneath the surface. A few strands had come loose and framed her face, softening the angles.
Her skin was fair, but not pale—more like cream, with a warmth to it that suggested she wasn't a stranger to sunlight despite living in this smoke-choked city. There was a faint dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose and her cheekbones, barely visible, the kind of detail you only noticed if you were staring.
Which Amir was.
Her face was striking in a way that bypassed conventional prettiness and went straight to something more primal. High cheekbones, sharp but not severe. A strong jawline that gave her face structure. A straight nose with a slight upturn at the tip. And her lips—full, naturally pink, curved in a small, amused smile as she watched him stand there like an idiot.
But it was her eyes that hit him like a punch to the gut.
They were large, expressive, framed by dark lashes that needed no cosmetics. The color was extraordinary—a deep, rich amber, like honey backlit by sunlight, or whiskey held up to a flame. They weren't just beautiful. They were aware. Intelligent. Sharp. The kind of eyes that saw through bullshit and found it mildly entertaining.
And right now, they were looking directly at him with an expression of patient amusement, as if she was used to this reaction and found it both flattering and slightly tiresome.
She was dressed simply but well: a long skirt of deep forest green, practical but elegant, paired with a cream-colored blouse and a dark leather vest. Over it all, a hooded cloak of charcoal grey, the kind that could be pulled up to shield against the ever-present smog. Her boots were sturdy, well-worn, the kind meant for walking long distances. She carried herself with a quiet confidence, the posture of someone who'd never had to apologize for existing.
Amir realized his mouth was open. Realized he was still holding her purse. Realized he'd been staring for what felt like an eternity but was probably only three seconds.
"I—uh—" His brain scrambled for words. Any words. "Your purse. I mean, you dropped it. I mean, I made you drop it. Sorry. Here."
He thrust it toward her like it was on fire.
She took it with a small, graceful motion, her fingers brushing his for the briefest moment. Her touch was warm, real, grounding.
"Thank you," she said.
Her voice was low, smooth, with a slight accent he couldn't place—something that made certain consonants softer, certain vowels longer. It was the kind of voice that could read a grocery list and make it sound like poetry.
She smiled—a real smile, not polite or perfunctory, but genuine—and Amir felt something in his chest do a weird, uncomfortable flip.
"It's fine," she continued, tucking the purse under her arm. "I wasn't watching where I was going either."
Amir nodded dumbly. His brain was still offline, all higher functions dedicated to processing the fact that someone this beautiful existed in the same reality as him.
She tilted her head slightly, studying him with those amber eyes, and for a moment Amir thought she was going to say something else. Her lips parted—
And then she was moving, stepping around him with that same fluid grace, continuing down the street as if the encounter had been nothing more than a minor interruption in her day.
Amir stood there, frozen, watching her walk away.
She moved through the crowd like water, people unconsciously stepping aside to let her pass. The morning light caught her hair, turning it into a cascade of dark fire. Her cloak swirled around her as she turned a corner, and then—
She was gone.
Amir blinked.
What the fuck.
He looked down at his hand, the one that had touched hers. It still felt warm.
Dayum. She was... I mean... holy shit.
He stood there for a long moment, the crowd flowing around him, his brain slowly rebooting.
Then he realized something.
He turned, looking back toward where she'd disappeared, his eyes scanning the street.
Nothing. She'd vanished into the morning crowd as if she'd never been there at all.
Hold up.
Amir replayed the encounter in his mind. Her face. Her eyes. Her hair. Her smile.
And her ears.
He'd seen them when she'd tilted her head. Just for a second. They'd been partially hidden by her hair, but he'd caught a glimpse—
They were pointed.
Not dramatically. Not like something out of a fairy tale. But definitely pointed, rising to a subtle tip that was just wrong enough to register as not human.
Amir stopped walking entirely, standing in the middle of the street like a rock in a river, people flowing around him with muttered curses.
Her ears were pointed.
An elf?
He'd read about them in the Inquisition archives—the Aelven. They were real, documented, and had been part of Echogard's history for as long as written records existed. They weren't rare, but they weren't common either. Most lived in their hidden villages deep in the ancient forests, content to remain isolated from the noise and chaos of human civilization. For centuries, they'd shown little interest in human politics, trade, or the industrial cities that were slowly consuming the world.
But recently, that had been changing.
Over the last few decades, a decent number of elves had begun appearing in cities like Steelhaven, Aetherspire, and Port Verdant. They worked as scholars, traders, artisans, and—more surprisingly—political advisors. Some had even taken positions in the Foundry Council and the Aetherian Senate. No one knew exactly why the shift had happened. Some said the forests were dying, choked by industrial runoff and logging operations. Others claimed the elves had simply grown tired of isolation and wanted to reclaim their place in a world that had moved on without them.
What made the elves significant, though—what made them valuable—was their knowledge.
According to the historical texts, the elves had been the first to discover Aether crystals. Centuries ago, long before humans even understood what magic was, the Aelven had possessed a vast, intricate knowledge of the arcane. They'd studied the flow of energy through the world, mapped the resonances of the gods, and learned to sense the places where divine essence pooled and crystallized deep beneath the earth. They'd found the glowing stones, dug them out with reverence, and understood their power in ways humans still didn't fully grasp.
But the elves had been cautious. They'd treated the crystals as sacred, using them sparingly, never exploiting them on a large scale.
Humans, of course, had no such restraint.
The Aetherian Dominion had once been known simply as the Dominion—a loose coalition of city-states centered around scholarship, science, and the pursuit of knowledge. It was home to the greatest universities in Echogard, where the brightest minds gathered to study everything from engineering to theology. For centuries, they'd been content to remain a cultural and intellectual hub, exerting influence through ideas rather than industry or military might.
Then they'd rediscovered Aether crystals.
Whether through ancient elven texts, independent exploration, or sheer luck, the scholars of the Dominion had found deposits of the glowing stones buried in the mountains near what would become Aetherspire. They'd studied them, experimented with them, and—most importantly—industrialized them.
Within a single generation, everything changed.
The Dominion's scholars had learned to refine Aether crystals, to harness their energy for more than just arcane rituals. They'd built engines powered by crystalline cores. They'd developed Aether-lamps that burned brighter and longer than any oil or gas. They'd created weapons that could tear through steel and stone. They'd constructed entire cities lit by the soft, steady glow of processed crystal energy.
The transformation had been so rapid, so total, that the Dominion had declared itself an independent nation—the Aetherian Dominion also known as city of glass— was no longer content to be a collection of scholarly city-states. They'd become a technological empire, rivaling even the Iron Republic in power and influence, all built on the foundation of a resource the elves had discovered first but never fully exploited.
The elves had watched it happen. And they'd said nothing.
Now, Aether crystals were rarer than gold—harder to find, harder to extract, and worth more than a man's life. Nations went to war over deposits. The Iron Republic and the Aetherian Dominion spied on each other's mining operations, each desperate to gain an edge. The Grey Kingdom was rumored to be stockpiling crystals for some grand, terrible purpose. Even the Rust-Coast Confederacy, neutral as they claimed to be, smuggled raw and refined crystals to the highest bidder.
And the elves? They still knew where to find them. They still had the old knowledge, the ancient maps, the ability to sense the resonances that led to untapped veins deep beneath the earth. But they weren't sharing. Not freely, anyway. Some said that was why more elves were appearing in human cities—not out of curiosity or necessity, but because they were negotiating. Trading knowledge for protection. Or leverage. Or something else entirely.
But he'd just seen one.
This world has elves.
A slow, incredulous smile spread across Amir's face.
I wonder how many fucking surprises this world has left for me.
He shook his head, forcing himself to start walking again. He had a meeting. The Cog Master was waiting. He couldn't afford to stand in the street like a lovesick idiot just because he'd bumped into the most beautiful woman—elf—he'd ever seen.
But as he walked, he couldn't stop himself from glancing back over his shoulder one more time.
The street was empty. She was gone.
Amir continued down the street, his mind now split between the lingering image of amber eyes and pointed ears, and the mission ahead. The Cog Master. The tannery. The VIC Plumber Company. The conspiracy.
Focus, Amir. You can have a breakdown about beautiful women later.
The street began to widen as he approached the intersection of Gearwright and Foundry. The buildings here were slightly better maintained—still industrial, still grimy, but with a veneer of respectability. This was the edge of the temple quarter, where the working class met the lower-middle class, where people still had hope that tomorrow might be slightly less terrible than today.
He could see the café now.
It was a small establishment, squeezed between a machine parts supplier and a boarding house. The building was two stories, brick and timber, with large windows on the ground floor that were surprisingly clean. A faded green awning hung over the entrance, the fabric stained and torn in places but still doing its job of providing shelter from the ever-present drizzle.
A hand-painted sign above the door read: THE GRINDINGBEANS – Coffee, Tea, & Breakfast
Through the windows, Amir could see the interior: small tables, mismatched chairs, a long counter at the back with a gleaming Aether-Brewer that looked like it cost more than the entire building. A few early risers were already inside, hunched over steaming cups, their faces buried in newspapers or lost in their own thoughts.
And sitting at a table outside, despite the cold morning air and the thin drizzle that had begun to fall, was the Cog Master.
He sat with perfect posture, his brown coat immaculate despite the weather, the golden collar catching what little light the grey dawn offered. His top hat rested on the table beside a porcelain cup of coffee. The monocle hung from its chain, positioned over his left eye, magnifying it slightly in a way that was both distinguished and faintly unsettling.
He was reading a newspaper, his mechanical right hand holding it with perfect, inhuman steadiness. His left hand—his real hand—held the coffee cup, steam curling up into the cold air.
As Amir approached, the Cog Master looked up. His grey-green eyes swept over Amir with that same clinical assessment as before, cataloging, analyzing, filing away details.
He folded the newspaper with precise, deliberate movements and set it aside.
"You're early," the Cog Master said. It wasn't a compliment or a criticism. Just a statement of fact. "That's good. Punctuality suggests discipline. Discipline keeps you alive."
He gestured to the empty chair across from him with his mechanical hand. The fingers moved with perfect, fluid grace, but there was something subtly wrong about the motion—too smooth, too precise, lacking the tiny imperfections that made human movement human.
"Sit."
Amir sat, the metal chair cold and damp beneath him. Up close, he could see the fine lines around the Cog Master's eyes, the slight grey at his temples that his hat usually hid. This man was older than he looked—or he'd lived harder than most.
The Cog Master took a slow sip of his coffee, his eyes never leaving Amir's face.
"I trust you slept well?" he asked, though his tone suggested he didn't particularly care about the answer.
"Well enough," Amir replied, which was a lie. The dream still clung to him like smoke.
The Cog Master smiled faintly, as if he could read the lie written across Amir's face. "Nightmares are common in our line of work. The mind processes trauma in strange ways. Some see the past. Some see the future. Some see things that never were and never will be." He set down his cup. "The trick is learning which is which.