The workshop smelled of hot oil, burning brass, and the sweet, decaying scent of old age.
Fizzen Gearspark sat in a heavily modified wheelchair, his gnarled hands resting on a lap blanket of thick wool. He was one hundred and twelve years old. By all medical logic, he should have died a decade ago. His lungs rattled with every breath, his eyesight was fading into a milky blur, and his heart beat with an irregular, terrifying rhythm.
But he refused to die. Not until the work was finished.
"Wikk," Fizzen rasped, his voice a dry scrape of metal on stone. "Adjust the tertiary manifold. The resonance is leaking."
Across the sprawling, cluttered workshop, a young man scrambled up a stepladder. Wikk Gearspark, Fizzen's great-grandson, was covered in grease and soot, his goggles pushed up onto his forehead. He practically vibrated with nervous energy.
