Know your worth, boy.
The voice echoed in the darkness of Rowan's mind. It wasn't a memory; it was a scar. It was the voice of a man in a pristine, tailored frock coat standing over a dying beggar in the soot-choked gutters, sneering at an outstretched hand.
Power is the only currency. Everything else is waste.
Rowan opened his eyes.
The darkness vanished, replaced by the blinding, strobing crimson of the alchemical starting flares.
He was sitting on a machine that was less a cycle and more a shriek of brass, iron, and aether strapped to a high-pressure steam engine. The Crimson-Streak rested on the cobblestone floor of the Ash-Dregs staging area, vibrating with a mechanical hunger that rattled Rowan's teeth.
The air was suffocating. It smelled of thick coal smoke, burning rubber, and the sharp, metallic tang of refined aether fumes bleeding from exhaust pipes.
"Thirty seconds!" the announcer's voice boomed, distorted through a massive brass gramophone horn suspended above the track. "Racers, prime your boiler valves!"
Rowan gripped the leather-wrapped handlebars. His gloves were stained with engine grease, his heavy tweed coat patched with rough twine. He wasn't the heir to the Velox Syndicate tonight. He was just 'Ro', a no-name racer with a death wish and a cycle built from foundry scrap.
What is my worth? Rowan asked himself, cranking the throttle. The sound was a deafening roar of steam and grinding gears that drowned out his father's voice. Is it the name I left behind? Or is it this?
He looked to his left.
Idling next to him was a monstrosity of a vehicle—a heavy, ironclad steam-lorry painted in jagged yellow stripes, belching thick black smoke from twin chimneys. The driver, a mountain of a man with a ticking clockwork eye and a mohawk made of stiffened copper wire, grinned at him.
Axle. Leader of the Ash-Runners. The undisputed king of the track.
"Oy, Pretty Boy!" Axle shouted over the deafening hiss of the engines. "Try not to cry when I turn you into scrap iron!"
Rowan didn't smile. He pulled his heavy leather racing goggles down over his eyes. The aether-infused lenses flickered to life, painting his vision in faint, glowing green hues.
Boiler Pressure: Optimal. Aether Reserves: 80%. Brakes: Warning - Pad Wear Critical.
Rowan ignored the ticking gauge. He didn't need brakes. He needed speed.
"Three... Two... One..."
The alchemical flares burned a vivid, unnatural green.
GO.
Rowan didn't just accelerate; he was fired from a cannon. The sheer force slammed him back into his leather saddle, the breath tearing from his lungs. The world blurred into streaks of flickering gaslight and wet, gray brick.
The track wasn't a road. It was a suicide run through the guts of the Foundry District. Massive cast-iron pipes crisscrossed the path, venting steam hot enough to boil skin right off the bone. Mechanical clockwork drones on brass wings fluttered overhead, recording the race for the gambling dens in the Gilded Tier above.
To his right, Axle's ironclad lorry slammed violently into the side of a rival racer. The smaller cycle was sent spinning out of control into a wall of wooden shipping crates. A fiery explosion of raw aether blossomed in Rowan's brass rear-view mirror.
"One down!" Axle laughed, his voice echoing off the brick walls.
Rowan leaned forward, pressing his chest against the hot metal of the fuel tank. He weaved through a narrow gap between two massive, spinning mill-turbines, the heavy iron blades missing his head by mere inches.
Focus, he told himself. The track is a puzzle. Solve it.
They hit the 'Corkscrew'—a vertical spiral track bolted to the outside of a massive, brick cooling tower.
Axle took the inside line, using the sheer weight of his lorry to bully the space and force Rowan toward the edge. Rowan dropped back, feinting to the left.
"Too slow!" Axle taunted, grinding his gears to block the path.
But Rowan wasn't slowing down. He was charging.
He slammed his hand onto the brass Aether-Injector valve.
Blue, magical fire erupted from the Streak's exhaust pipes. The cycle screamed like a dying beast. Rowan shot up the vertical wall, defying gravity as his alchemically-treated tires gripped the sheer brick. He passed Axle on the outside, riding the very edge of the track where a single slip meant a three-thousand-foot drop into the soot-filled abyss of the lower slums.
"What?!" Axle roared, fighting his steering column.
Rowan crested the top of the tower, launching into the air. For a split second, he was flying. The thick smog parted, and he saw the glittering, immaculate gas-lamps of the Gilded Tier far above—the clean, perfect world he had rejected.
Then gravity grabbed him. He slammed back onto the cobblestone track, sparks flying as his iron chassis scraped the ground.
The finish line was ahead—a canvas banner strung across a wrought-iron bridge over a river of toxic, glowing sludge.
Axle was right behind him, his heavy lorry pushing its boiler far past the breaking point. The pressure-valves shrieked.
"You're not winning this!" Axle shouted.
He fired a heavy iron harpoon from a spring-loaded cannon on his bumper. The barbed spear clamped securely onto Rowan's rear fender, connected by a thick steel chain.
The jerk nearly threw Rowan over the handlebars. The Crimson-Streak fish-tailed violently, the rear tire smoking against the stones.
He's dragging me back, Rowan realized.
The finish line was five hundred yards away. Four hundred.
Rowan looked at the pressure gauge. Aether: 5%. It wasn't enough to break the chain through sheer force.
Think.
A grim smile tugged at Rowan's lips beneath his soot-stained scarf.
He didn't pull away. He grabbed the handbrake lever and squeezed it with everything he had.
The sudden, violent deceleration caught Axle entirely off guard. The heavy steam-lorry, carrying far too much momentum, slammed directly into the back of Rowan's cycle.
The impact shattered Rowan's rear fender—and the harpoon's mount right along with it.
The chain snapped.
The force of the collision acted like a catapult. Rowan was launched forward, rocketing away from the heavy lorry.
He crossed the finish line in a blur of blue fire and steam.
WINNER: RO.
The crowd of soot-covered workers and gamblers erupted.
But the race wasn't over for Rowan.
He hit the brass kill-switch to stop the boiler. Nothing happened. The valve was jammed. He squeezed the brake lever again, but the worn cable gave way with a sharp snap.
Brakes: Failed.
The Crimson-Streak was traveling at a hundred and fifty miles per hour, and it was heading straight for the solid brick containment wall at the end of the run-off area.
"Oh," Rowan whispered.
He didn't panic. He did the only thing he could do.
He let go.
Rowan threw himself off the cycle, tucking his body into a tight ball. He hit the wet cobblestones, rolling and sliding, his thick tweed coat shredding against the unforgiving ground.
Ahead of him, the Crimson-Streak slammed into the brick wall.
BOOM.
A fireball of expanding steam and volatile aether engulfed the end of the track. Rusted metal and burning debris rained down like fiery confetti.
Silence fell over the arena. The crowd held its breath.
The smoke swirled, thick and black.
Then, a figure stood up.
Rowan limped out of the smoke. His jacket was torn to ribbons, his leather goggles were cracked, and he was heavily favoring his left leg. But he was standing.
He reached up, pulled off the ruined goggles, and shook out his sweat-drenched hair. He looked at the stunned crowd. He looked at Axle, who had stopped his lorry and was staring with his mouth hanging open.
Rowan raised both arms in the air.
The crowd roared, a deafening wave of noise that shook the surrounding factories.
High up in the iron-wrought spectator stands, hidden beneath heavy woolen cloaks, four figures watched the spectacle.
"He's an idiot," Luca muttered, though a wide grin split his face.
"He's fast," Luna corrected, crossing her arms.
"He's going to cost us a fortune in replacement brass," Ivy sighed, tapping her pencil against a leather-bound ledger.
"Don't worry the organization is going to take care of it." Luna replied.
"I wish Dorothy and Jack were here," Asher said softly, watching Rowan soak in the cheers of the people.
Rowan looked up at the glittering lights of the Gilded Tier one last time, the fire of the burning wreckage reflecting in his eyes.