The garage situated beneath the orphanage smelled strongly of ozone, heavy grease, and brewing peppermint tea.
It was Luca and Luna's absolute sanctuary. The brick walls were covered in highly complex mechanical schematics drawn hastily in crayon and chalk. Piles of scrap iron, brass cogs, and copper piping reached the ceiling—a chaotic, dangerous hoard that only the twins could successfully navigate without triggering an avalanche.
In the exact center of the room, suspended on heavy iron chains from a ceiling hoist, was the skeleton of an aether-cycle.
It wasn't the sleek, corporate-manufactured Crimson-Streak Rowan had crashed. This was something else entirely. It was a terrifying Frankenstein's monster of parts—a heavy IronCore chassis, a salvaged, bulky navigation compass, and an iron boiler block that looked like it had been violently ripped out of an armored locomotive.
"Pass me the torque spanner," Luca grunted, his voice muffled from underneath the heavy chassis.
"You don't need torque, you need percussive maintenance," Luna replied, handing him a massive iron mallet instead.
CLANG.
"Fixed," Luca slid out from under the cycle on a wooden creeper, wiping thick black oil from his face with a rag. He looked at Rowan, who was sitting on a wooden crate, staring critically at the machine. "Well? What do you think, Rich Boy? It's not as pretty as your old ride, but I guarantee she won't shatter if you look at her wrong."
Rowan stood up, running a calloused hand along the rough, uneven weld lines of the brass fuel tank. "It's heavy. The drag coefficient is going to be a nightmare in the tight corners."
"Drag doesn't matter if you have enough thrust to push through a brick wall," Luna grinned, pushing her welding goggles up onto her forehead. "We over-bored the steam cylinders. She drinks liquid aether like water, but she'll do zero to sixty in two seconds flat. Assuming she doesn't instantly explode."
"Exploding is a very distinct possibility," a calm, analytical voice added.
Ivy walked into the garage, carefully carrying a tray of steaming mugs and a small, reinforced glass vial filled with a glowing, neon-blue liquid. She set the vial down on a workbench with the intense reverence of a bomb disposal expert.
"The fuel mixture is highly unstable," Ivy warned, adjusting her wire-rimmed glasses. "Standard refined aether burns at two thousand degrees. This oversized boiler runs entirely too hot. If we use straight aether, the iron pistons will melt into slag."
"So, we need an industrial coolant?" Rowan asked, leaning closer to inspect the engine.
"No," Ivy shook her head, picking up the blue vial. "Coolant slows the chemical reaction. We lose speed. We need an alchemical binder. Something to fundamentally change the nature of the burn."
She held the glowing liquid up to the gaslight.
"This is a localized time-dilation serum," Ivy explained casually, as if discussing the weather. "I distilled it from the moss growing on the shell of a chronos-turtle I found in the deep sewers."
Rowan blinked, staring at her in disbelief. "You... you're putting time-magic in the boiler?"
"Mechanics provide the physical shell, Rowan," Ivy said, carefully pouring the thick serum directly into the fuel intake valve. The liquid hissed violently, instantly turning the copper fuel lines a deep, frosty purple. "Magic provides the soul. The serum doesn't cool the engine; it makes the combustion happen slightly slower in localized time, spreading the immense heat out over milliseconds we don't experience. It keeps all the explosive power but completely removes the thermal spike."
Rowan stared at her, awe warring with terror. "That's... absolute genius. And completely insane."
"Welcome to the Dregs," Luca laughed, tossing his oily rag aside. "If it works, don't touch it."
He tossed Rowan a heavy wrench.
"Make yourself useful. The steam intake manifold needs manual calibrating. Unless you're afraid to get your hands dirty?"
The Twins watched him closely. It was a test. They knew he could drive like a demon, but they still saw him as a pampered, upper-tier brat—a tourist in their world of rust and scrap who had likely never held a real tool in his life.
Rowan caught the wrench effortlessly. He didn't hesitate. He took off his fine coat, rolled up his sleeves, and knelt by the iron engine block.
"The manifold is a dual-stage intake," Rowan muttered, his eyes narrowing in fierce concentration as he expertly inspected the brass valves. "If you over-bored the cylinders, the air-to-aether ratio is going to be completely off. It'll choke and stall at high RPMs."
He started working. He didn't just blindly tighten bolts; he listened to the metal. He adjusted the valve timing purely by feel, his fingers moving with a practiced, mechanical dexterity that genuinely surprised Luna. He stripped a thick copper wire with his teeth and expertly bypassed the secondary pressure regulator.
"Pass me the pneumatic grips," Rowan commanded, not looking up, his hand outstretched.
Luna handed them to him silently, her eyebrows raised in newfound respect.
For an hour, they worked in absolute silence, communicating only in a rhythm of metal on metal. Rowan was soon covered in grease. He had a smudge of oil on his nose and a bleeding cut on his knuckle.
He tightened the last bolt with a sharp squeak of metal and stood up, wiping his hands on a towel.
"Try it now," Rowan said, stepping back.
Luca excitedly climbed onto the heavy leather saddle. He turned the brass ignition key and hit the starter pedal.
VROOOM.
The engine didn't roar; it sang. It was a deep, throaty, terrifying purr that vibrated in their chests and rattled the tools on the walls. A pure, purple exhaust flame burned steady and clean from the twin pipes.
"Smooth," Luca admitted, his eyes wide as he revved the throttle. "Real smooth."
He looked at Rowan, reevaluating the boy entirely. "Where did you learn to tune a junker like this? I thought you grew up riding in gilded carriages."
Rowan leaned against the workbench, finally taking a sip of the peppermint tea Ivy offered.
"My father bought me the carriages," Rowan said quietly, being careful not to mention his last name. "But he never let me touch them. 'That's what the mechanics are for,' he'd always say. So, I used to sneak out at night to the old scrapyards in the outer Rust-Belt. I learned how things worked on machines that were already broken. Because if I broke them more... no one cared."
He looked at the cycle—this incredibly ugly, powerful, magnificent thing built from trash.
"I like broken things," Rowan whispered, almost to himself. "They're honest. They tell you exactly what others try to hide."
Luna walked over and punched him solidly in the arm. It hurt, but he smiled.
"You're alright, Rowan," Luna grinned, her hostility completely faded. "For a rich kid."
"The cycle needs a name," Asher announced from the doorway, loudly munching on one of the real, bruised apples they had bought from Vexler.
Rowan looked at the machine. It was built from the discarded scraps of a dying city, fueled by ancient magic and time, and tuned to perfection by a family of rebels.
"The Valkyrie," Rowan decided firmly.
"Too dramatic," Luca snorted, killing the engine.
"I like it," Ivy smiled softly. "It fits."
"The Valkyrie it is," Rowan said, affectionately patting the cold iron tank.
He looked around the cramped, messy garage—at the twins playfully arguing over who got to polish the pipes, at Ivy checking her alchemical formulas, at Asher happily eating her apple. He realized he wasn't just fixing a broken cycle. He was fixing himself.
And for the first time in his entire life, breathing in the smell of grease and tea, he felt like he was exactly where he was supposed to be.