Valerius did not ask the name, nor the purpose of the summons. He looked only upon the sunburst seal pressed into the black wax, the sign of the Council of Mages, and he stepped back into the shadows of the room.

  "Leave at the first light. He waits for no man," the courier said again. He was a youth, yet his face was grey and drawn, bearing the mark of one who runs errands for those who wield fire and lightning.

  August looked to Bella. She stood by the workbench, wiping the grease of the gears from her hands with a rough cloth. Her face had grown still, tightening into the mask she donned for the high-born: cold, distant, and unyielding as polished marble.

  "We go," she said, "ere the patience of the Council withers."

  The Mage Tower stood not as a building, but as a black spike driven into the heart of the Scholasticum District. It was hewn of basalt, polished until it drank the light of the sun, rising like a jagged tooth from the jaw of the city. The air about its roots did not carry the scent of the streets, the smoke of coal fires, the stench of horses, and the wet rot of the river, but smelled rather of a storm that would not break.

  August felt the wrongness of it in his very teeth. A low, grinding vibration, persistent and grim, traveled through the soles of his boots. The stone here was not at rest; it was unhappy. It had been forced into shapes it had no wish to hold, bound by mortar mixed with crushed crystals of the Aether. It did not sing, as the stone of the mountains sang; it groaned under a weight it could not shift.

  They were led not to the great halls where the lords of the Council held court, but to a small chamber deep in the roots of the spire, where no window looked out upon the world. The walls were naked stone, cold and unfeeling. The light came from globes of trapped Aether set into the ceiling, but they flickered with a sickly rhythm. Dim. Bright. Dim. It was the heartbeat of a dying thing.

  Arch-Mage Vorlag sat behind a desk that seemed a slab of obsidian hewn from the night itself. He did not look up as they entered. His long fingers toyed with a stone upon the polished surface, a gemstone, rough-cut and dark, pulsing with a faint and feverish light.

  "You have made a great clamor in the peaks, mason," Vorlag said. His voice was dry, like old parchment sliding over stone. "The Council favors silence. Yet noise... noise may be guided, if the hand is steady."

  August stood by the door, his large hands clasped behind his back to hide the tremors that took them. The vibration in the walls was louder here, a chorus of lament.

  "If this concerns the use of Warden assets without leave," Bella said, her voice sharp and clear, "the charter speaks plainly of emergency requisition during times of—"

  "Laws are written for those who seek the grave, girl," Vorlag cut her off. He did not raise his voice, but the weight of it filled the room. He touched the gem, and the light within it flared, then fell into shadow. "Look upon this."

  Bella stepped forward, her hunger for knowledge overcoming her wariness. "A Soul-Gem. Class Three containment. It is forbidden for any save the Council to hold such a thing."

  "In the days of the First Dominion, it was said the soul is but a frequency of the Aether," Vorlag murmured, spinning the stone upon the black glass. "If the grid holds, death is not an end, but a waiting. We do not perish; we are merely queued for a new vessel."

  August stepped forward, drawn by a horror he could not name. The stone in the Arch-Mage's hand... it did not murmur like the walls. It screamed. It was a high and thin sound, a shriek of terror that only he could hear.

  "There is no song in it, my lord," August said, his voice low and rough. "Only a cage."

  Vorlag ceased his spinning of the gem. He looked up, and his eyes were pale and rimmed with red, the eyes of a man who has watched the long dark and found no sleep.

  "A battery, mason," Vorlag corrected him. "A cage is for that which you wish to keep. A battery is for that which you intend to spend. I have a use for you."

  He opened a drawer and slid a folder of heavy paper across the obsidian. It halted at the edge, hanging there like a sentence.

  "Karras," Vorlag said. "Once of the Artificer’s Guild. Now he operates a private reactor in the Foundry District, beyond the eyes of the law. He has broken the protocols of containment."

  "Send the Guard," Bella said. "Or a host of suppression."

  "Karras has woven wards that wake at the touch of high power," Vorlag said. "If I send a Mage, the block turns to vapor. If I send the Warriors, the defenses seal the district in iron. He guards against strength."

  Vorlag leaned back, pressing his fingertips together.

  "He does not guard against the mundane."

  Bella took up the file. "The mundane?"

  "You shall be newly-weds, inspectors from the District Safety Office. Men of paper and rules. Small, vexing, and persistent as flies. You go to measure the strength of his lintels and the flow of his valves."

  Bella opened the file. Her brow furrowed in distaste. "Newly-weds? This guise is unwise. A senior inspector and an apprentice would command greater regard."

  "Regard draws the eye," Vorlag said. "Pity opens the door. All men ignore a man who quarrels with his new wife over a map. You shall be loud, you shall be petty, and you shall find the source of his leak."

  August looked upon the file. Inspector Miller and Mrs. Miller. The ink was fresh and cheap. It smelled of the dust of offices and the boredom of clerks.

  "And if we are taken?" August asked.

  "Then you are but trespassers," Vorlag said, taking up the gem once more. "And I know you not."

  They departed the presence of the Arch-Mage, descending the winding roots of the tower in a silence heavier than the stone. Upon the threshold of the postern gate, where the courier waited with a bundle of grey wool wrapped in twine, Bella halted. She looked upon the guise offered, her face pale in the gloom.

  "A mummer's farce," she whispered, touching the coarse fabric with a trembling hand. "He sends us into the fire clad in the rags of a jester."

  "It is a shield, of a sort," August said, though the words tasted of ash.

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  "It is a shroud," she replied, and took the bundle.

  The carriage that bore them to the Foundry District was a box of shadows. The air within was stale, heavy with the scent of old velvet and the sweat of those who had ridden before in fear.

  Bella could not sit still. She was clad in the raiment provided by Vorlag’s courier, a dress of scratchy grey wool with a collar high and stiff, seemingly fashioned to choke the spirit.

  "This raiment is a torment," she muttered, pulling at the neck. "It is stiff as a corpse-shroud. I can scarce turn my head."

  August sat opposite her. He felt a fool in his guise. He wore a coat three sizes too small across the shoulders, the seams straining with every breath he drew. Beneath it, he wore his breastplate, the cold iron pressing against his ribs. The hammer of the Dweorg was thrust into a deep pocket within the lining, dragging the hem down upon the left side.

  "It serves the lie," August said, trying to hunch his great frame, to look less the man who broke stone and more the man who wrote of it on parchment. "You look... official. Wretched, but official."

  "We require a token," Bella said, staring at her bare hands. "A sign for the eyes of others. Folk look to the hands."

  August patted his pockets. He felt the weight of the stone, the knife, a piece of chalk. And something else.

  "Here," he said.

  He drew forth a washer of brass. It was a gasket from a pump valve, taken from the workshop days past and forgotten. It was tarnished and greasy, smelling of the oil of machines.

  Bella stared at it. "It is unclean."

  "It is convincing," August said. "Wear it, Inspector."

  She took it. She slid it onto her ring finger. It was too large, spinning loosely upon the bone. She made a fist to hold it fast.

  "It is heavy," she whispered.

  "It is brass," August said. "And brass has weight."

  The carriage lurched and stood still.

  "The hour is come, Mrs. Miller," August said.

  The gates to the laboratory of Karras were formidable. Bars of iron, thick as a man’s arm, were set into pillars of brick that already showed the rot of the salt air from the river. A low, rhythmic tremor drifted from the works beyond, a thrumming that rattled the teeth in August’s head.

  The guards were idle men. Two in private livery, leaning upon their pikes, watching the fog curl about their boots. They looked weary. All folk looked weary in these days. The Dimming took the edge from all things, light, heat, and spirit.

  Bella stepped from the carriage. She did not step; she marched with the fury of a storm.

  "I told you to file the map under 'North,' not 'General'!" she cried out, her voice rising to a pitch August had never heard, sharp as a drill upon glass. "Now the hour is late, and my feet are in torment, and this lintel sags like a drunkard!"

  She pointed a finger of accusation at the brick archway above the heads of the watchmen.

  August stumbled out after her, clutching a sheaf of papers, hunching his shoulders against the wind. He looked upon the guards with the eyes of a man seeking mercy.

  "I have the papers, love," he said, his voice pleading. "I have them here. Do not make a scene before the good masters."

  "I shall make a scene if the stone-work breaks the law!" Bella shouted, marching to the taller guard. She jabbed him in the chest with a rolled scroll. "Look upon this pointing! It is slap-dash, Miller! It is rubbish! The damp shall enter, and the rot shall follow!"

  The guard blinked, looking from the shrieking woman to the cowering giant behind her.

  "Peace, peace!" the guard said, raising a hand. "Keep your domestic strife from the gate. Where are your tokens?"

  August fumbled with the papers, dropping two upon the wet cobbles. He scrambled to retrieve them, wiping the mud from the forged seal.

  "Begging your pardon, masters," he muttered to the guard. "She is... most thorough. It is her first week on the rounds. She holds to the book as a priest to scripture."

  The guard looked upon the papers, then at Bella, who was now inspecting the iron hinges of the gate with a face of deep scorn.

  "Newly-weds, is it?" the guard said, a smirk touching his lips. "A grim fate, friend."

  "Let us but check the outflow valve," August said. "I pray you. Before she speaks of the rust metrics."

  The guard laughed. He waved to his companion. The heavy gates groaned upon their hinges and opened.

  "Pass on. The outflow lies behind. Try not to drown her in it."

  August nodded his thanks, took Bella by the elbow, and guided her through the gates. She muttered still of galvanic corrosion.

  "You find joy in this," August whispered as they passed into the shadow of the great hall.

  "I but hold to the shape of the lie," she hissed back. But he saw the corner of her mouth twitch.

  Within, the clamor was great. The hall was a labyrinth of copper pipes and valves that hissed steam like vipers. The air was hot and heavy, smelling of wet metal.

  The hum was a burden here. August could feel the floor trembling beneath his feet. It was not the shake of machines. It was the foundation stone. It shivered in the deep.

  "There is a wrongness here," August murmured. "The stone... it is terrified."

  "Walk on," Bella said. "Raise your boards."

  They moved deeper into the dark belly of the works. Men in heavy aprons of leather hurried past, their eyes upon the ground, seeing them not. The deception of the grey wool was strong; none looked upon the miserable clerks. They were but shadows in the gloom.

  They came to a watch-post near the hall of the turbines. A foreman, a man broad of shoulder with skin stained by soot, stepped into their path.

  "Hold," the foreman barked. "This sector is closed. No inspectors may pass the turbine hall."

  Bella opened her mouth, doubtless to speak of codes and laws, but August saw the foreman’s hand drift to the wrench at his belt. Words of law would find no place here.

  August moved. He let the papers fall. He cast his heavy arm about Bella’s shoulders, pulling her hard against his side. He squeezed her, as a man squeezes his beloved.

  "Ah, forgive us, master," August said, grinning like a fool, his voice dropping to a whisper of conspiracy. "We but seek... a quiet corner. The filing of reports is not the only deed of the day, eh?"

  He winked.

  Bella went stiff against him. She was rigid as iron. Her face turned from pale to the red of a forge-fire.

  "Miller!" she cried, her voice high and thin. "Have a care for your station!"

  August leaned in, his lips brushing the shell of her ear. He smelled the soap she used, the sharp tang of the metal, and beneath it, the warm, living scent of her skin.

  "Peace, dear heart," he whispered, loud enough for the foreman to hear, yet soft enough to make Bella tremble. "The shift draws to its end."

  The foreman stared at them. Then he snorted, shaking his head in disgust.

  "Find a chamber, then," he grumbled. "And begone from the corridor. If Karras finds you courting near the intake, he shall have your hides."

  "At once, master," August said. "Come, love."

  He guided her past the foreman, keeping his arm about her until they turned a corner and the shadows took them.

  He let her go.

  Bella stumbled, catching herself upon a pipe of steam. Her breath came short and fast. Her hand went to her ear, where his lips had rested.

  "That was... beyond the pale," she said. Her voice was thin as a reed. "The variable was unforeseen."

  August leaned against the wall. His heart beat against his ribs like a hammer on the anvil.

  "His blood cooled," August said. "He believed the lie. Draw breath, Bella."

  She looked upon him. For a moment, the mask of the inspector fell away. The master of artifice was gone. There stood only a maid, looking upon a man, fear and a strange fire warring in her eyes.

  "We must find the heart," she said, turning her face away. "Now."

  The central chamber was no laboratory. It was a pit of doom waiting for the spark.

  It was a vast hall, domed in stone, dominated by a machine that mocked the laws of the earth. A sphere of copper and glass, hung in a cradle of spinning iron rings. Within the sphere, a violet light pulsed, fierce, sickly, and wild.

  The sound was a torment. It was no longer a hum. It was a scream. A high and tearing sound that made the bones of August’s jaw ache.

  He fell to his knees.

  "The floor..." he gasped. He pressed his palms to the flagstones. "It screams, Bella. The stone seeks to flee."

  Bella heeded him not. She ran to the console of brass, shoving aside a startled worker who sought to bar her way. She stared upon the gauges. Her eyes grew wide with horror.

  "It is no leak," she said. Her voice was cold, calm as the grave. "Vorlag spoke falsely. It is a cycle of compression. They seek to turn the field to liquid, to store it against the dark."

  August dragged himself to his feet. "Is it within their power?"

  "Nay," Bella said. "One cannot press a wave that is fading without birthing a void. Look upon the needle."

  She pointed to a gauge of brass. The needle trembled against the stop-pin of red. It was bent with the force of its pushing.

  "What befalls when it strikes the line?" August shouted over the wail of the machine.

  Bella looked upon him. The washer of brass upon her finger caught the violet light of the sphere.

  "It does not cease, August," she said. "It draws breath. It shall drink the district down into the deep."

  A siren began to wail, a herald of doom.

  "Ten counts," Bella said. "We have ten minutes to rewrite the laws of the earth, or we shall all be returned to dust."