Nazmir stared at the dial while the amber light lit up the brass floorboards. Fifty-seven days. Not years. Days. Ayliva was still plastered against his ribs, her flour-dusted cheek warming his collarbone, while the giant machinery thrummed with a steady pulse that rattled his teeth.
Before Nazmir could formulate a single coherent thought, a thunderous clang echoed from the grand, arched entrance of the barn. The rusted double doors groaned outward on screeching hinges, revealing a gilded carriage drawn by four mechanical coursers. Its brass chassis gleamed, reflecting the harsh midday sun in a thousand sharp points. Two figures stepped down onto the gravel.
Dilmura Zandesh led the way in shimmering lavender silk, her mouth curved in triumphant pity. She took in the crumbling façade of Nazmir’s laboratory, the scorched earth of the neighboring plot, and the general air of cheerful disarray that characterized the Estates. Her nose wrinkled at the smell of ozone and singed butter. Following her, Ozirun Vel, impeccably dressed in a suit of spun etherium-silk, adjusted his cravat with a practiced hand. His eyes, however, weren't fixed on the grandeur of his fiancée or the squalor of their surroundings. They were, inexplicably, fixed on Ayliva, still in her oven mitts, dishevelled from her spontaneous cuddle-tackle.
“Ayliva, darling sister!” Dilmura called, her tone singsong and bright. “We heard you’d been cast out. How dreadful! But Ozirun and I simply couldn’t bear to see you starving in the dirt. We brought sustenance!” She gestured grandly to a servant struggling with a towering, multi-tiered cake box that looked dangerously close to toppling.
Ozirun, meanwhile, had already begun his casual stroll towards Ayliva. “Ayliva, my dear, you truly do bloom under any conditions,” he purred, his smile more oil-slick than charming. He reached for her hand, his gaze lingering a moment too long. “Such… resilience. You always were the most captivating blossom in the Zandesh garden, weren’t you?”
Ayliva merely beamed, her oven mitts clapping together. “Oh, Ozirun! You’re so kind! Isn’t he, Nazmir? He always knows just what to say!” She pulled her hand away gently, more preoccupied with the scent of the cake than Ozirun's practiced flirtation. “Is that an amber-nectar gateau? My favorite!”
Dilmura’s painted smile pinched at the corners. Her gaze snapped between Ozirun’s lingering grip and Ayliva’s bright grin.
Just then, Kesia Rym, Dilmura’s maid, stepped forward, carrying a small, silk-wrapped parcel. As she passed, she executed a neat stumble that brushed her shoulder against Ayliva’s arm. Her hand, beneath the parcel, deftly slipped a folded square of parchment into Ayliva’s palm. Kesia shot Ayliva a quick, conspiratorial wink. The maid quickly recovered, smoothing her apron, her expression returning to demure obedience.
Ayliva, accustomed to receiving strange notes from her past self, unfolded the parchment without a second thought. The message, scrawled in a familiar, slightly frantic hand, read: *“Dilmura hired the ‘Brass Jackals’ to wreck Nazmir’s atmospheric apparatus. They’ll arrive disguised as ‘Taste-Testers’ at 2:13 PM. Don’t worry, they’re harmless if you’re armed with spiced cinnamon biscuits. Aggressive hospitality is key.”*
Ayliva glanced at the workshop’s communal time-dial. 2:12 PM. Impeccable timing. She tucked the slip into her apron pocket. “Oh, how wonderful! More visitors! Nazmir, bring out the cooling racks!”
Nazmir, who had been trying to process Ozirun’s audacity and Dilmura’s barely concealed fury, blinked. “Biscuits? Ayliva, what in the name of the Grand Automaton are you talking about? There are two nobles, a maid, and a four-tiered cake staring at us!”
Before he could elaborate, the glass skylight above their heads shattered inward with a splintering crash. Three figures, cloaked in charcoal-grey and wearing sleek, brass-visored helmets, dropped gracefully to the floor, landing with barely a sound. They moved with fluid grace, unlike the stumbling tinkerers down the street. Each held a pronged lever that shimmered with an unnatural silver sheen.
Dilmura shrieked, clutching Ozirun’s arm. Ozirun, for his part, looked less scared and more annoyed that his flirtation had been interrupted. Nazmir stiffened. Saboteurs. Right in the middle of his floor. He barely had time to think of a warning before Ayliva, completely unperturbed, let out a joyful cry.
“Oh, you’re early! How delightful! Nazmir, they’re here! The Taste-Testers!” Ayliva vaulted over a crate of coils and seized a baking sheet piled with steaming sugar rounds, oven mitts held high. The scent of cinnamon and sugar wafted through the suddenly tense air.
“Welcome, welcome! You must be famished after all that… skylight-diving!” Ayliva chirped, marching straight up to the tallest intruder, who took a wary step back. “These are fresh! Still scalding! My special recipe, with extra crystallized etherium-sugar for a little sparkle!”
The saboteur froze mid-lunge toward the apparatus, pronged lever drooping. Ayliva thrust a bubbling cinnamon disc directly into his brass faceplate. “Go on, take one! Don’t be shy! The edges are wonderfully crisp!”
The intruder hesitated, then reflexively caught the piping-hot pastry in a gloved palm. Its brass visor fogged slightly from the heat. Before it could even process the sugary assault, Ayliva, with the relentless cheer of a particularly aggressive cherub, slapped another into his free hand, then shoved two onto the second intruder.
“You simply must try them all!” Ayliva insisted, her voice bubbling with enthusiasm. “I made a triple batch! One for each of you, and plenty to take home! This one’s a little softer in the middle, wonderful for dipping into spiced tea!”
Trained for silent infiltration, the squad collapsed into pure chaos. The leader tried to slide a treat under his visor, only to smear molten sugar across the glass viewport. Another, attempting to peel off its glove, fumbled the scalding treat and yelped, a muffled, undignified sound. They hopped from foot to foot, juggling scalding crumbs with muffled curses. The sheer, overwhelming kindness, combined with the searing temperature of the cookies, was a weapon they hadn’t anticipated.
Nazmir stared, mouth open, as the masked intruders flailed against the machine’s chassis. One of them, shaking a blistered hand, knocked a warped brass panel square into its housing until it snapped flush with a clean click. Another, frantically brushing crumbs off his chest, banged his elbow against a crooked copper feeder tube, knocking it true. Fending off Ayliva’s hospitality had turned into a frantic, clumsy maintenance routine.
“There! See? You’re such a help!” Ayliva praised, mistaking their flailing for enthusiastic assistance. “You’ve set that casing so neatly! And that conduit sits straight as an arrow now! What marvelous helpers you are!”
Overwhelmed, disoriented, and quite possibly suffering from minor oral burns, the three 'Brass Jackals' exchanged frantic, silent glances. Their mission of sabotage had dissolved into an impromptu repair session, driven by the sheer, terrifying force of Ayliva’s hospitality. With a final, bewildered glance at Ayliva, who was now offering them a neatly packed box of 'take-home' treats, they scrambled back towards the shattered skylight. They vanished as quickly as they’d appeared, leaving behind a faint scent of singed sugar and a trail of dropped, steaming pastries.
Ayliva pouted slightly. “Oh, they left so suddenly! I hope they liked them! Maybe they were just shy.” She turned back to Nazmir, beaming. “Well, that was exciting! Now, where were we? Oh, yes, the engine!”
Nazmir, whose mind was still reeling from the surreal encounter, walked over to where the assassins had been. He picked up the dropped crowbar tool. Its frame carried etched runic grooves that made his skin prickle. “Ayliva,” he said, his tone dead flat. “These aren’t ordinary tools. This is Chronos-brass. Illegal time-magic alloy. These aren’t just some random guild thugs.” He turned the tool over in his hand, his eyes narrowing. “This alloy comes exclusively from the City Council’s deep-foundries. Dilmura didn’t hire gutter thieves.” He turned the heavy metal bar over, jaw set. “She hired agents tied directly to the High Terrace.”