A fine dust of pulverized stone settled gently over Loria and the impeccably polished floor, glinting like microscopic diamonds in the dim light. The gaping maw in the wall, jagged and raw, exposed the bruised twilight sky beyond. Brixen, for all his practiced composure, had a faint spatter of plaster on his left earlobe. He dabbed at it with a crisp handkerchief, his gaze fixed on the hole as if expecting Garrond Skall to spontaneously reassemble himself from the wreckage. “My apologies, Lady Cogwater,” Brixen intoned, his voice a low thrum of suppressed irritation. “Lord Skall frequently… redecorates. He assures me it is merely a ‘spirited design choice.’” Loria, however, wasn’t listening to Brixen’s insipid social niceties. Her mind was a whirlwind of calculations. That hydraulic joint, the tell-tale *HISSSSS-POP!* and the subsequent uncontrolled swing – it wasn't a curse, not a whisper of arcane sorcery. It was a catastrophic failure of pressure seals and an unforgivably poor choice of alloy for the flex lines. And that *CRACK*? Probably a seized dampener on the impact compensator. What kind of barbarian builder assembled something so dangerously clunky? “Such a… dramatic entrance,” Loria managed, forcing her voice to a breathy, simpering lilt. She fluttered her eyelashes, ensuring Brixen saw nothing but vapid admiration. “He must be terribly strong, to punch through a wall like that! Is this… normal?” Brixen smoothed his pristine waistcoat. “As normal as anything here, my lady. Would you prefer to retire? I can have the debris cleared by dawn. And the wall… eventually.” He gestured vaguely at the ruin, then offered a curt bow. “Breakfast at eight bells, in the morning room, if you please. Lord Skall prefers to take his meals… elsewhere.” Loria nodded, biting back a torrent of technical questions that would undoubtedly blow her cover. “Of course, Brixen. I am simply… overwhelmed.” She made sure to look completely overwhelmed, even touching her temple with limp fingers. “Such a long journey. I think I shall retire.” Later, as the last gas lamps flickered out across the sprawling Cogwater Estate and a sliver of moon painted long shadows on the cobbled paths, Loria slipped from her bed. The silk nightgown felt ridiculous, but she'd chosen it for its quiet rustle and lack of restrictive stays. She moved like a phantom through the hushed halls, her bare feet silent on the cold marble, a small, intricate lock-picking kit tucked into her pocket. Her internal chronometer, a mental clockwork mechanism she’d built from years of clandestine tinkering, told her it was well past midnight. The perfect hour for illicit tinkering. The scrap yard wasn’t hard to find. It stretched behind the main manor like an iron graveyard, heaps of cast-off projects rising under the stars. Towering heaps of corroded gears, bent brass tubing, and twisted iron girders rose under the moonlight. The air here was thick with the tang of rust and machine oil, a scent that, to Loria, was more intoxicating than any perfume. And there it was, amidst a tangle of discarded pressure vessels and snapped conveyor belts: the Beast's powered frame, sprawled on its side like a beached metal whale. It was enormous, easily twice the height of a man, its obsidian plating dulled by dust and its intricate clockwork joints frozen in a twisted mockery of movement. Her eyes devoured every detail. The articulated fingers, each joint a miniature marvel of interlocking cogs, lay splayed in the dirt. The shoulder mechanism, where the hydraulic joint had failed, was a mess of ruptured lines and splintered housing. She could see where the impact dampeners for the fists were housed—tiny, inefficient things that looked like they belonged on a carriage, not a heavy-duty industrial exoskeleton. This wasn’t a curse; it was a glorified mining rig cobbled together by someone with more ambition than sense, and a profound disregard for safety tolerances. “Oh, Garrond,” she murmured, a genuine sigh escaping her lips. “You poor, misguided tinkerer.” The next morning, Loria cornered Brixen in the east wing, where he was meticulously polishing a brass automaton designed to dust the banisters. He paused, the automaton’s tiny brushes whirring to a halt. “Brixen,” she said, her voice an airy wisp. “I am simply beside myself.” She clutched a lace handkerchief to her chest, trying to appear devastated. “Lord Skall… he’s so… intense. And the house is so… large. And I miss my… my pet canary, Pipit. He was such a sweet boy.” She offered a few theatrical sniffles. “I don’t think I can bear it. My stepmother, Lady Vondra, she’ll be worried sick. She’ll send to inquire, I’m sure. You must tell her I am quite, quite miserable. Weeping constantly. Uncontrollably.” Brixen's eyebrow arched, a flicker of something unreadable in his usually impassive eyes. “Weeping, my lady? Are you quite certain?” Loria pressed a small, heavy pouch into his hand. It clinked softly. “Quite, quite certain. A lady’s faint sensibilities, you understand. Some choice words about my despair? And maybe… just maybe… you might know where one could find a few spare hydraulic seals? And a pressure gauge? A small one, of course. For… for sewing, you see. To ensure the proper tension on my threads.” She gave him her most vacant, helpless smile. Brixen weighed the pouch in his hand. The gold inside was substantial. His expression shifted, softening by a fraction. “Ah, yes, Lady Skall. The tender nature of fine needlework. It requires precision. I believe I might know of a small storeroom, quite tucked away, that contains… various such items. For… domestic repairs, naturally.” He slid the pouch into his pocket with practiced ease. “And as for Lady Vondra, you may rest assured, she will receive a most harrowing account of your profound grief.” That night, Loria, now equipped with a discreet satchel of tools and replacement parts thanks to Brixen’s ‘domestic repairs’ storeroom, was back in the scrap yard. She’d found a small, derelict shed tucked behind a mountain of rusted boilers. It was cold and drafty, but it had a sturdy timber table and just enough space. The armored rig, too heavy to move, remained outside, but she’d managed to detach the damaged shoulder joint and drag it in. Her fingers danced over the complex fittings, stripping away the ruptured lines, replacing the worn seals, and, most importantly, completely overhauling the impact dampeners. She found the original design for the suspension system so bafflingly inadequate that she opted to rebuild it from scratch, reinforcing it with stronger alloys she’d ‘borrowed’ from a pile of old rail car axles. Grease smeared her forearms, oil stained her worn work smock (another Brixen ‘acquisition’), and a blissful, focused hum filled the small space. This was her true self, her purpose. The Beast’s ‘curse’ was nothing more than a series of shockingly poor engineering choices, and she was going to fix every single one of them. Lost in the rhythmic click and whirr of her tools, Loria didn’t hear the shed door creak open. She didn’t hear the soft scrape of boots on the concrete floor. Her brow furrowed in concentration, she wrestled with a particularly stubborn torsion spring, muttering colorful curses under her breath that would have made Brixen faint. Finally, with a grunt of triumph, the spring snapped into place. She wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead with a greasy wrist, turning to grab a wrench from the table. Her hand froze mid-air. Standing in the doorway, framed by the pale moonlight, was Garrond Skall. He was shirtless, his torso a roadmap of old, jagged scars that crisscrossed powerful muscles. His dark hair was disheveled, and his eyes, dark and intense, were fixed on her. The air crackled with a sudden, suffocating silence. He was far more imposing without the frame, a raw, formidable presence that swallowed the small shed. Loria, covered in grease, holding a wrench, and standing over his half-disassembled arm mechanism, felt her carefully constructed airhead persona shatter into a thousand pieces. “Oh!” she squeaked, dropping the wrench with a clatter. It echoed in the sudden quiet. She straightened, plastering a wide, vacuous smile on her face. “Lord Skall! I… I simply couldn’t sleep! The… the silence of the country is quite different from the city, you see! And I saw this… this rather large metal wardrobe out here, and I thought, how terribly fascinating! It’s a bit drafty, isn’t it? But such… such lovely gears!” She gestured wildly at the arm on the table, then at the suit outside, her voice rising several octaves, a frantic, desperate bird chirping in the face of a predator. “Are you… are you here for your… your clothes?” Garrond didn’t move. His gaze remained locked on her, sharp and unsettling. His chest rose and fell with a slow, deliberate rhythm, each breath a silent accusation. The scars seemed to flex with the movement, a stark reminder of the brute force he commanded. He took a single, measured step into the shed. Then another. He moved with a quiet, predatory grace that belied his earlier clumsiness, closing the distance between them until Loria was pinned between his imposing frame and the cold edge of the table. The scent of machine oil and something uniquely masculine – sweat, leather, and a faint metallic tang – enveloped her. He lowered his head, his voice a low, gravelly rasp that prickled the hairs on her neck, chilling and thrilling all at once. “If you’re a spy for the Royal Guild, Lady Cogwater,” he murmured, his eyes never leaving hers, “you’re a very poor one.”

Midnight Mechanics