Eliana stumbled back from the Chronoscope, gasping, the phantom chill of the blast still clinging to her skin. The memory shattered, leaving the hidden laboratory feeling suddenly frigid. Benedetto, set his jaw and moved, his heavy footsteps echoing on the stone floor. "Orsini!" he roared, the sound vibrating with a fury Eliana had never heard, "Secure the main gates! We have less than an hour!"
Giulia, who had been studying the Chronoscope's dials, spun around, her eyes wide with comprehension. "The Guild Inspector… Sterling. Of course! The Arch-Engineer of the Iron Foundry, always trying to steal your designs. He didn't just sabotage the Orrery, he covered it up!"
"He returns for clean-up," Benedetto stated, his tone low and sharp. "To bury the evidence. To bury *us*. He'll declare a 'curse quarantine' and scorch the grounds. Cogsworth! Protocol Omega!"
From the corner, Cogsworth, who had been silently observing, clicked to attention. "Acknowledged, Master di Sforza. Commencing defensive preparations. All non-essential clockwork units to standby. Perimeter seals engaging."
"Non-essential isn't enough," Giulia snapped, already pulling out a toolkit. "They're all malfunctioning anyway. We need chaos. Benedetto, give me access to the central control nexus in the foyer. I can re-route their behavioral matrices, turn them into… deterrents."
Benedetto hesitated, then gave a sharp nod. "The nexus it is. But they are unstable. You risk total system ruin."
"Better a ruin on our terms than theirs!" Giulia retorted, already racing from the laboratory. Eliana followed, her pulse racing. Sterling. The respected Guild representative. The saboteur.
They reached the grand foyer, where Cogsworth was already directing brass service chassis dragging heavy, reinforced timber barriers across the front doors. Outside, a distant, rhythmic thudding began to grow louder—the unmistakable sound of Guild soldiers marching.
"Eliana," Benedetto said, turning to her, his gaze intense. "The phantoms you summoned earlier. Can you… can you call them again?"
The memory of the wailing figures, of Benedetto dropping to his knees from strain, remained fresh. "I… I don't know how I did it before. I just opened the ballroom doors to let in the sun, and they appeared. It was Rule #3."
"Then open the doors," Benedetto commanded, his hand gripping her arm, a gesture of desperate urgency rather than anger. "Use the house's agony. Unleash it. Sterling expects a quiet execution. Give him a haunted tomb instead."
Giulia, perched precariously on a scaffold by the foyer's control nexus, was already working furiously, sparks flying from her wrenches. "They're bringing heavy-caliber Arc-Cannons!" she yelled over the growing din. "And those are 'purge-class' ironclads—designed to disintegrate anything touched by our ruin!"
Eliana sprinted toward the dance hall, blood rushing in her ears. She paused at the massive, gilded doors, hesitating for only a moment. This wasn't about Livia's rules anymore. This was about saving Benedetto. She pushed. The heavy doors groaned, scraping across the neglected floor, and swung inward. A gust of stagnant, freezing air billowed out, carrying with it the faint scent of ozone and despair.
Just as she opened them, the first blast from an Arc-Cannon struck the House of Sforza. The entire structure shuddered, dust raining from the ceiling. Outside, the thudding stopped, replaced by the grating crunch of their heavy boots on the gravel. "House of Sforza!" a voice boomed, amplified by an enchanted horn. It was Sterling. "By decree of the Artisan's Guild, under emergency quarantine protocol for extreme curse manifestation, surrender all occupants or face immediate destruction!"
Across the parquet floor, faint, shimmering figures began to coalesce. Not just the transparent forms from before, but thicker, darker specters, their faces contorted in silent screams. The air grew colder, and a low, mournful wail began to rise from the depths of the estate. Eliana felt a strange, chilling connection to them, a resonance with the lingering grief. She focused, picturing the horror of the Orrery's sundering, letting the frost seep into her bones.
In the foyer, Giulia laughed, a wild, sharp sound. "Alright, you rusted tin-men! Time for your grand performance!" She slammed her hand down on a final switch. The house's dormant machinery, from scuttling scullery sprites to massive, multi-limbed iron golems, lurched to life. Not with their usual placid hum, but with jerky, uncontrolled movements, their optics glowing an erratic crimson. They barreled toward the front doors, a chaotic wave of twisted metal and grinding gears, creating a cacophony of shrieks and clangs that dwarfed the approaching Guild squad's advance.
Benedetto stood at the main entryway, his prosthetic arm glowing with a faint, violet luminescence. He didn't wield it aggressively. Instead, the power pulsed outward, casting an iridescent ward across the timber barricades. Guild shock-troopers in ceramite armor collided with the invisible wall, their Arc-Cannons discharging futile salvos. Sterling stood at the front, features pinched in fury. "Hold your ground! The house mechanisms are berserk! Target the main structure!"
The brass contraptions Giulia had unlocked thrashed blindly, flailing their rusted limbs, inadvertently smashing into the Guild forces. Some turned on each other, others simply spun in endless circles, but their sheer numbers and unpredictable movements created a deadly, bewildering obstacle. Meanwhile, from the newly unsealed chamber, spectral shapes poured out, not solid enough to harm, but terrifyingly real to the perception. They wailed, their phantom cries echoing through the Sforza grounds, sowing panic among the ranks.
Sterling, seeing his disciplined squad fall apart, snarled an order. "Enough of this nonsense! Direct fire on the central dome! We'll bring the whole accursed place down!"
Arc-Cannons converged, hammering Benedetto's ward. The violet glare around his brass limb intensified, veins standing out along his neck. Eliana watched, horrified, as cracks began to spiderweb across the shimmering defense. The house groaned, its foundations trembling. Suddenly, the shield fractured, sending Benedetto staggering back, drawing shallow, rattled breaths.
"The south wall!" Giulia screamed, pointing a grimy finger. "They've breached the garden wall! They're coming through the conservatory!"
Benedetto, blood trickling from his lip, straightened. His irises, alight with deep violet embers, locked onto the glass corridor. He raised his prosthetic arm. A concentrated discharge erupted from his brass palm—a tight, violet lance that struck the lead ironclad, melting its chassis into slag. The surrounding riflemen stumbled back from the heat.
This was the curse, but harnessed. Controlled. For her.
Their victory was short-lived. A sudden, massive explosion tore through the foyer's ceiling, raining plaster and debris. Sterling, having circled above, dropped through the ruptured plaster between Eliana and Benedetto. He held a bladed Arc-Scythe vibrating with bright arc-fire. He moved with the terrifying speed of a seasoned combatant, sweeping the scythe in a wide arc, forcing Benedetto to parry with his glowing arm, the impact throwing sparks. As Benedetto stumbled back from the deflection, Sterling lunged, hauling Eliana against his chest and pinning the cold edge of the Arc-Scythe to her throat. Its hum vibrated through her, promising instantaneous obliteration.
"Benedetto di Sforza," Volkov snarled, his eyes burning with cold triumph. "Surrender, or watch your little fiancée disintegrate.