“The Enforcers?” My voice came out flat, stripped of its usual razor trim, while Rolo bounced on the balls of his boots. Varek was already wrenching his wheels across the floorboards, grease and soot stark against his pale skin. He spun towards a locked, reinforced cabinet tucked beneath a workbench, fumbling with a complex brass key. The air in the workshop, finally warm, suddenly felt impossibly frigid. “Illegal tinkering… but for what?” I demanded, watching him. This wasn’t just about an unapproved boiler. Jolvan wouldn’t bother with petty municipal codes. He was aiming for something far worse. “What kind of tinkering exactly, Varek? What did that miserable worm tell them?” Varek’s hands paused on the lock, his gaze sweeping the cluttered space. He looked at the pressure gauges, the shimmering brass conduits of the new heater, then at the scattered assemblies cluttering his benches—escapements of absurd precision, interlocking cog trains, and a faint green shimmer leaking from beneath an oilcloth. His jaw worked, a muscle twitching. “He… he wouldn’t have known about the heater,” he said, his voice low, tight. “Not yet.” Rolo wrung his hands, practically vibrating. “He said… he said it was about… distortions in the flow, sir! That you were meddling with unspooled hours!” Unspooled hours. A dry nausea settled in my throat. My arm, where the chronometer lay hidden, throbbed faintly, a phantom pulse against the fabric of my sleeve. This wasn’t just bad; this was cataclysmic. Chronomancy was banned under imperial decree, its practitioners dragged off by the Ministry with brutal efficiency. It was the quickest route to the Solarian Pits, a fate worse than any hanging. “Time itself?” I repeated, my voice now sharp, accusatory. “Varek, what exactly have you been working on that could give Jolvan even an inkling of such a thing?” He finally unlocked the cabinet, pulling open its heavy door to reveal a nest of glowing, delicate apparatuses. Orbs of swirling chronium, thin wires humming with barely contained energy, and an armored brass mitt, its surface chased with runic channels that hummed with a soft, internal glow. He didn’t look at me, his gaze fixed on the dangerous, forbidden inventory. His shoulders, usually so stoic, slumped. When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper, thick with a shame that clawed at my gut. “My legs, Tazien,” he confessed, the words a raw, guttural sound. He raised his chin, his hazel stare raw and naked in a way I had not seen since before the carriage accident. “I’ve been… I’ve been trying to fix them. To reverse the damage. I’ve been studying what little I could find on chronomancy. It’s the only way, I thought. To… to walk again.” My lungs seized tight. My own selfishness, my youthful, foolish spite, had put him in that chair. And now, my own secret chronometer affliction had drawn the inspectors because he had been trying to undo my past cruelty. Guilt, sharp and agonizing, twisted inside me, a thousand barbed hooks tearing at my conscience. He hadn’t just been inventing for Kravika, for commerce, for knowledge. He’d been inventing for himself, for a life he believed I’d stolen, risking everything in the process. And I, the bitter, self-appointed martyr, was now unwittingly leading him to ruin, again. My eyes narrowed, the guilt quickly morphing into a familiar, aggressive determination. “You fool,” I snapped, my voice rough. “You absolute, magnificent idiot. Why didn’t you say anything? Why did you think for even a second that Jolvan wouldn’t use this against you?” I didn't wait for an answer. “Right. Rolo, stay here. If anyone comes knocking, you’ve seen nothing, heard nothing. You’re a delivery boy, remember? You were never here.” Rolo swallowed, nodding vigorously, his eyes darting to the dangerous looking devices. “Yes, ma’am! Nothing! I know nothing!” “Varek,” I continued, my gaze locking onto his, “we’re not just going to hide this. We’re going to make it disappear. Permanently. And we’re going to do it before those tin-plated thugs even darken your door.” My hand shot out, snatching the brass mitt from the shelf. Its surface was warm, humming with a barely restrained power. “You know where to go, don’t you? The black markets. The Gristled Maw. Somewhere deep in the lower wards where even the high-district patrols fear to tread.” Varek, still reeling from his confession, could only nod, a flicker of surprise in his eyes at my sudden, forceful command. I wheeled his chair over to the workbench. “Quickly. Pack the chronium orbs, the resonance coils, anything with a hint of forbidden hum. Anything that screams for a hanging rope.” Make it look like ordinary scrap, anything but what it is.” His hands, usually precise, fumbled slightly as he began to dismantle and pack, his gaze darting toward the brass weapon under my arm. It felt heavy, smelling faintly of heated copper and ozone. “We’ll use the service entrance,” I decided, scanning the workshop. “Less conspicuous. They’ll expect us to try the front.” Within minutes, Varek had expertly disguised the most damning pieces of his forbidden research within a few unassuming canvas bags, ostensibly filled with old gears and brass off-cuts. I wrapped a scarf around my lower face, the smog of Kravika’s industrial core already biting at my throat just thinking about it. Varek, ever practical, had a similar one already tied around his. We navigated the labyrinthine back alleys, the stench of stale coal smoke and industrial runoff growing thicker with every turn. The rumble of steam-carriages faded, replaced by the shouts of hawkers and the clang of metal on metal from illicit workshops. The Gristled Maw was less a place and more a state of being, a perpetually shadowed, grimy district where the city’s underbelly thrived. The cobblestones were slick with an oily grime, and the narrow passages were choked with the refuse of a thousand dubious transactions. We were deep in the maw, turning down a particularly narrow, unlit lane that smelled faintly of brine and something acrid, when the shadows detached themselves from the brickwork. Four hulking figures, their faces obscured by low-brimmed caps and heavy scarves, emerged, blocking our path. One of them, a burly brute with knuckles like mallets, stepped forward, a sneer visible even through his covering. “Well, well, if it isn’t the clever tinkerer and his pretty little tart. Jolvan wants a word, girl. And he wants his property back.” His eyes flicked to Varek’s bags. “And whatever other shiny trinkets you’re carting off, boy.” My hand instinctively went to the gauntlet hidden under my coat. “Jolvan can want all he likes,” I snarled, stepping in front of Varek’s chair. “He’ll get nothing but the clap, just like his father before him.” The brute roared, lunging forward, a heavy club arcing towards my head. I didn’t flinch. But before it could connect, Varek moved. With a speed I hadn’t anticipated, he gripped the armrests of his chair, launching himself forward, *throwing* himself directly into the path of the blow. He didn’t use his chair; he used *himself*. The club slammed into his shoulder with a sickening thud, but he didn’t cry out. Instead, his free hand shot out, grabbing my wrist with surprising strength. “Tazien! The arm-piece!” His voice was strained, but his eyes were blazing with a raw, protective fury I’d never seen before. I understood. I hauled the brass armature out from beneath my coat and shoved it into his grip. His fingers, calloused from years of tinkering, closed around it. With a guttural grunt, Varek twisted, his body now a shield between me and the approaching thugs. He aimed the brass sleeve. A whining resonance built along the chased runes, rising to a scream. Then, with a blinding emerald flash and a concussive crack that rattled the cobbles, an eruption of pure kinetic force smashed out from the flared muzzle. The thugs were lifted clean off their feet, sent sprawling backwards into the grimy alley walls, crashing into barrels and refuse with bone-jarring thuds. One of them, screaming, clutched at his arm, which hung at an unnatural angle. Varek, panting while the weapon discharged its residual heat, wheeled half an inch toward me, his ribs hitching. “Are you hurt?” he rasped, his gaze scanning me frantically. A peculiar hitch caught behind my collarbone. He had shielded me. He had used a weapon, one of his own designs, to blast away men, all to protect me. The cold, stoic tinkerer, the man I’d wronged, had become a furious, protective beast. A choked sound escaped my throat, a mix of awe and a deeper, unsettling tenderness. But the fight wasn’t entirely over. One of the thugs, surprisingly resilient, picked himself up from the rubble, a long, rusty knife glinting in his hand. He lunged, a desperate, feral cry tearing from his lips. Varek, still recovering, tried to pivot his chair, but the thug was too fast. The knife came slicing, not for Varek, but for me, a desperate, sweeping arc aimed at my midsection. I twisted, throwing my arm up to block, a sharp pain blossoming along my forearm. The blade missed skin, but the thick fabric of my sleeve tore with a ragged ripping sound, sliced wide open, exposing the glowing, ticking countdown for everyone—including Varek—to see.

Brass and Black Markets