The days after the Guild's visit fell into a pattern that was less life than it was endurance.
Adrian no longer marked time by sunrises or meals but by the turning of gears and the hiss of pressure gauges. The workshop became his world—cluttered benches stacked with brass fittings, glass tubes trembling with volatile aether, walls humming with the heat of overworked engines. He ate at the bench, slept in stolen hours slumped in his chair, and dreamed of schematics that evaporated the moment he opened his eyes.
And always, across from him, sat Elara.
She lingered in the shadows of the workshop, silent as a statue. Her presence was at once reassuring and unbearable. She moved with flawless precision, never stumbling, never hesitating—too perfect, too deliberate. Even her stillness unsettled him. She would sit for hours, her face unreadable, while faint metallic clicks echoed from beneath her ribs.
It was the sound of his triumph. It was the sound of his failure.
---
One evening, as rain hammered the city's rooftops and the lanterns burned low, Adrian adjusted the heart's regulator for the twelfth time that week. He worked with trembling hands, sweat soaking his collar despite the chill.
He tightened the last screw, then looked at her, breath shallow. "How does it feel?"
Elara blinked. She raised her hand, flexing her fingers. The joints moved with uncanny smoothness, free of tremor. Her voice was steady, stripped of hesitation. "Efficient."
He froze. "Not… better? Not you?"
Her gaze flicked to him, cool and level. "I am functioning at optimum capacity."
The words cut deeper than any scalpel. His chest tightened, his pulse racing. "You're not a machine, Elara! You're my wife."
She tilted her head, studying him as though he were the experiment. "Am I? You seem determined to prove otherwise."
The lantern hissed as though mocking him. He staggered back, gripping the workbench. The rain outside swallowed his strangled laugh.
---
The next day, a knock rattled the workshop door. Adrian opened it to find a messenger in a brass half-mask, rain dripping from his cloak. The man said nothing, only pressed a sealed envelope into his hand before retreating into the storm.
The serpent-and-gear insignia glared up at him in wax.
Inside was a single line in Corwin's elegant hand:
You cannot hold her forever. If she is yours, prove it. If she is ours, surrender her. The choice will come sooner than you think.
Adrian crumpled the parchment, bile rising in his throat. He burned the letter in the furnace, watching the flames curl the paper into blackened fragments.
He told Elara nothing.
---
Instead, he turned to his tools with renewed fury.
Night after night, he bent over her chest, fingers blackened with oil, eyes burning from aetheric fumes. He rewired the valves, recalibrated the pressure chamber, polished the brass casing until his reflection stared back at him from her breastplate. He infused the aether coil with stronger currents, convinced that if he struck the right balance, if he tuned the machine to her soul's forgotten rhythm, she would laugh again.
But each attempt stripped something away.
Her eyes lost their softness, becoming mirrors that reflected without feeling. Her voice lost its lilting cadence, flattening into measured tones that carried no warmth. She no longer filled the silence with idle humming or murmured comfort when his temper flared. When he reached for her hand, she placed her palm in his as one would comply with an instruction—no tenderness, no intimacy.
It was as if every touch of his wrench tightened a gear inside her heart and loosened one inside his own.
---
The breaking point came at midnight.
Adrian collapsed at the bench, head heavy with exhaustion, his face smeared with soot and grease. The workshop stank of metal and ozone. Across from him, Elara stood still, the faint golden gears turning in her chest.
"Why do you persist?" she asked softly.
Her tone was neither angry nor cruel—it was worse than that. It was curious. Detached.
He lifted his head, eyes bloodshot, lips trembling. "Because I love you."
"You love a memory," she said. "Not what I am."
The words hollowed him. He tried to argue, to summon the old fire of conviction, but the truth pressed against him like the weight of the city itself.
She stepped closer. The lamplight caught her face, throwing it into sharp contrast—half human, half machine. "I do not know if I am Elara anymore. But I know you are not Adrian. Not the one I remember. He held me when I was weak. You dismantle me when I am strong."
His hands shook. "I only want you back."
"Then perhaps you should stop."
The silence stretched, filled only by the rhythmic ticking of her brass heart.
---
The crash shattered it.
Glass exploded from the front window, scattering shards across the floor. The iron-bound workshop door buckled inward under a thunderous blow, then tore free of its hinges. Smoke hissed through the opening.
Figures in brass masks stormed inside, cloaks dripping, weapons gleaming. The Guild.
Adrian stumbled back, instinctively placing himself between them and Elara. Sparks danced from the Tesla rod one of the intruders carried; another cocked a pneumatic crossbow, its steel bolt glinting in the light.
"Stand aside," a voice commanded, muffled by the mask.
Adrian's jaw clenched. "You'll take her over my corpse."
But even as he spoke, he felt the whirring behind him—the steady, rising hum of gears.
Elara stepped forward. Her movements were swift, precise, predatory. Her heart pulsed with an intensity he had never seen, golden light bleeding through the seams of her brass chestplate.
Adrian turned, his heart freezing in his chest.
She was no longer trembling, no longer frail. She was terrifying.
And for the first time, he could not tell if she moved to protect him—or to protect the machine that now defined her existence.