Part Six – Streets of IronClover
Morning crept into IronClover not with sunlight, but with smoke. The sky above the city was a furnace haze, streaked with the black plumes of factories and the faint silver outlines of airships drifting like whales across the clouds.
Down below, the streets roared awake. Steam coaches hissed and rattled across brass-plated tracks, gears churning as drivers snapped reins and cursed at the traffic. Newsboys darted between the wheels, their shrill cries slicing through the fog.
"Extra! Extra! Hanns Murder Mystery — No Leads!"
"The Council Demands Justice!"
"Is IronClover Safe?"
The words echoed off iron bridges and glass towers, lodging themselves into the thoughts of every passerby. Shoppers on cobbled lanes paused to listen; machinists in leather aprons wiped soot from their brows to shake their heads; aristocrats in silk coats frowned as if scandal clung to their boots.
IronClover thrived on scandal. It fed the gears as much as coal. The Hanns murder was no longer just a tragedy—it was an entertainment, a warning, a weapon of politics and gossip alike.
Fog rolled between gaslamps and brass statues, blurring the line between day and night. Somewhere, a clocktower hammered the hour with hollow chimes, while the markets swelled with the clang of tools and the hiss of hot pipes.
Yet beneath all that noise, the city seemed to breathe differently since the night of the attack. Every rumor was a cog turning in its restless heart.
Every whisper, a spark on its brass skin. The Hanns mystery had become IronClover's newest obsession—feeding fear, fascination, and the uneasy sense that something unnatural moved within its veins.