Aether Bloom

Juniper Vale learned to measure time by the hiss of steam. In the narrow courtyard that gave onto her workshop, pipes sang like tired whales and a brass clock with missing teeth thudded three slow beats at dawn. Her fingers still smelled of oiled linen as she wound a lamp that had been coughing sputter and smoke for three nights. Outside, the city of Gearford rolled and breathed: iron lungs exhaled along the river, aerial trams stitched the skyline into a lattice, and from the Clockspire a slow, golden pulse steadied the very sidewalks.

Juniper's bench was a wreck of scattered tools—screwdrivers with bent handles, a magnifier rimmed in soot, and a tiny spring she kept for no good reason. Cogs, her clockwork fox, sat on the windowsill with one ear cocked. Its brass ribs shimmered with tiny etched constellations, and its tail ticked like a second, impatient heart. When she worked, he watched, oil-light reflecting in his glass eyes.

"You could live in better dust," Juniper told him, tapping a pin into place. Her voice was low, the kind that felt like a measured gear, precise and a little stubborn. Cogs answered with a soft mechanical chuff that sounded like amusement and the slap of a curled tail against glass.

Down the lane a handcart rumbled. A boy shouted about fresh aether-lamps—packed with condensed light that had made the evening markets shine until midnight without the usual smoke. Juniper smiled at the thought. The lamps had kept her neighbors sewing, the school open late, and the Harborwomen weaving nets by lamplight. The city had been generous with its light the last few years; the Heart Engine at the Clockspire had a steady bloom.

A tremor ran through the bench. Juniper's screwdriver slipped and clipped the side of her thumb. She hissed, tasted copper. The pipes outside shuddered as if a giant had shifted in its sleep. For a moment the hiss went thin, as if a lung had been pinched. Cogs' tail froze. On the far horizon, away beyond the tram lines where the air smelt faintly of ozone and salted metal, the Clockspire's glow dimmed like a lamp half-breathed.

She left the lamp unfinished, palms going cold. In the street, faces looked up as if listening for an answer. A woman with weaving hands, a conductor in grease, a little girl in patched stockings—all wore the same puzzled fold between their brows. When the lights at the tram stations flickered, a hush fell that felt heavier than soot.