and looked at the coin in her hand. Stamped on one side of the thaler was the mark of the Pawnbroker’s Order: three circles hanging, staggered, from a Cupid’s bow. They should have been spheres, but the engraver hadn’t made much effort at shading. What was the old student joke? “What does it take to be a genuine pawnbroker? Brass balls, of course.” She flipped it over. On the reverse was the asymmetrical lily of Family de Rosia. She’d asked Carl once why they didn’t use a rose, but he’d only smiled and said he’d tell her when she was older.
One iron thaler, properly stamped and sealed. Freely given and freely received, no restaurateur in the city could refuse it. She held a token of credit centuries old and stronger than any human, even a man like her dad, could ever hope to build up. She clutched the thaler tightly. Not one of the half-dozen pawnbrokers she’d visited in the last week had offered her a token. “You know, Carl, for a vampire, you’re pretty decent.”
He gave her that perfect cat smile and bowed. “You make my great-grandmother weep.”
“I didn’t mean it like—”
“No, no, it’s an old family saying. Granddam is a sadistic hag and all of us civilized de Rosias like disappointing her. Now go on, darling. You’re going to need some rest if you want to start term on Monday.” Gently but firmly, he ushered her to the front of the shop, avoiding the bars of sunlight that snuck through the slats around the door. “The café on the corner is owned by a friend of mine. He’ll give you two meals for that token if you ask nicely.”
Melee made sure he was clear of the sunlight before opening the door. “Thank you, Carl. For everything.”
“Thank you, my dear. Now, ah, this first year. I can expect her … when?”
“I’ll ask her to come around tomorrow.”
The street outside was nearly empty, though it wouldn’t stay that way for long. The dinner crowds would be out soon, hawking their blood and other valuable living assets to the vitally challenged for tokens and textbooks and practical tips on how to pass Professor Boynya’s first alchemy exam. Both diners and dinees were waiting for the sun to slip behind the spindling brick façades of Pawn Row, but for now, Melee had the street to herself. Nearly. The gargoyle winked at her from the corner of the roof. Next to him, the dragon sat rigid and watchful, its eyes still burning standby red.
She whistled the unlocking sequence, and at the final note, the dragon came to life. Golden fire flared in its eyes and flowed beneath its alchromium scales, tracing the sleek lines of its silver chassis. It blinked once, shook itself, and dropped from its perch without leaving a scratch on the stone façade. The street was narrow, so it folded its wings and dived, falconlike, toward the cobbles. Melee could almost hear her insurance man gasp all the way from his office across town. Its wings snapped out just above her head, casting an early twilight over a few square meters of street and setting the three brass balls over Carl’s shop door swinging in the sudden gust. Gracefully, with what she could only assume was the mechanical version of pride, it glided down the last few meters until its steel claws touched the curb. Steam and the sharp, bracing scent of drakeoil hissed out from settling joints as it folded its wings against its chassis. It tilted its head and looked at her with a gleam in its eye.
Good job, buddy, Melee thought, and smiled.
It wasn’t alive. It could never be alive. She knew as well as anyone the limits of magitech, and yet there was always that something, that little sliver of hopeful doubt, that made her wonder. Her dad always said their dragon was more than the sum of its parts. Her smile dimmed as she patted the upward sweep of its wing. It was only a pity those parts were so expensive.
“You’ve done a fine job with it.”
Melee jumped. Instead of returning to the dim comfort of his shop, Carl had stayed in the doorway, a blackout umbrella carefully angled between him and the last rays of sunlight. He was eyeing her dragon with a hunger that had nothing to do with blood.
“He’s not for sale, Carl.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“You were thinking it.”
“Who’s the mind reader now?”
“The answer is no,” she said, and swung into the cockpit behind the dragon’s head. The metal warmed at her touch as she signed the starting sequence on the control panel.
“But, my dear, if only you knew what collectors would offer for a classic like that …”
“It could never be enough.”
He raised an eyebrow and muttered something just outside her range of hearing.
“What was that?”
“You clearly haven’t received your first tuition bill,” he said.
It wasn’t the sudden drop in blood pressure that sent the cold creeping into her cheeks and started her hands shaking. “I don’t care what you or anyone else offers. He stays with me.”
Carl inclined his head, baring his neck in the formal gesture of resignation. “Oh, very well. As you say. I wish you the best of luck this term.”
She touched the panel. The purr from the dragon’s engine intensified. Though she lacked the layered sight of creatures like Carl and so could only imagine the magic flowing through the creature below her, that didn’t stop her from trying. The internal magic channels would pulse golden-red with white sparks, just like her dragon’s eyes. From the heart of the engine, the magic branched out in spindling threads of fire, knitting steel sinew to bone gears and bone gears to alchrome pistons, filling the dragon like the soul filled a body.
At her touch, the dragon turned its head again. Impatient to be home, just like she was. Melee drew the sign for the students’ quarter with her finger on the square of thaumium. The symbol flared white once and faded. The dragon raised its wings.
“Thanks, Carl,” she said over the hum of the engine. “I’ll see you around.”
The first year was out, so Melee left a note in an envelope. The iron thaler gave the cheap paper enough weight to slip it beneath the door of the girl’s flat. It stung, for a moment, letting go of a souvenir of such magnanimity like that, but a first-time customer of Carl’s would need it more than she did. Even if she was a keen negotiator, that orrery would take a lot out of the first year. Besides, Melee had other plans.
The dinner crowds were just starting to seep out into the purple light of evening as she signed the dragon home. Chill air with just a nibble of winter whipped her hair into a tangle the goggles could do nothing to prevent. The wind scoured clean the sounds of the new city waking below her: laughter, shouts, growls, the clank of machinery, and the occasional scream from someone who’d failed to specify the terms of their dinner engagement. The close-fitting leather helmet her mother had sent a few birthdays back would’ve also solved the problem, but that would mean finding it, and Melee had spent a great deal of time making certain she’d never set eyes on it again.
She shifted her weight, and the dragon banked toward the World’s End district. The tightly knit cluster of houses and shops sat on the edge of town, clinging to the diamond banks of the river Râu with all the tenacity of people who had refused to accept that their beloved neighborhood was no longer a paragon of respectability, and likely never had been. Still, it had its own kind of beauty. She caught her breath as the dragon
