The "Holy See" of Veridia was a city of two layers: the upper, where sunlight hit the gold-capped spires and priests chanted in ancient tongues, and the lower, where the "Unseen"—the orphans, the crippled veterans of the West's wars, and the discarded laborers of the South—dwelled in the damp shadows of the masonry.
Priscilla didn't go back to the ballroom. She traded her mercury-silk gown for a heavy leather duster, smearing soot beneath her eyes to mask the porcelain glow of her skin.
"If you want to build an empire in a city of spies," she murmured to Hagar, who followed her into the slums, "you don't hire architects. You hire the people who know where the rats hide."
They entered "The Pit," a sunken district where the cathedral's massive sewage pipes drained. Here, hundreds of children lived by scavenging scraps of metal and coal.
Priscilla stood on a rusted iron grate. She didn't offer a prayer or a handful of coins. She reached into her bag and pulled out a small, steam-powered turbine—no larger than a loaf of bread—and set it on a stone ledge. She poured a measure of water into its brass belly and struck a match.
Within minutes, the turbine began to hum. A tiny, brilliant electric light bulb, connected by copper wires, flickered to life, illuminating the grime-streaked faces of the orphans.
"This is light without fire," Priscilla's voice rang out, cold and magnetic. "This is heat without wood. I am building a foundry in the catacombs. I don't want your prayers, and I don't want your pity. I want your hands. I will pay you in steel, in salt, and in the kind of power the priests upstairs can only dream of."
A tall, gaunt boy with a scarred face stepped forward. "And what happens when the High Priest finds us? When the Inquisition calls this witchcraft?"
Priscilla pulled her hand-cannon from her belt. The polished steel caught the artificial light. "Let them come. I am not a witch. I am the Architect. And by the time they realize what we're building, we'll be the ones holding the keys to their heaven."
The boy looked at the light, then at the girl with the golden eyes. He knelt, not out of religious fervor, but out of a desperate, cold recognition of a new master.
"We are the 'Unseen,' My Lady," he whispered. "Give us the tools, and we will build you an underworld."
Priscilla looked down at the boy, her expression as unyielding as the iron grate beneath her boots. She didn't offer him a hand to rise. In this world, and especially in the one she was creating, strength was the only currency that didn't devalue.
"What is your name?" she asked.
"Jax," the boy replied, his voice raspy from years of breathing the sulfurous drafts of the Lower See.
"Jax. Collect fifty of the oldest. Those who can read a blueprint or at least keep their hands steady under pressure. I don't need martyrs; I need mechanics." She turned to Hagar, who was looking around the squalor with a mixture of horror and dawning realization. "Hagar, give them the crates of 'reject' iron from the caravan. They are to begin forging the ventilation baffles. If the Inquisition smells the smoke from our forge, we're done before the first assembly line is laid."
Hagar nodded, his eyes lingering on the tiny, glowing bulb. "And the power, My Lady? To run the heavy presses?"
Priscilla looked up at the massive stone walls of the cathedral above them, soaring hundreds of feet into the air. "The Holy See was built over a thermal spring—they call it the 'Breath of the Saints.' The priests use the steam to warm their floors and hum through their pipe organs. We're going to tap into the main vein. We'll bleed their 'saints' dry to power our pistons."
As the orphans began to swarm the crates, their movements quiet and predatory, Priscilla felt a presence at the mouth of the alley. She didn't reach for her weapon this time; she knew the rhythm of those footsteps.
"Building a private army of rats, Priscilla?" Alistair stepped out of the fog, his white doctor's coat looking absurdly pristine against the filth of The Pit. He held a silk handkerchief to his nose, but his eyes were wide, fixed on the electric light. "I followed the thermal signatures. My sensors picked up a sudden spike in electrical discharge. I see you've moved from ballistics to electromagnetism."
"Knowledge is only dangerous when it's concentrated in the hands of the few, Brother," Priscilla said, stepping off the grate. "I'm diversifying the portfolio."
Alistair walked toward the tiny bulb, his finger hovering near the glass. "You're giving the 'Unseen' the light of the gods. You realize that once they have this, they will never go back to the dark. They won't just work for you; they'll worship you. Is that the plan? To replace the Holy See with the Church of the Engine?"
"I don't care about worship, Alistair. I care about production," she replied, her voice dropping to a low, lethal chill. "While you're busy documenting my 'personality shift,' the West is mobilizing. The East is scrying. We need a factory that doesn't exist on any map. We need the Factory of Shadows."
She turned back to Jax, who was already barking orders to the younger children. The boy looked back at her, the flickering electric light reflecting in his scarred eyes. For the first time in his life, he didn't look like a scavenger. He looked like a soldier of the new age.
"Jax," Priscilla called out. "If anyone asks what you're building, tell them you're preparing the cathedral for a miracle."
She looked up at the golden spires far above, her smirk returning—sharp, cold, and utterly savage.
"Because by the time I'm finished, the only thing 'Holy' about this city will be the holes I leave in anyone who stands in my way."