Enya led them down the narrow stairwell behind the kitchen, her small hand clinging to the banister, knuckles pale with tension.
The air shifted the moment they descended—cooler, denser, like something long undisturbed had stirred awake.
At the bottom waited a solid metal door, reinforced with bolts and fitted with three mechanical latches.
No glyphs. No enchantments. Just raw steel and purpose.
Not a sound came from the other side.
Enya halted at the final step, her breath tight in her chest. "Father locked it," she whispered. "I tried knocking… but he wouldn't answer."
Norman knelt beside her, his tone gentle. "You did exactly what you should've, Enya. You stayed safe. That matters most."
Celine gave him a look—part acknowledgment, part urgency—then stepped forward and placed her hand on the cold steel.
"No seams," she muttered. "Too heavy to force. I can't pick this."
Norman nodded once, then stepped up and knocked, firm but respectful. "Stationmaster Calder? This is Inspector Creed of the Central Bureau. We need to speak with you."
For a long moment, there was only silence.
Then—click.
A soft hum of gears winding up. One by one, the latches disengaged with a precise mechanical rhythm. The door creaked inward.
A man stood just beyond the threshold.
Mid-forties, spectacles slipping down his nose, sleeves rolled to the elbows, dark smudges on his hands.
His expression was unreadable—equal parts weary and sharp.
Behind him, the room stretched out in low light: cramped, crowded, and alive with scattered schematics, ink-stained drafting tools, glyph cartridges, and old components gleaming under a flickering lamp.
The faint tang of scorched copper clung to the air.
"Well," he said crisply, arms folded, "took the Bureau long enough."
Norman blinked. "Are you Stationmaster Calder?"
Before the man could answer, Enya already darted past Norman and threw her arms around his waist.
"Father!" she cried. "You finally came out. I was so scared…"
Calder's expression softened in an instant.
He leaned down, cradling her gently. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I didn't mean to frighten you." He kissed the top of her head, then stood again with a sigh.
"But I need to work on something… something important. I had to make sure I got it right."
He glanced back into the room, then stepped aside, gesturing toward a portion of the floor chalked with overlapping diagrams and notes.
"Well, ladies and gentlemen," he said, voice steady, "we'd better talk inside."
They stepped into the basement workshop, careful not to disturb the meticulous chaos.
Blueprints covered nearly every surface—some pinned to the walls, others stacked in uneven towers on desks and stools.
Diagrams of mana engines, glyph-channel arrays, stabilizer cores.
Several pages were marked with fresh ink and hasty annotations.
The chalked floor outlined a cross-section of a locomotive engine, complete with mana circulation loops and failsafe nodes.
Freya's gaze swept the room with silent calculation.
Norman blinked, trying to make sense of the chaos. "Sir… what is all this?"
Calder exhaled. He gently nudged Enya toward a nearby chair, ruffled her hair, then approached the main drafting table.
On it: a blueprint of the mana engine itself—annotated in precise, cramped handwriting.
Dozens of lines had been drawn and redrawn. Some sections had been circled multiple times in red wax pencil.
"I've been up all night going through these," Calder said. "Again. And again."
He tapped a part of the diagram near the engine's mana flow regulator. "Because this—what happened on that train? It shouldn't be possible. I know. Because I helped design the damned thing."
A pause. Everyone was surprised.
"You were on the original engineering team?" Freya asked.
He turned to them, adjusting his spectacles.
"Before I became a glorified rail administrator, yes.
Twenty years ago, Professor Tiranus gathered a group of people—glyphwrights, engineers, mathematicians, physicists. I was one of them.
We built the core systems. Designed the containment arrays, the circulation regulators, the feedback dampeners.
Three layers of failsafes—physical, magical, neural."
Calder took off his spectacles, cleaned them, then put them back on. He added, "Under the professor's guidance. We didn't just build the engine. We made sure it couldn't kill anyone."
He tapped one of the chalk circles with his foot. "Not even if someone tried."
Celine stepped up beside him, frowning. "But it did explode."
"That's what I don't understand," Calder interrupted. "It doesn't make any sense."
Freya folded her arms. "Then what does?"
Calder gave a long sigh. "That's what I've been working on the whole night, my lady."
Aldrich sighed and leaned on the edge of the drafting table, careful not to crush any notes. "Anyone else is capable of reading... all this?"
Calder gave Aldrich a tired look, then snorted. "Of course there are. Every technician and half-competent mechanic at a rail station can read this—otherwise who the hell's supposed to do maintenance? Genie in the bottle?"
He gestured broadly to the chaotic sprawl of blueprints and glyphwork. "This isn't sacred scripture. It's machinery. You want people to understand it. It prevents engines from stopping, brakes failing, and trains flying off cliffs."
Enya opened her mouth to say something, but her stomach beat her to it—a sharp growl echoing in the quiet room like a guilty confession.
She immediately flushed and clapped both hands over her face. "I—I'm sorry," she mumbled behind her fingers. "I—I didn't mean to..."
The mood cracked. Calder blinked, then let out a chuckle—short, warm, and almost disbelieving. "Of course you were."
He stood and stretched with a groan. "Alright. I think we've all earned a break before someone collapses—preferably not my daughter."
There's a deli next door. Still open this late, if Mrs. Brunswick hasn't finally keeled over from baking too much bread."
Celine raised an eyebrow. "You're taking us out for sandwiches during a terrorist investigation?"
"I'm taking my daughter out for food," Calder replied, unbothered. "You lot can come along, or not. Your call."
Aldrich grinned. "I could use a cup of coffee."
"Me too," Norman said.
Calder smirked and waved them toward the stairs. "Come on. Mrs. Brunswick's pastrami might not save the Empire, but it might keep us alive long enough to try."
They climbed the narrow stairwell one by one, the chill of the basement giving way to the warmer air above.
As they passed through the kitchen, the scent of baking from the adjacent building drifted faintly through the walls—warm yeast, roasted herbs, something sharp and peppery.
"Wait," Aldrich said suddenly, peering at the ceiling. "Isn't this the place with the giant pickled turnip jar that fell on a conductor's foot last winter?"
"That was Mr. Brunswick's," Calder replied. "And it wasn't his foot. Don't ask. He still limps."
Enya giggled, the tension finally easing from her shoulders. Even Celine let out a faint smile, and while Freya remained quiet, her lips curled.
They stepped out into the cool night, the glow from the deli's windows casting warm squares of light on the damp cobblestone.
A hanging sign swayed gently in the breeze: Brunswick's Pantry & Provisions — Open Late, Talk Less, Eat More.
Inside, the clatter of plates and the smell of strong mustard greeted them like an old friend.
The bell over the door gave a half-hearted ding.
The place was small, cozy, and cluttered in a lived-in sort of way—tables mismatched, chairs wobbling slightly, walls covered in curling newspaper clippings and framed old photos.
The air was thick with the scent of meat brine, caramelized onions, fresh dill, and something buttery and illegal in seven provinces.
A woman emerged from behind the counter, wiping her hands on a checkered apron.
She was built like a brick bread oven—sturdy, heat-radiating, and stern by default.
Her red hair was tied in a no-nonsense bun, and she gave Calder a look that said it's about time before softening at the sight of Enya.
"Well, look who finally came up for air," she said, voice gruff but not unkind. "I was about ready to roll you out of that basement with a mop."
Calder gave a tired half-smile. "Guilty. But I brought company."
Mrs. Brunswick surveyed the group with sharp eyes. "Hmm... New faces, huh?"
She didn't wait for answers. "You lot look half-fried and poorly seasoned. Sit. I'll bring menus you won't read and food you didn't ask for."
Norman opened his mouth. "Actually, I'll take—"
"Soup and pastrami for you, beanpole," she cut in. "You've got that fainting look."
She turned to Aldrich. "Coffee, double shot. You're pretending to be awake, and it's not working."
Aldrich blinked. "That's disturbingly accurate."
Mrs. Brunswick pointed a thick finger at Enya. "You're getting the kid's plate with extra cornbread. And I'm putting honey on it, and you're going to like it."
Enya nodded solemnly, as if she'd just been drafted into a sacred pact.
Celine raised a brow. "And me?"
"You're a tea and sardine gal. Don't ask how I know."
Freya, still quiet, merely tilted her head.
Mrs. Brunswick hesitated—just for a heartbeat—and said, "Yours is coming. On the house. You've got that look."
Freya blinked. "What look?"
"The kind that says you've seen something ugly and haven't decided how to live with it yet." She sniffed. "And you need pickles. Big ones."
Then, just like that, she vanished into the kitchen, clattering pans like a one-woman percussion section.
They sat in stunned silence for a beat before Norman leaned across the table. "I think I might be a little afraid of her."
"You should be," Calder muttered, resting his elbows on the table. "She once threatened to deep-fry a senior auditor who complained about her price of lasagna."
Aldrich chuckled. "And now she runs the safest deli in the district."
Celine drummed her fingers on the table. "We should debrief. Start stringing together what we know before someone else beats us to it."
"Agreed," Freya said softly. "But let's eat first."
At that moment, Mrs. Brunswick returned, balancing five plates and two mugs in an impossible arrangement that defied gravity.
"Eat while your brains still work," she ordered, setting everything down with the precision of an airship mechanic. "World doesn't stop spinning just because your stomach's empty."
She paused, glanced at Freya, then gently slid over a small porcelain plate—just a slice of dark rye, warm and fresh from the oven, topped with a quiet heap of pickles and a smear of horseradish.
Freya looked down at it for a long second. Then, without a word, she picked up a pickle and took a slow bite.
And to her surprise, she actually liked it.