The morning fog clung to the cobblestone streets of New Aetheria like a living thing, swirling around the iron lampposts that hissed with steam-powered luminescence. Evangeline Thorne adjusted her leather goggles and quickened her pace through the Industrial Quarter, her brass-buckled boots clicking against the wet stones. The letter in her coat pocket seemed to burn with urgency, its wax seal bearing the mark of the Royal Institute of Mechanical Sciences.
She had been summoned.