Josi Valentine -

The air in the basement was thick with the scent of old paper and ozone. Josi Valentine adjusted her goggles, the brass frames digging slightly into her cheekbones. On the workbench before her lay the "Heart of Aethelgard," a clockwork mechanism that supposedly pumped life into the city’s failing atmospheric domes.

With a delicate silver wrench, she tightened a microscopic bolt. The machine shuddered. A rhythmic thump-thump echoed through the room, growing steady and warm. A soft amber glow began to bleed from the gears, illuminating the smudge of grease on her nose. josi valentine

"One more turn," she whispered, her voice rasping from the dry air. The air in the basement was thick with