Liam pulled the latch and stepped inside.
Heat rolled over him at once, heavy and wet, clinging to his skin until the cityâs grit began to loosen. Steam filled the air so thick it blurred the gaslights into halos and turned the chamber into a haze of amber and shadow. The noise of the street fell away, replaced by the hiss of pipes and the low roar of rushing water. It smelled of soap and wet stone, sharper than the reek of the slums but clean in a way that left no room for lies.
He lingered by the counter, dug a few scrip from his pocket, and slid them across the wood. The attendant didnât bother with words, simply swept the bills into a tin and nodded him through. His meagre reserves were dwindling, and the weight of it pressed sharp in his mind, but for now he let it pass.
The main chamber yawned wide, ceiling dripping with condensation. Pools of steaming water lay sunk into the stone, their surfaces broken by shoulders and heads, voices low and indistinct. Along the walls were alcoves carved into the brick, each fitted with hooks and braces. Steamgrafts rested there in ordered rowsâarms, legs, pieces of ribcages, all stripped from their owners before they sank into the heat. None were touched. Not here.
Along the side wall, carved into the stone, were alcoves. Each one fitted with a brace or a hook, a place to set down what the body could not carry into the water. Steamgrafts. Liam slowed as he passed them. Dozens of limbs lay there in orderly rowsâiron arms, gear-laden legs, one even shaped like a ribcage with pipes curling out where lungs should have been. No one touched what wasnât theirs. To do so would have been worse than theft. It was sacrilege.
He stopped at an empty alcove, fingers moving to the buckles across his chest. The straps gave way with a tug. Metal clinked as he loosened the harness, the graft dragging heavier by the moment. He gritted his teeth, reaching up to the socket on his shoulder where steel locked into scar. A twist, a pull. Pressure released with a sharp hiss, and the limb came free.
The weight nearly pulled him down with it as he held it with his arm of flesh and bone, the graft warm like a newly-dead corpse, but still heavy as sin. He slowly, carefully, set it into a nearby alcove. For a moment he stood staring at it, the brass fingers curled tight, the glass porthole still glowing faintly orange from its reignition earlier. Detached, it looked less like part of him and more like some carcass. Something waiting to be claimed by anyone desperate enough to live half-metal.
It would be safe here. The alcoves were sacrosanct, as close to holy ground as the slums ever got. No one touched a graft that wasnât theirs. Not even the lowest cutthroat or the most desperate thief would break that rule. They might slit a throat once the owner stepped away from the pools, stripped of their steel and slower to defend themselves, but the graft itself was left untouched. It was an unwritten law, older than the manufactories, older than the guilds. A manâs graft was his soul made iron, and stealing it was a sin that no gang or crew would forgive.
He turned away.
The room was a haze of heat and bodies, and the water steamed thick from the stone pools sunk into the floor. Liam stripped down without hurry. Boots first, thudding heavy against the slick stone. Shirt peeled damp from his skin, trousers sticking before they came free. He folded nothing, left the bundle in a bucket at the edge of the alcove, and stepped forward. Unseen an attendant came and collected the clothes for a swift, if harsh, cleaning while he cleansed his body.
The first touch of the pool was blistering. He hissed through his teeth, every instinct to pull back, but forced himself lower. The scalding heat bit through his skin, then softened, sinking deeper into bone. He eased down until the water closed around his chest, the shock fading into a dull wash of relief.
The ache in his shoulder dulled. He leaned against the slick stone edge, let the heat work into him, breath slowing.
Steam rose and curled over his face, thick enough to blur the figures across the pool. Voices drifted, low and indistinct, mingling with the constant hiss of pipes feeding water into the basins. Somewhere metal clanged against stone, someone dropping a graft into its alcove. It was the only sharp sound in a room otherwise softened, hushed, as if the steam swallowed everything sharp before it could bite.
For the first time in days, Liamâs body wasnât taut with exhaustion or craving. The tension in his spine unwound, muscles slackening one by one. He let his head tip back against the stone. The ceiling above blurred, gaslight smeared into halos.
He had always come to places like this out of necessityâblood to scrub off, grime to scrape away. Yet now, sitting in the heat with nothing pressing him but the hiss of water and his own ragged breath, he realized how long it had been since he let himself just sit. The steam worked its way under his skin, prying open knots of pain in his back and legs, making him feel, if only for a moment, less like rust and scars stitched together.
A man across from him leaned forward to rinse his face, water running in rivulets down his chest, tracing the seams where brass plating had replaced ribs. Liam caught it from the corner of his eye, then looked away. The sight wasnât strange, not here, not in the slums. Everyone was broken in some way. Some more obviously than others.
His gaze wandered the chamber. Men filled the pool in weary silence. A boy not yet grown scrubbed at the stump of his knee, where a graft socket waited for a limb that had not yet been fitted. Old men slouched in the water like driftwood, skin pale and sagging, eyes closed against the steam. A pair of workers whispered low, their voices roughened by smoke and metal dust, shoulders bowed under years of labor. The heat turned them all soft-edged, anonymous, as if the bath stripped away not only grime but every mark of station.
The bathhouse didnât pretend to be holy. No gods waited here, no sermons or hymns. Yet Liam felt safer in its walls than in any church he had ever stepped into. The heat pressed against his bones, the water buoyed his body, and for once the silence didnât gnaw. Here, he wasnât watched. Here, the graft was set aside, untouchable. Here, he was just another body washed raw by steam.
He exhaled, long and steady.
And for Liam, that was enough.
Liam lowered himself deeper into the pool, the water lapping hot against his chest. His muscles tightened instinctively, then eased as the heat bled into him. It was always like this: the first burn, the sting, then the slow uncoiling. He leaned his head back against the stone lip and shut his eyes.
For the first time in days, the silence around him did not scrape at his nerves. No footsteps pacing above, no hollow clink of the vial on the shelf, no whispering itch in the back of his skull. Just the wet slap of water as bodies shifted and the steady sigh of steam rolling down from the vents overhead.
He let himself breathe. Long, steady. The air was heavy, hot enough to taste on his tongue, metallic and sharp from the pipes, but it was better than the staleness of his room. Better than the stench of rust and sweat that had clung to him since the rat-cave.
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He closed his eyes tighter and tried to let it all melt out of him. The city, the noise, the weight of the graft. For a few minutes he could pretend none of it mattered. That he was just another man sinking into the water after a shift. Anonymous. Forgettable.
The heat sank deeper, tugging at knots he hadnât realized were wound into him. His shoulder throbbed where the graft usually pulled, the ache of the metal gone now that it sat cooling in the alcove. The rest of his body felt strange without it, light and lopsided, but the water steadied him.
His thoughts drifted. Back to Peter, to the words he had left behind like splinters. Bath. Respectable. Meeting someone important. The memory made his jaw tighten, but then it eased. He hated how much the foolâs words had pushed him here, hated that they carried weight at all. And yet, stripped down and floating in the heat, he found himself grateful in some small, sour way.
He ran a hand over his face, felt the rough stubble scratching at his palm. He needed a shave, too. He could almost hear Peter making some quip about it, about how he looked like he had been living under a boiler. The thought stung, but it was easier to push aside in the water.
Around him, voices rose and fell, low and tired. A pair of workers muttered about the morning shift, their words half-swallowed by steam. Someone laughed, short and harsh, then coughed until it broke into silence. Liam let the sounds drift past him. None of it touched him here.
He slid lower, until the water nearly covered his mouth, and stared up at the stone ceiling through the drifting haze. Cracks ran like veins through the blocks, dark with age and damp. Drops formed and fell at intervals, pattering into the pool like a slow heartbeat.
His body floated, lighter than he ever felt outside. The heat drew sweat from him until he could no longer tell where his body ended and the water began. He thought of Isadora, of her careful hands fitting the graft when he had first woken with it. Of her telling him not to let it become him. "Use it, but donât be it," she had said. He had nodded, but the line blurred too easily. Detached now, sitting alone in the alcove, the graft looked like something alien. Like it belonged more to the city than to him.
His chest tightened. The thought pressed sharp against the emptiness he carried, the same one that gnawed at him every time he walked into a chapel and felt nothing. No warmth, no presence. Nothing but the hollow echo of his own silence.
He thought of Peter again. The boyâs words came back to him unbidden, that description of love without condition. Liam clenched his teeth and shoved the thought under the water, drowning it before it could take root. He didnât want to think of that now. Not here, in the only place he ever let himself feel still.
The water lapped against his ears, dulling the sound of the world. His breathing grew slow, heavy. He could almost sleep like this.
He shifted once more, settling against the edge, letting his limbs hang loose beneath the surface. It wasnât comfort exactly, but it was the closest he had come in a long while. The bathhouses were the only places where he let himself drop his guard, if only because no one was foolish enough to break the unspoken rules here. No one touched another manâs graft. No one disturbed the silence of the pools beyond idle talk. It was as close as the slums ever came to something sacred.
For a time, he allowed himself to drift. The heat blurred his thoughts until the edges softened. The craving for plasm stirred faintly at the edges of his mind, but it was weak, smothered by warmth. For once, it did not bite.
He let his head sink back, eyes half-closed. The steam curled around him, hiding the others in mist. He could almost believe he was alone. Almost believe the city wasnât pressing in just beyond the walls.
But the city always pressed in. Even here. The scrape of boots on stone echoed faintly through the chamber as someone moved past the alcoves. Liamâs eyes flicked open, sharp, until he heard the splash of water and the grunt of a man lowering himself into the pool. He forced his shoulders loose again. Not a threat. Just another body seeking relief.
Still, the moment of quiet had cracked. He pushed up, letting the water slide from his skin, and braced his arms on the stone lip. His muscles felt looser now, lighter, but the weight in his chest remained. Always remained.
The thought of the graft waiting for him outside the pool tugged at him, heavy and inevitable. He would have to strap it on again before stepping back into the streets. Back into the noise, the eyes, the endless grind. For now, though, he let the water hold him a little longer, clinging to the fragile illusion that he could stay here. That he could be only flesh, not steel.
He closed his eyes again, let the heat seep in until the edges of himself blurred. For a heartbeat, he could almost pretend he belonged.
When at last he stepped from the water, his body felt wrung out, emptied. The ache in his shoulders dulled, the gnawing in his chest quieted. The steam clung to him as he moved across the tiles, skin red from the heat, each breath easier than the one before. For a little while, the weight he carried everywhere had been washed thin.
He found his clothes in a nearby basket, still damp at the seams from the scrub, and he dressed in silence. The cloth was rough against clean skin, but it felt better than the stink and grit he had walked in with. He strapped the graft back into place, the metal clicking into its socket, and cinched the leather tight across his shoulder.
By the time he slung his pack over one arm, the bathhouse noise had returned to its ordinary rhythm: splashing water, murmured voices, the constant hiss of pipes. For the first time in days, he didnât feel entirely hollow. It was time to leave.
He flexed the fingers on his graft, listening to the familiar grind of gears. The boiler was steady, the gauge holding, but the joints still lagged by half a beat. Isadora would need to take it apart before long, grease the tracks, check the pistons. For now, it worked. And for now, that was enough.
He slung his pack over his shoulder and stepped toward the doors. The air in the bathhouse was thick with steam, scented faintly of lye and scorched brass. His skin prickled as he left the warmth behind, moving through the chamber with the rest of the patrons who were finished with their time. A few men lounged in the pools still, eyes closed, their bodies softened by heat. Others dressed in silence, tying boots, fastening straps, the rhythm of the place unbroken.
The door groaned open under his hand.
Outside, the air struck cold against his wet skin. The street was narrow, hemmed in by walls streaked with soot and damp. Steam curled from the bathhouse chimney, vanishing into the pale morning sky. For a moment Liam lingered on the top step, letting the city press back in around him. The clang of distant hammers. The hiss of pipes. The churn of wheels grinding stone.
He exhaled. The tension he had shed in the water tried to creep back into his shoulders. He forced it down. Clean. Presentable. Respectable, even, if such a thing was possible in a place like Daventry.
His hand brushed the strap of his pack. After this, he would go home, gather what he had from the rat-cave, and head for the guild. A simple plan. A necessary one. Something to fill his modest reserve of scrip.
He stepped down onto the street. The cobbles were slick with runoff from the aqueduct above, puddles gathering in dips and cracks. He paused at the edge, standing still for a heartbeat longer than he should have, listening to the rush of water overhead. It thundered through the channels like veins pumping lifeblood into the city, a sound both constant and oppressive.
The moment stretched. He let himself breathe, just once more, before plunging back into the day.
Then something cold pressed against the back of his neck.
Metal. Smooth. Unmistakable.
The graft hissed faintly as his body locked tight.
âEasy now,â a voice drawled behind him. The barrel nudged harder against his skin. âDonât twitch. Wouldnât want this to go off in front of all these fine people.â
Liamâs jaw clenched. He didnât turn, didnât move. The air around him seemed to narrow, the city sounds muffled by the thrum of blood in his ears. He knew the voice. Low, rough, carried on the smugness of someone who thought himself untouchable.
Clive. Horaceâs dog.
The weight of the pistol at his neck pressed the last of the bathhouse warmth out of him.