The sun was already fading behind the Mothburn skyline as Edmund left the school grounds.

A distant part of him, quiet and nervous, tried to tell him that he wasn’t ready to return to the streets of Mothburn yet. He didn’t know exactly where he was going.

That wasn’t entirely true, was it? He knew where he was going, he just didn’t know where there was. He knew he could find it; he found his way around Grimm’s, Moulde Hall, and the empty coal mine of Haggard Hill. He could easily find his way through the streets of Mothburn. He understood needing to hide and creating safe-havens on dangerous streets. He knew about pride and the desire to walk with your head held high, even if everyone else thought you shouldn’t. He grasped criminality, having been adopted into a family for whom everyday criminal behavior was considered reflexive.

Edmund’s day was ruined.

This is a turn of phrase often bandied about without due concern to its proper meaning. Indeed, the optimist might say that Edmund’s day was freed from routine, and therefore he was — for perhaps the first time since arriving at Grimm’s — able to act as he wished, rather than was required.

Indeed, many have made the argument that, had Edmund’s day not been “ruined,” he would never have made the discoveries which led to the Great British Empire being what it is today. (Whether this is a good or a bad thing has yet to be resolved)

For his own part, Edmund did not allow himself to think too far about the ramifications of his spoiled schedule. What was done was done, and he couldn’t go back and fix it now.

After a suitable mourning period for his lost bent-key,[^fn:1] Edmund refocused his efforts.

He needed a new bent-key. A better one. One that could easily circumvent the lock on Tunansia’s chest, and even more besides. To that end, Edmund resolved to research everything he could, from engineering and metallurgy to the newest locksmithing theories. Once he was well-educated, there wouldn’t be a lock in the world that could keep him out.

By lunchtime that day, he paused to make a new bent-key from a hat-pin he had found on the hallway floor. Even though it was lighter and flimsier than his old broken bent-key, it made him feel better to have one in his pocket.

For two more days he spent his time in the Grimm’s library, pulling books and papers on locksmithing down from the dark-wood shelves. It was a long and arduous process, as most of the books he could find were devoted to theoretical lockery, as opposed to the practical application of the physics and mechanics involved.

With that short batch of Cliffside Short-stories finished, I am now forced to look at what comes next for my Saturday postings. Of all the writing I’ve done, what fits best in a sidelong once-a-week format? I have more short stories, but not enough to outlast the weeks of books I have to upload. Do I write more short stories? Use Saturday to upload drafts and show my process? Only post personal bloggings about how I feel or what’s going on in the news today?

Edmund’s remaining silent, however, did not mean that he understood. Tunansia’s behavior confused him greatly and occupied much of his mind as they walked back to Grimm’s from the train station. They parted without a word at the entry, Edmund continuing towards Altmore house, Tunansia towards her own room at the other end of the school.

When her footsteps finally faded, taking her melancholy airs with her, Edmund was able to focus on one fact that now swam about his head.

Edmund had won!

It was almost disappointing. As far as Edmund had been concerned, he had expected the salvation of the family to take him into his late teens, perhaps early twenties at the outside. If nothing else, he had thought he would have needed to put some effort into it. Instead, he had merely accepted an invitation, and in return they had accepted him into the highest ranks of society.

On the day in question, Edmund was sitting quietly in the Library, working through a curious contradiction in two separate editions of a book on Aqueous Vitaes in the brain, when a voice made of meringue and steel wool broke through the silence.

“Edrum!”

“Edmund,” he reminded Victrola as she bounded through the stacks towards him. “Edmund Moulde.”

“That’s what I said,” Victrola smiled with saccharine glee as she tossed her curly hair behind her ear. “I have wonderful news! I got a ten on my paper on Advanced Acrimony,” pride shone off her pale face. “She said it was inspired!”

“If you say so,” Edmund said. He had thought it a fairly obvious observation.

When Edmund awoke, he knew exactly where he was. This was in direct contradiction to expected behavior of any child thrown into a new world over the course of a single night, but he didn’t have the time for such formalities.

Instead he engaged in his usual morning routine: first, he looked at his notebook.

Sure enough, during the night his sleeping brain had tried to wake him with any number of sudden thoughts, concerns, ideas, and the like; but his hand had caught them all, trapping them in ink before his rest was disturbed.

You have to be careful in the Steamworks. It is a belly filled with brass and steam. Towering pipes twist and turn like yarn through brick walls and floors. Concrete walls and iron doors, bars like a prison. The heat, sweltering and pure, scouring your skin free. It is enough to drive you insane. I thought I was insane, once. That first day, when I had taken the King’s Shilling and become a City Engineer, I crawled through the hole in the ground down the slim ladder with rungs as thick as bottles.

For six hours the train traveled through the countryside, stopping at various towns to pick up and drop off passengers.

Edmund left Moulde Hall on the thirty-first of August. In proper British fashion, it was raining.