The Brass DoorsShan had stood guard in front of the brass doors for twenty-five years. To the day.
In all that time, no one had ever gone in and no one had ever come out. No one had approached, or knocked, or asked for access. The doors had remained closed. Closed but, she knew, not locked. That had been made clear. And finally, today, she was going to do what she'd so often longed to do. Today she was going to push the door open and discover what lay beyond.
She'd been brought to Engn at the age of thirteen: a wild child, spitting and kicking as the ironclads seized her and dragged her from her home. Only the sight of the machine had cowed her. The smoking, pumping behemoth had crept towards them across the grass plain each day, and each day she'd become quieter, more sullen. At the tow
