The city of New York slept in complete ignorance of the alchemical grid being woven beneath its foundations. Outside, a thick, silver-tinted fog rolled off the East River, blanketing the illuminated iron spires of the Manhattan Bridge and swallowing the neon glow of the empty streets. Underneath the bustling metropolis, down in the labyrinthine darkness of the city’s oldest brick aqueducts and main geothermal high-pressure lines, the air was cold, damp, and smelled of rust and ancient earth.
Kiara stood on a narrow metal catwalk suspended over the primary water and steam junction of the lower Manhattan sector. She had bypassed the security of the human city with effortless grace, her sovereign aura manipulating the electronic locks as if they were made of sand. Clad in a dark leather tren
