Otwin was pulling his nightshirt on when the knock came.

  It was a firm knock, not loud, not hesitant. The kind that assumed it would be answered.

  “Open up,” came Grump’s voice from the other side. “It’s Grump.”

  Otwin paused long enough to tug the shirt straight over his shoulders. The fabric was thin and worn soft from years of use, comfortable in a way armor never was. He glanced once at the mirror, then toward the door.

  “Enter,” he said.

  The door opened and Grump stepped inside without ceremony.

  He looked like a man who had been in meetings all day. His jacket was clean and pressed, boots polished, hair combed back in a way Otwin had never managed for more than an hour at a time. There was a faint smell of ink and soap about him, layered over the ever present warehouse tang of oil and wood. His face, though, gave him away. Lines at the corners of his eyes. A tightness around the mouth that came from keeping too many plates spinning at once.

  Grump took in the room with a quick glance. The cot. The table. The mirror. Otwin half dressed and standing like he was waiting for inspection.

  “The refit on the Ol’ Five Seven is going well,” Grump said, getting straight to it. “They’re ahead of schedule. Should be done in a week or so.”

  Otwin nodded.

  “Okay,” he said. “What else do you need me to do?”

  Grump raised an eyebrow, as if the question amused him.

  “Go to the Tower Drome and oversee it,” he said. “Make sure nobody’s laying about. Make sure everything goes the way it’s supposed to.”

  Otwin blinked.

  “That’s it?”

  “For now.”

  Otwin shifted his weight, the boards creaking softly under his feet.

  “Okay,” he said slowly. “But isn’t that what you’re supposed to be doing? You’re the commander, after all.”

  Grump let out a quiet breath and leaned back against the doorframe, folding his arms.

  “I was the commander,” he said. “You are the commander.”

  The words landed heavier than Otwin expected.

  “There’s too much for me to do in the city,” Grump continued. “Keeping Meecham from getting uppity. Keeping Tande under heel. Making sure nobody gets clever ideas about what we just took. And I’m keeping Paul and Humbert back,” Grump continued “Paul’s needed to make sense of what we own now. Humbert’s needed so people remember who they’re dealing with.”

  Otwin frowned, staring at Grump

  “Are you kidding me?” he asked. "I'm not a commander, and even if I was I'd need those two."

  Grump smiled faintly.

  “Just do what I do,” he said. “Let the Fort Master handle the minutia. That’s what they’re there for. You take care of the big picture.”

  Otwin snorted.

  “Grump,” he said, rubbing a hand through his short hair, “I’m not a big picture guy. I’m not even sure I want to keep doing this.”

  Grump did not interrupt.

  “Since my enlistment was up,” Otwin went on, words coming faster now, “I spent years without getting into a fight. Years. I made a living. A decent one. Then in the last month I’ve killed… I don’t know. Fifteen people? More. I lost count.”

  He looked away, jaw tightening.

  “This isn’t exactly how I wanted to spend my twilight years.”

  Grump straightened.

  “Otwin,” he said quietly, “you were made for this.”

  Otwin shook his head.

  "You took out a crack squad of mercenaries in exoskeletons and a mage,” Grump said, voice steady. “And it took you what? Two minutes? You were the one who came up with the plan to disable the turret fort. You were the one who led the sortie. You earned this.”

  Otwin laughed once, short and humorless.

  “Earned,” he repeated. “That’s one way to put it.”

  Grump pushed off the doorframe and stepped further into the room. He did not crowd Otwin, but the space was small enough that his presence filled it anyway.

  “Do you have anything else going on?” Grump asked. “Of course you don’t. You’d go back into the wilds. Salvage again. Maybe make it a few more years. Maybe get yourself killed. Or worse, waste away.”

  Otwin’s shoulders sagged a fraction.

  “That’s no life for a man like you,” Grump said.

  “It’s the life I chose,” Otwin shot back. “It was a good life.” He hesitated, then added more softly, “I shouldn’t have left it.”

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  Even as he said it, he knew he didn’t believe it.

  Grump watched him for a long moment.

  “You are happier here,” he said. “With us. Admit it.”

  The words struck harder than any accusation.

  Otwin opened his mouth to argue and found nothing there.

  He thought of the nights in the wilds. The quiet that crept in too deep. The way his thoughts circled until sleep became something to avoid. He thought of Rafborough. Of noise and people and problems that demanded solutions. Of being needed.

  He hated that Grump was right.

  He was happier here. Back in the fight. Back doing things that mattered.

  Otwin exhaled slowly and let his shoulders drop.

  “Fine.”

  ***

  The next day.

  The Tower Drome smelled like hot iron and old stone.

  It sat on the northern edge of Rafborough, sunk into the bedrock like a deliberate wound, built to hold machines too heavy for city streets and too valuable to be left in open yards. The walls rose high and thick, ribbed with support arches and ladder runs, blackened by years of exhaust and scorched magical discharge. Even in daylight the place felt dim, the sun caught and broken by gantries, hanging chains, and the silhouettes of cranes that moved along circular rails set into the floor.

  Otwin stood on a raised walkway and watched the work below.

  The Ol’ Five Seven was down there like a sleeping beast, its tracked skirts chocked and braced, its hull open in places where panels had been removed and laid in neat rows on pallets. Men moved across it and under it, engineers in stained coveralls and artificers in cleaner coats that still carried the marks of long use. Tools clacked. Hammer blows rang out. Someone shouted measurements that were repeated back, then written down.

  Otwin did not know every detail of a Steam Fort. He was not a Fort Master and he did not pretend to be. He did know effort when he saw it. He knew when people were working because they had a job to do and when they were working because someone might be watching.

  That was why Grump had sent him.

  He walked the perimeter walkway at a steady pace, hands behind his back, eyes scanning. DAC sat in the back of his awareness, offering him quiet overlays when he let it. Structural stress points. Heat signatures. A flicker of ley flow where power routing had been temporarily diverted. He did not need most of it. He needed the simpler thing.

  Discipline.

  Two men were arguing over a crate of replacement parts near the port side tread assembly. Otwin stopped and looked down. Neither man noticed him right away. Their voices rose, not violent, but sharp enough that the rest of the work around them began to hesitate.

  Otwin cleared his throat.

  Both men snapped their heads up.

  They recognized him. Everyone in this drome recognized him now.

  The argument died instantly.

  Otwin held their gaze for a moment, then nodded toward the crate.

  “Sort it out,” he said, voice flat. “Quietly.”

  “Yes, sir,” one of them answered too quickly.

  Otwin kept walking.

  He did not enjoy being called sir. It felt like a costume. Still, the title did what it needed to do. It made men straighten their backs and keep their hands busy.

  He paused at the ladder down to the floor and climbed a few rungs, boots ringing on iron. From closer, the Ol’ Five Seven looked less like a single machine and more like a small city of metal. Walkways, hatchways, access panels, coupling points for lift stones. A network of systems that all had to work together or the whole thing became an expensive tomb.

  A Fort Master moved along the hull below, barking instructions at a crew aligning tread links. The man was older, shoulders thick, hands stained permanently dark from grease. He glanced up at Otwin and offered a brief nod that was half respect and half acknowledgment that Otwin did not belong in his lane.

  Otwin returned the nod and did not interfere.

  He did not need to hover over the Fort Master. He needed to hover over everyone else.

  By midmorning the work had found its rhythm. The cranes lifted and set components with slow precision. Artificers walked the hull with chalk and runes, tracing resonance patterns where lift stones would interface. Engineers ran cables and checked fittings. A runner crossed the floor with a slate pressed to his chest, moving fast enough to be urgent but not fast enough to panic.

  Otwin took a slow breath and let it out.

  The drome was loud, but it was controlled.

  That was when he saw Ben Oncels.

  Ben stepped through the main entry on foot, alone, not escorted, not announced. He moved with the relaxed alertness of someone who had spent time in uniform and even more time pretending he had not. He wore normal clothes, practical and plain beneath a leather duster that hung to mid thigh. The coat looked worn in, not fashion. It had seen rain and dust and probably blood.

  His hands were what caught Otwin’s eye.

  They looked like they were wearing magitech gloves, tight fitted and dark, with faint seams that suggested embedded conductors. Not bulky. Not armored like a gauntlet. More like a second skin engineered to do one job well.

  Otwin waited until Ben reached the base of the ladder, then climbed down to meet him.

  Ben looked up and gave him a small nod.

  “Morning,” Ben said.

  Otwin studied the gloves again, then let his eyes return to Ben’s face.

  “Got yourself a mage suit?” Otwin asked.

  Ben glanced down at his hands and flexed his fingers once.

  He nodded.

  “Grump got it,” Ben said. “Military surplus. Guess he still has some of his old connections.”

  Otwin grunted.

  He had expected Grump to use those connections eventually. That was how Grump worked. He did not waste relationships, even the ones he claimed to hate.

  Ben’s mage suit was not full armor. Otwin knew the design from his time around actual war mages. It was a body glove worn under clothing, tight enough to maintain contact and conductive pathways, layered with thin protective materials and runic thread. It gave a mage protection without the weight or movement restrictions of hard plate. It also served as a focusing interface. The suit helped a mage access their magical core with more consistency, smoothing the channels, reducing strain, making spells easier to shape under stress.

  A mage without a suit could still kill you.

  A mage with a suit could do it faster, cleaner, and with less risk of burning themselves out.

  Otwin nodded toward Ben’s chest.

  “Know what grade?” he asked.

  Ben shrugged.

  “I think it’s bronze,” he said. “Feels like it. Seems about the same as my old one with the Chiliad.”

  Otwin accepted that.

  Bronze was not the highest, but it was real kit. It was the difference between a mage surviving a bad fight and dying because their core stuttered at the wrong moment.

  Ben shifted his weight, looking around the drome.

  “So this is where you’ve got me,” he said.

  “For now,” Otwin replied.

  He glanced at the Ol’ Five Seven, then back at Ben.

  “Grump give you any assignments?” Otwin asked.

  Ben shook his head.

  “Just to come report to you,” Ben said.

  Otwin stared at him for a moment.

  He had expected Grump to keep Ben under his own eye. Ben was a valuable piece and also a complication. Former Chiliad. War Mage training. A man who had spent time working for Baron Tande, even if he had been pulled back into the fold.

  Grump was handing him to Otwin instead.

  Otwin did not know whether that was trust or triage. Though having a trained war mage he knew could be trusted in a fight would be a boon if they face combat again.

  “Oh,” Otwin said. He made the word flat so it would not sound like a question. “Well. Until this bucket gets refit, just look scary and make sure the guys working on it are doing what they’re supposed to be doing.”

  Ben looked at him, then at the fort, then back.

  He seemed to consider whether that was an insult.

  Then he shrugged, as if the simplicity of the job appealed to him.

  “No problem,” Ben said.