Ace stood there, his eyes burning with a murderous light, "Is there a problem here?"

Selene froze, her hand trembling in the air. She looked at Ace, the man she had coveted since the beginning and who was now looking at her as if she were a cockroach he was deciding whether or not to crush.

"No," Selenesmiled, pulling her hand back and smoothing her skirts. She swept out of the room, her silver skirts hissing against the stone.

Ace moved to Evelina’s side, his hand hovering near her waist but not quite touching, "What did she want?"

Evelina looked at the closed door, not saying a word for a long time. When she opened her mouth, she had already changed the topic, "Ace, is the prototype ready?"

Ace could sense that she did not want to talk about it so he didn’t push the topic.

"Victor has been working on it in the armored carriage," Ace said, "But Evelina... the furnace Malphas has built is massive. They intend to melt the machine down to prove it’s weak iron. A small model won’t produce the pressure needed to resist that kind of heat."

"Whoever said it needs to resist the heat?" A mysterious smile touched Evelina’s face.

The next morning, the Great Cathedral of the Imperial Capital was packed.

The air was a suffocating blanket of incense and body heat, making it difficult for people to endure the atmosphere.

At the far end beneath the towering stained glass, stood a massive, coal-fired furnace.

High Inquisitor Malphas stood on a raised dais, his red robes gleaming. Beside him sat the Emperor, looking old and weary, his eyes fixed on the empty floor.

"Bring forth the Accused!" Malphas bellowed.

The heavy oak doors groaned open.

Evelina walked in, dressed in a simple, charcoal-grey gown. Behind her, Ace walked with the gait of a man who was prepared to kill everyone in the room. But it was what he was carrying that drew the most whispers.

Instead of the twelve-foot iron monster the crowds had heard of, Ace was carrying a small polished brass case, no larger than a travel trunk.

Selene who was sitting in the front row of the nobility, while holding her breath for long, let out a mocking laugh, "Is that it? She brings a toy to a trial by fire?"

Malphas looked down at the brass case with visible contempt, "Duchess Alvarez, you were ordered to bring your machine of heresy to be tested. Do you intend to mock the divine order with this... trinket?"

Evelina stepped into the center of the Cathedral, her voice ringing out with a clarity that silenced the murmurs.

"A miracle doesn’t need to be massive to be true, High Inquisitor," she said. "This is a concentrated prototype. It works on the same principles as the pumps in the North."

"Then place it in the flames," Malphas commanded, gesturing to the roaring furnace, "If it is of God, it shall stand. If it is of the Devil, it shall succumb and be cast into the pit."

The crowd leaned forward. The heat from the furnace was so intense that the air shimmered.

Selene clutched her fan, her eyes wide with a sick anticipation. She wanted to see the brass melt. She wanted to see Evelina’s ’genius’ turn into a puddle of worthless metal.

Ace looked at Evelina, a silent question in his eyes.

"Do it," she whispered.

Ace stepped forward and placed the small brass case directly into the heart of the white-hot furnace.

For a moment, there was only the crackle of coal. The brass glowed orange, then red.

"See!" Selene cried out, unable to contain herself, "It is just metal! It is failing!"

But Evelina didn’t look at the furnace. She looked at the pressure gauge she had secretly installed into the floorboards of the dais.

"Now," Evelina whispered.

From the heart of the furnace, a sound began to emerge. It wasn’t the sound of melting metal. It was a rhythmic thump... thump... thump...

Suddenly, a high-pitched whistle tore through the Cathedral’s acoustics.

Instead of melting, the small brass suitcase began to vibrate with a terrifying energy. The furnace doors began to rattle on their hinges.

The screech of the steam whistle pierced the very souls of the spectators in the Great Cathedral. It was a shriek that silenced the murmured prayers and the crackle of the furnace.

High Inquisitor Malphas recoiled, his hand gripping his staff so hard his knuckles turned the color of bone, "Witchcraft!" he bellowed, though his voice lacked its usual resonance against the machine’s roar, "Behold! The demon screams as the holy fire purges its soul!"

Selene leaned forward, her eyes wide with a manic glee. In her mind, she was already picking out the dress she would wear to Evelina’s execution. And the dress she would wear while replacing Evelina as the Duke’s Bride.

The brass trunk was glowing in the shade cherry red, shaking with such force that the stone pedestal beneath it began to fracture.

"Explain this sorcery, Duchess!" Malphas demanded, his face contorted. "Explain the black magic that makes iron wail and stone tremble!"

Evelina stepped forward. She didn’t look like a woman on trial for her life at all.

She looked like a calm professor addressing a particularly slow class of students. She reached into her sleeve and pulled out a simple glass vial of water and a candle.

"There is no sorcery here," Evelina said.

She held the vial over the candle flame, "When I heat this water, it turns to vapor. It seeks to escape. In a kitchen, it lifts the lid of a tea kettle. In my machine, I have simply built a much stronger ’kettle’ and given that vapor nowhere to go but against a piston."

She gestured toward the furnace, "The fire you call ’holy’ is merely providing the energy. The brass you call ’demon-flesh’ is merely the container. This is not the work of the devil, if you can stop to use your common-sense."