"Blasphemy!" a priest cried out, "You claim the spirit is nothing but... steam?"

"I claim that God gave us minds to understand his creation, not just to cower before it," Evelina countered. She turned to the Emperor, who was quietly observing the show, "Your Majesty, the Inquisition claims this machine steals from the abundance of the earth. But the truth is, the earth is full of water and abundance... we are simply too blind to see where it flows."

She walked toward the center of the transept, her heels clicking on the ancient stone, "Did you know, High Inquisitor, that your Cathedral, this very bastion of divine order, was built over the largest subterranean aquifer in the Capital? For three hundred years, you have prayed for rain while standing directly on top of a sea."

Malphas froze. The crowd erupted in a confused roar, ’’You... are delusional!"

Evelina looked at Ace. He didn’t need a word to understand what she waned.

He stepped to the side of the brass machine, which was now vibrating with a thunderous clank-clank-clank. He reached for a secondary lever that snaked into a deep-bore pipe they had secretly installed under the guise of sacred repairs the night before.

"Ace," Evelina prompted.

Ace pulled the lever.

The scream of the whistle vanished, replaced by a guttural suction sound. For three seconds, everybody present in the Cathedral held their breaths.

Instead of a blast of fire or black smoke that everyone expected, a massive pressurized mist erupted from the top of the machine. But it wasn’t hot as it had been passed through a secondary cooling jacket.

A fine shroud of ice-cold water vapor filled the air, rapidly lowering the temperature of the suffocating Cathedral.

The spectators gasped.

Some fell to their knees, reaching up as the mist settled on their dry skin. It felt like a benediction. The heat of the furnace was neutralized in seconds, replaced by a refreshing, misty breeze that smelled of clean earth.

"It’s... it’s water," the Emperor whispered, finally showing a change in his expression as he stood up and reached out a trembling hand into the mist.

Evelina turned her gaze toward the dais where the Inquisitors sat. The mist cleared just enough to reveal her holding a leather-bound ledger.

"Now, let us speak of actual sin," Evelina said, her eyes turning into predatory slits, "High Inquisitor Malphas, you claim my grain and water are tainted by heresy. If that is the case, why do the ledgers of the Alvarez Northern Supply show that your private villa in the hills has received three tons of ’heretical’ wheat every month since the drought began?"

The Cathedral went silent. Malphas’s face turned from pale to a sickly, mottled purple.

"I—that was a charitable donation to the poor!" he stammered.

"The ’poor’ in your villa must have a very high standard of living, considering the wheat was accompanied by six casks of my private reserve wine," Evelina flipped a page, "And you, Bishop Terrence. And you, Minister of Rites. Every member of the radical faction currently calling for my death has been secretly accepting donations from the Alvarez household to keep your families fat and hydrated while you preached penance to the masses."

She tossed the ledger onto the floor at the Emperor’s feet, "You didn’t want to destroy the engine because it was heresy. You wanted to destroy it because if the people have water, they no longer need to pay you for your prayers."

The public gallery erupted at her words.

The commoners, already revitalized by the mist, began to jeer and throw whatever they had at the red-robed priests. Malphas shrank back into his seat, his authority crumbling like dry sand.

Evelina didn’t stop there. She turned her attention toward the front row, where Selene was trying to shrink into the shadows.

"And then there is my sister," Evelina said, her voice dropping into a lethal, silken tone.

Selene looked up, her eyes wide with terror, "Evelina, don’t—"

"I have been looking into this matter and it turns out that the letter that sparked this investigation," Evelina said, holding up the lambskin document Selene had sent to the Inquisition, "The ink is high-grade. The lambskin is exquisite. It was purchased from an Alvarez luxury subsidiary three weeks ago. My merchants keep very meticulous records of who buys what, Selene."

Evelina walked toward her sister, the crowd parting like the Red Sea, "You didn’t write this letter out of piety. You wrote it because you were bankrupt. You hoped that by having me declared a heretic, the marriage contract between the Duke and me would be voided and you could step into my place. Isn’t it?"

"Liar!" Selene shrieked, her voice cracking, "I was trying to save the Empire from you!"

’’Who will save you from me, Selene?" Evelina whispered softly in a voice only Selene could hear.

The Emperor stood up. His voice, though weak, carried the weight of absolute Imperial authority.

"Enough," he commanded. He looked at Malphas, then at the ledger, then at the brilliant woman standing in the mist, "The Inquisition has been found wanting. The heresy that you speak is nothing more than something that your greed has cooked up.’’

He turned his gaze to Selene, "Selene Snow. For the crime of false witness during a holy trial, and for the treasonous hoarding of resources during a state of emergency, you are hereby stripped of your titles and your social standing. You are banished from the Capital. You shall find no water in the Emperor’s lands save that which you can dig for with your own hands."

"No!" Selene fell to the floor, clutching at the hem of a passing Duchess’s gown, but the woman pulled away in disgust.

The Emperor looked at Evelina. "Duchess Alvarez... your kind heart has done more for this city in ten minutes than the Council has done in ten years. The engine you have created is hereby declared as a gift of the Heavens. The Imperial treasury will fund the installation of your pumps in every district of the Capital."

The System, which had been silent for a while, pinged instantly.