The sun hung between High Central's towers like one more ornament to decorate the skyline of the City's most important district. The high-rising apartments and sky-scraping edifices seemed to reach at the clouds, like a many-fingered hand attempting to claw itself above the ground.

"Wow," Angela said, from the seat across from Samuel, as they watched the train pass another high-set causeway and run across a bridge towards a tunnel built into the building. "I can't believe I never saw it before."

"You've been to High Central," Samuel said, eyeing his partner quizzically. He hadn't realized it for some time after, but the first time he met her was in High Central.

On a dark and terrible night of Valkyries and Dragon fire, during the first night of the Sixth Invasion.

"Yeah, but I never could believe why they made High Central so high," Angela said.

"Thought it was to lift the upper echelons of society out of the smoke and ash of the City," Samuel replied.

Samuel didn't notice for a moment that his partner was staring at him. Surprised, he was unprepared for her wide-eyed, disbelieving glare.

"Are you really so cynical?" Angela asked him earnestly.

"Cynical?" Samuel asked, pointing at the tower the train was passing through. "There's more glass on the top suite of that tower than there is in my entire building. What am I being cynical about?"

"You really do see it that way," Angela said, shaking her head in disbelief.

Samuel found the anger begin to seethe through his thoughts, and they tainted his words when he spoke next. "I try to keep my eyes open."

"But you don't see it," Angela said. She gestured towards one of the nearby towers; a massive structure of angled stone encased in a swirling mass of concrete tendrils that looked like the vines of a tree wrapped around a boulder.

"High Central is built to fall," Angela said. "The buildings are pointlessly top-heavy, they're weighted more like a club or an axe. Look at that, there's no point in all that reinforcement if that mass of stone were just hollow."

"You're saying that isn't some Bureau Chief's private party lounge?" Samuel asked, but the bitterness was beginning to leave his voice.

Every building in the skyline had a similar design; with elaborately contrived domes or spheres near the top, and heavily reinforced structures surrounding them.

"I'm not denying that. But those buildings are designed to fall, and they're designed to fall hard," Angela said. "On Golems."

Samuel's mind immediately recalled his graduation ceremony in the Agora, when he and hundreds of others were inducted into the orderlies. The ceremony was held in the massive auditorium that housed the City's Parliament, and the Tapestries.

There were five that hung from the domed ceiling. Five tapestries depicting moments of heroism and horror, the best and most terrible moments of the battles that pushed the creatures of the Gloam out of the City. And on four of them, all except the tapestry commemorating the First Invasion, depicted the Golems.

Over a hundred feet tall and nearly as wide, the Golems were monsters of stone that came from the grey mists beyond the Last Wall. Capable of pounding through any fortification, and incredibly difficult to stop. Even with the Songbird and the Fury, the City's first two airships, the Golems had made it through four layers of walls before they had eventually fled.

"Are you sure?" Samuel asked. But something about the idea of it, weighed against the memory of the first nights of the Sixth Invasion, had already convinced Samuel.

"My father explained it to me when I was a child. He worked on some of these buildings. Said the newest ones were built with massive elevators to lift Valkyrie shot by the crate-full," Angela said, smiling to herself. "I guess I didn't really believe him until now."

"Our last line of defence, huh?" Samuel reflected.

"Yeah. Speaking of our last line, here's my stop," Angela said, as the train rounded a corner. The brakes began to squeal just as the train began to pass over the open awning that covered Skygrounds Station.

"Hey," Samuel said, hesitating just as the train halted and the conductor began to announce the stop. "Stay safe, alright?"

"I'll be fine," Angela rebutted. "You're the one heading into a furnace with a bag full of Salamander shot."

"Fair point. See you in a couple of hours," Samuel said, waving as Angela moved for the doors.

Samuel tracked his partner as she wove through the crowd, following her quick and steady march as she pushed through the mass of people around her like a ship through still water. Angela was out of sight before the doors closed, leaving Samuel with only his thoughts for company.

Samuel stood up, and gestured at an elderly couple, offering his seat. They took his offer with polite smiles and gentle waves and sat down just as the train began to haul itself back into motion.

Samuel leaned against the opposite window, content to let himself watch the view as the train rolled on to its last stop.

The heart of the City. Founding Station.

The train rose between the buildings, swooping through a short tunnel carved into one of the towers, and began to coast through a long, slow descent down one of the most magnificent views in the City.

The City's burning heart was the Spire. A column of flame so high that no cloud had ever passed overtop it, the fires drawn from that massive wound kept the City's people warn, fed, sheltered, and safe from the Gloam that constantly besieged the City. Samuel had to recall the lessons of his childhood; of his parents and teachers reminding him that staring directly at the Spire, much like looking at the sun, was bad for the eyes.

Instead, Samuel fixed his gaze on his eventual destination. One of a very small number of genuine pieces of art in the City's architecture, the Agora was a coliseum with a massive domed roof, made of stone paler than milk, held up by dozens of pillars.

Samuel was surprised to see an airship hanging just above the Agora, resting just above the top of the dome. The ship's formidable size was dwarfed by the massive building it loomed over, but it's presence filled Samuel with a sense of dread.

After all, the last time he had seen an airship stop somewhere, fourteen people had been killed.

Samuel sighed, and forced himself to turn away.

As he pushed himself away from the window, a woman holding a sleeping newborn took his spot with an unusual amount of gusto, pointing towards the ship floating above the Agora.

"That's daddy's ship," the woman whispered to the newborn as she kissed the baby on her cheek.

"Not my ship, love. I'm not a Captain," someone said, and Samuel turned to see one of the largest men he had ever seen pass him by, and kiss the woman on the cheek.

"You will be, as soon as they realize they don't have enough officers with experience flying airships. You need your own ship to impress your daughter when she's old enough to appreciate it," the woman said.

"What? Her daddy being on the Sixth Tapestry isn't good enough?" The big man asked. But Samuel noticed there was no bite in the man's tone. Only a gentle chuckle.

The man reached out with his enormous hands and gently took the babe onto his shoulder, patting the child gently until it settled back to sleep.

"You made her middle name 'Redgrave'," the woman replied, but there was only humour in her voice. "Her daddy has to be magnificent."

A gentle tap of the train brakes caused nearly everyone standing to stumble. The woman lost her grip and bumped Samuel, forcing him to squeeze a little harder at the rails to keep them both from falling.

"Thank you," the woman said to Samuel, as he helped her stand upright again. Samuel stepped back half a step to put a polite amount of space between them and nodded his head.

"No trouble," Samuel said. "But if I can ask, you named your daughter 'Redgrave'? After Secretary Valen Redgrave?"

"That's this brave fool's fault," the woman replied with a brilliantly bright smile, pointing at the big man holding the baby. "Barnes here made a promise that if they both survived the Dragon Chase, he'd name his firstborn after the Secretary. Since we had a girl, we couldn't just name her Valen."

"I wanted to anyway," the big man, Barnes said as he held out his hand. "Sergeant Samuel Barnes, I serve on the Midnight Songbird. And this is my wife, Marlene."

"I was part of the retrofit for building the new specs on the Valkyrie mounts. We met during the Sixth," Marlene explained.

"Inspector Samuel Fraser," Samuel said, shaking the big man's hand. "Orderlies, Billows District."

"Another Samuel?" the big man asked. "What are the odds?"

"I suspect whoever named us wasn't paying attention," Samuel reflected wryly. "Just returning to duty? Is your parental leave finished?"

"Afraid so. Airship core is thin at the moment. We can't even crew the Blue Phoenix. Lieutenant Dremora's been having a fit about having to return to helm duty on the Songbird," Barnes said.

"That's an awkward situation," Samuel reflected. "I hope it doesn't take you too far away from the little one."

"The City is only so big," Barnes replied with a shrug. "And I'm on an airship. The captain doesn't mind dropping me off at home."

"If you're serving on the Songbird, that would put you under the command of Captain Raeth, wouldn't it?" Samuel asked.

"Yep. Been serving on the Songbird since the Sixth began. Captain has us rotating through the various postings on the ship, so it's been a fairly intense couple of years," Barnes said wistfully, scratching his head with his free hand. "But there is something I'm looking forward to."

"More than four hours of sleep a night," Marlene said wryly. "I'll be cross next time I see you."

"The next time I see you will be fifteen minutes before a long, uninterrupted sleep. I promise," Barnes said and kissed his wife on the cheek.

"Good man," Marlene replied.

Samuel watched the two with a strange mixture of feelings, not all of them pleasant. Seeing their gentle, deep affection left a hollow feeling in his stomach even as it warmed his heart and forced a smile on his lips.

"And here's our stop," Barnes said as he gently handed the child to his wife. The train hissed as the brakes dragged the train to a slow stop, one that none of them had to brace themselves for much.

"We love you, honey," Marlene said, pointing to the child resting on her shoulder. "And I might ask to put a bed on this train. She has never slept this well."

"We should try an airship," Barnes remarked, as he slung a bag over his shoulder. "Burn brightly."

"Lovely to meet you, ma'am," Samuel said before he stepped through the doors and off the train.

His feet nearly slipped on the almost glass-like polish of the marble platform. Beneath his feet, the marble was a gentle swirl of subtle colours in a continuous, unblemished pattern completely free of cracks or even joints.

Samuel shook himself and followed the small crowd moving towards the exits. He followed the small overhanging signs directing him to the Agora, letting the flow of people lead him out of the station and onto the wide bridge that lead directly to the Agora.

This close to it, Samuel could see how massive the building was. Each of the foundation pillars were several stories high, and as thick as the length of a train car. The entranceway was fully large enough that the hull of one of the airships might be able to fit inside. The dome itself must be large enough to shelter at least an entire train platform, and the high arches of the entrance left Samuel feeling very small.

Samuel stopped at the entranceway, clenched his fists, and took a deep breath before he marched on.