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wasn’t sure what to do. The Harpy might very well eat him when she was free. She might scoop him up with her talons and carry him off to her mountains, break his body on the crags, and pick his bones. He didn’t care, though, and not just because she’d enspelled him with her song. The world would be sadder and smaller without her. What was his life compared to that?
    Pick the lock, the Harpy hummed.
    Truffler put his hairy hands over his eyes and peered between his fingers.
    The cage was between Syrus and the group of Refiners, and he was able to sneak close to it without being seen. He could feel the dark magic infusing the bars and the lock. He had half-hoped he could sing a charm of opening, but if the Harpy couldn’t open it, he knew he couldn’t. He’d have to do things the old-fashioned way. He didn’t have his lockpicking tools with him, but he drew a thin, sharp bone out of his sleeve, which had a number of potential uses. His hair fell in his eyes and he pushed it away with fingers clammy with green Refinery-slime.
    Hurry , the Harpy sighed, her mournful eyes trained on the approaching Refiners.
    Syrus shrugged off Truffler’s imploring fingers. It was going to be difficult with just one bone. And since the lock was nevered . . .
    Syrus heard shouting over the Harpy’s humming. The iron horses stood still, the myth light in their eyes dimmed to pale flickers.
    He crept under the cage and peered around one of the spoked wheels.
    Mist uncoiled from the trees and slithered toward the Refiners. It grew into a swaying snake of darkness and the Refiners fell back before it, raising their thunderbusses.
    Syrus clutched at Truffler as the snake split into five people hooded in shadow. The Harpy hummed to herself above them.
    “Architects,” Syrus hissed. The Architects of Athena were an ancient fraternity devoted to the destruction of the Imperial order ever since the execution of their founder, Princess Athena. He’d never seen them before; wild stories were told of how they fought their enemies with dark magic. Certainly, the Empress blamed them whenever something went wrong.
    “Watch this,” Syrus said.
    Truffler shook his head and squatted under the cage, covering his bald pate with his hairy arms again.
    Free me, the Harpy sang above him. Her talons thrust through the bars and retracted quickly as the nevered poles sparked.
    “Let the Harpy go,” one of the Architects said. His voice was a rich tenor that Syrus felt he would know anywhere if he heard it again. It sounded very Uptown, very posh. How did a man with such a recognizable voice keep himself disguised?
    “You have no authority here, Architect,” a Refiner sneered.
    “We don’t need any,” another Architect said.
    While they quibbled, Syrus rose and started examining the lock. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Lead Architect’s hands shape the air into a globe of swirling mist.
    Syrus levered the thin end of the bone into the lock.
    The Refiner’s thunderbuss ejected a gout of energy.
    The Architect didn’t move. He lifted the globe, and it caught the energy until it blazed. Then he threw the light back in theRefiner’s face. Goggles burning blue, the Refiner fell to the ground.
    The lock shuddered to life. Iron teeth splintered the improvised lock pick and tried to bite Syrus’s fingers, too. Tiny iron arms sprouted and seized his wrists. The Harpy’s dark eyes held his. Her serrated tongue rolled over three rows of teeth.
    Syrus screamed.
    Everyone turned.
    Before he could blink, the Lead Architect was beside him. Syrus smelled strange things—mushrooms, crushed roses, tarnished silver.
    “Foolish Tinker,” the warlock said. His voice wasn’t unkind. The Architect rubbed his hands together, energy crackling between his gloves. He touched the lock, wincing at the nevered iron, and the warlock sent a burst of energy through it that made Syrus’s teeth buzz and his eyes burn. His wrists were free, but the lock was also