Glass and Iron

The Crystal Palace glowed in the night like a bioluminescent ribcage. Inside, Vane had set up his operation in the central transept.

A massive glass tank, reinforced with iron beams, stood in the center. Inside, Ignatius floated in a suspension of chemical fluid, unconscious, tubes running from the tank to a massive steam engine.

Vane was checking the pressure gauges. "Stabilize the heart rate," he ordered his men. "If he wakes up before the extraction, he’ll melt the casing."

"Sir," one of the thugs said, looking toward the main entrance. "Did you hear that?"

Vane paused. "Hear what?"

"Laughing."

Vane frowned. "Don't be absurd."

* Ding.*

The sound of the main glass doors shattering wasn't a crash. It was a musical tinkling, like wind chimes in a hurricane.

Aurelia Thorne walked into the Crystal Palace. She wore a ballgown of blood-red silk. She held a parasol in one hand, though it was night.

"Good evening, boys!" she called out, her voice echoing through the vast space. "I’m looking for a husband. Large, scaly, terrible temper? Answers to 'Hey, Grumpy'?"

"Stop her!" Vane screamed.

Six men charged her with steam-powered truncheons.

Aurelia didn't fight. She danced.

She moved in a blur of red silk, ducking under a swing, stepping over a tripwire. She grabbed a man by his lapels and threw him thirty feet into a fountain.

"Whee!" she laughed. The sound ricocheted off the glass walls. It was manic, terrifying, and utterly joyful. "Oh, look at him fly! Ignatius would say that’s aerodynamically impossible!"

She spun, kicking a second guard into a display of Egyptian pottery. *Crash.*

"Oops! Put it on my tab!"

Vane pulled a pistol and fired. The bullet struck Aurelia’s shoulder. She didn't even flinch. She just looked at the hole in her dress and pouted.

"This is silk," she said. "Do you know how hard it is to get blood out of silk?"

She vanished.

She reappeared directly in front of Vane, lifting him off the ground by his throat.

"You put my dragon in a pickle jar," she whispered, her eyes bleeding fully to black. "That is incredibly rude."

She threw Vane into the control panel of the steam engine. Sparks flew. Pipes burst. Steam hissed into the air, obscuring the view.

Inside the tank, the fluid began to boil.

The glass cracked.

Aurelia stepped back as the tank exploded outwards. Water and glass shards rained down like diamonds.

Ignatius fell onto the wet floor, gasping. He was half-shifted—one arm was a massive, scaled claw, and patches of obsidian scales covered his face.

He looked up, groggy and furious. He saw Aurelia standing amidst the wreckage, twirling her parasol, surrounded by unconscious bodies.

"Aurelia?" he rasped. "You... you are making a mess."

She threw her head back and laughed, a pure, ringing sound that cleared the smoke. "I am, aren't I? It's terribly inefficient."

Ignatius looked at Vane, who was trying to crawl away. The dragon’s eyes began to glow.

"My turn," Ignatius growled.

He opened his mouth. A stream of white-hot fire erupted, not at Vane, but at the iron pillars supporting the roof.

"Ignatius!" Aurelia shrieked, delighted. "We're inside!"

"Grab on!" he roared.

He shifted fully. The sound was like a building collapsing in reverse. Wings of leather and shadow exploded from his back, shattering the remaining glass ceiling. He was massive, a beast of legend, smoke pouring from his jaws.

Aurelia leaped. She caught his foreleg, swinging herself up to settle between his massive shoulder blades.

"Up!" she screamed. "To the stars, you oversized gecko!"

With a single, thunderous beat of his wings, they launched into the London sky, leaving the burning Crystal Palace behind them.