The Sabotage

For the next week, they rehearsed in the Night Market. The duet they were composing was magnificent. It was a fierce, sweeping collision of classical structure and chaotic street-folk. It was the story of the upper tiers and the lower tiers, bound together by the rhythm of the Steampunk city.

They were sitting on the roof of a deserted watchtower, sharing a pot of cheap rice wine, when Jin finally asked the question that had been haunting him.

"Why are you so afraid of him?" Jin asked, looking out over the glowing grid of the city. "Lord Shen. Your patron."

Mei pulled her silk shawl tighter around her shoulders, the joy of the rehearsal fading from her face. "In the upper tiers, talent is not enough, Jin. Influence is everything. My father lost our family fortune in a failed aether-mining venture. Lord Shen stepped in. He pays for my Conservatory tuition, our estate, everything. If I displease him, if I embarrass him at the Emperor's Gala... he will withdraw his support. My family will be thrown into the Sump. We will be like..."

"Like me," Jin finished quietly.

Mei looked at him, her eyes softening. She reached out, her hand resting over his. "You are not something to be feared, Jin. You are the most brilliant musician I have ever met."

Jin’s breath caught. He turned his hand over, intertwining his fingers with hers. The air between them suddenly felt charged, heavy with unspoken gravity. He leaned in, his eyes dropping to her lips. Mei didn't pull away. She leaned closer, her breath warm against his cheek.

"How quaint."

The voice was like a blade of ice sliding into the warm night.

Jin and Mei snapped apart.

Standing on the roof access stairs, flanked by two hulking, clockwork-augmented bodyguards, was Lord Shen. He was a tall, skeletal man dressed in immaculate silver robes, holding a jade-handled cane. His lip was curled in a sneer of absolute disgust.

"My Lord," Mei gasped, scrambling to her feet and bowing deeply.

Shen ignored her. He was staring at Jin. A cold spark of recognition lit his eyes.

"Well, well," Shen drawled, stepping onto the roof. "I was informed you had taken up with a street beggar for 'inspiration,' Mei. But I did not realize you had dug this deeply into the gutter. Jin, isn't it? The little rat we expelled from the Conservatory three years ago for lacking the basic mental capacity to understand a sonata."

Jin stood up, his fists clenching at his sides. He forced a smirk onto his face, though his heart was pounding. "Lord Shen. I see you're still wearing your personality on the outside. Terrible fashion choice."

Shen’s eyes narrowed. He gestured with his cane.

Before Jin could react, one of the augmented bodyguards blurred forward. A massive, hydraulic-powered fist slammed into Jin’s stomach. Jin doubled over, gasping for air, falling to his knees on the rough shingles.

"Jin!" Mei screamed, lunging forward, but the other bodyguard grabbed her arms, holding her back.

"You forget your place, street rat," Shen said coldly. He walked over to where Jin’s steam-erhu lay resting against a crate.

"Don't touch it," Jin wheezed, trying to stand, but the bodyguard drove a heavy boot into his back, pinning him down.

Shen picked up the erhu with a look of profound distaste. "A bastardized toy for a bastardized talent."

With a swift, practiced motion, Shen brought the heavy jade handle of his cane down hard against the brass boiler of the instrument.

A sharp *crack* echoed in the night. The pressurized steam hissed violently through a jagged fissure in the metal. The delicate copper exhaust valves bent and snapped. Shen dropped the ruined instrument onto the roof.

Jin let out a choked cry, struggling uselessly against the boot on his spine.

"Lord Shen, please!" Mei begged, tears streaming down her face. "He is helping me! The duet is brilliant, I swear it!"

Shen turned to Mei, his expression chillingly blank. "You are a prodigy of the House of Lin, Mei. You do not perform with garbage. You will play the solo I selected for you at the Gala. A proper, classical piece."

"No," Mei whispered, shaking her head. "I won't. I can't play that lifeless drivel anymore."

Shen stepped agonizingly close to her. He lowered his voice, but Jin could hear every word.

"Listen to me carefully, my dear," Shen hissed. "If you do not perform the solo exactly as I have instructed, I will strip your family of everything. And as for your little street rat? He assaulted a noble. The penalty is twenty years in the deep-mines. I will have the guards arrest him tonight. He will rot in the dark."

Mei stopped fighting the bodyguard. The color drained entirely from her face. She looked at Jin, pinned to the roof, bleeding and broken. She looked at the shattered erhu.

"Unless," Shen continued smoothly, "you fire him. Right now. Tell him what he truly is, and return to the Conservatory. Then, I might be inclined to forget this unfortunate lapse in judgment."

Mei trembled violently. She looked at Jin. Jin looked back, his eyes pleading. *Don't do it. We can fight.*

But Mei knew they couldn't. Shen owned the city. He owned her. And he would destroy Jin without a second thought. She had to protect him, even if it broke her own heart.

Mei straightened her posture. She adopted the cold, rigid mask of an aristocrat. The mask she had worn the day they met.

"Release him," Mei ordered the bodyguard.

The man stepped back. Jin slowly pushed himself to his knees, clutching his ribs, looking up at her with desperate hope.

"Mei?" Jin rasped.

"Do not address me so informally," Mei said, her voice dead, devoid of all the warmth and laughter they had shared. She refused to meet his eyes. "Lord Shen is right. This was a mistake. An indulgent fantasy. Your music is chaotic, unrefined noise. It belongs in the gutter. Take your broken toy and leave me alone."

The words hit Jin harder than the bodyguard’s fist. It was his deepest, darkest fear weaponized against him. He wasn't good enough. He never had been. He was just a joke she was playing with until she got bored.

Jin stared at her for a long, agonizing moment. The silence on the roof was deafening, save for the pathetic, dying hiss of steam from his broken erhu.

"Right," Jin whispered, his voice cracking. The cynical armor slammed back into place, a desperate defense mechanism. He forced a hollow, bitter laugh. "Right. Just a rat from the Sump. Good luck with the math equations, Princess."

He scooped up the ruined pieces of his instrument and limped toward the stairs, disappearing into the dark.

Mei watched him go, feeling as though her clockwork heart had just been ripped from her chest and crushed underfoot.