“I would be delighted to assist any of your staff that show an interest,” Miss Thornbrook said. “Are there any on the premises now?”

Lady Lockridge looked not quite startled, but her eyebrows rose, and the corners of her lips turned up, “Splendid.” She rang a bell, and Albrecht appeared in the doorway, accompanied by a footman with a tray of tea and biscuits. “Albrecht, please disseminate word amongst the staff, any with a pyro affinity who wish to be Aetherforged should report to this room at once, Miss Thornbrook, our esteemed guest, can accomplish the forging process and teach them how to use their Aether.” She looked at Miss Thornbrook for confirmation and received a pleasant nod.

“Any with a pyro affinity who wish to be forged, my lady?” Albrecht’s voice was still under his control, despite a faint tremor, but his eyes were as wide as Dellen had ever seen them, “As in, today, my lady?”

“Yes, tell them to move with haste.”

The footman placed the tray of tea on the table and diffidently cleared his throat, “Excuse me, my lady?”

“Yes, Jasper?”

“I would like to be Aetherforged.”

Lady Victoria looked at him with her mouth opening to an ‘O’ for a second before she found her words, “Why is this the first I’m learning of it? I have always taken a keen interest in the aetheric arts.”

“I never thought I could, my mum never had anything good to say about the Aetheric Cultivators, and well, fire, you know, it’s not helpful like Kinematic Aether or Steam Aether.”

“Not helpful indeed,” Miss Thornbrook said to Jasper, sounding exasperated, “Come, let’s take a look at you, I can set you right in no time,” she shook her head and muttered to herself, “Not helpful,” her muttering returned to a more conversational tone, “No Aether is inherently helpful, it can be used in a number of ways, but the creativity and talent of the wielder is what determines whether it is helpful, but even if you never choose to use your Aether again after today, your aging will slow, you will be stronger, your resistance to sickness will improve, it amazes me that so many of you can live so close together without there being some kind of a plague.”

“How much longer will I live?” Eliza asked.

“Well, you were unforged when I met you, so you had, perhaps sixty, maybe seventy years left at the outside, now? Now, if you never raise yourself to the Second Trinity? Three or Four Centuries.”

Eliza gasped.

Dellen could not blame her, “It gets better. How much will her aging slow?”

Miss Thornbrook ran a finger through her metal-streaked hair, “At least two centuries before her first grey hair. Though as she integrates metals, some will appear in her hair, giving rise to the appearance of grey.”

Eliza’s second gasp was not as pronounced, but Dellen suspected it was the first time she had confronted her vastly extended lifespan. “There’s so much I can do with that kind of time.”

“I would like to start at your convenience, my lady,” Jasper said to Miss Thornbrook.

“Come sit next to me, young man,” Miss Thornbrook said, patting the empty seat next to her. Jasper looked to Lady Lockridge for approval and waited for her nod before taking a seat. Dellen suspected it was the first time the young man had sat down in this particular room.

All eyes were on Jasper and Miss Thornbrook as Miss Thornbrook took some ingots out of her bag.

“I did not know she had those on her,” Gilgamesh said. Dellen grunted his agreement. Lady Victoria glanced a smile at Gilgamesh before returning her full attention to the spectacle unfolding before her. Miss Thornbrook took Jasper’s hand and fed Pyro Aether into him.

Jasper’s eyelids flickered up and down, muscles twitched in his face, and his nose shuffled left and right.

“He’s like you,” Dellen said to Eliza, “Never touched his Aether before.”

“Is that what I looked like when she forged me?”

“More or less.”

A few minutes later, the first of the ingots of iron passed into Jasper’s body, accompanied by the gasp that Dellen had come to expect. Threads of iron rippled across Jasper’s exposed skin. This time, it was Lady Lockridge who gasped, “Remarkable,” she breathed out, “So effortless, so easy, is this what was kept from us all these years?”

The forging continued for another ten or so minutes, according to the clock on the wall.

A crowd of Lady Victoria’s staff had appeared and witnessed the forging.

Copper rushed into Jasper, and again, lines of metal laced across his skin, then another fifteen minutes before silver entered his body. There was a substantial change in Jasper’s appearance as silver threaded its way into his skin, even passing into some of his hair. Discomfort passed over his face before his expression smoothed out again. Ten minutes later Miss Thornbrook broke contact with Jasper’s skin.

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Jasper opened his eyes, blinking them open and shut several times, taking in the sight of the room, and the waiting staff, then he looked down at his hands, holding them up in front of his face. He took in a deep breath and exhaled. “This is not how I expected my day to progress.”

“Can you feel your Aether?” Lady Lockridge asked him.

Jasper looked at her, eyes ever so slightly wide with startlement, and held up his right hand, cautiously, like a man tapping the side of a pan to make sure it was not too hot to pick up. Flames blossomed over the tips of his fingers.

A susurrus of gasps came from the watching servants, “Jasper!” Said one of them.

Jasper smiled like the sun coming up, face beaming, “I, I can feel the Aether, I can use the Aether.”

“Well done,” Lady Lockridge said to him.

“Don’t be shy, who’s next?” Miss Thornbrook asked.

The remaining servants looked amongst themselves before a respectable-looking woman whose ensembled suggested that she was some sort of a bookkeeper stepped forward. “I guess I am.”

Hours passed as Miss Thornbrook saw to the forging of all of Lady Lockridge’s staff who possessed a pyro affinity.

Eliza was pulled aside by several servants who wanted the benefit of her experience as a newly forged member of the First Trinity. Lady Lockridge took the opportunity to pull Dellen aside to speak with both him and Gilgamesh. “Why doesn’t anyone seem to know about him?”

“I live every day at least twice, I have not wanted to go through the process of explaining him when I’m just going to have to do it again. Though now that I’ve learned more about the world, I’m glad that I haven’t.”

“Oh?” Lady Lockridge said.

“Dual affinities seem to be beyond rare out in the world,” Dellen said, “They’re literally killing for the chance to create one. I did not get the opportunity to speak to many people, but so far, you are the only person I know of who has naturally occurring dual affinities.”

Lady Victoria chewed on that statement for a minute, “Does that put me at risk?”

“It might if anyone noticed, I think it would be a good idea to get you up to Second, or even Third Trinity as fast as possible,” Gilgamesh said.

“How?”

“The first three Trinities are easy enough, we just give you the metals in the right order, and you forge them, similarly to how you forged iron and copper,” Gilgamesh said.

“It’s not that simple,” Dellen protested, “The First and Second Trinity, yes, the Third Trinity you need to have more… talent with your Aether in order to manage the quantities involved, otherwise, Third Trinity would be more common. As it is, Miss Thornbrook tells us that fewer than one in one hundred of the Second Trinity advance further.”

“I imagine there’s also a cost involved, what are the metals that I need?”

“Silver to reach First Trinity, then Second Trinity requires any three of titanium, aluminum, nickel, gold or palladium.”

“Are there any advantages or disadvantages to specific metals?”

“Some, aluminum is particularly advantageous to those with an aero affinity, nickel benefits those with a pyro affinity, and palladium assists those with a kinematic affinity.”

“Aero Aether?”

“There are more affinities born outside of the city than we have,” Dellen said.

“Curious, I wonder why,” She shook her head, “What of Electrical Aether, what metal benefits Electrical Aether at the Second Trinity?”

“I don’t know of one,” Dellen said, “It seems that forging is not quite fair in that regard.”

“And in higher Trinities?”

“In higher Trinities, there are materials that benefit Electrical Aether.”

“Wonderful, but I meant, what will I need to ascend from Second Trinity to Third?”

His memories whirled, giving him an incomplete answer, “Mercury, chromium, and a material specific to Kinematic Aetherforged.”

“Oh, I see,” said Lady Lockridge, sounding a little taken aback, “That will get more expensive and complicated, I imagine that creates a bottleneck all its own. What sorts of materials are specific to Kinematic Aetherforged?”

“I… Don’t remember, we’ll have to find out.”

Lady Victoria nodded her head, “In the meantime, we have to help the citizens here.”

“Yes, but we only need to have citizens forge iron. That’s a bit more affordable.”

“What now? This is all well and good, but she’ll be hours helping my staff. If there are ten thousand with a pyro affinity in the city, and they each take an hour of her time, and she does not sleep or eat, she can have this problem sorted in,” Lady Lockridge took a moment to think, “About sixty weeks, that’s not a rapid solution, and that still leaves the rest of our populace completely vulnerable. I don’t suppose you can assist people the same way she can?”

“No, and you’re right, but like she said, she is doing a ‘Thorough’ forging right now, she’s teaching them how to use and control their Aether, a quick forging that only integrates iron will take five minutes.”

“That’s still five weeks, assuming she does not eat or sleep, and it still leaves the rest of our population defenseless.”

“Well, first, we need to make people want to become Aetherforged.”

Lady Victoria spread a hand at her staff, “That does not seem to be a problem.”

“My lady,” Dellen said, “Your staff have spent years working for you, an upstanding member of our city and an Aetherforged, many other citizens have only seen steelskin on an aetheric cultivator, a distant noble, or perhaps a rare criminal. They may have reservations.”

“Distant nobles or not, nobles are copied,” Lady Victoria said, “If we have a new fashion of nobles becoming Aetherforged, then people will clamor for it, though we must charge.”

“Isn’t that rather mercenary of you?” Gilgamesh asked.

“No, it’s manipulative,” Lady Lockridge replied, “If we offer it for free, or even too inexpensively, people with assume the worst, however, if they have to pay, then they’ll value it, they’ll want it, and they’ll see it out.”

“That doesn’t manage the problem of our other affinities, Kinematic, Electrical, and Steam,” Dellen said.

“Well, why don’t we see if we can find teachers or trainers, whatever the correct term is, from the largest group of Aetherforged in the city?”

“Who would that be?” Gilgamesh asked.

“The Mercantile Guild,” Dellen said, following Lady Lockridge’s line of reasoning. “Yes, that might work. I rather doubt they have any members of the Seventh Trinity like Miss Thornbrook, but if we find a way to provide the Aether, maybe members of the Third or Fourth Trinity could guide them. I’ll have to ask Miss Thornbrook when she has a free minute.”

“Oh my, I had not considered that she is providing all of the Aether for the forging. She’s a little scary, isn’t she?”

“I would not like to see her angry,” Dellen agreed, “How has the Mercantile Guild behaved since the city stopped? Do you think they will be approachable if we turn to them for help?”

“We lose nothing by asking, in my experience, they are usually interested in anything that can shift the flow of sovereigns so that more of them enter their pockets. This would potentially have almost every citizen paying for a service they would be providing. I can imagine that being the start of a conversation that would appeal to them.”