Keira tightened the saddle straps on her brass-plated horse and scanned the dry ridge ahead. Steam hissed from the Clydesdale's flanks as it stamped the dust. She had ridden hard since her town burned, chasing a name and a sigil. Justice was the word she used. Any ending would do. She found the camp at dusk, empty but warm. A weathered hunting journal lay open by the ashes. Sketches of stags filled the pages, but the last entry showed her own face, circled in red. Range notes. Watering holes. A list of roads she had taken. A twig snapped behind her. Keira drew her pistol and turned. A wide man stepped from the brush, smiling, an ornate metal key swinging from a cord at his neck. He said the bandits paid well for the key's match — and better for the woman it belonged to. He raised his rifle. She fired first. The bounty hunter dropped into the dust. Keira pulled the key from his neck and stared at the engraved warriors along its shaft. The bandits knew her name now. And they were waiting.

By morning, Keira sat in the dust with the ornate key across her knees. Gears turned inside its head when she tilted it. The shaft was carved with thorns and small eyes. It fit no door she had ever seen. Her brass-plated Clydesdale huffed steam beside her, waiting. The trail had stopped here, at a crooked X someone had scratched deep into the hardpan. She walked the X three times. She dug at its center and found only more dirt. The key told her nothing. The mark told her less. For the first time since she rode out, Keira felt the hunt slipping through her fingers like sand. A shadow fell across the dirt. An old man stood at the edge of the clearing, white beard, leather vest, a hammer hanging from his belt. He looked at the key, then at her face, and his mouth tightened. "That's clockwork work," Silas Thornwood said. "Only one man around here still cuts gears like that. Lives in a shop two days south. Though 'lives' is doing some heavy lifting." Keira stood. She asked if he would point the road. Silas nodded once. "I'll do better. I'm headed that way myself. Got a place I'm trying to rebuild, and he owes me hinges." He studied her holster, the soot still on her cuffs. "You don't want him as a friend. But he'll know what that key opens." She tightened the saddle straps and swung up. The X stayed behind her in the dust, meaningless now. The key was no longer a dead weight at her hip. It was an address. Two days south, and a name to put a face to it. The trail was warm again.

Two days south meant one town in the way. Silas reined up on the ridge above it and spat. A tall wooden watch tower leaned over the road, rifles glinting on every platform. Red flags snapped in the wind. "Word's out on you," he said. "They're watching the gate." Keira slid the clockwork key deep into her coat. She counted four men on the tower, more in the windows below. Every stranger who passed got a long look and a runner sent down the steps. Her face was worth coin here. Riding straight through would end her hunt before it started. They circled wide and tied the steam horse in a dry wash. Silas pointed to a squat stone building at the town's edge, lanterns burning under a carved sign. "Cantina. Hunters drink there. Informants too. I'll go in alone, buy a round, learn who's looking and where they sit." Keira pulled her hat low and waited in the rocks while he walked in empty-handed. He came back at dusk, pale. "Six hunters inside. Two more on the roof. They've got a sketch of you nailed by the door." He spat again. "We don't go through. We go around — half a day extra, dry country, no water." Keira nodded once and climbed back into the saddle. The town shrank behind them. The key still pointed south. But now they were running, and the bandits knew exactly where she was headed.