The Old Chicago Water Tower stood like a limestone chess piece in the middle of the Magnificent Mile. It was the only public building in the area that survived the Great Fire of 1871. It was stubborn, ancient, and hollow.
Tonight, it was the war room.
Silas Vane had turned the interior maintenance catwalks into a flat, circular platform of polished steel, suspended sixty feet above the ground floor. In the center was a triangular table. One side was Tungsten, another was obsidian, and the last was electrified copper.
Silas sat at the Tungsten edge. "The cleanup on Wells Street is complete," he began, placing a heavy folder on the table. "The city has labeled the incident a catastrophic gas main failure combined with a barge collision. The insurance companies are panicking, but the public is unaware."
Isobel Grave sat opposite him, not in a chair but perched on a shadow shaped like a high-backed throne. She looked tired, and the black veins that usually covered her hands were faded.
"Ignorance is a finite resource," she murmured. "The veil is thin. The dead are still restless after your little train ride, Silas. My funeral homes are filled with hauntings."
Jax Miller kicked his feet up onto the copper side of the table. He wore fresh clothes—a leather jacket that didn't smell like river sludge—but still looked twitchy.
"Can we skip the minutes from the last meeting?" Jax asked, spinning a quarter on the table with a flick of static. "We stopped the trash monster. We didn't kill each other. Yay, team. Why are we here?"
Silas pressed his hand onto the table. The metal rippled, and a 3D map of Chicago rose up.
"Because we were lucky," Silas said grimly. "We survived because our powers happened to unite against a common threat. Next time, they might not. The energy density in this city is increasing. If we keep acting like enemies, the Ley Lines will rupture again. And next time, it won't be a golem. It will be a crater."
"You want a truce," Isobel said.
"I want a system," Silas corrected. "A machine that works."
He tapped the map. Three distinct colors glowed to life. Grey for the industrial zones, black for the cemeteries and Old Town, and gold for the transit lines.
"I propose the Chicago Accords," Silas announced. "Three rules. Absolute. Unbreakable."
Rule One: Sovereignty. "The Foundry controls the physical transformation of the city. The infrastructure. The buildings. The Hollows control the metaphysical aspects. The history. The secrets. The recycling of life. The Current manages the flow, the movement of people, energy, and goods."
Jax frowned. "So I'm the delivery boy?"
"You are the blood," Isobel said softly, surprising them both. "Silas is the bones. I am the memory. Without blood, the body is just a statue."
Jax blinked. "Okay. That was oddly poetic. I'll take it."
Rule Two: The Venting. "No hoarding," Silas said, looking directly at Isobel. "Magic must flow. We cannot block the Ley Lines to build pressure for our own gain. Excess energy must go into the Transit Grid to be shared kinetically."
"Agreed," Isobel nodded. "Stagnation breeds decay. Motion is... acceptable."
Rule Three: The Masquerade. "The city as a whole must not know the source of the power," Silas finished. "If the federal government—or worse, the public—learns that magic is real, they will swarm this city like locusts. We keep watch over ourselves. If a rogue Alchemist starts turning people to gold in broad daylight, The Foundry handles it. If a ghost starts possessing tourists, The Hollows takes care of it."
"And if some punk kid starts frying ATMs?" Jax asked.
"Then you handle it," Silas said. "Or we will."
The three leaders sat in silence. The sounds of the city outside—the sirens, the honking taxis, the distant rumble of the L trains—drifted through the stone walls.
Silas reached into his jacket and pulled out a fountain pen. He didn't offer it to them. He simply touched the center of the metal map.
"I bind the Foundry to this accord."
A seal of burning grey light seared into the metal.
Isobel extended a pale finger. She didn't touch the map; her shadow did.
"I bind the Hollows."
A seal of deep blackness appeared next to the grey.
Jax sighed. He stood up, grabbed the spinning quarter, and slammed it onto the map. A spark of blue lightning arced from his thumb.
"Fine. The Current is in. But if you guys start boring me, I'm renegotiating."
The blue seal burned into the metal, completing the triangle.
The map glowed once, a blinding white light that pulsed out from the Water Tower, expanding in a silent ring across the entire city. Every mage, every hedge-wizard, every low-grade fortune teller in Chicago felt it.
The Law had been set.
Silas stood up, buttoning his jacket. "The Council is adjourned. I have a city to rebuild."
"And I have bodies to bury," Isobel said, fading into the shadows.
Jax was left alone on the platform. He walked to the edge, looking down through the grate at the tourists shopping below. He touched his earpiece.
"Yo, Sal," Jax said. "How's the new train running?"
"Like a dream, boss," Sal's voice replied, clear and static-free. "We're five minutes ahead of schedule. It's... smooth."
Jax smiled. He hopped over the railing, catching a power line to ride the current down to the street.
"Let's keep it that way."