Free Chronicles of Steele: Raven: Episode 1 by Pauline Creeden

Human life has value.
    The poor living in the gutter are as valuable as the rich living in a manor.
    The scoundrel is no less valuable than the saint.
    Because of this, every life a reaper takes must be redeemed.
     
    R AVEN STEELE COUNTED every footstep she chanced through New Haven with the knowledge that any could be her last. But the gamble wouldn’t last long. She quickened her pace. Only two kilometers of brownstone street stood between her and the safety of the forest.
    A throng crowded the street. People. Men. Women and children. It had become too easy to think of them as cattle. But they were human. Her deepest desire was to become one of them and live a normal human life. Gregory would make her feel human; he always did. Her heart quickened at the thought of him, and her tread became light.
    Raven winked at a fat-cheeked baby held by a pinch-faced woman with silver hair pulled into a severe bun. The woman looked Raven up and down, tching her tongue and shaking her head. Even in the city, a woman in breeches instead of a skirt remained unacceptable. Or maybe the crossbow snapped to the magnets on the back of her corset made the difference.
    Would the woman know her secret?
    Raven swallowed hard and assured herself of the ignorance of the populace. Few knew what a reaper was, much less their prohibition from the city.
    Only the occasional cloud blighted the deceptively clear blue sky over New Haven. Sunlight sifted through and between the buildings stacked next to one another like books on a shelf. An automated horse bore down on her, and she flattened herself against the cool brick. The coachmen yelled at the crowd, “Out of the way! Clear the road. Coaches before walkers!”
    The scraping metal and shouting continued down the street, scattering merchants who gave the coach malicious looks and then checked their wares for damage. Beside her, a bronze clockwork mechanical man pushed a merchant's cart, its jerky movements unsuitable for zeppelin-living high society. It stopped just before the haberdasher’s shop.
    With a wave of his arm and a grand flourish, the man next to the clockwork man produced a small metal gadget in his palm. “Don’t be the last of your neighbors to procure this one. You’ve never peeled potatoes as expeditiously or had as much merriment in the doing. Your children will quibble over whose turn it is to do what used to be scutwork.”
    He placed the gadget next to a pile of potatoes, and the clicking and whirring of the blades set the crowd into exclamations of eager yearning. The people applauded and mobbed the stand, blocking the entire walkway. No elbowing through the throng this time. With a sigh, Raven hopped off the walk onto the street, nearly stepping into a pile of manure left by a flesh horse. Her metal-heeled boots clicked with each step on the smooth stones.
    Seagulls crowded a fishmonger’s cart on the other side of the street. The monger accosted her as she neared the bridge, but quickly moved on to the next person behind her when she shook her head. Boats docked behind him and bobbed up and down in the river. Skipping up the steps of the footbridge, she pushed away a black flyaway curl from her eyes and pulled the tendril behind her ear.
    Halfway across the bridge, she inhaled a lungful of the salty air and released a contented sigh. Only a day’s journey still stood between her and Gregory’s house, and for once, she wasn’t injured. She smiled to herself as she imagined the look of surprise on his face. She planned to tell him she loved him this time. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach. Would he be ready for marriage? Was she?
    The fishmonger’s scream broke through the chattering crowd on the bridge. He jumped into the river to avoid an out-of-control carriage pulled by a polished brass automated horse. Steam poured from the nostrils of the metal horse and leaked from its joints in an unnatural manner. Its black lacquer carriage careened on two wheels through the