The first thing I heard was the ticking.
Not the gentle rhythm of a clock marking ti, but sothing sharper—like teeth clacking in the dark. Each click echoed through the hollow between my ears, a piercing trono that didn’t belong. For a few disorienting seconds, I thought I was back in the brothel of the Velvet Court, being woken by so cheap trinket on a nightstand.
But then the wind hit .
The cold air sliced across my cheek, the stench of smoke filled my lungs, and I opened my eyes to find myself once again standing atop the moving train. I hadn’t fallen. I hadn’t died. But I rembered the exact sensation of my neck snapping. The mont before oblivion. The emptiness.
Miko was still there.
Still alive.
Still in Vincent’s grasp, trembling like a marionette whose strings had been dipped in ice water. His body convulsed as though sothing in him still hadn’t returned, like a piece of his soul had been delayed sowhere between life and death.
Vincent turned to with a calm, vaguely amused look, and with a flick of his fingers, his silver pocket watch vanished back into his coat.
"Ah," he said casually. "You’re back."
My fingers flew instinctively to my throat, clawing at the skin, searching for damage. There was nothing there. Not even a bruise. But the mory of the pain still pulsed beneath the surface, like a phantom echo.
"What did you—" I croaked, but he wasn’t listening.
He turned and tossed Miko through the air like an afterthought. He hit the roof hard and skidded toward , a streak of blood following him across the iron. I lunged forward, catching him just before he tumbled over the edge.
Miko clung to , his body shivering uncontrollably.
"I was dead," he sobbed. "Cecil, I—he killed . I felt it. I felt everything."
I pulled him tightly against , holding his head to my chest, feeling the rise and fall of his breath against my ribs. There was nothing to say. No lie could soothe that kind of terror. I rembered it too—how I had watched Vincent rip the heart from his chest. How I had vomited. How I had collapsed in despair.
We had died, both of us. But ti, it seed, had other plans.
Vincent stood a few paces away, staring off into the storm, indifferent to the scene he’d just orchestrated. His tone remained eerily casual, like this was a business call rather than a goddamn execution.
"That was your final warning," he said. "As an old friend who owes you far too many debts than I would like to admit. Leave this train now. I’m saying this for your own good. Gods know how stubborn you are."
I stared at him, bewildered.
He looked back over his shoulder, his eyes glinting under the grey snowlight.
I wanted to scream. To lunge at him. But I couldn’t. Not with Miko still trembling in my arms. Not when I didn’t understand what had just happened.
Vincent sighed and adjusted the cuff of his jacket.
"I didn’t co here to kill you, Cecil. In fact, I was explicitly told not to."
My voice caught, dry and small against the storm. "By who?"
Vincent tilted his head. "The Maker," he said, like it was the most obvious answer in the world. "Told to leave you alive. Annoying, really. I had a whole monologue planned."
The word struck like a lash across my spine. The Maker.
I’d seen that na before—written in the records found in the hidden chamber beneath the cathedral. That cursed place filled with objects and symbols that defied logic, where the air itself tasted like blood and prophecy.
"I wanted to demonstrate the gap between us," he said. "The difference in our understanding of power. Of ti. Of the Maker’s gift."
My pen. His watch. One shaped words, the other monts. One rewrote reality, the other rearranged it. Two sides of a coin I had not realized I’d been holding all my life. Sohow I knew they were connected to all this.
My gaze snapped up. "You can manipulate ti," I whispered, voice raw.
Vincent gave a faint smile, like a teacher humoring a student who finally learned their letters. "More or less."
"That’s impossible," I said, automatically. "Every scholar—every mage—every arcane theorist for the last three centuries—"
"Has been wrong," he said simply. "Or at least, inefficient."
My fingers dug into Miko’s back, anchoring myself. Cold knowledge unfolded inside like a flower made of razors.
"You’re trying to put the pieces together. Good. Just don’t put them together too fast. You might not like the completed picture."
I wanted to argue, to pull more answers out of him, but the mont shattered in a blur of movent—Aurel, exploding from behind with a roar, his dagger flashing in the firelight.
He plunged the blade into Vincent’s stomach with a scream, driving it deep and twisting with all the fury of the damned.
Blood blood against his coat.
Vincent blinked.
Then sighed.
He reached down, gripped the handle, and pulled it out as effortlessly as removing a cork. The blade dripped. He tossed it aside like trash.
"I admire the passion," he said quietly. "But that won’t work."
Aurel backed away, trembling with disbelief.
Vincent looked at once more. There was sothing new in his eyes now—sothing weary. Regretful, almost.
"Do not pursue , Cecil. This is the last ti I’ll warn you."
He reached into his coat, withdrew the watch, and clicked it.
And just like that—he was gone.
No flash. No smoke. Not even a sound. The space he’d occupied swallowed itself.
Then ca the blast.
The last car on the train erupted into fire. The explosion sent a shudder down the length of the roof. A second car followed. Then a third. A rolling inferno hurtling toward us, devouring everything in its path.
I scrambled to my feet.
"Miko!" I barked. "Can you get us out of here?"
"I need... I need a shadow," he gasped. "Light contrast—there’s no anchor—"
"Aurel!" I shouted. "The lantern—now!"
He grabbed it from the hatch and hurled it skyward. I tore off my coat and threw it into the air alongside the light, casting a stark silhouette across the rooftop.
The mont the shadow ford, Miko reached toward it with shaking hands. His fingers traced ancient symbols in the air, the darkness beneath us rippling like a pond.
Then it swallowed us whole.
We fell into silence for a few long monts.
Waiting and waiting.
And then—
We were back.
Snow and ash greeted us as we erged from the shadow beside a collapsed section of train. Fire licked the sky. Screams echoed in the wind. The train was in ruins, a chain of shattered tal and scorched flesh.
We walked forward in stunned silence. Past a mother crushed beneath a wheel, her arms outstretched to her crying child. Past bodies still burning, frozen in death.
Miko said nothing. His expression was blank and hollow.
Aurel fell to his knees.
He broke into sobs—guttural, raw, and sharp.
"This is my fault," he cried. "All of it. I should have—I could have—"
I knelt beside him and wrapped my arms around him. His body trembled in my embrace, his face buried in my shoulder as he repeated the words over and over.
Miko just watched. Unmoving. Eyes glassy.
I turned my gaze back to the train wreckage. Smoke curled into the heavens. Flas licked the edges of mory. I thought of Vincent’s face. His watch. His warning.
And I felt sothing solid and terrible settle in my gut.
Resolve.
He wasn’t just a threat. He wasn’t just powerful. He was a calamity wearing human skin. A whisper of godhood in a tattered coat.
I would kill him.
Not out of vengeance.
But because I had to.
Because soone like him could not be allowed to exist unchecked.
"I don’t care what he is," I said aloud, voice steady. "God, devil, or sothing in between. I will end him."
Aurel lifted his tear-streaked face, lips trembling.
Miko didn’t look at . But I saw the faintest twitch of his brow.
"I will find Vincent Lacona," I whispered. "And I will tear him from ti itself. Even if it kills ."
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