Chapter 14: Queens of the castle

“There are three gargoyles up there. Can you deal with them?” Zoe asked, hovering at my side.

“Well, the thunder you heard earlier? That was me dealing with one,” I said, rotating my shoulder with a wince. “But it wrecked my arm. I don’t think I can handle another shot like that. Not with Noxy.”

“They’re not stone, if that’s what you’re hoping,” she said. “They look like steel.”

“Figures,” I muttered. “So, a regular pistol’s out. But fire... Fire might still work.”

“You’d need a very high temperature,” she said, nodding slightly. “More than double what a normal campfire gives off.”

“You know this kind of stuff?”

She gave a quick, sheepish shrug. “Yeah. I read a lot. Most of it was useless—until suddenly it wasn’t. You’d need something like a kitchen stove flame. Blue. Hottest part of the fire.”

“Perfect,” I said, already pulling cans from my bag. “I’ve got light blue and navy spray paint. Some white too. Should be enough for what I’m thinking.”

“What are you planning?”

“Something new. Sit tight, and watch.”

I crouched low and pulled out a stack of clean paper, shaking the cold out of my fingers as I prepped my paints.

--

“You’re sure this is going to work?” Zoe asked a few minutes later, floating just to my right. Her silvery glow flickered against the fire painting still shining bright near us, casting shifting shadows across the cables.

“I haven’t tried this before,” I admitted. “But I’m, like... 90% sure.”

“Comforting.”

By then, one of the remaining gargoyles had noticed us. It stirred on the tower ledge like a thing waking from centuries of sleep. Humanoid, but all wrong—jagged steel claws, winged limbs too small to fly, a lashing tail like a whip of scrap metal. Its face was grotesque, angular, horned like a demon cast in a forge.

It locked eyes with me—and launched into the air.

The wind screamed past me as it dove. At the last second, it did something unexpected.

“Careful now!” Zoe called out.

The gargoyle opened its gaping mouth and fired a long, metallic tongue toward me like a harpoon. I barely ducked in time, dropping flat against the cold cable as it whistled past inches from my ear.

Then I moved.

I pushed off the cable with both hands and feet, launching upward and meeting the creature midair. My fingers locked around its shoulder. I brought a boot hard into its gut, and the gargoyle reeled—but we were still aloft, suspended over the steel roadway like acrobats in a nightmare.

I wasn’t planning to fall.

As it flailed, I twisted, rolling over its shoulder and onto its back. Its claws swiped at me, but missed. I gripped one of its horns and reached for the trap I’d prepped.

A square of paper, painted with deliberate purpose. The darker half bore the image of a wooden plank—rough, grainy texture, deeply shaded. The lighter portion was glue—rich orange with yellow swirls, dotted with glints of white and gray like light catching drying resin.

Be the glue on a plank, I thought, and felt my authority take hold.

The paper straightened in my hand like a metal ruler. I slapped it down onto the creature’s back. It held—firm, immovable. The gargoyle twisted and bucked, but the trap clung to its armor like it had grown there.

Then came phase two.

I touched the opposite side of the very same page—painted in wild, burning gradients of dark and light blues, accented with slashing whites. The flame looked like it had been torn straight from a blowtorch.

“Be the hottest fire,” I whispered.

My chest burned with heat that wasn’t heat—my power thrumming through the paint and paper. The square lit up. A brilliant flare of color exploded from my hand toward the gargoyle’s back as I shoved myself off with both feet, landing hard on the cable below.

The gargoyle staggered in the air, swaying as it turned toward me—just in time for the trap to ignite.

The flame drilled through its back like a torch through ice. It screamed—no, not screamed, groaned—a low metallic wail as it thrashed in midair, clawing uselessly behind itself. It couldn’t reach the paper. It couldn’t stop the melting.

Then the glue evaporated—burned away in the heat. The page fell with it, glowing like a comet. My authority returned to me.

But for the gargoyle, it was too late.

The creature melted along its spine, wings buckling. Its body twisted into slag as it dropped, spiraling down toward the river below in silence.

I exhaled sharply, bracing myself on the cable with one hand.

“Well,” I muttered. “Guess that worked.”

Zoe floated a little higher, arms folded across her glowing chest. “Okay. That was impressive.”

“I’ll take that as high praise.”

She nodded, her expression half-proud, half-worried. “You’ve got two more.”

“I’ve got more pages as well,” I said.

“I know. How’s your shoulder?”

“Screaming,” I admitted.

“Do you think you can do it again?” Zoe asked, her voice laced with concern. She floated closer, the soft glow of her form warming the cold air, and laid her tiny hands gently on my injured shoulder.

“I don’t have a choice,” I said. “If I want to get inside.”

“But you don’t have to go inside,” she said, more firmly now. “And whatever’s in there—” she glanced toward the looming silhouette of the castle “—is probably worse than gargoyles. You’ll still need to be strong enough to reach your Domain. That’s a journey in itself, Lex.”

I didn’t answer immediately. I just sighed and let the pain remind me I was still standing. She was right, of course.

But still—I couldn’t walk away from this. Not now. It felt like a heist. Like I was breaking into something I’m not supposed to touch. And I needed that win. After how many times Shiroi’s dropped me like dead weight... I needed to take something back for once.

“What happens to this place,” I asked, “when I go home?”

“What do you mean?”

“The gargoyles I beat. The fire I used. Will they stay down? Or does it all reset?”

She nodded slowly. “They’ll stay as they are. For a while. Inanimate stuff reforms slowly here in Ideworld.”

“But it does reform?”

“Yes. Everything here is like... a shadow. A reflection cast by the real thing from our world. As long as the original still exists, the echo eventually returns to form. It just takes time.”

“What about the people I saw? In the cars, the streets... they looked like they were frozen mid-thought. Are they shadows too?”

“Yes,” she said. “They’re echoes of real people. Dream versions, conjured from bits of memory, emotion, and behavior. If you were to destroy one of them—really destroy it—the person on the other side might feel something shift. A change in mood, maybe. A sudden doubt. A crack in the loop they’re stuck in.”

I looked at her. “So, it’s like... their shadow self carries the weight of everything they’ve built up. And if I kill it here, I give them a chance to change?”

“Exactly,” she said. “It’s a loop. Their thoughts and feelings feed the shadows, and the shadows, in turn, feed something back. Most people are stuck in it without even realizing.”

“And if they sleep again...?”

“The dream will rebuild them,” she said. “A new version, born of where they’re at emotionally, mentally. Slightly different. Sometimes better. Sometimes worse.”

I whistled low. “So, I could, in theory... kill off someone’s depression?”

Zoe gave a half-smile, floating just above the cable now. “Yeah. You could frame it like that.”

“What about you? You’re asleep right now. And what about me?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. “Is there a version of me wandering around here right now?”

“If there was, it would probably be sleeping,” Zoe said. “Shadows mimic the patterns of their real-world counterparts.”

Then I guess mine wouldn’t sleep much at all, Zoe.

“But there’s no shadow of you here,” she added. “Or me. Not anymore.”

“Oh. Because we’re awake? That’s what it means?”

“Yes. Awake people don’t cast shadows here. Your shadow became your Domain’s crystal. Mine became this body I’m using now. Non-magical awoken individuals don't cast shadows either."

“But you also said things here can wake up,” I said. “What happens to their real-world counterparts then?”

She hesitated. “That... I don’t know, Lex.”

Damn. That’s interesting.

“You asked about things reforming. Is that because you’re finally thinking about heading home?” she asked hopefully.

She really wanted me to stop. I could see it in the way she hovered slightly lower now, like she was preparing for disappointment. I understood, even appreciated it. But she didn’t know me very well yet.

“Well,” I said, rotating my aching shoulder, “I did consider it for a second. When my arm felt like it got mangled by a train. But it’s better now, kind of. So, I’ll keep going.”

I smiled at her. She gave me a look—equal parts amusement and pity. Fair.

“But maybe you could help me,” I said. “The remaining gargoyles... they’re on the far side of this tower, right?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe I can sneak in without them noticing.” I paused, thinking aloud. “Can you carry stuff in here?”

“No.”

“Damn.” I squinted into the space ahead of us, gears turning. “Can I... paint you?”

“Like, on paper? Why?”

“No,” I said, eyes lighting up, “like how I painted over myself. Can I put paint on you?”

She blinked at me like I’d just started speaking another language. “I don’t know, Lex. Why would you want to paint me?”

“You said this isn’t your permanent spiritual body. You’ll make a new one the next time you dream, right?”

She looked a little wary now. “Lex, you’re starting to scare me. Yes, that’s true. What are you thinking?”

“I want you to carry something for me. Something to distract the gargoyles. But to do that, I need to make part of you physical.”

I pulled out a can of skin-tone spray paint. “Gimme your arms. Straighten them.”

She hesitated, but eventually landed and held out her arms.

I sprayed the paint—nothing. It passed right through.

“It doesn’t work,” she said, backing off.

“Hold them there,” I said quickly. I took a breath, focused, and sprayed again—but this time with intent. Be the arms, I thought, channeling my authority through the spray.

The light inside me moved outward, through the paint, and settled on her limbs. I felt it immediately—a pushback. A clash of wills. Authority against authority. But then she yielded.

“Sorry,” she said, a little shaken. “Instinct. I let your authority in. It would’ve won anyway... yours is stronger than mine.”

“So awakened people—our authorities can clash?”

“Yes. That’s why it’s hard to use magic directly on others. But if your Domain’s strong enough...” She trailed off.

“I get it. So how do you feel? Any different?”

She flew down and cautiously touched the nearest cable. Her hands jerked back instantly.

“It’s cold!”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“It worked, Lex!”

“Okay then, I hope you don’t mind a bit of hearing damage.”

“What?” Zoe blinked, but I was already working.

I uncapped my paints—black, silver, blues, reds, white, and a splash of yellow. My hands moved quickly, lines and colors coming to life with each stroke. Before long, I had it: a painting of a police siren, jagged and chaotic, vibrating with implied sound and movement. It already looked alive.

I placed my palm over the paper and focused. The colors shimmered, light pulling from inside me, through my fingers, and into the page.

Be the loudest and shiniest police siren possible.

The effect was immediate. The air split with a blaring, constant wail. Blue light burst from the page like lightning—wild and unchanging. The sound, the light—it wasn’t shifting. It was stuck in a single mode. But it was working.

“Take it, Zoe!” I shouted over the cacophony. “Get their attention, fly off, and drop it in the river!”

She nodded, though her face winced from the sound, and took the paper—comically huge in her tiny hands. It flailed in the wind behind her like a parachute with a personality disorder, flashing and howling as she zipped off.

It worked.

In the distance, two gargoyles peeled off from their posts, flying after her like angry hornets. She led them down toward the river, the siren still screaming.

I dropped into a sprint, heading straight for the tower.

The castle loomed above like a mountain grown sideways—massive walls, smaller towers stacked like crooked teeth, parapets and ledges winding like frozen vines. I ran along a wide outer ledge until I spotted what I needed.

The gate.

It was inset into the stone, tall and stubborn. No gargoyles in sight now—they were chasing the noise bomb. Good.

I started spraying, fast and rough. The black paint was almost gone, each burst of the can growing thinner.

“Come on... come on…” I muttered.

When I had enough, I slapped my hand on the painted section and whispered, Be the hole.

The stone shimmered, and then the black rectangle opened into nothingness.

“Zoe, go!” I yelled as she veered back toward me, siren ditched in the river.

She zipped through, and I dove in right after her, the shriek of the distant siren echoing behind us.

We landed in a narrow hall, smaller than I expected, dim but strangely cozy. Most of the light came from clusters of half-melted candles scattered across the floor and gathered near the massive staircase ahead. Wax had pooled around their bases like forgotten snowdrifts.

The staircase dominated the opposite wall, wide and elegant, spiraling leftward into the tower's upper reaches. A plush red carpet stretched up the steps, its golden embroidery faded but still regal, like a king in retirement.

Old electrical bulbs jutted out from the stone walls here and there, their light faint and flickering. Loose wires trailed along the stone like veins, disappearing into cracks or curling into dead ends. I had no idea what they powered—if anything.

“We made it!” Zoe shouted, her voice echoing.

I winced, held a finger to my lips. “Let’s keep it quiet, Zoe.”

She nodded sheepishly. “Sure. Now you want quiet.” That got a grin out of me.

She floated beside me, still catching her breath, even if it was more habit than need. “That was pretty awesome, though. Haven’t had an adventure like that... well, ever.”

“We wouldn’t be here without you,” I said. “You were incredible out there.”

She smiled, a little awkwardly, brushing a lock of luminous hair behind her ear. “We make a good team, Lex.”

I nodded, then looked toward the spiraling staircase.

“Let’s find out what’s at the top,” I said as I reached for the inside of the gate, right where I’d painted the hole on the other side. I placed my hand there and pulled my authority back, closing it off.

Zoe fluttered down and landed lightly on my shoulder.

“Hey—wait a sec,” I said. “You told me you can’t interact with anything here, but I’ve seen you walk, jump, sit on me, and now you’re just chilling on my shoulder.”

“It’s simple, Lex,” she said with a grin. “I can feel resistance. So, I can walk on stuff, lean on it, touch it—but I can’t actually hold anything, not really.”

“Kinda makes sense,” I muttered.

“Good enough,” she laughed.

We began the climb—well, I did. She was just along for the ride, perched like a glowing raven.

“When you wake up,” I asked after a while, “you’ll just disappear? No warning?”

“Depends. If someone wakes me up suddenly, then yeah—poof. Gone. But if my body just finishes its rest naturally, I get this tugging feeling first, kind of like a gentle pull at the base of my spine. Then I vanish.”

“Cool,” I said, even though it sounded a little terrifying.

A beat of silence passed. Then Zoe tilted her head, the realization hitting.

“How is it,” she asked, “that you, an artist, are so—what’s the word—agile? Battle-ready? And annoyingly quick on your feet?”

I sighed. “Alright, but this stays between you and me, okay?”

“Promise,” she said, instantly serious.

“I’m also a thief. I steal things—valuable things—from rich people. Been doing it for about seven years now.”

She didn’t respond at first.

“I was picked up and trained when I was ten,” I added.

“You must’ve had it rough,” she said finally. “Didn’t you?”

“Sometimes. Especially in the beginning. But I got through it. And now... now it’s mostly exciting. Especially since magic got involved. Stealing artifacts? Beats jewelry any day.”

She nodded slowly. “I get it now. Your drive. That hunger.”

“Thanks for not judging,” I said.

“Does Peter know?”

“Yeah. He’s the only one who does—well, until now.”

I ascended the staircase with ease, or something close to it, despite the pain in my side—a deep, rhythmic throb that pulsed with every step like a second heartbeat. Noxy had really done me dirty with that one shot. I hadn’t expected it to hit as hard as it did. But I kept that part to myself. No need to get Zoe more worried than she already was. I still had my right arm—my dominant one—working just fine, and that was good enough for now.

At the top, the stairs opened into a hall—vast and hushed, far larger than the chamber below. The walls here were made of large red bricks, old and uneven in places, giving the room a kind of reverent, industrial charm. Strands of exposed electrical wiring ran along them like veins, feeding dim, humming lightbulbs that threw long shadows across the space.

The whole room felt like a shrine—an altar to craftsmanship. Dozens of tables and workstations stood arranged in quiet reverence, each one scattered with tools, worn gloves, yellowed papers. Blueprints hung everywhere—some pinned neatly to corkboards, others stuffed between pipes and steel cabinets, curling at the edges like forgotten leaves. The air smelled faintly of copper, oil, and dust. Time lingered here.

Two doors awaited. One to the left of the stairs—sturdy, steel-framed, closed tight. The other stood at the far end of the room, directly ahead, same build. Same silence.

This place wasn’t just a castle. It was memory—poured into stone and sealed in metal.

And something still lived in that memory.

From both doors, I could hear movement. The sounds of life, of labor. Footsteps pacing with purpose, tools striking metal—hammers, wrenches, the whine of welding. A low rhythm threaded it all together. Then came the singing—deep voices carrying a workman’s chant, low and melodic, echoing off the red-brick walls with surprising warmth:

“Hammer and cable, swingin’ high,

Building a road to touch the sky.

Rivets ring where the eagles fly,

Over the river, bold we try.

Hoist that beam, boys, don’t let go,

Steel and sweat in the River’s flow.

Stone and wire, strong and wide,

We’re hangin’ dreams on the rising tide.

Cold wind bites and the sun beats down,

Still, we climb above this town.

City shouts from far below,

But up here, the silence grows.

Hoist that beam, boys, don’t let go,

Steel and sweat in the River’s flow.

Stone and wire, strong and wide,

We’re hangin’ dreams on the rising tide.

One more bolt and the day is done,

Bridges rise with the setting sun.

Sing it loud so the world may see—

We built this span for you and me.”

“A catchy tune, isn’t it?” Zoe whispered beside me.

“Yeah… but I’m wondering why they’re here, Zoe.”

“What do you mean?”

“This castle… it doesn’t exist in our world. It’s like it sprouted from the bridge itself. So how are these people here? Are they real?”

“Oh… I see what you’re getting at.” She hovered slightly ahead now, thoughtful. “I don’t think they’re real. Not in the way we are.”

“So how do I even tell the difference? Between someone real, and… a shadow?”

“You can’t. Not for certain. If they look human, it’s almost impossible to tell. There aren’t any hard signs.”

“If they look human?” I raised a brow.

“Oh, yeah. Shadows can get… warped. Twisted by their emotions, by what they want, or fear. It shows in their bodies sometimes.”

I nodded slowly, eyes still on the closed door. “So… why do you think these are shadows?”

“Because of where we are,” she said, voice soft but firm. “When I was little, my grandma brought me to a place like this. A house, but it was built on top of a monument. A shadow lived there—of the man the monument honored. But he wasn’t a shadow cast by himself. He was born from the memories of the people who built that monument. Their reverence gave him shape.”

Zoe floated in front of me now, wings barely flapping, gesturing animatedly as she talked.

“So,” I said, connecting the dots, “these singing people… they could be memory-shadows of the bridge’s builders. And this castle—maybe it’s the bridge’s gift to them? A reward for what they gave it?”

“That’d be my guess.”

“And would they be… hostile?”

Zoe’s floated in place as she considered. “If they think you’re a threat to the bridge, maybe. But it’s hard to say. The guy we met back then was nice. Kinda chill, actually.”

“Let’s hope these ones sing more than they stab.”

Zoe gave a dry laugh, but I caught the flicker of worry behind it.

“So, what’s the plan?” she asked, hovering close.

“I’ll rig a few traps in here—trip them up if we get chased. Then I knock. Try to talk. If it goes bad, we either fight or bolt. Depends how the wind’s blowing.”

“Shouldn’t you prep a way out first?” she asked. “A hole downstairs or something?”

I sighed, dragging a hand down my face. I really didn’t want to hike all the way back down, but she was right. The worst plans are the ones that forget failure is possible.

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

We descended slowly, saving our strength. My side still ached from Noxy’s blast—like a splinter of lightning stuck under my ribs—but I kept quiet about it. Zoe didn’t need extra reasons to worry.

After a few minutes, we reached the first-floor landing again. I sprayed the last of my black paint into the shape of a jagged oval on the inside of the gate—one last exit, should things go sideways. The can sputtered, emptied, and I tossed it aside with a clatter.

“Let’s hope we won’t need any more holes,” Zoe muttered, watching it roll to a stop.

“Yeah,” I said. “But if we’re running for our lives, I’ll touch this one to activate it. As soon as I do—fly. No hesitation. If the gargoyles are waiting outside, I’ll lead them off—back toward the city.”

“Okay. I’ll meet you near the end of the bridge.” Her voice was light, but she twitched with tension.

We turned and climbed again.

This time, I worked as I moved. On some steps I painted a thin sheet of ice, smooth and gleaming like spilled moonlight. Others I coated to look like adhesive. I tested them briefly, touching them with my foot and channeling authority to see if they’d respond. They did. The ice slicked instantly, the glue clung like a trap. I withdrew my influence, letting them lie dormant—for now.

These were my lines in the sand. If things went bad, the staircase would become my battlefield.

I approached the door where the singing still echoed, low and metallic, like voices caught in steel pipes. I knocked—once, twice—until I heard the rhythm falter and one of the voices step away from the song. Footsteps, heavy and uneven, shuffled closer. I caught the scent before I saw him: sweat soaked into old canvas, grease, and scorched iron. The stench was thick enough to turn my stomach, but I kept my Usagi mask in place. Enhanced senses could be the difference between safety and regret in a place like this.

The door creaked open, metal screeching against stone.

He stood in the frame—a man once, maybe. But now, unmistakably a shadow. His left hand was fused with a welding torch, its nozzle still hot with phantom heat. His torso had become something else entirely: a slab of tarnished metal, shaped like a tombstone, with a name and two dates etched deep in its surface. His eyes were sealed with wide, rusted rivets, and his hair hung in wire-thin strands. When he opened his mouth to speak, I saw teeth made of nails and rivets.

Stolen story; please report.

“Whom you might be, lass?”

“My name is Usagi,” I replied quickly. Then, glancing at the engraving on his chest, I added, “I came to pay my respects to those who built this place.”

He tilted his head, his movements mechanical and slow. Behind him, six more workers toiled in grim silence, their bodies similarly transformed—tools and scrap fused to flesh. One of them, the only one with both hands intact, methodically laid bricks in the far corner. Yet every brick placed crumbled into dust, and every welded joint split apart elsewhere. The work never finished. The work never stopped.

“That is so strange,” Zoe whispered in my ear from my shoulder. She must have seen what I was seeing.

“I don’t know, lass,” the shadow-worker said. “We still build, aye. Not safe for you here.” His joints groaned as he shifted.

“It took me a long time to get here,” I said softly. “I’d like to move forward, if it’s allowed.”

He rubbed his chin with his human hand, the gesture unnervingly human. “I’ll ask the Foreman. Wait here.” He turned, leaving the door open behind him, and I stepped into the half-constructed bridge.

It was a dream caught in amber—a section of suspended walkway, thick steel cables arcing above me, brick beneath my feet, all enclosed within massive stone walls. I peered over the edge. Below, a river flowed—not beneath the bridge, but straight into the castle wall, vanishing as if feeding the memory itself.

“Red!” the worker shouted. “Red! Some lass here!”

The water bulged.

Something rose from it—a massive figure climbing a submerged ladder, water cascading from his bulk. Towering. Silent. Where a face should’ve been, there was only a mouth sewn shut with cable wire. He carried a colossal wrench, dragging behind him and leaving ghostlike streaks in the air. His chest was plated in corroded steel like the others, but his name was etched deep and proud:

Silas “Red” McCray – The Foreman.

He moved toward us, eyes bulging unnaturally, as if holding back some unbearable pressure. He stared at me, mouth gurgling behind the stitching.

“Red says you’re a thief,” the worker translated, his voice flat but wary. “Is it true?”

How would he know that? I doubted Red had psychic insight—more likely, he said that about everyone. Let’s not jump to supernatural paranoia just yet.

“Of course I’m not a thief,” I replied, keeping my tone neutral. “Why would Mr. Red think that?”

Red gurgled again, a horrible wet sound like metal grinding through waterlogged lungs. Then, without ceremony, he grabbed the worker by the torso and lifted him as though he weighed nothing—like a sack of tools.

The poor soul dangled midair, legs twitching, voice trembling as he relayed the next message. “Red says—only a thief wears a mask. You came for our treasures. You must die.”

“I don’t think peace talks are working,” Zoe whispered dryly from my shoulder.

No shit.

I sighed and reached up to unclip the mask, peeling it off carefully. The moment it came loose, everything dimmed—the overbright light of the torches became murky, the industrial haze settled over the world again. Sound dulled like I was underwater. But at least I could breathe properly now, and not fight the rising bile from Red’s stench.

“I took the mask off. See?” I said, forcing calm into my voice. “Not a thief. It was welding protection. Just… fancy.”

Red stared. His bulging eyes didn’t blink—just hovered, full of pressure, threatening to pop. Then he set the worker down like a tool returned to its shelf. Slowly, ominously, he reached behind himself and took hold of his colossal wrench with both hands, the metal humming like a tuning fork of violence.

Another gurgle.

The worker, still catching his breath, translated: “Red says… you may pass. But he will move along with you. To watch.”

Of course he would.

“Oh great,” I muttered.

“Let’s go then,” I said aloud, stepping forward.

And the sound of footsteps followed—massive, echoing, constant.

And so, we walked further along the bridge.

I had to leap across gaps in the structure—unfinished sections suspended above a void that swallowed sound. Each landing echoed sharply through the vast chamber, cutting through the melodic rhythm of the crews like a stone shattering stained glass.

But no one stopped us.

No heads turned. No hands paused mid-motion. They kept at their endless tasks—laying bricks, welding seams, tightening bolts—work that evaporated moments after it was done. As if the structure rejected completion. And still, they smiled. They sang. There was joy in their futility, like dancers unaware their stage would vanish with each step. Maybe the outcome didn’t matter. Maybe doing was enough.

Red followed in silence. Each of my jumps he mirrored in his own terrible way—a giant of fused metal and stone moving with an unnatural grace that should’ve been impossible. His wrench, longer than I was tall, trailed ghost-light behind it as he walked.

The path spiraled upward now, curving like a rib carved from the tower’s spine. Every so often, arched windows punctuated the gloom, letting in flickers of moonlight—cold and pale, brushing across steel cables and rivets. The impossible river still flowed with us, coiling along the edge of the path, rising as though gravity were a polite suggestion. Not a single drop spilled. No flood followed. The world bent to the bridge’s will.

This place wasn’t obeying physics as I knew it.

I leapt another gap, my injured ribs howling under the strain. My landing cracked across the stone, and then I saw them—workers scattering suddenly from a tight knot up ahead. I slowed.

And there he was.

A boy, curled on the wet concrete like discarded tools. Blood spread like a bloom around him, mixing with the river-mist and runoff. I saw a boot print on his back, fresh. His lip had split all the way to his nose. Strands of iron hair clung to his scalp, but his body was small—too human for this place. Too fragile.

I froze mid-step, the need to act clawing up through my gut. But I wasn’t a hero. Most thieves, contrary to popular belief, have no honor at all—myself included. I was here for a soulmark, not a salvation.

He was a shadow. Right?

“Hey Zoe,” I said quietly, trying to swallow the weight in my throat. “Do shadows… do they feel? Do they have consciousness?”

Zoe hovered close to my cheek, her light dimmed to a cautious flicker. “I was just wondering the same thing. You want to intervene?”

“It’s too late, right?” I answered, but I didn’t move.

The boy moaned softly.

Red made a deep, wrenching noise from behind me—a grinding churn that didn’t belong in a body. One of the workers stepped forward to interpret, his right hand a hammer fused at the wrist, the usual nail-teeth glinting from his mouth like broken promises.

“Foreman says…” the worker rasped, “you should move the thief. Throw him into the river. That’s where he belongs.”

I looked at the boy again. He wasn’t moving much now. But that face—under the iron-fiber hair, beneath the bruises—it was a human face. Not twisted like the others. Not gone.

“Why doesn’t Red do it himself?” I said carefully.

I wasn’t standing up for the boy. I told myself that. I was just stalling. Buying time. Not getting dragged into someone else’s shadow-history.

Red gurgled louder, a rumble that vibrated through the bridge under my feet. The worker translated again.

“Foreman says: if you refuse, he will throw you in with the thief. This is your test.”

Of course it was.

Simple math. Help a boy who might not be real—or survive to finish what I came here to do. The bridge didn’t care about morality. Only choices.

I exhaled sharply, my side burning like torn paper, and stepped toward the boy. My boots scraped through his blood as I crouched low and grabbed him by the shoulders. He didn’t resist. He barely moved. Just a broken heap of limbs in soaked clothing.

Then—

He stirred.

A jolt of life snapped through him, and he turned his head just enough for me to see his face. His eyes were human. Too human. Wide and terrified.

“Heelp… me… please,” he gasped, blood running from his mouth.

My hands froze.

“Oh, bloody damn,” I whispered.

Zoe didn’t speak. She didn’t have to.

Because in that moment—rationality cracked.

The boy’s plea wasn’t scripted. It wasn’t part of some eternal cycle of creation and collapse. It was real—directed at me, an element outside the narrative. I looked over my shoulder.

Red stood motionless, but his grip on the wrench tightened. The stone beneath him groaned in warning.

I could walk away. I could push the boy into the river. He’d vanish like everything else in this place—into myth, into water, into memory.

But he’d begged.

And something in me refused to let that go. Fuck.

I looked down at him. His eyes were fading now. Whatever spark had surfaced was being drowned again by the weight of this place.

But it had happened. And I’d seen it.

“I’m sorry, Zoe,” I whispered as I rose to my feet, my ribs aching with every breath.

“No,” she replied, her voice steady. “I understand. I’ll help however I can.”

I gave a tight nod and faced Red, towering and silent. “Hey, big guy,” I called, voice sharp as a blade, “do it yourself. I’m not doing your dirty work.”

A low, metallic churning began inside him—his version of speech. The interpreter beside him looked up, waiting for instruction.

But I didn’t wait for a translation.

A single shot shattered the air, ripping the silence apart like glass. The interpreter collapsed instantly, a gaping hole where his forehead had been. The recoil from Noxy, even in its standard form, punched into my shoulder like a battering ram, but pain didn’t matter now. Two more shots rang out before Red fully processed what had happened—one to his knee, one aimed at his head.

The first made him stumble, balance faltering, joints grinding in protest. The second shot struck the side of his head—but didn’t kill. Instead, he flashed with a sickly grey light, as if some hidden authority resisted death itself. He rose, slow and deliberate. Still silent.

He was activating something. Power, memory—some hidden clause of his identity. But I didn’t wait to find out what.

I ran straight at him.

I ducked low and slammed a fist into his groin—solid metal, but it made him falter. As he lurched forward and dropped his wrench, I bolted between his legs, pulling two spray cans—one red, one orange—from my belt.

I started tagging his lower back and thighs in sweeping strokes, painting flames along the contours of his armor.

He swept a massive hand backward to swat me like a fly. I ducked, rolled beneath the arc of his swing, and kept spraying—igniting bright streaks of inferno along his flanks. He spun, his eyes flaring, and grabbed his wrench again, raising it high to smash me like a nail.

My side was on fire from pain, but I sidestepped fast, heart pounding, and as the wrench hit stone, I kicked off it—vaulting upward. I used his shoulder as a springboard and flipped over him, still tagging him with arcs of crimson and gold.

Then the light began.

Zoe shot past me in a flash, her glow exploding to ten times its usual brightness—like a living star circling his head. She flew fast and chaotic, weaving in and out of his vision. He couldn’t track her. He couldn’t even blink fast enough. He began swinging at the light, arms flailing wildly. I tried to shout, “Good job!” but my mouth opened and no sound came out.

My voice was gone. All sound was gone.

Then pain exploded through my ribs.

A sharp jab—something pointed, metal. I fell hard, twisting in agony as a new figure stepped into view. Another worker. I hadn’t heard him come—of course I hadn’t. He loomed over me now, mouth split in that nail-toothed grin, gripping a jagged tool-hand with both arms for leverage.

He stabbed down.

I kicked with all my strength, heel connecting with his shin. He grunted silently and dropped to one knee. I twisted, rolled, then sprang upright using my good hand, boots sliding in a smear of blood and paint. As he lunged again, I slammed my armored fist into his face.

His head cracked like a melon—bone and brain matter splattering across my gauntlet and the concrete floor.

No time to process it.

I grabbed the cans I’d dropped mid-fight and kept spraying. The giant was still turning in circles, swiping at the light, swatting blindly.

Zoe was still at it—dancing just outside his reach, a radiant blur. I wanted to scream for her to get clear, but I still had no voice. She couldn’t hear me. She wouldn’t stop.

Then I saw two more shapes coming fast.

One had a welding torch for a hand. The other wielded a hammer like a goddamn executioner. The hammer-bearer leapt, trying to strike Zoe from above.

Red’s hand came out of nowhere and swatted him away. The worker tumbled through the air and disappeared into the shadows beyond the bridge.

Well, that was new.

I raised Noxy and fired twice. One round took the torch-hand through the chest—he dropped instantly. The second shot followed the airborne one, just to be sure.

With the distractions handled, I turned back to Red.

I sprayed the final streak across his chest, painting a fiery painting where his heart would be—if he had one.

Be the fire, I thought.

Something answered. Energy sparked down my arms—veins of light, red and yellow and white, crawling through my skin like living lightning. The paint on his armor shimmered, then ignited—metaphorically. The colors became the heat of the flame. Real, searing, authority-driven flame.

Red thrashed violently.

The grey light in him—the Authority I had seen before—began to unravel like fog hit by sunrise. He dropped to his knees, the wrench falling beside him with a deep thud.

The silence broke.

Sound returned in a rush—Zoe’s buzzing flight, the crackling of fire, the wet hiss of burning oil and flesh. Red let out a final, bellowing roar—then collapsed. Metal groaned, stone cracked, and he was still.

I stood in the sudden stillness, chest heaving, body shaking with pain and exertion. The whole platform stank of burnt oil and rusted blood.

Then I remembered why this started.

I turned back and rushed to the boy.

He was still there, somehow still breathing. His small body trembled, soaked in blood and memory.

I crouched beside him and lifted him carefully—he was feather-light. A shadow, yes, but more than that now.

Zoe floated down beside me, her glow faded, her form flickering slightly like an overused bulb. She was clearly drained, but her smile was genuine.

“We made it,” she said softly.

I nodded, though my heart was far from steady. “Barely.”

As we stepped away from the wreckage—boy in my arms, the scent of burned oil and blood still clinging to the air—something in the bridge groaned. Not just structurally, but deeply, like a breath drawn through old lungs.

And then he appeared.

He walked with the certainty of ritual. Cloaked in layers of heavy, black cloth, the figure’s face was lost deep within a hood, and with every movement, pages fell from his robes. All yellowed with age and wear, fluttering in an unseen wind like dying birds. Some crumbled the moment they hit the floor. Others vanished midair.

In his left hand, he held a bell-lantern, its fire flickering with a shimmer that defied the normal spectrum—neither warm nor cold. Just... present. The light cast long, trembling shadows that bent strangely along the platform’s edge. Across his chest, suspended by chains that vanished into his robes, hung a small tarnished metal plate, like a name etched into the armor of memory itself.

He approached slowly, muttering something I couldn’t hear. His voice was buried under the strange hush blanketing the area, as if the silence hadn’t left with Red’s death—but instead lingered, waiting.

I pulled my mask from my bag and strapped it on with aching fingers. Its sensors hummed softly. The world lit up again—outlines brightened, movement sharpened—and my rabbit-enhanced hearing returned.

The muttering became a chant.

“Raise up tools, raise up to be used. Raise up tools...”

Over and over.

His voice had the cadence of a priest giving last rites to the living.

Through the filter, I could finally read his nameplate.

Reverend Josiah Thorne – The Mourner.

He stopped thirty feet away. The air around him took on a faint orange hue, a subtle shimmer, like dying coals under ice. The bridge responded—I could feel it in the soles of my boots. It shifted. Bent. Acknowledged.

The pages around him fluttered violently and then dropped. I could see them now. Hymns. Prayers. Mourning rites. His lantern pulsed. He lifted his head slowly. And then:

“RAISE UP TOOLS!” he shouted, voice no longer muttering, but ringing out like a bell toll for the dead.

The light surged from the lantern—an orange wave of flickering shimmer that stretched outward and struck the fallen bodies. The workers. Red. Even the boy in my arms.

The thief jerked in my grasp. His body convulsed, then went eerily still. A second later, his arms pushed against me. He stood.

No wounds. No blood. No pain. Whole.

He smiled.

Then turned and ran.

Gone.

In that instant, my stomach dropped.

I was totally fucked.

“Run!” I shouted, heart pounding. I turned, searching for Zoe—but she was gone. No silver shimmer. No trailing sparks. No glow. Nothing.

Instead, rising like puppets re-strung by invisible fingers, were four workers.

And Red.

Whole again. Restored. Not even scorched. They stood up in eerie silence and turned toward me in perfect synchrony.

This wasn’t resurrection.

This was rewind.

I aimed Noxy at the priest and fired. No sound. Just a muted puff in my arm. The bullet found its mark—his shoulder—sending him stumbling back, robes twisting in the air. He fell, clutching his wound, shouting something I couldn’t hear.

The silence swallowed me again.

Red had activated it. Of course.

He stood now, wrench in hand, glowing faintly with that grey light of Authority—whatever the hell that was. The others moved behind him, coordinated. Controlled. Clockwork shadows with teeth.

I had maybe nine shots left. I didn’t bother counting exacts. I turned and ran.

I knew the terrain. We had jumped and walked at least five minutes before encountering this crew. The bridge was empty ahead. The next group, if any, would be five minutes out—minimum.

I sprinted to the opposite railing and vaulted over it.

Behind me, Red followed—his leap superhuman, landing with a boom I could feel in my bones despite the silence.

The workers, less agile, didn’t try to follow directly. Instead, they started building—grabbing stray beams, lashing them together, laying makeshift planks across the gap. Efficient. Predictable.

But slow.

I leapt from one structural bar to the next, using the bridge’s skeleton like a monkey on scaffolding. As I moved, I fired—one clean shot per head. Four down before their bridge even stabilized. Each dropped like a marionette with its strings slashed.

Red kept coming.

He pounded his wrench against the bars below me, not to destroy, but to destabilize. I couldn’t hear the impacts, but the vibration in the steel echoed through my legs like drumbeats from hell.

I made a decision.

I abandoned the chase and doubled back, leaping across the span to the other side—where Reverend Thorne was still limping toward the corpses of his workers, dragging one leg behind him.

He turned at the soundless thud of my landing, staggered backward. His mouth moved—likely a curse, or a plea—but I couldn’t hear a word.

Didn’t matter.

I charged.

My reinforced leg slammed into his shin. The bone snapped like dry kindling beneath cloth. He screamed—but in silence—and fell.

I raised my arm to finish it. One hit to the head. Just one—

WHACK.

The world went sideways.

The wrench hit me square in the ribs—my good side. The air vanished from my lungs, and I flew like a ragdoll, crashing into a scaffold with a shriek of bent metal.

Pain exploded through my body.

Left ribs cracked hours ago. Now the right ones were joining the club. Balance, I guess. Life needs symmetry.

I groaned, trying to stand, but the entire platform seemed to sway beneath me.

Red was right over me again.

The Reverend was crawling away, still dragging his broken leg.

And I was in no shape to run.

That’s when the light returned.

Silver—pure and sharp, like moonlight caught in motion. It coalesced into a familiar form: the woman-shaped shimmer, radiant and otherworldly, as if someone had cut the sun into crystal and carved her from its shards. She darted across Red’s vision, slicing through his focus like a knife across fabric.

Zoe.

She blinded him. Again.

She bought me seconds. Precious, aching seconds. I didn’t waste them thinking—I had nothing clever left to think.

Instead, I drew Noxy. The pistol was hot, heavy, comforting.

I raised it to Red’s head.

I wanted to scream, Move, Zoe, move!—but sound was still gone, and she was too close to his face. Too close for a clean shot. Too close to risk it.

I lowered my aim, heart pounding, and shifted the barrel toward the giant’s knee.

Then fired.

Once. Twice. Five times. Maybe six—I couldn’t count in the haze of it.

Each shot cracked through his reinforced joint like a jackhammer. Sparks flew, shards of synthetic bone scattered. And finally—finally—the knee gave out. With a sickening, twisting lurch, Red’s leg separated from his body.

He fell like a felled tree.

The wrench came with him, an arc of death aimed straight at my skull—but I rolled away just in time, scraping across the metal and leaving a streak of blood where my side dragged.

My breath hitched.

I crawled, legs screaming, ribs on fire.

I looked back.

Red was crawling.

One knee gone, but his rage still intact, he heaved his bulk across the platform like some broken colossus—arms pulling, body dragging, wrench still in hand. His movements were grotesque. Childlike. Comical, in a way, if not for the gore and silence.

He crawled after me.

And I?

I crawled after the Reverend.

Three broken people in a godless chase.

The absurdity of it hit me like a drug. I laughed—no one could hear it, not even me. It stayed inside my mask, soundless and hysterical.

But I crawled faster.

I reached the Reverend first. He was struggling, dragging his shattered leg behind him, robes torn, that accursed lantern still glowing faintly at his side.

I grabbed his jaw.

My hand fumbled into my satchel and found the page I had written before I came here—the one marked with sigils and strokes of fire. I didn’t hesitate. I shoved it into his mouth.

His eyes widened.

I gripped his head with both hands. Fire.

He thrashed. He tried to scream.

The flames sparked from inside him—igniting the parchment, consuming his tongue, then his throat. He twitched, choked on the light, and collapsed. Dead. Truly this time.

The lantern fell with him. Its glow flickered once... then died.

And with that, the silence shattered.

A great crash echoed behind me. Red’s spell broke the instant the Reverend’s life was snuffed out. His body—restored, borrowed—collapsed with it. Just a hulk of metal, meat, and fury extinguished.

I exhaled.

For a heartbeat, the world was still.

Then a voice cried out.

“Lex!”

I turned just in time to see her—a streak of silver, burning through the air like a comet trailing grief. She raced to me, light stuttering as if out of breath.

“I’m so sorry, Lex,” Zoe said, her voice trembling. “I was woken up—some neighbor’s dog, stupid—but I got back as fast as I could. Before I reset.”

She reached for me with those little glowing hands, colorless now—her form reverted to an earlier state, stripped of the hues I had painted onto her.

But when her fingers brushed my cheek, I felt it.

Warmth.

“It’s okay, Zoe,” I whispered.

I collapsed beside a crooked metal bar jutting from the bridge’s surface and let my back slide against it. I could feel the ache blooming across my ribs like a wildfire, sharp and angry with every breath.

“I think I broke something,” I muttered. “Hard to say. Might just be bruised. Hurts like a motherfucker, though.”

Zoe floated beside me, her light dimming softly in rhythm with mine. Above us, the bridge groaned once more—but this time, it wasn’t rage or collapse. It was just settling.

"Zoe, please… just give me a few minutes," I said, leaning back against the twisted bar of metal jutting from the ruined bridge. My body screamed at me from every angle. "I just need some time to do nothing. Okay?"

She hovered there, her glow flickering faintly. “Of course,” she said softly. “But it’s almost morning. I might wake up soon… and if that happens, I don’t know if I’ll be able to return. Maybe not for a long while. Maybe not at all. If I stay awake any longer, I’ll reappear back in my room… above the bed, like always.”

I turned my head toward her, every muscle aching. “I see. Still… thanks. For coming back. For coming fast.”

She gave a faint smile, her light trembling like a flame in wind. “I couldn’t leave you here, Lex. Not like that.”

“Are you sure you can stay safe?” I asked, half-joking, half-afraid.

She shrugged with her tiny shoulders and drifted a little closer. “Are you sure you can continue?”

I closed my eyes, exhaling slowly. “Honestly? No. I’m a wreck. But I’ve made it this far. If I give up now… I might never come back. I don’t know when—or if—I’ll find another portal into the Ideworld.”

Zoe tilted her head. Her silver light pulsed gently. “You want that soulmark that badly?”

I nodded, still breathing heavy. “When I touched my soulcore crystal… I felt it. There’s room. One more mark. You said this one was powerful. Strong enough to be worth it.”

“It is powerful,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean it will play nicely with your Domain. Power without harmony is not worth it.”

“I know,” I muttered. “But still… I’ve come this far. I need to try. I have to. Whatever happens next, it’s on me. But right now, I just need a moment. Please.”

She nodded gently, wordless. Then, without another sound, she drifted downward and landed on the staff the reverend had left behind. The light in her form dimmed, softening into a ghostly silver outline. She folded her knees beneath her, sitting like a child perched on a high branch.

And she waited.

In silence.

I let my head fall back and closed my eyes.

Just for a second.

Just one breath in a world made of memory, fire, and pain.

--

Around half an hour later we stepped into a narrow corridor, the air thick with dust and the scent of oxidized metal. Shadows clung to the walls like damp cloth.

Silence stretched between us as the walls narrowed. We kept walking.

I knocked at the heavy door at the end of the corridor. My knuckles made a hollow sound, as if tapping on a mausoleum. A pause followed—just long enough to raise the hairs on my neck—before a voice, high and sharp, yet distant, called out:

“Open. Come in.”

The handle was cold, the wood grain under my palm unnaturally smooth. I pushed the door open slowly.

The room beyond was a curious contradiction—small and intimate, yet filled to bursting with ideas. Blueprints blanketed nearly every surface: hung on walls, curled in stacks on shelves, pinned under rusted compasses and metal rulers. Electrical cables wormed their way across the ceiling and floor like veins, pulsing faintly with residual energy. A desk dominated the center, bathed in the warm, flickering glow of a few candle lights—despite the clearly functioning electric light fixtures that buzzed overhead.

The woman who stood behind the desk rose with a precision that felt measured, not merely graceful. As she stepped into the light, her form shifted subtly—angular, kaleidoscopic. Her face didn’t move so much as rearrange. Eyes re-aligned, cheekbones shifted angles, her lips stretching, compressing, folding back into beauty shaped by logic. If M.C. Escher had dreamed of a woman, she’d be the result.

Her dress was severe, grey as concrete, and woven into it just above her hip in perfectly neat stitches was her name: Eleanor Glass – The Architect’s Assistant.

She folded her arms. “Why are you here? Did Reverend let you pass?” Yeah, let, right.

“Yes, Mrs. Glass,” I said carefully.

“Miss Glass, young lady. I never married.”

I smiled behind my mask. “Then the men in your life must have been blind.”

Her mouth quirked. “Aren’t they all?”

But her tone held no warmth—no flirtation, no nostalgia. A wall of concrete polished to a shine, unmoved by flattery. The quip had hit a door, not a nerve.

New approach.

“I’m sorry, Miss Glass,” I said, softening my posture. “I came to meet the one who shaped this… place. The Architect.”

Her laugh rang out suddenly, sharp and raw like breaking glass. She threw her arms up, papers fluttering in her wake.

“The Architect?” she scoffed. “You think he made all this?” She spun in place, arms wide. “He just signed the prints. Placed his tidy name on my lines. My curves. My tolerances.”

Her voice trembled—not with weakness, but with long-buried fury. The air pulsed with her bitterness. Something hot and volatile wrapped in math and graphite.

“Did he?” I asked carefully.

“Yes. Abram Roebling. The King. The God. The Man,” she spat. “Every plate bears his name. Every rivet signed in ink that came from my pen. But no one remembers Eleanor. Not the workers. Not the clergy. Not even the shadows that haunt these halls.”

Zoe flinched at that.

“And yet,” I said slowly, “they remember someone. Which means they remember your work. Maybe not your name… but the lines they follow—the ones they build again and again? That’s you.”

Eleanor’s head tilted, face momentarily fractaling, nose where her eye should be, mouth a perfect square. Then it realigned with a soft click. Her eyes narrowed.

“You flatter well. But why now? Why have you come?”

I exhaled. “Because I’ve walked through this whole place chasing echoes. And all of them led here. To this design. I want to see the mind behind the pattern.”

A beat passed. Then two. Her fingertips tapped against the blueprint-covered desk, her sharp nails ticking out a code I didn’t know how to read.

“Do you know what it means to build?” she asked suddenly.

“Yes,” I said simply - no flair, just substance.

That got a flicker in her eyes.

“Fair,” she said.

She paced away, toward a large cabinet with glass doors. Through it, I could see preserved tools: a compass made of bone, a slide rule inlaid with mother-of-pearl, a drafting triangle burned along one edge.

“He’ll see you,” she said. “But I’ll warn you now—he won’t be what you expect.”

“I’ve come this far,” I replied.

She gave a faint, unreadable smile. “Then you may pass.”

As she moved aside and pointed toward the final door, Zoe whispered in my ear, “That was incredible.”

I murmured, “No. That was lucky.”

But deep down, I knew better. Eleanor had seen something in me—whether it was admiration, manipulation, or a mirror of her own rage—I couldn’t yet tell. But the door to the King was open now. And there was no going back.

“Yeah, well, you’re good at telling people what they want to hear,” Zoe said, voice half-joking, half-impressed.

I gave a soft snort. “It’s easier when they’re still people. When they have patterns.”

“Aren’t all conversations improvisation?” she asked, floating a little ahead of me now, watching our steps.

“Not in my line of work,” I said, brushing a hand along the rough wall. “Some conversations can be run like scripts—repeated, rehearsed, until they yield the same result every time. You just make minor adjustments to tone, posture, pauses.”

“That’s terrifying,” she said, glancing back. “Are people really that predictable?”

“Most,” I replied. “Especially when they’re doing their jobs. People become machines when they work long enough. Their edges dull. Their thoughts tighten into loops. Easy to read. Easy to… push.”

Zoe slowed. “That’s the scariest thing I’ve heard you say.”

I smirked, the curve hidden beneath my mask. “So far.”

She smiled back—but it was cautious, thoughtful. Like she’d just seen another layer beneath the one she thought she knew. And for a second, her light flickered, casting long shadows ahead of us—bending and twisting into strange shapes against the corridor’s end.

We emerged into thin, silver air, the wind kissing our skin like a whisper from another world.

The incline had led us to a rooftop we had never seen before, despite all the time we had spent climbing and watching the tower from below. This place—this open-air platform above the clouds—had not existed from any earthly angle. It was as if the castle had grown a secret crown, blooming into being just to receive us.

Zoe hovered beside me in the pale light. “We’re above everything,” she murmured, almost reverently.

The sky here was a dome of stars and ash-colored clouds, a cathedral of silence.

And at the center of the platform stood the god-king himself.

Abram Roebling.

The final overseer.

He was not a man. Not anymore.

He was ruin and blueprint. He was vision calcified into torment.

He rose thirty feet tall, fused into the very floor of the castle. His form was made of bricks, steel, concrete—his bones were pillars and rebar, his skin weathered with soot and rust. Cables ran through his body like veins and sinew, writhing faintly under his surface as if dreaming of movement.

His head slouched forward, eyes sealed shut with mortar and time. A crown of iron rivets circled his brow, each one humming faintly. His beard was a cascade of hanging wire and rusting iron filings. His spine—an exposed arch of suspension cables—seemed to reach down through the floor itself, anchoring him eternally to the bridge below.

He was beautiful. He was horrifying. He was suffering.

“The soulmark is here,” Zoe said, pointing toward the metallic plate embedded at the base of the giant’s body. “Those rivets—they’re all glowing. Each one’s brimming with authority.”

I squinted. “Some are missing,” I said softly. “Others have been taken. I’m not the first to reach this place.”

“Is it… asleep?” Zoe asked. Her voice barely rose above the wind.

“I hope so,” I whispered. But the weight of his presence said otherwise. He knew we were here, somehow. I could feel his awareness pressing against the air like a sun behind thick cloud.

“How do I take this soulmark?” I asked her.

“I don’t know. I’m a Seer, not a locksmith.”

I bit my lip. “The last one—I just touched it. But that was part of a trial.”

Zoe floated a bit closer. “Let’s go to it. Carefully.”

I nodded. Together, we moved closer, our steps near silent against the stone. The platform beneath us felt old—older than any part of the castle we’d walked before. I could hear it creak beneath us, like something holding its breath.

Kneeling at the base of Abram’s colossus form, I stared at one of the rivets.

It was massive, aged black, yet glowed faintly from within—a pulsing silver warmth beneath corroded skin.

I hesitated. “What kind of soulmark is it?” I asked.

Zoe’s glow pulsed near my shoulder. “Touch it, and you’ll know.”

I nodded once. Swallowed. Then pressed my palm against the rivet.

The moment I touched it, the world fell away.

I wasn’t standing on a rooftop anymore. I was inside something—between things.

The rivet spoke, not with words, but with sensation. With memory. With purpose.

It was connection.

A soulmark of union, of binding. It was the echo of every hand that had driven it in place. Of every beam joined. Of every purpose shared. It was sweat crystallized into permanence. The invisible thread that links builder to blueprint, will to wall, dream to stone.

It filled me with its power for a heartbeat. I felt the castle through it—the bridge, the strain of each arch, the ghosts still laboring. I felt Eleanor’s pencil dragging lines over vellum, the hammers that answered her call, and the agony of Abram as he gave himself—his body—to keep it all together.

Then the power pulled back. It recoiled.

The rivet burned against my hand. Not with heat—but with refusal.

“It’s still his,” I said aloud. “The soulmark is bound to Abram’s authority. As long as he’s a part of this structure… I can’t take it.”

Zoe floated closer. “Can’t you dislodge one? Just one?”

I tried. Fingers curled around the edge of the rivet. I pulled. Nothing. I gritted my teeth, summoned every ounce of force I had—Authority, technique, leverage. The rivet did not move.

“I can’t.” I fell back onto my heels. “They’re locked in.”

“So much walking, so much talking,” Zoe whispered, “just to get beat at the end.”

I looked up at Abram’s still face, his eyes sealed beneath mortar and pain. “We’re not done yet,” I muttered. “We’ve just reached the final test.”

And I had a feeling…

This time, force wouldn’t win.

This time, I might need to talk a god into letting go.

“Wake up!” I shouted.

Then the air thickened. He stirred.

A sound like tensioned cables groaning beneath strain shivered through the platform. I jumped away as cracks spread through the stone at my feet. One of Abram’s colossal eyes flicked open, crusted in rust, yet glowing dimly like a forge left to smolder.

"You."

His voice was colder than the deepest night, raw with the weight of something that had forgotten how to speak softly.

“Why did you wake me?”

I swallowed, keeping my footing. “I came because I felt the connection,” I said carefully, choosing truth where I could afford it.

A pause. Then a sound like a thousand grinding stones in unison, low and furious.

“I measured every stone with blood,” he said, and his massive torso shifted in place, steel cables tightening like the muscles “And you think you deserve what lies at the summit?”

So he knew. Knew exactly what I sought. Damn. I stepped back, my injures screaming with every breath. I felt the power of my armor supporting my moves.

“I don’t know if I deserve it,” I said, standing tall. “But I’ve climbed your skeleton, walked your memories, and met what’s left of the people who built you.”

His head shifted. It took minutes for the motion to finish. Steel cables creaked in his spine. One massive arm lifted from the platform, carrying a section of parapet with it like it weighed nothing.

“You walked past ghosts and thought it made you kin?” he rumbled.

“No,” I said, breath catching. “But I listened. To their songs. To their grief. To their reverence.”

The air stilled. And then—

SLAM.

His arm came down like judgment. I threw myself to the side, my augmented legs absorbing the jolt, springing me away just as stone exploded behind me. I hit the ground and rolled, white-hot pain lancing up from my ribs. Zoe screamed my name in the back of my mind.

Abram leaned forward, cables flexing like a tide.

“You think this bridge remembers joy?” he whispered, terrifyingly soft. “It remembers collapse. Sacrifice. The weight of unfinished dreams!”

“I saw it!” I shouted. “Saw the endless work! Bricks placed, bricks dissolved! Songs that tried to outlast the silence!”

He growled, sweeping an arm like a pendulum. It tore through the scaffolding on the far side. I ran straight at him instead, ducking under, then vaulting onto a length of exposed cable. My footwork held. Barely.

My breath burned in my throat.

“You’re not Abram!” I called. “Not really!”

The movement stopped. His body froze.

One slow second ticked by. Then another.

“…What did you say?”

“You’re not him,” I said, quieter now, standing on one of his suspension cables. “None of them were real—not Eleanor, not the Reverend, not Red or the singing men. They were fragments. Impressions. Reflections in wet stone. And so are you.”

The forge-eyes narrowed.

“You’re the bridge,” I said. “The bridge trying to remember itself.”

He didn’t move.

“You’re the dream that refuses to forget,” I continued, heart pounding. “And everything I saw—every shadow I spoke to—was a memory trying not to die. That’s why it loops. That’s why the bricks crumble after they’re placed. Because even memory fades.”

The air shifted. He exhaled a gust of wind hot enough to scald.

“…Even memory fades,” he echoed.

Then, at last, the rivets began to hum. The glow intensified. With a noise like strained metal groaning free of rust, one rivet—just one—unscrewed itself. It fell with the gravity of a bell toll and landed near my feet, not with violence, but reverence.

“That,” he said, voice suddenly small, “was one of the firsts. The ones I placed with my own hands before I broke.”

I stepped down from the cable, and approached the rivet. I touched it. It was warm.

“Then let me carry it forward,” I whispered. “So, you don’t have to keep remembering alone.”

There was no reply. Only silence.

I held the rivet in my hands, its weight more symbolic than physical, as Zoe floated closer. Her glow dimmed slightly as her gaze drifted to the sleeping giant looming above us like a dormant god.

“He closed his eyes again,” she murmured. “Sleeping? Dreaming this whole thing?”

“I think so,” I replied, eyes still on the rivet. “That was my guess. He is the bridge… and all the people building it? They're just echoes in his dream. Fragments of memory looping themselves into labor.”

Zoe stayed quiet, pondering, while I turned the soulmarked object over in my hands. Its surface pulsed faintly, not with light, but with presence—like a held breath.

“I feel like I could absorb its power now,” I said, “but I’m not sure I understand it. Identity expressed through art is easy. That’s what I do. But connection? How do I shape that through art?”

“I don’t have the answer,” she said, softly. “Maybe… you could paint memories to change them?”

That made sense. That fit. I nodded slowly. “Yeah. That would line up with everything I’ve seen. A painter who doesn’t just remember the world, but rewrites it. Maybe... maybe I’ll even be able to change the mark later if it doesn’t work out.”

Zoe tilted her head. “I’m not a mage, Lex. I don’t know if that’s possible.”

“I made my decision the moment I started climbing this bridge,” I said. “No going back now.”

I opened myself.

Not physically. Not magically in any way I could describe. It was instinct. A kind of inward turning, reaching from within my soul. Life stirred beneath my skin, like light filtering through water. It moved outward, wrapping around the rivet like a cocoon. Then, slowly, the soulmark responded.

I felt the power of connection reach back—threading itself into me, becoming part of the architecture of my being. A beam of invisible light, tethering me to the soulcore crystal in my Domain, pulsed once. And then the wave hit.

It was too much.

I dropped to my knees.

A tidal surge of memory and feeling swept over me: the orphanage. The cobbled streets of my childhood. My university years. My domain, and its painted sky. Penrose’s Finest. The park where I sketched. My painting of the Sanctuary under siege. The billboard that loomed above the city with my name etched in color. It was all connected. Every piece of art. Every place. Every piece of me.

I understood now. I didn’t just remember places—I was bound to them.

“I think…” I gasped, my chest heaving under the weight of that revelation, “Zoe… I think this might be the greatest power I could have hoped for.”

Her eyes widened slightly. “How so?”

“I’ll show you.”

I reached into my bag, pulled out my spray paints, and began to work. Not with urgency, but reverence. I painted my room onto the bridge floor: the worn wooden floorboards, my bed tucked under the window, the shelves lined with sketchbooks and paint cans, my work desk covered in half-finished ideas. I painted the open window—inviting in the wind, and the world.

“This is my room,” I said. “As I remember it. And now, I know—I can reach it. Through this. Through connection.”

“Really?” she asked, hovering over the painted window.

“Yes. But I don’t know if I can take you with me.”

“Don’t worry about me,” she said, smiling. “If I see you go, I’ll just wake up. Call me when you get there.”

“Deal, partner.”

I placed my hand on the painting. My fingers met the painted window, and I whispered:

“Take me home.”