The echo of Grin's boots faded, swallowed by the castle's endless stone throat.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Antic leaned back against the wall, bare shoulders glinting in the faint torchlight, arms folded. His gaze slid to me, and it wasn't his usual playful glance—it was focused, deliberate.
"You good, No Eyes?" he asked, voice low.
I shook my head. "No. But I'm not breaking."
His mouth tugged into a half-smile. "Terrifying, you know that? Strongest damn thing in this haunted castle. And I'm including the reaper with the permanent party-crash face."
My lips twitched despite myself. "Grin tries to be welcoming."
Antic snorted, pushing off the wall. The movement closed the space between us fast, the heat of his body hitting me like static before I even registered it.
"You still won't look at me the way you look at everything else," he murmured.
I met his gaze, unflinching. "Maybe I don't look at anything the way you think I do."
"Nah," he said, shaking his head slightly. "I've seen it. When you finally look at me like that…"
He paused, his grin fading into something sharper. "…I'm not gonna pretend I didn't notice."
The air between us tightened. My pulse thudded in my throat.
He stepped forward until our foreheads almost brushed. His voice dropped lower, the words curling against my skin.
"I don't need you to love me. Just don't lie to yourself. Not right now."
I didn't move back.
And then his lips were on mine—firm, hot, all at once. No warning.
His hand curved around my waist, pulling me against him like he wasn't sure I was real and needed to check.
My breath hitched; my knees almost buckled. My fingers clenched into the rough strap of his overalls, dragging him closer until there was no space at all.
He growled low into my mouth, the sound vibrating through me. His other hand slid up my spine, slow and sure, fingertips tracing the line of it like a map.
When we finally broke apart, I was gasping.
He stayed close, forehead resting against mine, both of us catching our breath.
"You don't have to say anything," he murmured. "I just needed to know you'd kiss me back."
I stared at him—cheeks flushed, lips tingling, heart still tripping over itself.
He gave me that slow, crooked grin again, wiping a faint trickle of blood from under his nose with the back of his hand.
"Damn it. Still happens."
Despite everything, I smirked. "Your body's an idiot."
"Yeah." His eyes softened. "But it's yours now."
I didn't answer. I didn't know how.
Grin's fingers skimmed over the snarling face of the gargoyle like it was something fragile. The stone was chipped and pitted, but he touched it as if it might shatter under him anyway. His long bones always made everything look like it took too much care to move.
"She's gone…" His voice came slow, each word dragged out like it needed to be weighed before leaving his mouth. "…vanished… like… uh…" He stopped, and I saw his jaw work, searching for the right noise. "…poof."
He threw his hands up, bony fingers flaring out in a jerky burst. The sound that came with it was weak — something between a dying sigh and a party horn run over by a cart.
The echo crawled along the vaulted ceiling, bouncing back in warped whispers. Poof. Poof. Poof. It sounded dumber every time.
I didn't laugh.
Off to my left, Antic sat with half his ass hanging off a crumbling column. No shirt — not that he ever needed one — just overall shorts, straps hanging half-loose like they'd given up on doing their job. His skin caught the stained-glass light, shifting between deep crimson and icy blue in restless patches.
"Gone?" he said, accent bending the word. "As in—" He leaned forward, dark brows knitting. "Gone gone?"
The corner of my mouth twitched. Not a smile. Just muscle memory.
He scratched at the back of his neck, hair shifting to reveal the bruise near his collarbone. I'd put it there by accident — sharp elbow in the middle of the night, and he'd cursed so loud I thought Grin was going to cry-laugh. Now it just sat there like a reminder of how close we'd been sleeping lately.
"Shit." Antic's voice went low, rougher. "You're serious."
I stayed where I was, bare soles cold against the marble. The white glow from my eyes didn't brighten or dim. Just steady.
"She was afraid, Antic," I said. My voice came out softer than I meant, the sound curling low in my chest. "Terribly afraid."
He flinched when I used his name. Good.
Her face still plays behind my eyes when I close them — Dolly's porcelain cheek trembling, chipped and fine-lined, like one good shake would splinter it to dust. I can still hear the tiny grind of her joints as she pulled away from me, her voice trembling in a way that didn't match the sharpness she liked to wear.
"I don't want to break again," she'd whispered.
That wasn't a threat. It wasn't even a plea. It was a confession — the kind you only give once before you sew your mouth shut and dare the world to try again.
I knew that fear. I've carried it long enough to know the weight.
Grin's voice dragged me back. "She ran like… a cursed wind-up toy from hell," he said, and even though he meant it as a joke, his tone was heavy. "I swear her little porcelain heels didn't even touch the damn floor." He tilted his head like he was rewinding the memory, then let out a slow, low breath. "She turned a corner and was… gone. Poof. Just a whisper and that tiny scream of hers echoing like a broken music box."
His words stuck. I could almost hear it — that small, sharp scream cutting the air.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. "And I'm not saying I lost to a toddler-sized doll, but… I lost to a toddler-sized doll. She's faster than me. I hate that."
Antic stood up, the scrape of his boot sole against marble too loud in the still room. "She wouldn't leave without a reason."
It wasn't bluster. He said it like a fact, like the kind of truth he'd bleed for.
"We find her," he said. "Whatever's out there, whatever made her run — we drag it into the daylight and make it wish it stayed a nightmare."
I didn't answer, but I tilted my head toward him, the smallest frown forming. Not disagreement. Not approval. Just acknowledgment.
We stood there — one barefoot conduit, one bare-chested stray, and one too-tall shadow of an ex-reaper — all of us knowing the next step without saying it.
"Off to the Queen?" Grin's voice rumbled behind me. "…you think she's got one of those… omniscient… 'let's all… gather… around… the plot twist' moments prepared?"
"She's always got something," Antic muttered. "Usually cryptic. Always hot."
My heel twitched in the quiet. He noticed.
The castle didn't feel like itself.
Normally, the corridors hummed. Not with sound exactly — more with that low vibration of the Breaths drifting through, brushing against the edges of the air like fish beneath ice. You didn't hear them so much as sense them. Like the way you know a storm is coming before the sky changes.
Now… it was thin.
The lullabies had gone faint, brittle as dry thread.
My bare feet found every temperature shift in the marble as we walked. Warm patches. Cold streaks. The kind of details you only notice when the silence demands attention.
Antic walked at my side, arms folded over his chest, jaw set tight. The muscles in his shoulders shifted with each step. Normally, he couldn't make it twenty paces without leaning against something, smirking, or baiting someone into talking. Now, his eyes stayed forward. No jokes.
That was how I knew it was bad.
Grin's steps were a slow drag behind us — deliberate, heavy, each one clicking faintly on the stone. He popped a boiled sweet into his mouth at one point, the sound of it tapping his teeth echoing more than it should have in the still air. "Feels like a funeral in here," he muttered, his deep voice spilling into the quiet like ink into water.
"It kind of is," Antic said without looking back. "Just… not sure whose yet."
The light from the stained-glass windows shifted over us as we turned down the last corridor — fractured violet, red, and gold slicing over skin and shadow. I let the colors wash over my dress, drag across my hands, then fade as we reached the Queen's door.
Antic didn't wait to be announced. He pushed the heavy wood open with his shoulder.
The air in the chamber changed the second we crossed the threshold — tighter, heavier. Like walking into a room that belonged to someone who already knew what you'd come to say.
Queen Sentient sat on her throne. The light around her pulsed low and slow, like the last beat of something dying. Her gown moved as if breathing on its own. Her eyes were closed, but the pull in the air told me she was aware of every heartbeat in the room.
Grin cleared his throat. "Queen Sentient. Dolly's gone. Porcelain flight. Full-blown crisis."
The Queen opened her eyes — a tired smile that had more bone than bloom curving her lips. "I know," she said. "She ran away."
Antic froze mid-step. "You knew?"
She nodded once. "And I let her. Because this was always going to happen."
I felt the weight of her gaze on me before I looked up.
"It's fear," she said softly. "But not just hers. Dolly carries a reflection — of all of you." Her eyes didn't move from mine. "You haven't named it yet, but you're all looking for the same thing."
The Queen's words coiled through the air like smoke, finding cracks to seep into.
I didn't answer her. My hands stayed at my sides, fingers curling just enough to catch the fabric of my dress.
She went on, voice warm but heavy — like honey poured over stone.
"This realm, the Breaths, all of it… connected. Dolly's running toward something ancient. Something cracking in the roots of the Perennial Forest. If she shatters…" Her gaze flicked briefly to Antic, then Grin, before landing back on me. "…the whole weave could unravel."
Antic swore under his breath. "So we don't just find her — we keep the entire spirit world from falling apart?"
"No pressure," Grin muttered, pulling another sweet from some impossible pocket inside his cloak. He sucked on it loudly, maybe just to fill the silence. "Just the end of the ecosystem as we know it."
My jaw tightened. I kept my voice level. "Tell us where to start."
"You're not ready," the Queen said.
Antic moved forward, close enough that I could see the starlight patterns shifting faintly in her irises. "I'm never ready," he said, low but sure. "But I still go."
For a long second, the Queen studied him — not in that casual, detached way she usually did, but like she was taking a reading she didn't want to explain. Finally, she inclined her head.
"Then you'll need to follow the wind's silence. Not its song — the silence. That's where she'll be."
I filed the words away. It was the kind of riddle that wouldn't make sense until it had to.
When we turned to leave, the chamber stayed quiet. No blessing. No parting words.
Outside the Queen's door, the castle's air felt even thinner.
We didn't speak as we passed the tall windows, the light breaking over us in fractured bands again.
No one looked back when we stepped through the gate.
Just a pulse of light — one heartbeat, and we were gone.
The air hit first.
Cold, damp, not the kind of cold that wakes you — the kind that seeps into bone and sits there.
The Perennial Forest wasn't a place that let you arrive. It closed in around you. Bent its spine until you fit into the curve of it.
Branches clawed at each other overhead, tangling into a roof so tight even light couldn't slip through without looking for permission. The ground was soft under my feet — moss swallowing my steps before they could echo.
The Breaths were quiet.
Too quiet.
That was the part that unsettled me.
They were never gone. Even in the dead realms, they hummed. Always. Like a pulse you could forget you were listening to until it stopped.
Grin kicked a rock so hard it split in two. His scythe was strapped across his back, heavier than usual, his forced smile stretched just enough to make him look more like something carved into a headstone.
"This place is depressing as hell," he muttered, slow as always. "…And I've… been to hell."
Antic walked ahead of us, hands shoved into the front pockets of his overall shorts. Bare chest catching what little glow leaked through the branches. His hair was damp from the mist clinging to the air, and for once he wasn't filling the silence.
That worried me more than the forest.
"You feel it too," I said.
He glanced over his shoulder, met my eyes for just a second, and kept walking. "Yeah."
We kept moving. The forest moved with us.
Every step was a reminder: Dolly wasn't just missing. Something had pulled her here. Something older than all of us.
I didn't say it out loud, but I could feel the thread between us — between her and me — pulling tighter.