Sleep did not bring silence. For Julian Vane, sleep was just another form of drowning.
He wasn't in a bed. He was floating in an endless, viscous ocean of azure liquid. It wasn't water; it was Aether. It filled his mouth, tasting of copper and tears. Around him, thousands of bodies drifted in the suspension—men in factory overalls, women in house dresses, children clutching toys that had long since dissolved.
They weren't dead. Their eyes were open.
Help us... the ocean vibrated. It burns... the engine is hungry...
A massive piston, the size of a skyscraper, descended from the darkness above. It crashed into the liquid, grinding the bodies into light. Julian tried to scream, but his lungs were full of blue fire. He looked at his hand to swim upward, but his hand was gone. In its place was a jagged shard of blue crystal, anchoring him, dragging him down into the crushing depths where the "machine" lived.
"No!"
Julian gasped, jerking upright.
He wasn't drowning. He was sweating, tangled in a rough wool blanket on a cot that smelled of mildew.
"Easy, Vane. You're safe."
The voice was sharp but quiet. Lyra.
Julian blinked, his eyes adjusting to the gloom. He was in a small, metal-walled room—likely a repurposed shipping container suspended somewhere in the Dregs. Through a porthole window, the dim, amber glow of the cavern city filtered in.
Lyra was sitting on a crate near the door, her knife in hand, whittling a piece of scrap wood. She didn't look up.
"Did I... say anything?" Julian asked, his voice hoarse. He rubbed his face, flinching when the cold, hard surface of his crystal hand touched his cheek.
"You were screaming," Lyra said, blowing wood shavings off her blade. "Something about gears eating people. Standard nightmare for down here."
She stood up and tossed him a canteen. "Drink. Serafina wants us at the Echo Chamber in ten minutes. Training starts today."
Julian took a sip of the tepid water. "Training? I turned a block of tungsten into a flower yesterday. I think I know how to use it."
Lyra walked over to him. She moved so silently he didn't hear her boots on the metal floor. She grabbed his crystal wrist, holding it up to the light. The blue corruption had settled, but the veins in his forearm were pulsing with a faint, rhythmic light.
"You didn't control that, Julian," she said, her grey eyes locking onto his. "You panicked. You unleashed a chaotic frequency that rewrote reality. Do you know what happens if you do that to a person? Or to yourself?"
She let go of his hand.
"You don't become a flower. You become dust. You are a walking reactor with a leak. If you don't learn to close the valve, you'll kill us all before Elias even finds us."
The "Echo Chamber" wasn't a room. It was a hollowed-out section of a giant ventilation shaft, far away from the populated platforms of the Dregs. The acoustics here were strange—deadened by thick layers of moss and hung tapestries.
Serafina was waiting. She stood with her back to them, staring into the abyss of the shaft. Her brass collar hummed a low, steady note.
"The city talks, Julian," her synthesized voice buzzed without preamble. "Can you hear it?"
Julian stepped forward. He closed his eyes.
At first, there was just the hum of the ventilation. But then, as he focused, the layers peeled back.
He heard the groaning of the chains holding the city up.
He heard the distant, rhythmic pounding of the steam pumps in the Sump.
He heard the scurrying of rats in the walls.
He heard the heartbeat of the guard standing fifty feet away.
"It's loud," Julian whispered, clutching his head. "It's a roar. How do you turn it off?"
"You don't," Serafina turned. "You are a conductor now. The music never stops. You must learn to isolate the instrument you want to play."
She pointed to a pile of scrap metal in the center of the room. Rusty bolts, twisted pipes, jagged sheets of iron.
"Pick up the bolt," she ordered.
Julian walked over and picked up a heavy, rusted iron bolt. It felt gritty and cold in his crystal palm.
"Don't change it," Serafina commanded. "Don't rewrite it. Just... clean it. Remove the rust. Isolate the frequency of the oxidation and separate it from the iron."
Julian frowned. "Just the rust?"
"Do it."
Julian focused. He tried to ignore the screaming of the distant engines. He narrowed his mind to the bolt in his hand. He felt the strong, rigid song of the iron. And on top of it, a flaky, dissonant scratching sound. The rust.
He tried to push the rust away with a pulse of Resonance.
CRACK.
The bolt didn't get clean. It exploded. Shrapnel flew across the room, embedding itself in the cork walls.
Lyra didn't flinch, but Serafina shook her head.
"Too much force," the General droned. "You are using a sledgehammer to crack an egg. Again."
Meanwhile, three miles above them, in the ruins of Silas Vane's workshop.
Captain Elias Thorne stood amidst the wreckage. The fire had burned itself out, leaving only blackened timber and the smell of wet ash.
He was holding something in his gloved hand. It was a lump of melted blue wax. The remains of the phonograph cylinder.
"Silas," Elias whispered to the dead man's memory. "You old fool. You didn't just hide the key. You forged it into your own son."
A soldier in a heavy hazard suit approached, saluting. "Captain. The Resonance Scanners are picking up anomalous vibrations from the lower sewers. Deep. Sector 12 coordinates."
Elias crushed the wax in his hand, letting the blue flakes fall to the ground.
"Sector 12. The Abyss," Elias murmured. He looked at the hole in the floor where Julian had escaped.
"Should we send the Hunters, sir?" the soldier asked.
"No," Elias said, turning away. His brass gauntlet hummed, the gears spinning smoothly. "Hunters are for animals. Julian is... something else. He creates reality. To catch him, we need something that can devour it."
Elias walked out of the ruins, stepping into the foggy street.
"Send a message to the Citadel," he commanded. "Awaken the Silence."
The soldier hesitated, visible fear showing through his visor. "Sir? The Silence? That unit is forbidden within city limits. The collateral damage..."
Elias stopped. He looked at the soldier with cold, dead eyes.
"The boy turned tungsten into flowers, soldier. If we don't silence him, he will turn this entire city into a grave. Wake them up."