Chapter 26: Whispers of a Broken Past
The first thing I heard was the ticking.
Not the gentle rhythm of a clock marking time, but something sharper—like teeth clacking in the dark. Each click echoed through the hollow between my ears, a piercing metronome that didn’t belong. For a few disorienting seconds, I thought I was back in the brothel of the Velvet Court, being woken by some cheap trinket on a nightstand.
But then the wind hit me.
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 remembered the exact sensation of my neck snapping. The moment 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 something in him still hadn’t returned, like a piece of his soul had been delayed somewhere between life and death.
Vincent turned to me 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 memory of the pain still pulsed beneath the surface, like a phantom echo.
"What did you—" I croaked, but he wasn’t listening.