I sat by the fountain long after the morning bells had rung—bare feet dipped in the water, fingers slowly wrinkling with cold. The Queen's garden was too perfect. Flowers grew in spirals, soft white petals blooming even from stone. The air was still. Too still. Even the birds here knew when to shut up.
The silence buzzed behind my teeth.
Behind me, Dolly was humming something sharp and dissonant under her breath, combing her porcelain hair with a tiny golden fork she'd stolen from the royal breakfast spread. Antic lounged upside down on a marble bench, legs dangling off the back, idly flinging raisins at a squirrel.
"Do squirrels in royal gardens not attack people?" he muttered. "Where's the sport?"
Grin sat cross-legged in the grass, silent. Always silent unless he had something heavy to say. I think even the shadows leaned in when he talked.
That's when the ground gave a low hum.
Antic sat up, eyes wide. "That's not squirrel-related."
A royal attendant appeared like a whisper—no footsteps, no rustle of fabric. Just there. "The Queen will see you."
We were led through long arched corridors where the ceiling curved into the sky. The walls shimmered with stories—living ones. Murals that breathed. They didn't show you things. They remembered them at you.
And then we stood in the throne chamber again.
Queen Sentient sat with her legs folded like she'd been waiting a hundred years for us and didn't mind one bit. Her golden aura flickered like candlelight on water. She smiled at me first. I don't know why that made my chest hurt.
"You've trained," she said, her voice silk spun from thunder. "And now, the path begins."
No one said anything. Antic finally cleared his throat. "Are we... fighting something, or are we just taking a scenic tour of mystical trauma?"
She didn't laugh, but she almost did. "The Breaths are unraveling. The Crystal Caverns are where they gather. To retrieve the Thread, you must enter without breaking. That is your quest."
I blinked. "Thread?"
"The Song Thread," she clarified. "An echo of all that was nearly lost. Weaved from the Breaths' sorrow. If it's pulled from their wound, it can be sung back into the world… or used to destroy it."
"And of course that job falls to us," Dolly muttered. "Cracked doll, sexy bat, gloomy skeleton, and me."
"You're not a skeleton," Antic said to Grin, elbowing him. "Yet."
Grin didn't respond. His eye sockets might've narrowed. Maybe. It's hard to tell with Grin.
Queen Sentient stepped down from her throne. I swear her feet didn't quite touch the floor.
She approached me, her gaze soft. "You are the thread's echo," she said. "Its beginning… and its end. You do not remember, but the Thread remembers you."
My hands felt cold. "What if I can't carry it?"
"You already are." She touched my forehead. Her fingers were warm. Like honey and fire.
Then she turned to the others.
"To each of you, a role. A burden."
She faced Grin. "Watcher of endings. You must not run from your past."
Grin's voice was low, nearly inaudible. "I… don't."
"To Dolly. Keeper of Memory," she said. "Your anger will be your compass. But you must not mistake pain for direction."
Dolly snorted. "Whatever that means, I'm keeping my fork."
"To Antic—"
"Oh gods," he muttered. "Here we go."
"Heart of the forest," she said, "but heart most afraid. Your love will be tested. If it breaks, all else may as well."
Antic's ears flattened. "That's… a lot of pressure for a guy who just got nosebleeds from eye contact."
The Queen's smile curved, amused. "Then toughen your spine."
He looked away, scowling. "Hot."
"Pardon?"
"Nothing."
She faced me again. "When you pass through the Gate of Trees, your quest begins. The Caverns will shift. They remember pain more vividly than peace. Do not forget each other inside them."
Dolly's arms were crossed. "Sounds easy enough. Just don't forget the trauma buffet."
The Queen gestured, and the floor rippled open like silk being drawn back. Beneath the dais, a spiral staircase emerged—glowing silver vines twisted between steps.
Antic leaned toward me. "So... what happens if we fail?"
Queen Sentient turned. "Then all Breaths lose their voice. And silence becomes the final law."
My mouth went dry.
She watched me a moment longer. Then, quietly, "Pecola… you've already begun to remember. Let the Thread show you who you are."
Pecola.
I hadn't heard my name spoken like that in what felt like lifetimes. But it fit. Warm. Heavy. Familiar like a wound you forgot you had.
I didn't say it back.
I just nodded.
We descended the staircase one by one.
Antic leaned close again and whispered, "Do I get a crown yet?"
I answered without turning. "Only if I get earplugs."
He chuckled. And somehow that sound steadied me more than anything the Queen had said.
We reached the Gate.
It wasn't a door.
It was a wall of trees—so thick they pulsed. Breathing. Waiting.
And they opened.
Time to begin.
The Gate of Trees hissed open behind us like it had a secret to keep, and the Queen's castle vanished into mist. The forest ahead felt... hungrier. Not in a growling-beast way. More like it wanted to eat something important. Like time.
Antic was walking just ahead, spinning his dagger on one finger like he wasn't trying to distract himself from the quiet.
Dolly adjusted her belt of sharpened embroidery scissors and flounced next to me like she owned the realm we hadn't even entered yet.
Grin hovered at the rear, walking slow. He always walked slow. His cloak dragged like it carried memories too heavy to lift.
No one said anything for a while.
Then, Antic turned around mid-step and pointed. "Okay, but hold up a minute. Why'd she get a training arc and the rest of us got... tea and fruit?"
Dolly snorted. "Jealous you didn't get whipped with the soul of a dead swordmaster?"
Antic looked genuinely offended. "Maybe!"
They both turned to me.
I shrugged. "You already know what to do. I don't."
Dolly blinked. "What does that mean?"
I tilted my head. "You all fight. I don't. I just... figure things out. Slowly."
Antic scratched the back of his neck. "Still. You got a Soul Keeper Sensei and everything."
"I think I was defective," I said plainly.
Grin let out a soft breath behind us. "You... were not... defective."
Antic whistled low. "Damn, Grin. Took you five minutes to say four words."
"I'm... very tired," he muttered.
Dolly gestured at me with a dramatic flourish. "She doesn't even know what 'trained' means."
"I don't," I confirmed.
"She just did ghost push-ups and cried in the dirt for four days," Antic muttered. "And looked hot doing it."
My brow furrowed. "Why does crying in the dirt make someone hot?"
He tripped on a root and mumbled something about the humidity.
The trees ahead thinned. Mist clung to our ankles like clingy regret. The air shifted. Cooler. Sweeter. Sadder.
We stepped into a clearing—and I stopped.
There it was.
The Shadowwood Realm.
A jagged, glittering mouth carved into the side of a dusky cliff. Waterfalls poured like liquid mirrors, humming with music you couldn't quite hear. The crystals hanging at the mouth pulsed faintly, like lungs trying to remember how to breathe.
Dolly whispered, "Bloody hell."
Antic whistled. "That is the sexiest natural formation I've ever seen."
I blinked slowly. "It looks like a glass spine."
Grin, behind us, murmured, "It's alive..."
The wind howled once, then fell silent.
We were here.
And the quest had truly begun.