The stairwell plunged into darkness, swallowing them with each descending step. With a murmured incantation, Gale conjured witchlight; the spell coalesced into a sphere of pale blue radiance that cast long shadows along the stone walls. The light revealed worn steps etched with arcane sigils—protection wards long since faded to mere whispers of their former power.

  Halfway down, the witchlight illuminated the first signs of violence—a section of wall blackened by some intense heat, the stone itself warped and bubbled. Deep gouges scored the opposite surface, as if carved by claws of pure energy.

  “Hold,” Gale commanded, pausing to study a particularly dense cluster of symbols carved into the wall. His fingers hovered over them without touching. “These are containment wards. Or were.”

  Daimon continued down three more steps before stopping. “They won’t harm us.” His voice echoed oddly in the stairwell, as if speaking from multiple places at once. “They recognize me.”

  Gale frowned. “That’s what worries me.”

  They pressed on, the staircase spiraling deeper. The damage grew more pronounced with each turn—collapsed sections of ceiling creating narrow passages they had to squeeze through, crystallized residue of spells gone violently wrong crusting the walls in strange fractal patterns. The witchlight revealed patches of moisture glistening on the walls, salt crystals forming delicate patterns that seemed to shift when viewed from different angles. The air grew thicker, colder, carrying the scent of brine mixed with something acrid and alchemical.

  “These stairs weren’t cut by hand,” Gale observed, running his palm just above the too-perfect surface.

  “No,” Daimon replied. “They used dissolution spells. Ate through the rock like acid through parchment.”

  Gale gave him a searching look. “You remember that?”

  “Not really.” Daimon shook his head. “Just... know it. Like I know how to breathe.”

  Water dripped somewhere ahead, the rhythm uneven and unsettling. From time to time, sounds that matched neither their footsteps nor the dripping water would echo up from below—soft scrapes or distant thuds that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere.

  “She used to sing,” Daimon said suddenly after several moments of silence. “When the handlers weren’t watching.”

  “Your sister?” Gale asked.

  “Fifty-one, yes.” Daimon’s fingers traced the wall as he descended, leaving no mark yet somehow disturbing the air behind them. “When they left us alone in the dark, she’d sing. Old songs from…” He hesitated. None of the Subjects knew or remembered where they were from. “Old songs from her home. About the sea.”

  The stairs curved again, and Gale noticed Daimon’s outline waver slightly against the wall, like a reflection in disturbed water. The veins in the boy’s wrist glowed faintly blue for a heartbeat before fading back to normal.

  “Your hands,” Gale said quietly.

  Daimon glanced down, watching his fingers turn translucent before solidifying again. “It’s fine. It’s just… proximity.”

  “The Deep Reaches,” Gale said.

  “They’re closer here.”

  They continued in silence for another dozen steps. The stairwell widened around a massive crater in the wall, as if something had exploded outward with tremendous force. Fragments of what might have been enchanted glass crunched beneath their boots. The witchlight dimmed briefly as they passed another set of wards, then flared brighter.

  “What if this is a trap?” Gale finally asked, voicing the fear that had been building since they’d opened the entrance. “If Kibas is still here, and we’re walking right—”

  “Then we kill him.”

  The words fell like stones in still water. Daimon didn’t turn, didn’t raise his voice, didn’t even break stride.

  “Killing him?” Gale pressed. “Without a plan, without knowing who he is or what he’s capable of?”

  Daimon stopped then, and when he turned, his eyes held something Gale had never seen there before—a cold certainty that bordered on madness.

  “We kill him nevertheless,” he said, voice steady and terrible. “You said it yourself once: between the two of us, we know more spells than half the mages in this region. And unlike in Kentar or Durnhal—” His hand clenched into a fist, and for a moment, the witchlight caught glimpses of bone beneath translucent skin. “—now I have no reason to restrain myself. I will use every drop of power the Drift gives me to kill him.” His gaze held Gale’s without wavering. “Even if I die in the process.”

  Gale opened his mouth to object, to say No. Not like that. Not at that price, then closed it again. Daimon needed the anger; he needed something to hold onto that wasn’t terror. The air between them seemed to thicken with unspoken fears.

  “Let’s just find what we came for first,” he said finally.

  Daimon nodded once, then turned and continued down.

  The stairwell ended abruptly, opening into a great circular chamber that swallowed Gale’s witchlight like a hungry thing. He muttered another incantation, and the spell brightened, pushing back the darkness to reveal a room carved from the living rock of the island.

  The devastation here was unmistakable. One section of the domed ceiling had partially collapsed, leaving a jagged wound in the stone. Three of the five arched doorways lining the perimeter were cracked, their frames distorted as if warped by extreme heat. Arcane sigils marked each archway; some glowed faintly in response to the light, others remained dead and dark.

  At the chamber’s center stood a stone pedestal, cracked but intact, supporting a shallow basin filled with what appeared to be quicksilver, but it didn’t move as mercury should. Instead, it remained perfectly still, like a mirror made from storm clouds.

  Daimon approached the basin, his reflection in the surface shifting between his current face and something younger, more haunted.

  “The conduit hall,” he said, voice hollow in the cavernous space. “From here, we can reach any part of the facility.”

  Gale stepped closer, studying the sigils above each doorway. Some he recognized—protective wards, containment glyphs—but others were unfamiliar, their patterns unsettling to look at directly.

  “Which way?” he asked.

  Daimon didn’t hesitate. He pointed to the smallest archway, its sigil pulsing faintly in the witchlight. “That one. The holding wing.” His eyes met Gale’s, and for a moment, they seemed to contain swirling galaxies. “That’s where they kept us.”

  The air around Daimon rippled slightly, like heat rising from summer stone. A single drop of blood fell from his nose, hitting the floor with a sound too loud for its size.

  “Daimon—”

  “I’m fine.” He wiped the blood away with the back of his hand. “It’s just... memories. They’re heavier here.”

  Gale studied him for a long moment, weighing caution against the determination he saw in the boy’s face. Finally, he nodded and strengthened the witchlight with another whispered word.

  “Stay close,” he said. “And if anything feels wrong—if you feel the Drift slipping—we leave. Immediately. No arguments.”

  Daimon’s smile was sharp and humorless. “You say that like there’s a way back now.”

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  Gale wanted to argue, but the words died in his throat. Instead, he moved toward the archway, the witchlight preceding them into the narrow corridor beyond.

  Behind them, the quicksilver in the basin began to ripple, though nothing had disturbed its surface.

  The corridor narrowed as they proceeded, ceiling hanging low enough that Gale had to duck in places. The witchlight cast writhing shadows along walls marked with the residue of old spells—containment, suppression, pain. The floor beneath their feet bore a channel carved down its center, as if to drain away fluids.

  “They kept us along here,” Daimon said under his breath, already several paces ahead. He gestured vaguely to a series of recesses in the wall, each barely the size of a storage closet.

  Gale’s light swept over the alcoves. Iron rings were embedded in the stone at various heights. Not cells—restraint points. The walls inside each recess were scored with scratch marks, some forming tally marks, others desperate, formless gouges.

  “You lived here?” Gale asked, unable to keep the horror from his voice.

  Daimon slowed just long enough to drag his fingers along the edge of one alcove, eyes distant. “No. These were for the ones who… broke.” His mouth tightened. “The ones they still thought might be useful, but couldn’t trust off a chain.” He jerked his hand back as if burned. “Our dormitories are further in.”

  He picked up speed again. They passed more alcoves, some with doors hanging broken from hinges of spellwrought iron. The destruction grew more pronounced—entire sections of wall collapsed, ceiling beams splintered and hanging at precarious angles. The scent of salt and chemicals intensified, undercut now with the ghost of something burnt.

  “What happened here?” Gale asked, stepping carefully over a fallen support beam.

  “She did.” Daimon didn’t stop. There was a strange, fierce pride in his voice. “Fifty-one. She was the first one who fought back.”

  The corridor opened suddenly into a larger space, a rectangular hall lined with narrow metal frames that might once have been beds. Most were overturned or crushed, bent into impossible shapes as if by hands far stronger than human. Scorched circles marked the floor and walls at regular intervals—containment wards deployed and overwhelmed.

  “The dormitory.” Daimon’s steps faltered. He moved to one frame less damaged than the others, running his hand along its edge. “This one was mine.”

  He touched the wall beside it, where someone had carved a simple sigil—protection, crude but earnest.

  “She did this,” he said softly. “Said it would keep the nightmares away.”

  “Did it work?” Gale asked quietly.

  Daimon’s smile was brief and painful. “No.” His fingers lingered on the sigil for one heartbeat longer, then he pulled back. The air around him shivered.

  Something skittered across the floor, too quick for the witchlight to catch. Gale startled, hand moving to a defensive gesture, but Daimon only flinched and shook his head.

  “Just echoes,” he said. “This place… remembers us.” He was already heading for the far door.

  They continued through the dormitory, past a washroom with cracked basins and mirrors long since shattered. Beyond it lay another corridor, wider and better constructed, with sealed doors positioned at regular intervals. The damage here was different—more precise, less chaotic. Controlled destruction.

  “They stripped this part,” Daimon muttered, almost to himself. “Took what mattered before they left.”

  “What are we looking for exactly?” Gale asked, eyeing the series of doors.

  Daimon didn’t answer, but his face was creased with frustrated concentration. He pushed open doors as they went, growing increasingly agitated.

  A training room with spelled target circles. A meditation chamber with its focal crystals shattered. An empty hall with tables arranged in rows—the dining area, perhaps.

  “She has to be here,” he muttered.

  Gale opened another door to find what clearly had been a laboratory. Stone tables lined the walls, their surfaces stained dark in places. Glass cabinets stood with their doors hanging open, emptied of contents. The floor was littered with broken vials, scattered notes, abandoned equipment deemed not worth salvaging.

  He snatched up a fragment of parchment from the floor, its edges charred. The handwriting was precise, clinical.

  Subject 48 displays remarkable resilience to Phase I separation. Recommend increased dosage at next—

  The rest was burnt away.

  “The research wing,” Daimon said flatly from the doorway, not coming in. “Where they measured what we could take. What we could give.”

  Frustration began to sharpen his movements as they searched more rooms. A small medical theater with restraint tables. Storage rooms emptied of supplies. Archives with shelves picked clean, save for a few scattered papers.

  “She’s not here,” Daimon said, voice rising. “She was—she is here, I know it.”

  Gale placed a steadying hand on his shoulder, which Daimon immediately shrugged off. “Could there be other sections we haven’t searched?”

  Daimon ran a hand through his hair, looking around in an attempt to find his bearings in a place he had tried so hard to erase from his memory—and almost succeeded.

  “I—yes. There’s more.” He was already moving. “Follow me.”

  The circular chamber they found next had a raised dais at its center. The ceiling bore the remains of an elaborate apparatus—metal arms and focusing crystals arranged in a pattern Gale recognized from advanced channeling rituals. Below, set into the dais, was a shallow depression lined with silver, surrounded by a ring of iron spikes driven into the stone.

  But it was the wall behind the dais that drew his eye. A great framework of articulated metal arms extended from it, each tipped with delicate cradles meant for something small and terribly valuable. Many sat empty, leaving neat, faceted hollows impressed in dust. In a few, a cut stone still rested—colorless at first glance—until the witchlight slid across a face and split into icy shards.

  Gale’s mouth went dry. Diamonds. Most were cracked or clouded; a few held the faint, stubborn luminescence of stored power.

  Daimon stopped at the threshold, his breathing suddenly shallow.

  “The extraction chamber,” he whispered, as if reciting a name given long ago rather than one of his own choosing.

  Gale’s stomach turned as understanding coalesced. Hours ago he’d learned the stones could be charged and used as arcane repositories. But if the energy used was—

  “They…” His voice thinned. “They used you to charge the diamonds.”

  Daimon moved forward as if pulled on a string. His fingers traced the edge of the silver-lined depression in the dais, his eyes unfocused.

  “They’d bind us here,” he said, voice gone thin. “Wrists. Ankles. Throat.” He touched each point on his own body in turn. “Then that—” He jerked his chin at the ceiling mechanism. “It came down. Opened… paths. Forced it out.”

  The air around him rippled, light bending as if through water.

  “It felt like being turned inside out,” Daimon murmured. “Like they were pulling your soul through your skin.” His throat worked on a swallow. “Most didn’t last more than three sessions.”

  A single diamond in the wall framework pulsed with blue light as he approached, responding to his proximity. The veins in his wrist flared in answer, his skin thinning to near-transparency, the network of energy beneath shining like ink poured into glass.

  “They’re still active,” Gale said, alarm prickling his skin. “Daimon, don’t—”

  But Daimon’s hand was already lifting, drawn to the light as if by magnetism. The moment his fingers brushed the diamond, he went rigid, eyes flying wide. A sound tore out of him—not quite a scream, more raw than that—as blue radiance surged up his arm, illuminating his veins like lightning trapped under flesh.

  Gale lunged forward, wrenching his hand away and dragging him back from the apparatus. The boy collapsed against him, trembling so hard Gale could feel it in his own bones, his skin burning hot to the touch.

  “Gale—” Daimon choked, struggling to speak. His eyes darted wildly, seeing something that wasn’t there. “It hurts,” he whispered. “It always hurts.”

  Gale helped him to his feet, heart racing. “Can you walk?”

  Daimon nodded, though he leaned heavily against Gale’s shoulder. His outline seemed less solid now, the edges of him blurring into the air around him. A fine sheen of frost had formed where his hands had touched the stone.

  “We need to find her,” he said through his teeth. “Then we can go.”

  “Daimon,” Gale said carefully. “We’ve looked everywhere. If she was here, she’s gone now.”

  “No.” Daimon shook his head. “No, she has to be here. We can’t leave without—” He broke off, head tilting as if listening to something. “There’s another level… Not the screaming place, something else… They—They never let us there. Never spoke of it in front of us. But we—we knew there was.”

  They searched for another stairwell, another passage. Found nothing.

  At the last corridor, Gale noticed something odd—a section of wall that seemed more heavily damaged than those around it. Not from the uprising, but deliberate gouges, as if someone had tried to erase a door.

  “There’s something behind here,” he said, running his hand along the jagged edges.

  Daimon touched the wall. Closed his eyes. Then stepped back. “Move.”

  The Drift manifested in subtle ways at first—a shimmer in the air, a drop in temperature. Then more sharply as the wall began to vibrate, fine dust drifting down from the ceiling. With a low grinding sound, the damaged section shifted, revealing darkness beyond.

  Daimon swayed, a trickle of blood running from his nose. Gale steadied him, but the boy pulled away, already moving toward the opening.

  “Wait,” Gale said. “We don’t know what’s down there.”

  “She is,” Daimon said with a certainty that brooked no argument.

  The passage they found was different from the others— narrower, older, carved straight from bedrock rather than built. The walls bore no scorch marks, no signs of the uprising’s destruction.

  They followed the passage as it sloped downward, the air growing colder, heavier with the scent of salt and something Gale couldn’t name—sweet, alchemical and wrong.

  It ended at a heavy iron door, its surface etched with wards unlike any Gale had seen before—not protection or containment, but preservation. The sigils on its surface glowed faintly blue as Daimon approached, recognition protocols stirring to life. The lock mechanisms began to turn of their own accord, ancient machinery grinding to life after years of disuse.

  “What is this place?” Daimon whispered, genuine confusion in his voice. “I’ve never seen this before.”

  Still the door opened, answering his presence despite his unfamiliarity.

  “Gale.” His voice had changed, gone small and frightened. “I—I don’t want to see what’s in there.”

  “We don’t have to,” Gale said quickly. “We can leave now. We know enough.”

  Daimon shook his head, grief hardening into resolve, fingers curling and uncurling at his sides. “She’s here. I can… I can feel it.” He placed his palm against the door, and the final ward dissolved beneath his touch. His voice was a child’s whisper, thin and frayed. “I’m here, sister.”

  The door swung open, revealing darkness beyond. A cold draft flowed out, carrying the unmistakable scent of alchemical preservatives—sweet, cloying, and chemical.

  The specimen room waited.