Morning broke over Brasswick with no whisper, no gear turning in the fog. Only silence.
The council chamber was empty, its glass-eyed loyalists found collapsed in their seats, free yet broken. Streets were quiet, machines stilled. The city breathed as though waking from a nightmare.
On Parliament Hill, Elric stood watching smoke curl from the ruins. Selene leaned against a shattered column, her shadows faint but alive, and Evangeline sat nearby, her arms bandaged, her eyes hollow yet free of burning glyphs.
"It's done," Selene murmured. "The Phantom's gone."
Elric said nothing for a long while. Then, quietly: "No. Not gone. Nothing ever truly vanishes. He was not a god, not even a man. He was an idea — and ideas leave shadows."
Evangeline looked up at him, voice trembling. "Then will he come back?"
Elric adjusted his hat, cane tapping softly against the stone as he turned from the ruined city. His eyes, gray and weary, met the horizon veiled in fog.
"He will, in some form. One day. Because perfection is the lie men never stop chasing."
The three of them walked on, their figures swallowed by mist. Behind them, Brasswick smoldered — wounded, haunted, yet alive.
Above it all, the fog curled like a veil. Clockwork in its silence. Endless in its turning.
And the city whispered, though no one spoke:
The Phantom had been broken.But the veil remained.