The Fog did not smell like water. It smelled like copper wire burning in a vacuum.
Julian stepped forward, the crunch of the vitrified glass beneath his boots muffled instantly by the thick, swirling grey vapor. Visibility was less than three feet. He couldn't see the sky. He couldn't see the horizon. He could barely see his own hands.
"Lyra?" he called out.
"Here," her voice came from the left, flat and directionless, as if the mist itself were speaking. "Keep the rope tight. If the line goes slack, pull."
Julian gripped the hemp rope tied around his waist. It was the only umbilical cord connecting him to reality.
They walked blindly. The air was heavy, clinging to their clothes like wet wool. But it wasn't just dampness; it was Memory.
The Titan's Grave wasn't just a physical location; it was a scar on the timeline. The massive discharge of Aether that had occurred here centuries ago had stained the atmosphere, trapping echoes of the past in a perpetual, suspended loop.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
Julian froze. He heard a hammer striking an anvil. It was loud, rhythmic, and coming from directly in front of him.
"Lyra, stop," he whispered. "Someone's working ahead."
"I don't hear anything," Lyra's voice replied, tight with tension.
Julian took a step forward. The mist swirled, coalescing into shapes.
He saw a silhouette. A man, shirtless, swinging a hammer. But the man was transparent, made of shifting grey smoke. And the anvil he was striking wasn't metal; it was a human skull.
Clang.
The ghost turned. It didn't have a face. It had a clock face, the hands spinning wildly backward.
Julian gasped, stumbling back. "Do you see him?"
"See who?" Lyra tugged the rope. "Julian, there's nothing there! Focus on the ring! The Fog is reading your mind!"
Julian looked at his hand. The Black-Iron ring was freezing cold, burning his skin with its chill. It was vibrating, fighting to keep the hallucinations out of his neural pathways.
It's not real, Julian told himself. It's just noise.
He walked through the ghost. The smoke dissipated, leaving only a sudden drop in temperature.
They pressed on for what felt like hours, though it could have been minutes. Time had no meaning here. The grey was endless.
Then, the rope went taut.
"Lyra?" Julian pulled gently. The line didn't give. "Lyra, we need to keep moving."
No answer.
"Lyra!"
Julian turned and followed the rope back into the fog. Ten paces. Twenty.
He found her standing perfectly still, staring into a patch of swirling vapor that glowed with a faint, sickly yellow light. Her eyes were wide, glassy, unblinking. Her pistol hung loosely in her hand.
"Lyra?" Julian reached out, grabbing her shoulder.
She didn't react to his touch. She was whispering.
"I found him," she murmured, a terrifying smile stretching her lips. "I finally found him."
Julian looked at what she was seeing.
In the yellow mist, a scene was playing out like a silent film projected onto smoke.
A young boy, maybe ten years old, was sitting on a pile of gears. He was sketching in a notebook. He looked up, smiling at Lyra. But as he smiled, his skin began to peel away, revealing brass pistons underneath. His eyes fell out, replaced by pressure gauges.
"Kael," Lyra whimpered, stepping toward the phantom. "It's okay. I'm here. I'll take the gears out."
The phantom boy opened his mouth, but instead of words, black oil poured out.
Join me, sister, the mist hissed. Become the machine.
Lyra raised her pistol. Not at the ghost. At her own temple.
"I can stop the noise," she whispered. "I just have to stop thinking."
"No!" Julian tackled her.
They hit the hard glass floor. The pistol skittered away into the fog. Lyra fought him with the strength of the possessed, clawing at his face, screaming names of the dead.
"Let me go! He's right there!"
"It's an Echo!" Julian roared, pinning her wrists. "Look at me! It's not real!"
She wasn't hearing him. The Fog had found her frequency—her guilt—and was amplifying it until it drowned out everything else.
Julian knew words wouldn't work. He needed a shock. A counter-frequency.
He ripped the Black-Iron ring off his finger.
The silence in his head shattered instantly. The roar of the Aether rushed back in like a breaking dam—the scream of the fog, the weeping of the ground, the chaotic static of the timeline.
"Gah!" Julian gritted his teeth against the pain. The blue crystal in his hand flared with blinding intensity, lighting up the grey void like a supernova.
He slammed his glowing hand onto Lyra's chest, right over her heart.
BEAT.
He sent a pulse. Not of magic, but of Life. A raw, biological rhythm.
Thump-thump. You are flesh. Thump-thump. You are alive.
Lyra gasped, her back arching. Her eyes rolled back, then snapped forward, focusing on Julian. The glassy look shattered.
The yellow mist screamed—a sound like tearing metal—and vanished. The ghost of the boy dissolved into harmless vapor.
Julian collapsed on top of her, shoving the ring back onto his finger before the noise drove him mad. The light died. The silence returned.
"Julian?" Lyra whispered, her voice trembling. She looked around, confused. "I... I was with him. He was drawing..."
"It was the Fog," Julian panted, rolling off her. "It plays back what you lost."
Lyra sat up, shivering violently. She touched her chest where Julian had hit her. She looked at the empty mist. Then she buried her face in her hands and sobbed. It was a harsh, ugly sound, the sound of a wound being ripped open again.
Julian didn't say anything. He just sat beside her, watching the grey swirl, guarding her from the ghosts.
After a long time, Lyra wiped her face. She stood up, retrieved her gun, and holstered it. She didn't look at Julian, but she reached out and checked the knot on the rope around her waist.
"Don't let me stop again," she said, her voice raspy but steady.
"I won't," Julian promised.
They walked for another mile. The fog began to thin, not disappearing, but lifting slightly, revealing the ground.
And then, they saw it.
It wasn't a cave. It wasn't a canyon.
Rising out of the vitrified earth, looming three hundred feet into the air, was a hand.
It was made of Black-Iron, unrusted by time. The fingers were curled slightly, as if clutching at the sky in a final moment of agony. Each finger was the size of a train car. The knuckles were massive cog-joints, frozen in place.
"The Titan," Julian breathed, craning his neck back.
It was buried. The hand was just the tip of the iceberg. The body of the colossal machine lay beneath the earth, forming the landscape they were standing on.
Between the thumb and the forefinger of the giant hand, there was a gap. A dark, jagged opening that led down into the wrist.
Into the machine.
"The entrance," Lyra said, checking her gear. She looked small against the backdrop of the ancient god-machine. "Brother Cadence said the Heart is in the chest cavity. That means we have to climb down the arm."
Julian walked to the base of the hand. He placed his human palm against the black metal. Even through the ring, he felt a hum. A deep, slow vibration that was older than the Empire. Older than the Aether.
It wasn't dead. It was sleeping.
"Ready to go into the belly of the beast?" Julian asked.
Lyra pulled her hood up. "Better than staying out here with the ghosts."
They stepped into the shadows between the giant metal fingers, descending into the dark throat of the Titan.