Jax pushed to his feet on the cracked plaza, legs still shaky from the gate. The chain hung loose but felt wrong. Thicker, veins of black running through the links like they'd grown roots under his skin. Kael's last words sat heavy in his chest. *You will give it.*
Mira stayed on one knee, wiping ichor from her face. Her lightning had faded to faint sparks that popped and died. She looked smaller without the storm raging around her. "That echo knew your name. How?"
"Doesn't matter," Jax said. He didn't want to explain Lena or the alley or how close he'd come to dying for three vials that probably wouldn't save her anyway. "We're out. That's what counts."
Lira stood apart, blindfold hanging torn around her neck. Her milky eyes stared at nothing and everything. "We're not out. The shard only opened the first door. The Expanse has layers. This plaza is just the landing. Something bigger is stirring under the water. I saw chains. Hundreds of them. And one of them already has your name on it."
Jax rolled his wrist. The chain tightened in answer, warm as fresh blood. Kael stayed quiet for once, but Jax could feel him listening, savoring the fear like a man tasting good liquor.
A low rumble rolled across the plaza. The stone under their boots shifted. Cracks spiderwebbed outward. From the edge of the platform, pale shapes began climbing—smaller echoes this time, no stolen faces yet, just hungry limbs and too many joints.
"Company," Mira said. She tried to call lightning. Only a weak snap answered. She cursed under her breath.
Jax stepped forward. "Stay behind me. I test the chain on these ones."
He lashed out. The links shot forward faster than before, wrapping the lead echo's torso. When he pulled, the creature didn't just stumble—it screamed and dissolved into threads of shadow that flowed straight into the chain. Power surged up his arm, sharp and sweet, like the first hit of something you know will ruin you.
Kael sighed in his head, almost content. *Better. Keep feeding me and I might keep you alive past the next hour.*
The rush made Jax's head spin. For a second he saw the underlevels clear as day—Lena's thin face, the way she used to smile when he brought back clean water. Then the vision twisted and he saw himself standing over her with the chain around her throat. He shook it off hard.
"Jax!" Mira shouted.
Two more echoes had flanked them. One leaped at Lira. She didn't dodge; she just reached out and touched its chest. The creature froze mid-air, then crumbled like wet paper. Lira staggered, blood trickling from her nose.
"I saw its end before it moved," she whispered. "But every time I look, the futures get shorter."
Mira took the last one with a desperate punch wrapped in the last of her sparks. The echo burst apart, but she dropped to one knee afterward, breathing like she'd run a mile underwater.
The plaza stopped shaking. For a moment everything went still.
Then the water around the platform began to churn. A massive shadow moved beneath the surface—long, sinuous, bigger than any building Jax had ever climbed back home. Barnacles the size of men clung to whatever it was.
Kael finally spoke again, voice tight with something close to excitement. *That's an old one. Weakened, but still a Terror. You want to live? Bind it. Take a piece before it wakes fully. Or run and hope it eats the girls first.*
Jax stared at the dark shape circling below. His mouth tasted like rust. Lena was dying in real time while he played monster tag in a drowned hell. Every second here might be the one that killed her.
He looked at Mira, still catching her breath, and Lira wiping blood from her face. They'd dragged him through the gate when they could have left him. That didn't mean trust. It just meant they needed each other right now.
"New plan," he said. "We don't run. We take something from it. Enough to make the next stretch easier."
Mira met his eyes. Hers were hard but not cold. "You're crazy. That thing could swallow us whole."
"Yeah," Jax said. "But if we keep bleeding strength like this, we die slow instead. I'd rather die fast with something in my hand."
Lira nodded once, slow. "The futures shift when you speak like that. Some of them get longer. Not many."
The shadow beneath the water surged closer. A ridge of spines broke the surface, dripping brine.
Jax uncoiled the chain fully. It sang in his grip now, eager.
"Stay close," he told them. "When I hook it, hit whatever shows. And if Kael starts talking through me… don't listen."
He stepped to the edge.
The chain whipped out across the water like a living thing, straight toward the rising terror.
For the first time since the alley, Jax smiled; small, ugly, and mean.
*Let's see how much this costs.*
The water exploded upward as the chain struck home.