The entrance to "The Orphanage" was a heavy bulkhead door salvaged from a sunken ironclad. It didn't have a bell; it had a pressure-plate that emitted a low, resonant chime when I stepped on it.
Inside, the air was warm—too warm. It smelled of beeswax, lavender, and the sharp, metallic tang of soldering flux. Hundreds of eyes watched us from the darkness of the rafters. Not human eyes, but the glass-bead pupils of porcelain dolls, clockwork songbirds, and articulated wooden limbs hanging from butcher's hooks.
"Kaelen," a voice drifted from the back of the room. It was smooth, like velvet draped over a razor blade. "I heard the industrial district caught fire tonight. I assumed you were the match."
The Widow stepped into the light of a single, flickering gas-lamp. She was wrapped in a widow's veil of black lace that seemed to move even when there was no wind. Her hands were encased in silver-filigree gloves that clicked with every movement of her fingers.
"I'm looking for a Frame," I said, ignoring the father's gasp as a clockwork spider scurried across the floor. "High-grade. Ivory-core if you have it. Something that can hold a heavy resonance without cracking the porcelain."
The Widow's eyes—as dark and unblinking as her creations—shifted to the father's satchel. She tilted her head, the lace of her veil whispering against her shoulders.
"A Soul-Trace," she murmured. "And not a common one. That's a 'Keystone' frequency. The Spires have been screaming for it through the ley-lines for hours."
"Can you do it?" I asked, my hand resting on my hilt. "We don't have time for a tour, Widow. The Hollowed are on our tail."
The Widow's silver fingers tapped a rhythmic pattern against her chin. "I have a Frame. A 'Lullaby-Series' ballerina, custom-built for a Duchess's daughter who never woke up. It's reinforced with silver-thread and has a Heart-Chamber carved from a single piece of Aether-Quartz."
"The price?" I asked.
"Your left arm," she said, her voice devoid of emotion.
The father choked on his breath. "His... his arm? You can't be serious!"
"Not the meat, fool," the Widow snapped, her eyes flashing. "The fracture. Kaelen's core is a unique mess of war-grade energy. I want to 'siphon' the residue from his next three episodes. I need the raw power for my more... ambitious projects."
I looked at my left hand. It was trembling, the grey scar throbbing with a dull, persistent ache. Every time I used the fracture, I lost a piece of myself. To give her the residue was to invite the darkness in even deeper.
...Don't... please... the voice in the vial whispered.
I looked at the father, then at the golden light flickering in the satchel. If I didn't make this deal, the girl would evaporate into the Sinks, becoming nothing but a ghost in the smog.
"Done," I said. "Start the transfer."
The Widow smiled—a thin, cold line. She gestured toward a velvet-lined operating table in the center of the room. "Bring the girl. And Ferryman? Try to stay conscious. It's much more interesting that way."
As the Widow began to lay out her silver tools, the heavy bulkhead door at the front of the shop groaned.
THOOM.
Something had hit the iron door with the force of a battering ram. The porcelain dolls in the rafters began to rattle, their glass eyes vibrating in their sockets.
"They're here," I whispered, drawing my notched blade.
"The Hollowed cannot enter here without my leave," the Widow said, not looking up from her work. "But they are patient. They will wait for you to come out. And they will bring the Spires with them."
I walked to the door, pressing my ear against the cold iron. Outside, I heard nothing. No breathing. No footsteps. Just the low, electronic hum of the Command-Runes—the sound of men who had been turned into machines.
"How long?" I asked, my back to the table.
"Thirty minutes to prep the Frame," the Widow said, her silver needles dancing over the Heart-Chamber of the porcelain doll. "Ten minutes for the Soul-Bond. If you can hold that door for forty minutes, Kaelen, you might just save a soul today."
I looked at my reflection in the polished iron of the door. My eyes were bloodshot, my skin sallow from the mana-fumes. I looked like a man who was already halfway to being a ghost himself.
"Forty minutes," I muttered, gripping the hilt of my sword until the leather wrap creaked. "I've spent longer than that waiting for a fare in the rain."
I kicked a heavy crate of scrap metal in front of the door and sat down on it, my blade resting across my knees.
The first scratch on the iron door sounded like a fingernail on a chalkboard. Then came another. And another.
The Hollowed weren't trying to break the door down anymore. They were carving their way through.