For a heartbeat there was only falling.
Aric's stomach lifted into his throat, and the mist clawed at his face like icy fingers. Lyra's scream tore free, swallowed at once by the darkness. The bell-eyed child said nothing, its small hand a vice around Aric's wrist.
Then the darkness lit from within.
Sound became colour. Notes stretched into threads of light, twisting like streamers in a hurricane. A low drone rolled up from the depths, heavy as thunder. They weren't dropping through empty air anymore but through a tunnel of whirling echoes, names and fragments of words whizzing past like birds.
Lyra blinked furiously, hair streaming upward. "What—what is this?!"
Aric squinted. 'So this is the Well.' Aloud he said, "A dump for dead sound. Every name, every promise the Domain throws away ends up here."
"That's… kind of gross," she said, voice wobbling. Her boot hit something invisible with a hollow thud. "Wait, are we falling or floating?"
"Yes," Aric said, deadpan. He tucked the cracked chime back into his coat. "Try not to grab anything."
She scowled. "Why not?"
A pale shape drifted past them, fluttering like a torn page. It whispered a single word — help — and disintegrated when Lyra's sleeve brushed it. Her skin prickled with cold.
"That's why," Aric said.
The child finally spoke, its voice ringing like a tiny bell. "These are broken names. Touch too many and they'll stick. You'll drown in echoes."
Lyra pulled her arms close. "Noted."
The tunnel widened into a cavernous shaft. Platforms of black glass floated in the air like lily pads, drifting slowly downward. Between them, chords of shimmering silver hung like spider silk, vibrating with faint music. Strange objects bobbed in the current — a cracked mask, a violin string tied in a knot, a book with no pages.
"This is insane," Lyra murmured. "It's like someone's junk drawer exploded."
Aric's lips twitched. "Welcome to the back end of the Domain."
They landed lightly on one of the black-glass platforms. It hummed under their feet, the note shifting with every movement. Lyra tested her weight. "This feels… alive."
"It's a resonance pad," Aric said. "These platforms float on old vibrations. Step wrong and you'll sink."
"Great," she muttered. "A musical minefield."
They began hopping from pad to pad, following the downward drift. The further they descended, the thicker the air became with whispers. Sometimes whole sentences brushed against them — confessions, curses, half-remembered songs. Lyra found herself humming back without meaning to.
Aric shot her a look. "Don't answer."
"Sorry," she said. "It's catchy."
He smirked despite himself. 'She's impossible.'
The child pointed ahead. "There. The Flow Gate."
Aric followed its finger. Far below, the shaft narrowed into a funnel of light where the echoes spiralled into a single point. A massive bronze gate hung suspended there, its surface engraved with countless names scratched out, rewritten, scratched again. It swung open and shut soundlessly, like a mouth chewing.
"That's our exit?" Lyra asked.
"More or less," Aric said. "If the legends are true, the Gate spits out everything into the Outer Rungs — a dead zone the Chime Lord can't see."
"If the legends are true," she echoed dryly. "Wonderful."
A ripple moved through the echoes. The platform under Aric's feet vibrated harder. He frowned. 'Something else is here.'
A shape coalesced above them: a figure of pure sound, taller than any of them, its body made of tangled notes and chains of syllables. Where a face should have been was a shifting chorus of mouths speaking in different languages at once.
The child's bell-eyes dimmed. "Echo-Keeper," it whispered. "Guardian of the Well."
Lyra swallowed hard. "We're not supposed to be here, are we?"
"No," the child said.
The Echo-Keeper raised an arm. The chains of syllables in its body tightened, and a shockwave of whispered words rolled toward them. The black-glass platform cracked.
Aric's mind raced. 'We're too high up to jump. Can't fight something made of sound in a sound well. Think.' He glanced at the cracked chime in his coat. 'One more use.'
He drew it out and struck it sharply. A sharp, clear note cut through the whispers like a blade. The Echo-Keeper flinched back, its mouths hissing.
"Move!" Aric shouted.
They leapt to the next platform. The Echo-Keeper lunged, its limbs elongating like whip-cords of language, trying to snag them. Lyra ducked one and swung herself across a silver chord like a tightrope, laughing breathlessly. "This is the worst escape route ever!"
"Noted," Aric said, grabbing the child as another shockwave shattered the pad behind them.
They hopped downward, the Gate looming closer. The whispers rose to a cacophony. Lyra's ears rang. "It's getting louder!"
"Because it knows we're leaving," Aric said through clenched teeth. He risked another strike of the chime. The clear note cut a path, but cracks raced further up the instrument's curve. One more blow might break it completely.
The Echo-Keeper gathered itself, its mouths opening wide. All the whispers in the Well funnelled toward it, forming a single colossal word that hadn't yet been spoken. The pressure made Aric's knees buckle.
Lyra grabbed his arm. "Do it now!"
Aric looked at the Gate, then at the chime. 'One shot.' He raised it and struck a chord strung between two platforms. The note that sprang out wasn't a chime at all but a bell toll, deep and resonant. It raced down the chord, into the Gate.
The bronze slabs shuddered. For a heartbeat everything went silent.
Then the Gate yawned open, spilling blinding white light.
"Jump!" Aric yelled.
They hurled themselves toward it as the Echo-Keeper screamed its unfinished word. The chime shattered in Aric's hand, splinters of silver ringing out.
Light swallowed them.
And then...