The train seemed to slip into another world as it raced beneath the earth. The windows dimmed until they showed only their own reflections — six faces lit by amber light and unease.
Outside, the darkness rippled like melted glass. Shapes flickered past: shadowy towers, arches dripping with condensation, the suggestion of enormous cogs turning in silence. The line between tunnel and city blurred until it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.
Then the lights brightened, and the smell of chocolate became almost overwhelming.
The train slowed. Through the mist on the glass, Nia saw a glow that seemed to come from the ground itself. The wheels screeched, the whistle cried once — a sound so low it vibrated in their chests — and the doors opened onto a platform paved with polished cocoa stone.
"Vellum Gate," the conductor announced.
They stepped out together, blinking against the light.
The first sight of the city was not sweetness, but scale.
Great columns of sugar glass rose into the haze, their surfaces carved with swirling designs that caught the light like frozen rivers. Chocolate smoke drifted from distant towers; it smelled faintly burnt, almost metallic. Streams of caramel ran through channels cut into the streets. Above them, instead of open sky, an enormous dome of stained glass arched overhead — a shifting mosaic of amber and crimson that refracted the light like sunset trapped in syrup.
People moved through the streets below, dressed in fine coats dusted with cocoa powder. But none of them looked up. Their movements were precise, mechanical — as if they were performing a routine they had practiced too many times to question.
Nia felt the back of her neck prickle.
"It's beautiful," Lina whispered.
"It's wrong," Tomas muttered.
The conductor gestured toward a set of carriages waiting near the gate. "You will be conveyed to the Confectioner's Hall," he said. "Mr. Vellum is eager to greet you."
Aya tilted her head. "How does he know we've arrived already?"
The conductor smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "He always knows.
The ride through the city was like moving through a dream that couldn't decide whether it wanted to be sweet or sinister.
Children pressed their faces to the windows of chocolate shops where molten truffles flowed through glass pipes. Mechanical birds dipped into fountains of cream. A carousel spun slowly in a square, its horses carved from sugar so delicate they trembled in the breeze.
But between those wonders were shadows.
At one point, the carriage passed a narrow street that led into darkness. The air above it shimmered oddly, as if heat rose from the ground, but Nia noticed that no one — not even the workers hauling sacks of cocoa — stepped near it. The lamps along that road were blacked out, and a faint humming sound drifted from within, low and rhythmic, like a heartbeat.
"What's that place?" she asked the driver.
He didn't answer, didn't even turn his head.
Felix smirked. "Probably the workers' quarters. Every paradise needs a gutter to keep it running."
Tomas shot him a glare. "You don't know that."
Felix shrugged. "Just being practical."
Aya watched the dark street disappear behind them. "It didn't look like a place for anyone to live," she said softly.
The humming continued, faint even after they turned away.
At last the carriage stopped before a massive gate of sugar glass reinforced with iron filigree. Beyond it stood the Confectioner's Hall — a sprawling palace that seemed to breathe light. The facade shimmered as if made of thin sheets of liquid chocolate poured over bone-white marble.
The air here was thicker, warmer, almost stifling.
As the children stepped down, a flock of pale attendants appeared, all dressed in cream-colored uniforms, their gloves spotless, their faces identical in their careful smiles.
"Welcome, honored guests," one said. "Please, this way. Mr. Vellum awaits."
They were led through corridors that twisted and glittered, lined with windows showing impossible sights — rivers of chocolate running upward, forests of sugar trees growing in perpetual dusk.
Nia's stomach tightened. Everything was too perfect, too still. Even the ticking of the clocks was synchronized, as though the city itself were keeping its own heart in time.
At the end of the corridor, a pair of towering doors loomed — each carved with the image of a cocoa pod split open to reveal a golden heart. The attendants opened them soundlessly.
Inside, the air shimmered with heat and scent.
And there, standing beside a pool of molten gold that might have been caramel, was Ambrose Vellum.
He was taller than any of them expected. His coat was cut from fabric so dark it drank the light, his gloves white as porcelain. His hair was silver, not with age but with something like frost, and his eyes gleamed amber in the glow.
"Welcome," he said, his voice a slow pour of warmth and charm. "My special guests. My… chosen ones."
He smiled — and the room seemed to tilt just slightly.