The air in the Unreflecting Kitchen was thick with the scent of scorched iron and simmering guilt. It clung to the back of the throat, a metallic taste that no amount of the acidic, yellow fog from the Sanzu River could wash away. The floor under Ember's broom was not stone, but something older—the fossilized, leathery hide of the Hitotsume itself, worn smooth by generations of Ogre sandals and the constant, grinding vibration that hummed through the island's core. Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku. The sound of a million rusted clock gears spinning outside was a ceaseless, mournful lullaby for the sleeping behemoth beneath their feet.
Ember "The Pyre" swept with a frantic, jagged rhythm, her neon-pink space buns trembling with each pass. The charred plush rabbit, Mr. Cinders, bounced at her waist. Her mismatched eyes—one icy blue, one Syndicate-gold—darted, not seeing ash, but the ghosts in the grains. She was a flickering candle in a cavern of giants.
The kitchen door shuddered on its hinges, not from the ever-present tremor, but from a presence that filled the doorway. Dimitri Robben, "Deep-Freeze," ducked his head under the lintel, his 68-foot frame making the vast chamber feel cramped. Frost crystallized in the air around his polished, backward-swept horns. He wore his lavish fur-lined trench coat like a king's mantle, a gargantuan, unlit cigar tucked between grinning teeth.
"Well, well! If it isn't the littlest spark in the forge!" His voice was a thunderclap wrapped in velvet, a boom that rattled the copper pots hanging from the ceiling. He didn't even glance at Ember, his frozen-yellow eyes fixed on the far counter. "I'm here for the special order, Chef! The clock's ticking, and the boss is waiting!"
Across the kitchen, a mountain of muscle and rage erupted. Mazui Kuzu, the Hell-Kitchen Warden, slammed a cleaver the size of a ship's rudder into a butcher's block. The THUNK was swallowed by the omnipresent gear-hum. His charred-meat skin flushed a deeper crimson.
"It's ready when I SAY it's ready, you walking icebox!" Mazui roared, his Cockney-coded accent sharp enough to slice meat. "But where are the trays?! You!" He whirled on a cowering Ogre sous-chef. "I said have the reinforced trays on the counter! Are you serving the Capstan Turners on a bed of soggy leaves?!"
As if summoned by his fury, two massive, black-iron trays slid from a volcanic-heated oven slot onto the counter by the window. They steamed, laden with dense, protein-heavy slabs of spiced mutton quiche and root vegetables—food meant to fortify bodies that would age decades in a week.
Dimitri's shark-like grin widened. He finally looked down, his gaze landing on Ember like a physical weight. She'd frozen, broom mid-sweep, looking impossibly small against the grey wall.
"You! Cinder-girl!" he called, his tone oddly cheerful. "Stop dusting and make yourself useful. Let's go!"
Ember's head gave a quick, bird-like nod. She scrambled, stashing her broom in a shadowed corner with the practiced haste of someone used to hiding things. She darted to Dimitri's massive, indigo-skinned foot. Without breaking his conversation with Mazui about the "insipid quality of this season's sulfur," he lowered a hand to the floor. His palm was a frost-rimmed plateau. Ember climbed on, her steel-toed boots finding purchase in the lines of his skin.
He lifted her to the counter's height, a smooth, terrifying elevator ride. From her perch in his palm, she grabbed the heavy trays, her wiry arms straining. As she adjusted the second tray, a sliver of folded parchment, damp with sweat, slipped from her sleeve and vanished beneath a slab of quiche. Her movements were a silent, desperate pantomime.
"Hurry up, spark," Dimitri rumbled, though he held perfectly still. "Time is a currency here, and you're spending mine."
She rushed back to his palm, trays balanced. He turned, carrying her through the doorway like a living, mobile platform. They moved into the open air of the Grey Cradle.
The landscape was a study in barren sorrow. The ground was not dirt, but grey ash and white pumice that crunched under Dimitri's steps. To their left, the acidic Sanzu River flowed inward, toward the heart of the island, its yellow currents giving off a stomach-turning, vinegary smell. Everywhere, rusted clock gears on tall poles spun in the unnatural breeze, their collective chiku-taku a sound that drilled into the skull. Ember, standing upright in Dimitri's palm, held the trays steady, her eyes taking in the piles of "stone" that weren't stone at all, but fossilized eggs the size of houses.
They passed the central square of Sa-To-Shi village. There, Aurélie was on her knees, scrubbing the moss-covered leg of a Jizo Ogre with a stiff-bristled brush. The Ogre sat in the lotus position, a true living statue, unmoving for a century. Aurélie's usually impeccable posture was bowed with fatigue, her clothes stained with ash and acidic mist. She wiped her brow with the back of her arm, leaving a grey streak.
For a heartbeat, her eyes met Ember's.
It was a flash of silent recognition in a world of enforced quiet. A shared glance between two prisoners playing parts. Then a guard's voice, sharp as a whip-crack, echoed from a watchtower of bleached Sea King bones: "Eyes on your work, surface-dweller! That moss won't scrub itself!"
Aurélie's gaze dropped, returning to her task. The connection severed.
Dimitri paid no mind, his long strides eating up the ground. He reached the base of the Grand Chrono-Anchor—a colossal, spiraling screw of black iron that plunged into the mist-shrouded lake at the island's center. A subsidiary spire, a watchtower with a spiraling staircase carved into its side, stood nearby. Dimitri began to ascend, his steps causing fine ash to sift from the metal steps.
At the top was a heavy door banded with Steel. A narrow slit rested at its base. Dimitri lowered his hand again. Ember knelt, slid the slit open, and pushed the first tray through onto the floor within.
From the darkness inside, a hand brushed against hers. It was scarred, calloused, but the touch was deliberate. Noon Scort Reveil's voice, hushed yet charged with the static of suppressed lightning, slithered out.
"Any new stories to tell, lassie?" he whispered, the Irish lilt a rebellious melody against the gear-drone dirge. "Or is the big fellow's joke still the only one they're spinning?"
Before Ember could even form a breath to reply, Dimitri's boot slammed against the door. The BOOM was a physical shockwave.
"Silence!" he bellowed, his charismatic cool hardening into glacial command. "You're not paying for a conversation, Reveil. You're paying off a debt. Eat. Your next shift at the Capstan starts before the next gear-click."
Ember flinched, hurriedly shoving the second tray—the one with the hidden parchment—through the slit. She felt Reveil's fingers briefly close over the note as he took the tray. He said nothing more. She slid the slit shut, the sound a final, metallic gasp.
Scrambling back into Dimitri's waiting palm, she felt the world lurch as he turned and began his descent. She didn't look back at the door. She kept her eyes on the grey, grinding world below—the spinning gears, the silent Jizo, the river flowing backward into the throat of a dreaming god. In her mind, Josiah's imaginary whisper hissed, "That was too slow, idiot. He'll know." She dug her nails into the crescent scars on her forearm, the sharp pain a silent answer, a grounding ritual in a world that was slowly, inexorably, trying to erase them all.
The message was delivered. In the kitchen, Mazui Kuzu bellowed about broth integrity. On the square, Aurélie scrubbed at eternal moss. And in a cell at the top of the spire, a fallen revolutionary unfolded a damp piece of paper, his flickering blue eyes scanning the secrets smuggled in plain sight, a spark of defiance in the endless, hungry grey.
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