The cavern was too quiet.
Not peaceful. Not restful.
The kind of silence that came after a funeral, when you forgot how to hold your hands.
We hadn't moved much. I was propped against Antic's side, not by choice exactly—more by gravity and aching limbs. He hadn't moved away, either. His arm was still curved protectively around my shoulders, stiff like it wasn't sure what it was doing.
I didn't understand what had happened, not all of it. But the Breaths were gone. That much I felt—like a hum that had been pressing against my ribs had finally stopped. No more whispers. No more names that didn't belong to me.
But something had shifted.
In him.
Antic was trying not to look at me, which only made it more obvious he was definitely looking at me.
His hand twitched against my arm like it had thoughts of its own.
"…If you're gonna keep starin', I should charge rent," I said quietly.
Antic jerked back like I'd zapped him.
"What—me? Staring? No, no—I was just, uh, checking your—uh—respiratory stability. Doctor things. Medic things. Forest paramedic things."
"You're sweating."
"It's warm in here!"
"It's cold in here."
"…Shut up."
I shifted a little, settling into the moss. Dolly hovered a few feet away, her gaze not on us for once. Her face had gone porcelain-still, no cracks, no grin. Just still.
"Is she… alright?" I asked.
Grin glanced over. "She's... quiet. That's usually bad. But today?" He exhaled slowly. "I think she gave too much."
"She helped me," I murmured. "All of you did."
"You helped them," Grin said. "The ones trapped. That was you."
I thought about the song. The weight of those lives. The joy that had come at the end—not loud or bright, but slow and true.
"Does it always hurt?" I asked. "Helping?"
Grin nodded once.
Antic muttered, "Like hell."
Dolly finally moved. She drifted down beside us, her feet not quite touching the ground.
"They're free," she said softly. "And I don't even want to smash anything."
Antic stared at her. "Who are you and what have you done with the scary little murder doll?"
Dolly gave him a look that said say that again and I'll bite you.
"…Never mind," he whispered.
I closed my eyes.
I was tired. Not just body-tired. Not even soul-tired.
I was truth-tired.
Because the song had shown me something I wasn't ready for.
A voice that whispered beneath it all.
A warning I hadn't told them yet.
But I would.
Eventually.
Right now, I wanted this—quiet, warmth, a heartbeat against my back that made me feel less alone.
Antic cleared his throat beside me. "So. We not dying today?"
"Maybe tomorrow," I murmured.
He laughed. It was soft. Honest.
And for the first time, I felt it:
Maybe this forest didn't want to kill me.
Maybe it wanted me to live.
But first… I'd have to remember how.
Dolly didn't hum.
She didn't grind her teeth, or twirl her lace sleeve like it was a knife in disguise. She didn't complain about moss stains on her tulle or threaten to garrote Antic with her sash.
She sat.
Not hovered, not posed—sat.
Cross-legged on a flat stone, porcelain knees peeking from under layers of gown, hands folded neatly in her lap.
Still.
Her stillness had weight.
Antic finally noticed, which meant he actually shut up for two seconds and blinked at her like she'd sprouted a second head.
"Uh… y'good, Murder Muppet?"
She tilted her head slowly. No twitch. No clatter of ceramic limbs. Just... grace.
"I feel... lighter," she said.
Antic made a strangled noise in his throat. "That's the scariest thing you've ever said."
Grin didn't even look up from where he was poking the crystal wall like he could read it like Braille. "Let her be."
"She's not being. She's changing. And I don't like change. Especially when it involves people who tried to eat me twice."
"Once," Dolly corrected, without heat.
"That's one time too many!"
I kept quiet.
Because I felt it too.
Dolly was... different. The Breaths had softened her. Threaded something tender through her splintered soul. It wasn't redemption. Not yet. But it was motion. And motion meant she wasn't trapped anymore.
She looked at me.
And for the first time, there was no malice. No smug superiority.
Just... curiosity.
"I used to think softness was a sickness," she said quietly. "That's what they told me. Be sharp. Be lovely. Be feared. Never be soft."
"Who's 'they'?" I asked.
"My mother. My father. My seamstress."
Antic snorted. "Classic parental trauma combo."
But his voice was gentle now. No bite.
Dolly smiled, just barely.
"I think softness is dangerous," she murmured. "But I'm tired of being safe."
I felt something rise in me. A resonance. Like the last notes of the ritual were still clinging to my bones.
There was more.
More voices. More stories.
Not Breaths this time. Not spirits needing release.
Warnings.
Whispers brushed my skin like spider legs.
Not done. Not yet. Something waits.
I flinched.
Grin turned toward me, sharp and sudden. "You feel it too."
I nodded.
Antic's hand went to his flute without thinking, fingers twitching like a spell was about to break loose.
"What is it?" he asked.
I shook my head. "I don't know. But the Breaths... they left a message."
"A voicemail from the void. Great," Antic muttered.
The moss pulsed gently under our feet.
A slow heartbeat.
Not ours.
Dolly stood. Her lace barely fluttered. "Then let's listen."
The moss beneath my feet trembled—not enough to shake the others, but enough for me to feel it in my molars. A frequency. A breath that didn't belong to any of us.
I turned slowly.
A shimmer bled from the far wall—faint at first, like moonlight under water. The crystals rippled, and one of them caught me—just barely—on the edge of something deep.
The hum hooked itself behind my ribs.
I fell forward.
Or maybe the world folded in around me.
I wasn't in the cavern anymore.
I was somewhere... older.
A room.
Wooden walls, smoky with time. Heavy curtains. A red velvet chair with worn arms, the fabric bruised from use. A woman sat in it, draped in a faded gown the color of wilted violets. Her eyes were closed.
But I knew them.
Not by sight.
By shape. By the way her grief pressed out from her skin, invisible and massive.
She was humming.
Something wordless, broken in the middle.
She clutched a child's slipper in her hands. Pale blue. Frayed at the toe.
"Not again," she whispered, voice hoarse from disuse.
The wind outside the window moaned. No stars.
"Let this one live," she begged. "Please. Let her be strong."
I stepped closer, though I wasn't really there. Just a shade beside her sadness.
She didn't move. But her voice found a rhythm.
"She'll forget me. She must. If she remembers... they'll find her."
She rocked forward, cradling the slipper like a doll. "Elara, you stupid thing. You shouldn't have loved so hard."
The name struck something in me.
Elara.
A soft gasp, not mine, not hers. A child, somewhere out of sight.
She paused.
Then, quietly: "If you're listening… I'm sorry."
And the vision shattered—
I jolted upright, choking on breath that wasn't mine. The crystal wall in front of me had dimmed. Gone cold. The moss curled inward like it had been burned.
Antic's arms were under me again.
"Woah—hey—no eyes, you alright?"
I couldn't speak.
The name echoed in my mouth like smoke.
Not a word.
A wound.
"Elara…" I said.
Antic blinked. "Who?"
I shook my head. "I don't know. But she... she was sad. And she lost someone."
Grin's voice came from my left. "...The ....forest is coughing... up pieces now. ....Personal ones."
Dolly didn't speak. She just watched me, head tilted. For once, not judging. Just listening.
Antic brushed a thumb under my eye. "That wasn't just a memory, huh?"
"No," I whispered. "It was a warning."
He frowned. "About what?"
"I think..." I swallowed. "I think I'm not the only one who was made to forget."
We sat in a crescent around a patch of glowing moss, breathing like we were all trying to remember how.
Dolly hovered cross-legged in the air—arms folded, feet perfect, like some floating empress caught in exile. Her porcelain face flickered with soft light, and for once, she didn't hum or fidget or throw barbed commentary.
Grin sat with his long limbs folded, fingers twitching against the stone like they were translating the silence.
Antic was next to me.
Close.
Not his usual kind of close—the kind he used to rile or flirt or make people uncomfortable. This was different. Like he didn't know how to not be near me.
My body leaned toward him before I realized it.
He smelled like campfire and pepper. Like a boy who didn't belong anywhere but had decided to belong here, now, whether the world liked it or not.
His elbow brushed mine.
He didn't pull away.
"You good?" he muttered, voice low. "Ya look like you just got back from talkin' to the underworld, ya know?"
"I did," I said. "Sort of."
His fingers tapped a rhythm on his thigh. "You're real weird, No Eyes."
"So are you."
"Yeah, but I got charm. You got… ghost GPS."
From across the moss, Dolly cleared her throat.
"Are we... to spend the entire night trading pleasantries in dim lighting, or shall we plan our next stagger toward doom?"
Grin answered without moving his head. "...She saw something… someone. It mattered."
Dolly rolled her eyes. "Everything here matters. That's the problem."
I pressed a hand against the moss. It buzzed under my palm like a distant hum. "There was a woman. Elara. She... left me behind."
Antic stiffened. "She say that? Like out loud?"
"She didn't have to. Her whole body said it."
Grin stirred. "...Elara. That name… it rings too soft to be nothing."
Antic scratched the back of his neck, glancing at me sideways. "So what, she's your mom or somethin'? Long-lost memory stuff?"
"I don't know," I whispered. "But she said if I remember, they'll find me."
Dolly floated a little lower, landing lightly. Her heels clicked against the stone like punctuation. "Then we proceed with care. Whatever 'they' is, I don't fancy being unraveled by another cursed secret."
Silence followed. The good kind. Heavy, but not sharp.
Antic leaned his head back against the cave wall and muttered, "Y'ever think maybe we're all just walkin' around, waitin' for the worst thing we forgot to remember us first?"
Grin nodded, slow. "...That's... heavy."
"Yeah, well. I got layers, ya know?"
I shifted slightly. My shoulder brushed his. He didn't move. He stilled—every atom of him—like I'd just thrown a switch.
His voice dropped an octave.
"You okay... really?"
I thought about lying.
I didn't.
"No," I said.
"Cool. Cool. Me neither. We're on the same emotionally wrecked boat."
I rested my head against his shoulder, only a little. It wasn't soft—he was all sharp edges and heat—but it was real.
And warm.
He said nothing.
Did nothing.
But his shoulder didn't move once.