The whisper wasn't sound—it was pressure against my thoughts. My pulse matched its rhythm, and for a moment, I swore the pocket watch in my palm ticked in time with it.
The foyer was a cathedral of decay. Chandeliers dangled like skeletal cages, glass shards hanging from them like frozen tears. The floor was waterlogged, my footsteps sending ripples through the reflection of the cracked ceiling.
At the far end, where the grand double doors to the main hall stood, there was movement.
A figure.
Tall. Lean. Clad in a tattered conductor's coat, the tails brushing the water without sound. Where its face should have been, there was only the fractured brass of an instrument's bell, hollow and gleaming.
It held no baton. Its right arm ended in a nest of metallic tubing that swayed with a hiss.
The moment it tilted its head toward me, the air warped.
The chandeliers began to swing. Slowly at first… then faster, faster, until glass began to fly.
The Maestro raised its arm.
The tubes on its wrist expanded like a brass mouthpiece—and the entire room breathed in.
Then came the first note.
It wasn't music. It was force. The sound was a physical wall, hitting me so hard I flew back into the half-collapsed balcony steps. My ribs screamed.
The pocket watch pulsed again, light bleeding between my fingers.
And I realized… it wasn't trying to protect me. It was answering.