Chapter 12

     The air inside the printworks was damp, thick with the smell of rotting paper and rusted machinery. It felt like the room was breathing, exhaling the past in slow, heavy sighs. I moved deeper into the darkness, my steps echoing across the cracked floor. Achilles had disappeared, but I could still feel him, a presence just out of reach, like a pulse thrumming faintly beneath the surface.

     I wasn’t sure how long I wandered through the maze of old printing presses and dusty shelving before I noticed the smell—sharp, chemical, almost sweet. It burned in my throat, a faint taste of ether on the air, as if the whole place had been soaked in something volatile. I covered my mouth with my sleeve, moving cautiously forward.

     Then I saw it: a faint glint of light reflected off something wet pooling on the floor, a thick, dark liquid that seemed to spread slowly outward from the base of an old industrial sink. I crouched down and touched it. It was warm, viscous, sliding off my fingers like the skin of an unroofed wet amoeba. Whatever this was, it wasn’t just water or ink. It felt alive, as though it was moving with a purpose all its own, creeping outward in thin, glistening tendrils.

     I straightened up, scanning the room, and that’s when I saw her.

     She was half-hidden behind a stack of dusty pallets near the far wall, her dark hair slick against her face, eyes wide and haunted. For a moment, I thought she was just another ghost—a memory lingering in the corners of my mind. But then she moved, a faint shift, as though trying to draw back further into the shadows.

     “Madeleine?” I whispered, not trusting my voice to carry any louder.

     She didn’t respond. Her gaze was distant, as if she were looking through me, her expression slack with something that wasn’t quite fear, but wasn’t far from it either. I took a step toward her, but she recoiled, her lips parting as if to speak—but no sound came out.

     And then, just as suddenly, she was gone. A flicker, a shift in the darkness, and the space where she’d been standing was empty. I spun around, my pulse hammering in my ears, searching for any sign of movement, but there was nothing except the distant drip of water and the muffled creak of old machinery settling.

     I was about to head back toward the exit when I heard a voice—low, calm, coming from just beyond the dim circle of light. “You’re always a step behind, aren’t you?”

     I turned to see Achilles standing there, his figure emerging slowly from the shadows like a memory coming into focus. He was dressed in a long, dark coat, his face half-lit by the faint glow filtering through the broken windows above. His eyes, as always, were steady and unreadable, watching me with the same quiet intensity I’d felt months ago, when this all began.

     “Where is she?” I demanded, though the words felt hollow even as I spoke them. “Where’s Madeleine?”

     Achilles tilted his head slightly, his lips curling into a faint smile. “She’s wherever she needs to be,” he said. “The question is—where do you need to be?”

     I took a step closer, the floor beneath me slick with that strange liquid, still spreading in slow, thin rivulets. “This ends now,” I said, my voice low and sharp. “No more games.”

     Achilles’ expression didn’t change. “Endings are funny things,” he replied. “They’re never quite as final as we’d like to believe.” He glanced down at the floor, where the dark liquid continued to pool and spread, and then back at me. “But you already know that, don’t you?”

     Before I could respond, there was a sudden hiss—a release of pressure from somewhere above. I looked up just in time to see a valve burst on one of the old pipes, sending a jet of steam cascading down into the room. The cloud spread out, thickening the air, making it difficult to see. I stumbled back, blinking against the haze, my throat burning from the taste of ether that clung to the mist.

     Through the shifting steam, I saw Achilles move. He stepped forward, his figure wavering like a reflection on water, and for a moment, I thought he was coming toward me. But then he stopped, his gaze fixed on something just past my shoulder.

     I turned and saw it too—a trap, crudely set with wires and rusted springs, rigged to the base of an old press. It was smeared with the same dark liquid that coated the floor, and I realized then that it had been arranged to catch anyone who wandered too close. A weepy trapper’s trick, something desperate and half-baked, but effective in its own grim way.

     Achilles gave a faint, dismissive laugh. “Someone’s been busy,” he murmured. “But not busy enough.”

     I heard a metallic snap, and suddenly, one of the wires gave way. The old press shifted, groaning under its own weight, and I felt the ground tremble as the whole contraption began to collapse. I dove to the side just as the machine came crashing down, hitting the floor with a wet, sickening thud, sending up a spray of that viscous liquid in all directions.

     When I looked up, Achilles was gone. The steam was thinning, dissipating into the cold air, and there was no sign of him anywhere in the room. The only sound was the slow drip of liquid pooling beneath the fallen press, mingling with the dust and debris.

     I stood up, my legs unsteady, and glanced back toward where I’d seen Madeleine. But there was nothing—no trace that she’d ever been there at all, no sign that any of this was real. It was as if the whole scene had been conjured from the darkness and then swallowed back into it, leaving me standing alone in the damp silence of the abandoned printworks.

     But I knew better. I had seen her, even if only for a moment, and that meant she was still out there, somewhere. Achilles hadn’t won yet. There were still too many questions unanswered, too many things left to be found.

     I took a step toward the door, the cold air brushing against my skin like a warning. The path ahead was still dark, but I could feel it—something was shifting, the pattern was breaking, and whatever lay beyond would soon come into the light.

   Next chapter