Jedao had stopped after the first sentence and knelt to inspect the floor. It wasn’t as solid as it seemed, especially the more he stood still. The carpet decomposed into silvery cobwebs the longer he looked, and the air smelled suddenly of dust, decaying leaves, corroded metal. Beneath the carpet, the floor was composed of gears rotating with an unceasing heartless click-tick-tock. Beyond the ticking, he heard a sudden faint singing in a voice at once too high and too deep to be human. He was tempted to reach down and—
