The Girl crouches and reaches out, her fingers trembling just above the nearest bone. The breathing darkness holds still — she feels it, like a room going quiet. Her fingertip grazes the bone and she expects cold, expects brittleness. Instead it is warm, and so smooth it feels worn by something closer to reverence than time. The moment she makes contact, the thin column of water stutters — not stops, but catches, like a gasp — and a sound rises from the basin: a single clear note, high and sweet as a struck bell, that lingers in the dark long after it should have faded. Ember Fox presses its warm flank against her ankle. Above them both, in whatever unseen height the water falls from, something shifts with a dry, deliberate rustle. Feathers.