It was as if the train had slipped into another world as it raced beneath the earth, the windows dimming until they showed only their reflections — six faces lit by amber light and unease.
Outside, darkness flexed like melted glass. Shapes darted past: spiky towers, arches thick with condensation, the impression of huge cogs wheeling in silence. The boundary between tunnel and city blurred, until it became impossible to tell where one started and the other stopped.
Then the lights brightened, and the smell of chocolate was almost overwhelming.
The train slowed. Through the mist on the glass, Nia saw a glow that seemed to emanate from the earth itself. The wheels shrieked, the whistle wailed once - a sound so low it shuddered in their chests - and the doors opened onto a platform paved with polished cocoa stone.
"Vellum Gate, " the conductor announced.
They had stepped out together, blinking against the light.
The first view of the city was not sweetness, but scale.
Great columns of sugar glass rose into the haze, their surfaces carved with swirling designs that caught the light like frozen rivers. Chocolate smoke drifted from distant towers; it smelled faintly burnt, almost metallic. Streams of caramel ran through channels cut into the streets. Above them, instead of open sky, an enormous dome of stained glass arched overhead — a shifting mosaic of amber and crimson that refracted the light like sunset trapped in syrup.
People moved through the streets below, dressed in fine coats dusted with cocoa powder. None looked up, though. Their movements were precise, mechanical —as if they were performing a routine they had done so many times before that it was beyond questioning.
Nia felt the back of her neck prickle.
"It's beautiful," Lina whispered.
"Wrong," muttered Tomas.
The conductor gestured to a set of carriages awaiting them near the gate. "You will be conveyed to the Confectioner's Hall," he said. "Mr. Vellum is eager to meet you."
Aya's head tilted. "How does he know we've arrived already?"
The conductor smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "He always knows.
The ride through the city was like going through a dream that could not decide whether it wanted to be sweet or sinister.
Children pressed their faces against the windows of chocolate shops, where molten truffles flowed through glass pipes. Mechanical birds sipped from fountains of cream. A carousel spun slowly in a square, its horses carved from sugar so fine that they trembled in the breeze.
But between those wonders were shadows.
At one point, the carriage went by a narrow street leading off into darkness; the air above it seemed to shimmer oddly, as if heat rose from the ground, but Nia noticed that nobody — not even the workers hauling sacks of cocoa — stepped near it. The lamps were blacked out along that road, and a faint humming sound drifted from within, low, rhythmic, like a heartbeat.
"What's that place?" she inquired of the driver.
He didn't answer, didn't even turn his head.
Felix smirked. "Probably workers' quarters. Every paradise needs a gutter to keep it running."
Tomas shot him a glare. "You don't know that."
Felix shrugged. "Just being practical."
Aya watched the dark street disappear behind them. "It didn't look like a place for anyone to live," she said softly.
The humming continued, faint even after they turned away.
At last, the carriage stopped in front of a great gate of sugar glass with iron filigree. Beyond it stood the Confectioner's Hall, a sprawling palace that seemed to breathe light. Thin sheets of liquid chocolate, poured over bone-white marble, shimmered along the facade.
The air was thicker here, warmer, almost stifling.
As the children descended, an entourage of pale assistants appeared, all garbed in cream-colored outfits, their gloves immaculate, their faces similar in their studied smiles.
"Welcome, honored guests," one said. "Please, this way. Mr. Vellum awaits."
They were led down a twisting corridor that glittered, its windows filled with impossible sights: upward-running rivers of chocolate, forests of sugar trees growing in perpetual dusk.
Nia's stomach knotted. Everything was too perfect, too still. Even the ticking of the clocks was synchronized, as if the city itself was keeping its own heart in time.
At the far end of the hall stood two tall doors, each with an inlaid picture of a cocoa pod, split open to show the golden heart within. These the attendants opened noiselessly.
Inside, the air shimmered with heat and scent.
And there, standing beside a pool of molten gold that might have been caramel, was Ambrose Vellum.
He was taller than any of them had expected. His coat was cut from fabric so dark it drank the light, his gloves white as porcelain. His hair was silver, not with age but with something like frost, and his eyes gleamed amber in the glow.
"Welcome," he said, and his voice was a slow pour of warmth and charm. "My special guests. My… chosen ones."
He smiled, and the room seemed to tilt just slightly.