Stormglass Descent

Wind slammed the tower panes as the funnel roared down the narrow street, and I felt the whole room hum like a giant brass throat singing danger into the air. Candleflames leaned in one sweeping bow, their light sliding across the orrery’s spinning rings so the gears seemed to taste the storm with each metallic shiver. I remembered the afternoon Vojta traced constellations on that same chart, promising the sky would someday answer us, a memory now fluttering against the cracked window alongside the drifting ash. At the edge of my vision, reflections multiplied—maps trembling, pendulum swaying, rooftops collapsing—threads happening at once, stitched together by the tornado’s growling spiral. A child might say the tornado sounded blue, or that the shaking floor smelled like cold iron; I let that blend guide me as I stepped closer to the broken glass for a better look. The question scrawled in the fog—Where Vojta?—glimmered as if breathing, and no sign below offered any settling truth. He stays unfound in this rushing moment.