“They say you can find anything that’s lost,” she said.

Lira cried. Sparx offered her a handkerchief woven from fog.

The path he found led through the Hushwood, a forest where sound went to die, across the Echo Marshes (where every footstep repeated a year later), and finally to the Cradle of Stillness—a cave where lost emotions pooled like rainwater.

“What do I owe you?” she asked.

Lira held out her hand. In her palm lay a single bronze gear, no bigger than a thumbnail. “My brother’s laugh,” she whispered. “It fell out of the world three winters ago. He hasn’t smiled since.”

Inside the cave, Sparx found the laugh. It was a small, golden orb, dimmed but still warm. He cupped it in his hands, and for a moment, he heard it: a bubbling, hiccupping sound, full of surprise and joy.

Down in the town, Lira’s brother, sitting by a cold hearth, suddenly snorted. Then giggled. Then laughed so hard he fell off his chair.