Moonlight seeped through the prison wagon's azurite-crusted bars. Each rotation of Alyssa's cogwheel shackles resonated with Layne's heartbeat in her spine. She rammed her knee against the wall, splinters piercing flesh as Moonflare hatchling escaped pores, burning sulfur pathways through fetid air.
"Save your strength, half-breed." The guard's silver-toed boot cracked her ribs. Shackles reversed, metal barbs flaying forearm skin. Blood droplets slithered across the floorboards toward desiccated stains—former brides' blood forming fragmented Wolf Mother invocations.
Alyssa's molars burned. Layne's tracking sigil vibrated pain into encoded signals. Feigning unconsciousness, her heel scraped rotten oak panels—carvings of the erased Wolf Mother emerged through blood, fangs and mechanical wings resurrected.
"Entertaining yourself?" The guard yanked her collar. His silver cross ignited Layne's cardiac tremor. Alyssa bit her tongue, spewing Moonflare-tainted blood. Flame hawk shattered his breastplate, revealing Evelyn's family crest embroidered inside—guillotine entwined with roses.
Shackles partially fractured. Alyssa carved the walls with broken chains, each laceration echoing three-century-old screams. Wolf Mother's execution sigils glowed as she etched matching patterns. Moonflare shifted gunmetal-silver, phoenix wings exposing the guard's wax-melted corpse with cybernetic organs.
"Caught you." Layne's voice issued from the corpse's vocal cords, mechanical eye projecting footage—Kane assaulting the lab, coordinates matching her blood sigils. Her brand turned icy as shackles reassembled, torque adjusted to impale her scapulae.
Blood sigils activated. Moonlight tore the canvas roof, holograms materializing: Wolf Mother birthing mechanical tentacles on a gear altar, Layne holding the same pocket watch.
"Bonus feature." Shackle injectors pumped neurotoxin. "This is Shadowclaw's true..."
Moonflare mutated. Transparent phoenix wings absorbed toxins, beak clutching her sigil-embedded molar—countdown three seconds slower than Layne's watch. She ground the tooth into chain dust, igniting azurite-sigil fusion flames that scorched 3D astral charts onto walls.
The guard's mechanical arm convulsed. Alyssa wrenched off a silver-alloy finger bone, stabbing her collarbone brand. Rejection visions struck—childhood memories of Father's Immortal Codex missing page beneath the floorboard, depicting Layne gifting the watch to Wolf Mother in nun's habit.
"So you're all..." She coughed gear-studded black blood. Phoenix dive-bombed her pupils. Agony vaporized the wagon, shackles melting into liquid silver tracing her sigils mid-air, completing Wolf Mother's hymn.
Layne's projection glitched. Cardiac overload alarms interfered with her spinal gear resonance. Blood sigils self-replicated along fissures toward the lab, each searing three-centimeter glyphs.
"Return gift sufficient?" She licked silver slurry, Moonflare rewiring neural pathways. "Tell Evelyn..."
The wagon exploded. Plunging into subterranean rivers, Alyssa glimpsed Mother's face on the opposite cliff—lips mouthing ciphers as Layne's watch reset to zero.