And that is how Alice got a new mechanical body with ball joints. Despite mechanic's words about the terrible fate of dolls, after experiencing nothingness Alice was so delighted to feel the weight of a body again, to blink and to move her fingers, that she almost laughed — but dolls do not laugh.

Something white and light fluttered to the ground near Alice.

"Ah, so these are the wings I have to use for the flying machine?" Mechanic stared at them curiously. "It will not be easy to attach starlight and heartbeat to screws and gears. But I did collect and mend broken things all my life — this must count for something, right?"

While he was fiddling with his tools, connecting unconnectable, Alice was talking to Kira. The sword travelled to Amber City along with her, but the black horn remained on the shore, in dead hands of her discarded body, and now both sisters finally had mirrors. They were exchanging stories of what they learned in both worlds, and these stories fit together like puzzle pieces.

The machine was finished in an hour.

"Here is your ticket to freedom, little girl", the mechanic said.

But Alice soon realized her doll fingers were too weak and could not pull the levers.

"I will fly to the Beast's tower for you", Kira suggested.

Alice had no choice but to agree.

She held her sword in such a way that it caught the machine's reflection in full. In the blade, it looked small, like a toy. Kira carefully took it with finger and thumb and pulled the toy up. It was growing steadily and eventually retained its initial size — but in her world.

Kira was alive and so nothing could stop her from leaving the Island of Souls. She mounted the wondrous flying machine with beetle wings and headed for the clouds.

The mechanic looked at the reflection and followed her with his eyes, as she was growing smaller and smaller, disappearing into the sky.

"I would love to try flying on wings like these", he murmured. "But alas, I am not brave enough to be a hero."

"Perhaps you are a hero from another story?" Alice suggested. "Or you will become one someday..."

He shook his head uncertainly, but answered anyway:

"Thank you for thinking of me so highly."

"No, thank you. But I can not stay any longer. My sister is searching for the tower. This means I have to descend as deep as possible", Alice explained, remembering Lady Autumn's advice. "Do you know by chance the deepest and darkest place in Amber City?"

The mechanic thought for a minute, and then said:

"Yes, there is a place like that, on the outskirts of the city, near the Wall itself... It is called the Golden Garden. Have you heard about it?"

"But of course! Only it is not gloomy at all. The garden is beautiful, and golden leaves are rustling so sweetly as if they are singing..."

"Eh, did not you learn your lesson? A lot of things in Amber City are not what they seem. I doubt there is any place deeper than the well in the centre of that garden..."

When Alice got to the edge of the city and stepped through the arch under the golden dome of twisted branches, she found the garden quiet, aside from leaves softly rustling in the wind, and empty. For some reason, residents of Amber City did not like it here, but Alice was fascinated by serene duskiness of the place. When she visited last time, she stared for hours at elegant reflections of tree branches swaying in the wind, and lights were playing in the water like goldfishes... But today the well was mysteriously covered by a wooden lid.

With an effort, Alice pushed it away with her weak doll fingers and saw there was no water in the well, no golden lights. It looked like the well dried up a long time ago.

Alice lowered herself into the well and started making her way down, grasping at stone ledges in the walls. She went lower and lower until a small circle of light that was the well's mouth started seeming unbearably distant.

At the bottom of the well Alice found bones and a half-decayed cloth.

She did not know who died there and how many years ago, but her doll body shivered like a leaf in the cold wind.

"Kira", she whispered. "Where are you, Kira? I am scared."

*

Indeed, where did we leave Kira? On her way to a heroic deed, in a flying machine with beetle wings, somewhere among the clouds.

Right after she raised above them, the girl saw a sinister black figure on a horizon — the Beast's tower.

It was tall, very tall. Kira flew around it in a spiral, soaring higher and higher, and when she started thinking there will be no end to this ascending, the very top of the tower appeared before her eyes, its tip piercing the sky as a bony finger with a long claw. Kira noticed a ledge where she could rest her flying machine, and something similar to a door.

She landed rather clumsily, and fragile wings of the apparatus shattered from an impact, but at least the girl herself was left completely unharmed.

The door turned out to be closed. Kira recalled Alice having some kind of key. She took out the black horn and talked to her sister's reflection.

"Maybe that silver key you got from the Cat could fit this lock? Could you give it to me, as you did with the flying machine?" she asked. "Wait... did something happen? You have a strange expression..."

It looked like Alice's mechanical eyes were glistening with tears, but dolls do not cry, right? It must have been oil...

"Everything is alright. Put out your hand, and I will give you the key."

Her voice was so calm and steady that is deceived Kira for a precious moment. Kira reached out... Suddenly she understood her sister's intentions and tried pushing Alice's hand away, but it was too late. Thin doll fingers appeared to be much stronger than she thought. Two palms merged into one.

Kira's shoulder bumped into the hard stone wall in the well of Amber City. She hissed in pain.

"What is wrong with you?" Kira yelled angrily. "Do you honestly think you are any match for the Beast?"

"Sorry", Alice answered softly. "You are much a better fit for a heroic deed than me, but I need to see him and ask what happened. I have to."

"You will die, stupid..."

"I have no choice. Maybe I will... But no, it is not going to happen. We started all this only because I did not want to die. And you too. We both want to..."

Live, repeated an echo, and the word bounded from the stone walls.

Only then Kira realized that her darling sister left her in a trap with seemingly no escape. She tried climbing the wall, but her hands slipped, and she fell to the ground. Some kind of cloth broke her fall. Kira squinted. In this cloth, she saw old bones and bleak red strands of hair.

She figured this was what scared Alice, though Kira herself did not find some old bones scary at all. She saw things much worse in her own world...

After the fall something was poking at her side. Kira undid her jacket and took out a book she stole from the Wizard's library. She managed to forget about it already.

At that moment Kira recalled the conversation Alice had with Lady Autumn. "If you ever find yourself at a loss — remember about the books", she said.

Kira opened it and saw completely blank pages. Surprised, she gasped, but soon realized what to do with this book. She did not have a pencil or a quill to draw or write on these white pages, but she had the black horn. Kira prickled her skin with its sharp end. Blood pooled in her palm. Dipping the horn in her own blood, Kira drew a well and a passage within that well.

She looked around and saw that the passage appeared.

And she climbed in.

Kira had no idea where it led, she did not even know the well stood in the Golden Garden on the outskirts of Amber City, near the Wall, but for some reason she was confident this passage will lead her to freedom.