C A L L E N

The bell always drags me where I don’t want to be. 

 But tonight it dragged me to her.

The hum claws through the room, a wire pulled too tight. Lira folds in on herself, and for a second I think the frost has already claimed her. My ribs lock, because I can feel it too, the resonance grinding through bone, gnawing at the bond in my chest.

I remember grown men standing at the fence line years ago, watching a toll shake the woods, and saying nothing. Adults have always known, and always stayed quiet.

Ezra gets to her first. Of course he does. His hands close around her like she’s breakable glass he can tape back together. His voice is steady, practiced, the kind of safety people believe in.

It won’t matter.
Safety doesn’t stop the toll.

I move before I think. My hand presses flat to her sternum, over the place where the sound is tearing her apart. Heat surges through the contact, wrong against the frost, but it steadies her pulse under my palm. She doesn’t even see me; her eyes are already glassing over.

Ezra’s glare cuts at me. “I’ve got her.”

No. He doesn’t. He can’t feel the pull the way I do, the iron thread tying her heartbeat to the bell’s next strike. He doesn’t know what it’s like to feel your body dragged by a sound no one else can hear.

“You don’t,” I growl. My voice comes out rough, like gravel in my throat. “Not from this.”

The ledger on the cart snaps shut, frost leaping across its cover. A flash burns through me, her name, etched deep like it was meant to be carved into me too. My chest aches with the echo of it.

She buckles. Ezra tries to hold her upright, but I already know staying here will kill her. The loft is the only place in this cursed building where the twins can hum a shield. Thin, fragile, but it’s better than letting the frost crawl into her lungs.

“She can’t stay here,” I bit out. Ezra starts to argue, but I don’t wait for permission. I scoop her up, her weight light and wrong against me. My pulse stutters in rhythm with the toll, dragging me toward the tower whether I want to go or not.

Every toll drags me.
But she’s the only reason I follow.

The stairs creak under my boots, dust loosening from the beams above as I carry her higher. Every toll pulls me up here eventually, but this time it feels different, like the bell dragged her too, through me.

Ezra shadows every step, his hand never far from her arm, like he doesn’t trust me not to drop her. The twins are already waiting at the top of the loft, pale faces framed in stained glass moonlight. Alma and Vio move like reflections, their eyes locking on Lira as if they knew she was coming.

“She won’t last if the frost gets in,” Alma says, voice flat as a note struck on piano keys.

Vio adds, “We’ll hold it back.”

Their mouths barely part, but when the hum starts, the air itself shifts. Two tones, razor-precise, weaving around each other. The frost edging the stained-glass window pulls away like mist repelled by heat.

I lower Lira against the railing. Her skin is still clammy, breath shallow, but her chest rises in rhythm with the twins’ harmony. My hand lingers on her shoulder longer than it should, unwilling to let go of the one anchor that makes sense to me.

Ezra crouches at her side, brushing a strand of hair from her face with a tenderness that makes my teeth clench. “She needs rest. Not this circus.”

He doesn’t get it. Rest won’t stop the toll. The frost doesn’t care about sleep or comfort. It only cares about debt.

The twins keep humming, eyes glassed over like the sound is running through them instead of from them. Their voices are the only thing holding the frost outside, and even that feels thin, like a soap bubble waiting to burst.

“Your shield won’t last,” I say, sharper than I mean to.

Alma flicks her gaze to me without missing a note. “It doesn’t have to last. It only has to stall.”

Ezra bristles. “Stall for what?”

No one answers, but I already know. For the bell. For the countdown. For whatever word it decides to etch next.

The hum rattles inside my ribs, almost in sync with the bond’s pull. Lira shifts against the railing, lashes fluttering. For one brutal second, her gaze catches mine. Groggy, unfocused, but she looks at me like she recognizes the tether between us.

It nearly undoes me.

Because Ezra is right there too, close enough to catch every breath, every brush of her hair. And yet her eyes found me first.

The twins’ hum threads thin as spider silk, barely holding the frost at bay. My body’s tuned to it, like the bell inside me wants to tear through their pitch and claim her anyway.

She stirs again, eyelids fluttering, and then she’s awake enough to push herself up against the railing. Ezra steadies her elbow. I hate that it looks easy for him, that he can touch her without fear of dragging her deeper into this curse.

Her gaze drifts to me. Not Ezra, not the twins. Me.

“Callen,” she whispers, my name breaking softer than the hum.

It shouldn’t matter. But it slams into me like the toll itself.

I step closer, slow, because I don’t want her to think I’m pulling. I don’t want to scare her with how much I need her to look at me like that again. My hand hovers near hers on the railing, not touching, but close enough I can feel the warmth bleeding from her skin.

Ezra shifts, ready to insert himself between us, but the loft groans with another tremor and he glances at the window instead. Just enough of a crack in his guard.

Her breath hitches. I see it, hear it, feel it.

Every instinct says don’t. She deserves safer, steadier. She deserves someone who isn’t bound by chains she can’t see.

But then she leans toward me. Not far. Just enough that I feel the space between us collapse into heat.

I mirror her, helpless. My hand brushes hers on the railing, skin to skin, electric. Her lips part like she’s about to say my name again, but no sound comes.

If I close the distance, it’ll be real. A choice I can’t take back.

Her eyes flick to my mouth. Mine dropped to hers.

And for one suspended heartbeat, nothing exists but the gravity pulling us closer. 

Then the frost shrieks.

The twins’ hum cracks for a split second, sharp as glass snapping. Frost veins lance across the stained-glass window, carving jagged letters into the surface. The whole loft shudders with the sound.

Lira jerks back, breath catching in fear. My hand slams against the railing instead of her waist. Too late.

Ezra surges forward, pulling her into his side like I’d just tried to drop her into the frost. His glare cuts at me, furious and raw. “Don’t.”

I don’t answer. I can’t. The frost is already finishing its message, pale letters burning white against the glass.

DUE / 1.

The sound of the tally carves through me. Not her name this time. Not mine. Just the number. One.

Time’s almost up.

The frost finishes its tally, the number so clean it might as well be carved into bone.

DUE / 1.

The twins’ hum falters, their voices cracking as blood beads at Alma’s nose. Vio clutches her sister’s hand tighter, forcing the harmony back together, but the shield is breaking.

One.

That’s all we have left. One toll. One breath. One chance before the ledger decides who it will take.

Ezra doesn’t let go of her. His arm stays locked around her shoulders, pulling her flush against him like proximity equals protection. His voice is steady when he says, “We move her out of here. Now.”

He sounds sure. He always does. But I can see the way his jaw trembles, the way his eyes keep flicking to the window like he’s trying to solve the pattern written there. He doesn’t see it. He can’t.

Because I feel it. The tether thrums in my chest like a second pulse, yanking me forward every time she breathes. The bell doesn’t just want her name. It wants her resonance through me.

And I’m the fool who lets it.

Her hand grips the railing, knuckles pale. Her voice is barely there when she whispers, “One what?”

Ezra starts to answer, but nothing he says will matter. My gaze locks on the frost, the way the number glows as if it’s listening to us, waiting for us to admit we know what it means.

“One left,” I say, my own voice low and final.

The loft groans again, timbers rattling like the whole tower’s spine is about to crack. Crows shriek outside, their wings beating the stained glass until feathers smear against the frost.

She should choose him. Ezra. Not because he can save her because  he can’t, but because he isn’t cursed down to the marrow. He isn’t chained to the toll like I am. Being near me only paints her brighter on the ledger’s page.

Her eyes widened, catching the reflection of it all, the shadows, frost, my hand still braced too close to hers. She looks at me like she wants an answer I can’t give. Not without ruining her.

I should tell her straight: stay away. That I’ll never be the safe choice. That I’ll never be free enough to love her the way she deserves.

But I don’t.

Because the truth is, when the frost carves its next word, when the bell tolls again, I already know I’ll put myself between her and the debt. Even if it drags me under for good.

The twins’ voices crack a second time. The shield shivers, thin as glass.

And outside the window, the frost pulses brighter, like the bell is waiting to strike.