L I R A

The chapel smells like candlewax and dust, heavy enough to choke. Every student’s crammed into stiff uniforms and pews, pretending the heritage ceremony is tradition instead of a funeral rehearsal.

The headmistress calls it “remembrance.” My ribs call it a countdown.

Sister Margo glides past with hymnals, eyes snagging mine for a beat too long. The air chills like she left frost in her wake.

Ezra sits beside me, posture perfect. His arm doesn’t touch mine, but the warmth of him does. “The front row’s safer,” he murmurs. His voice is steady, like safety can be planned.

Across the aisle, Callen leans in the shadows, hood low. Not supposed to be here, but he’s always where the toll hums loudest. Our eyes lock, and the pull snaps taut, no words needed.

The choir twins sit two rows up. Alma clutches Vio’s wrist, guarding the strip like it’s both shield and blade. One. The number echoes inside me.

The organ groans awake. The hymn starts, but the notes bleed sharp, a dissonance coiled under the melody. Students sing on cue, but half the words warp, blurred into something not holy.

Behind the stained glass, crows peck at the seams. Tink. Tink. Tink.

I try to sing. My voice cracks.

The resonance spikes. Not music, something under it. My ribs ache; my skull vibrates. Frost crawls the chapel walls, words etching faint in the candlelight.

LISTEN.

I freeze. The twins lift their pitch pipe, voices threading harmony to stall it. Noor grips her tuning fork, calculating frequencies under her breath.

But the hymn swells louder, the counter-note falters, and frost keeps spreading.

And the ledger keeps writing.

The hymn swells too loud, drowning in its own echo. My breath stumbles with it, chest clamped in a rhythm I can’t escape.

The twins rise, voices cutting sharp through the chaos, harmony pitched like glass about to shatter. Noor scrambles closer with her tuning fork, muttering numbers like prayers. The hum vibrates my bones. For a second, the frost stutters.

Then it claws back harder. Letters gouge across the chapel floor, jagged and merciless.

DUE.

I lurch up, heart pounding. Ezra’s hand catches my wrist. “Stay here.” His voice is iron, steady, as if control could hold the walls still. But it’s not working. The resonance isn’t obeying him.

It’s obeying someone else.

Across the aisle, Callen moves. He’s not singing, not even pretending, just pushing through rows until he’s at my side like the space was built for him. Ezra tenses, jaw set, but Callen doesn’t look at him. His storm-gray eyes find me, and suddenly the toll inside me has a face.

“You can’t fight it here,” he says lowly, only for me.

“Then where..?”

His hand closes over mine before I finish. Not rough, not soft. Final. The warmth is shocking, a tether against the cold flooding the chapel. The pitch pipe wails, Noor’s fork hums wrong, and I know in my marrow this counter-chime is going to fail.

The frost veers toward the pews. Students shriek as the candles gutter out in rows. Ezra’s still gripping my arm, but Callen pulls me the other way, steady, magnetic.

We stumble into the side alcove, half-hidden from the stage. The sound is worse here, closer, pressed into stone walls. My pulse hammers to match it.

Callen leans in, his breath threading with mine. “Lira. Focus on me.”

I do. I can’t.

The frost halts for a single heartbeat. Just a breath. Like the curse itself is listening.

His hand lifts, knuckles grazing my cheek. The contact is feather-light, but my whole body jolts like it’s too much. His eyes flick to my mouth, dark and certain.

The hymn cracks around us. The counter-chime collapses in a squeal of broken harmony.

And I let him close the space.

His mouth finds mine, heat against cold, grounding me when the chapel tilts sideways. The kiss isn’t careful, it’s desperate, inevitable, like the toll itself demanded it. My ribs stopped aching for the first time all night.

The frost freezes mid-spread, veins caught halfway through the stone.

For a second, I believe. Maybe this is the counter-chime. Maybe this is what stops it.

Then the ledger turns the page.

I hear it before I see it, the low scrape of ink across iron-bound paper, louder than the choir, louder than the bell. Names etch themselves in frost across the chapel floor, unstoppable.

The kiss breaks on my gasp. Callen pulls back just enough to look at me, breath ragged, jaw tight like he already knows what I’m realizing.

It didn’t stop.

The ledger never stopped.

The kiss leaves me shaking, breath sharp in the dark alcove. For a moment, I swear the frost froze because of us, because of him. But the hope dies fast.

The ledger doesn’t care.

Across the chapel floor, ink veers in fresh strokes, curling across stone like veins alive with frost. The words write themselves, ruthless and steady. Names. New ones. Each letter gouged deep enough to glow.

Students cry out, pressing closer to the exits, but the doors don’t open. Crows hammer at the stained glass, tapping in threes, like they’re cheering the ledger on.

Ezra’s voice cuts through the panic. “It’s still writing!” His tone is fury wrapped in precision, aimed less at the curse than at me, at what he just saw.

I can’t answer him. My mouth still tastes like Callen, heat and iron, impossible to separate. Callen hasn’t moved from my side, shoulders squared like he’ll fight the frost itself if it comes for me.

The ledger flips another page. The sound is a snarl through the chapel, a scrape that rattles my teeth. Ink blossoms fast across the stone:

DUE / MANY.

The words crawl under my skin. This isn’t one name, one toll. It’s a debt coming all at once.

Callen grips my wrist tighter. “It’s not done,” he mutters, low, meant only for me.

I know he’s right. The counter-chime failed. The ledger’s still hungry. And the kiss. Our kiss, didn’t save anyone.

If anything, it just told the curse exactly where to strike next.

The choir collapses into silence, their hymn strangled mid-note. The frost recedes just enough to leave the chapel in a suffocating stillness, like the curse is holding its breath.

Then Sister Margo moves.

She doesn’t look shaken like the rest of us. Her steps are steady, her face lit too bright by candlelight. Calm.. no, exultant. Like this was the hymn she wanted all along.

“Remain in your seats,” she says smoothly, though the doors are already locked. Her voice carries through the rafters like another toll. “Heritage is not just memory. It is proof.”

She kneels at the altar rail, fingers trailing across the carved wood. Then, with a sharp twist, she presses at the base. The wood groans, splitting to reveal a hidden drawer.

Gasps ripple through the students.

Inside: strips. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. Metal edges stacked like coins, each name etched deep in frost.

The air drops ten degrees.

Ezra’s hand clenches on the pew, fury radiating off him. Callen’s grip on me tightens like he’ll drag me out before I see more. But I can’t look away.

Because on top of the pile, half-buried in ice, is a strip stamped with a name I recognize.

Not mine.

Not Ezra’s.

Not Callen’s.

But someone I swore the ledger had already taken.

My stomach twists. If that’s true, then no one’s ever really gone.