“Mara Quin,” Lira repeated.

Ryke made a face. “The newspaper girl? Student council, yearbook photos—that Mara?”

“She’s good at making people talk,” Ezra said. “She asks questions that sound like favors.”

They all knew her. Not closely—but as part of the machine that ran smoothly when everything else squeaked. Lira remembered clear eyes, an easy smile, the camera always slung across one shoulder.

“She won’t believe us,” Ryke muttered. “Why would she?”

“Belief isn’t required,” Callen said. “Attention is.”

“Is she alive?” Lira asked.

Callen tilted his head like he was listening to the fog breathe. “For now. Her name is fresh.”

Ezra crouched beside her, close but not touching the strip. “The ledger shows who’s marked. Not where they are.”

“It means she was claimed,” Lira said, “not taken.”

Ezra nodded. “Exactly.”

The crow above them dropped to the sidewalk. It landed on the white chalk line—that line. Walked it like a tightrope. One step. Two. Three.

Then it stopped and looked back.

Ryke groaned. “Of course. The bird wants us to cross the obvious magic trap line. Great storytelling, bell.”

“Long way,” Ezra said again. “We follow—but we don’t obey.”

They moved along the curb, staying outside the chalk’s border. The line bent where the sidewalk cracked, but it bent too perfectly—like a machine accounting for the idea of a curve, not the ground.

The air shifted at the next corner.

Sound wrapped in gauze.
Streetlamps bloomed faint halos.
Lira’s breath fogged once—then not again, like the cold had forgotten how.

“Edge,” Callen said, even though no one had stepped forward.

Ezra lifted the recorder like a shield. “Two minutes. Then two more points. If we can map it before the pocket—”

The bar’s radio from two blocks back cut off mid-chorus.

Not a fade. A sever.

The world took a breath and held it.

“Window,” Callen said.

Ezra’s voice tightened. “It’s early. It wasn’t supposed to open yet.”

“Supposed to?” Ryke hissed. “We’re using supposed to for haunted dimensions now?”

The chalk line at their feet blurred, then sharpened again. The crow lifted into the fog and flew—clean, fast, silent—to perch on a metal rail halfway down the block.

Lira watched it land.

And the thought dropped into her mind fully formed:

It’s leading us, yes.
But not only us.

“If Mara’s marked,” she said quietly, “the bell will bring her to the door it wants.”

“Or bring the door to her,” Ezra said.

The street shifted by half a degree. Not a tilt. An argument with gravity.

Lira felt it in her molars.

“Human noise,” Callen snapped. “Now.”

“How?” Ryke said, already rifling his pockets. “Want me to sing?”

“Please don’t,” Ezra muttered.

Lira clapped her hands, loud and sharp.
The sound vanished too fast—no echo, just a fade.

“Not enough,” Callen said.

He grabbed the bakery’s metal gate and shook it. The rattle was jagged. Honest.

The air resisted—then flexed. The lamp’s halo dimmed.

“Keep going,” Ezra said.

Ryke grabbed a trash can lid and banged it against the side. “Sorry, future me who hates noise. This is for science.”

They made noise like a band that couldn’t keep time: three beats, a pause, four more, then a stumble. Nothing smooth. Nothing repeatable. Nothing the bell could learn.

For a second, the street remembered how to be real.

Then footsteps came from the fog.

Light. Too steady.

One-two. One-two.

A rhythm Lira recognized in her bones—school hallways, camera strap thump, someone moving like they belonged.

“Mara?” Lira called. Not a shout. A test.

Silence answered.
Then:
“Hello?”

The voice was almost right. But the shape of it was wrong. Too even. Like it had been sanded smooth.

Ezra raised a hand. “Don’t—”

Lira stayed still. “Mara, it’s Lira Cross. Ezra Hale is here. Ryke Sato. And—” She left Callen’s name unsaid. You saved sharp edges where you could. “Don’t move yet. We’ll come to you.”

“Why?” the voice asked. Closer now. “I can’t see you.”

“Because the ground between us is wrong,” Lira said simply. “If you step where it looks easy, you’ll fall.”

A pause. Real this time. A person weighing fear against pride.

Then: “Okay.” The word hitched—finally human.

Callen exhaled. “Good.”

Fog rolled like a curtain.

And Mara stepped into view, in pieces—camera strap, sleeve, face.

Lira saw her.

Real. Rattled. Alive.

“Stay,” Callen ordered. He didn’t raise his voice—but it stopped Mara two steps short of the line.

Her eyes scanned their faces, landed on Ezra’s recorder. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to keep you out of something that wants you,” Ezra said. “Did you hear anything strange? A bell?”

Mara hesitated. “I heard my name. Twice. It sounded like—” Her voice cracked. “My mom. I followed it, then my phone died, and the air—” she shivered—“it felt padded.”

“Good,” Ryke said. “Not good-good. But good that you noticed.”

Callen pointed to the sidewalk between them. “There’s a line you can’t see. We’re going to hold it with rhythm. When I say, you step. Only then.”

Mara looked at Lira, not Callen. “Is he always like this?”

“Worse,” Lira said. “But trust him.”

Ezra opened the recorder app. “No loops tonight. It’ll learn too fast. One shot.”

“One choice,” Callen echoed.

Ryke flexed his fingers. “Okay, band, back at it.”

They set up.

Lira with the clapper fragment.
Ezra braced, eyes on the waveform.
Ryke with the lid.
Callen counting under his breath, a human metronome.

“In… two… three. Out… two… three…”

Lira tapped: three pings, pause, two more. Unbalanced. Imperfect.

Ryke’s crash was off-time. Ezra scraped the gate.
Callen didn’t add sound—just counted, steady and true.

The air between them puckered.
The chalk line shimmered.

“Now,” Callen said.

“Now,” Lira echoed.