The third toll faded into the stone. The sound sank away like water down a drain.

Lira gripped the iron railing. Her hands hurt, but she did not let go. The air felt cold against her face. It smelled like dust and old metal.

Ezra swept his flashlight across the tower wall. The beam shook a little in his hand. The light caught a shape. It moved along the inner stone like a shadow that was too thick to be a shadow. It slid, not walked. It was too smooth to be a person. It was too solid to be smoke.

“Tell me I’m not seeing that,” Ryke whispered.

No one answered him.

The thing paused just outside the full circle of light. Its edges were blurry. It looked like the dark was wrapped around it. Then it moved again. Fast. It spiraled up the stairs toward the bell. The sound it made was wrong. It was a light scrape, like metal touching stone. Under that scrape was another noise, low and soft, almost like a voice that did not want to be heard.

Ezra took a step after it.

“Are you insane?” Lira hissed. She grabbed his sleeve and pulled him back.

“If it’s connected to the bell—” Ezra began.

“That’s exactly why we don’t follow,” Ryke said. His voice cracked on the last word.

Callen had already stepped toward the stairwell. He stared up into the dark. “It’s not ready for you yet,” he said.

Lira felt a cold line run down her back. “What does that even mean?” she asked.

Callen did not answer.

The scrape came again. Closer. Ezra’s flashlight flickered once like a blink. The air felt heavy in Lira’s throat. Her mouth tasted like iron.

They started down. No one ran. No one turned their back on the stairs. The scrape followed them for ten steps, then twenty, then more. The noise kept pace. Pull. Drag. Pull. Drag. Then it stopped, sudden, like someone had lifted a needle off a record. The silence felt too loud.

They reached the ground level. Fog sat inside the open doorway like low smoke. The iron gate swung slowly on its own. It closed with a faint sway. The old padlock latched. The click was small. It sounded like a choice.

Ryke forced a laugh. “Yeah,” he said. “Totally normal.”

Ezra looked up at the bell. They could barely see it through the square mouth of the tower. The bell was only a darker shape in the dark. “We are running out of time,” he said.

No one spoke for a while. They crossed the quad. Their shoes made soft sounds on the wet grass. The fog pressed around their legs. Lira kept her eyes forward. She did not want to look back.

“So,” Ryke said at last. He tried to sound casual. He did not succeed. “Shadow-thing in the tower. Scale of one to ‘we die horribly.’ Where does that land?”

“Somewhere between both,” Ezra said. He spoke without humor. He turned his head, listening. “Do you hear that?”

Lira heard it. At first she told herself it was the wind. The sound came again. Scrape. Scrape. Scrape. It was the same metal-drag they had heard on the stairs. But they were not in the tower now. They were out in the open.

The fog behind them shifted. It looked like someone was pushing a hand through it. Lira tightened her grip on the strap of her bag.

“Keep walking,” she said.

They kept walking.

By the time they reached Main Street, the sound had faded. The night felt thicker anyway. Streetlights buzzed with a high, thin note. Lira’s arm hair stood up. The bakery window faced the street. The display clock inside ticked and then jerked backwards and then forward again. It was slow, then fast, then slow. It looked like it was trying to get back to the right time and failing.