It said it slow, like it was trying the word on. It sounded like someone right behind her and also like no one was near her at all. It did not care about walls.

Her body went very still. Her hands lay flat on the blanket. She did not turn her head. She looked at the ceiling like it held an answer.

She knew, in the sudden way that some truths arrive, that she was not the only one hearing it. Ezra was in his room with books on the floor and notes on his desk, and he was hearing his name. Ryke was in his room with the posters and the broken lamp and the mess he called a system, and he was hearing his name. Callen was wherever Callen went at night, and he was hearing his name, if he heard in the way he said he did.

Lira breathed in and out. She tried to count like Callen did. In. Two. Three. Out. Two. Three. Her chest shook anyway.

She waited for a third chime. It did not come. The night outside her window seemed to lean closer. The fog held. The streetlight on the corner buzzed once. It stayed on.

Her phone buzzed. She flinched. She made herself reach for it.

Ryke: did u hear that

Ezra: yes

Lira: yes

Callen: yes

The word sat on the screen four times in a row. It did not make her feel better.

Another sound moved through the room. It was faint. It was a scrape, like a soft metal drag. It came from under everything else. It could have been the heat coming on. It could have been nothing. She did not think it was nothing.

She got up and crossed to the window. She pressed her hands to the glass. The cold bit her palms. She looked down at the street. Fog hid the road and showed it, hid it and showed it. She could not see anyone. She could not see anything move. She could not prove the sound had anywhere to go.

She stood there until her legs went tight. She went back to the bed and sat, not lying down. She did not want to close her eyes. She did not want to see black water and faces looking up through it. She looked at the desk lamp. She kept her eyes on the light.

Her phone buzzed again.

Ezra: We meet before dawn. Old gazebo. Bring anything strange you find. Don’t go out alone.

Ryke: copy

Callen: Don’t answer if it calls your name again.

Lira stared at that last line. Don’t answer. As if this was a phone call. As if this was a door. Maybe it was. She typed and erased. She typed again.

Lira: What happens if you do?

There was a long pause. No dots. No reply. Then, finally:

Callen: It gets your voice right. Then it gets the rest of you right.

Lira turned the phone face down. She let out a breath she had not noticed she was holding. It did not make her feel lighter.

She checked the clock. Midnight had tipped past. The red numbers held steady for once. She wanted to trust that. She put her feet under the blanket and pulled it up to her waist. She sat against the headboard and watched the light on the wall.

The scrape did not come back. The chime did not come back. Her name did not come back. The quiet felt thin, like it might split.

Lira thought of the carved words on the tower steps. LISTEN. RUN. And the new one Callen had said would show up when the bell wanted payment. PAY. She hated those words. She hated that they were orders.

She closed her eyes for a second. She opened them. She was still here. The room was still a room. The tower was still a tower. The bell was still a bell. Those facts were small. Tonight, small facts felt like anchors.

She pictured Ezra in the gazebo with a stack of messy notes and a plan he would try to make from nothing. She pictured Ryke with his jokes that worked and the ones that did not, keeping himself brave. She pictured Callen with his hood up, listening to the part of the night that other people did not hear.

She did not picture the shape on the tower wall. She did not picture the seam of silver the air made when it felt thin. She did not picture a door.

She pressed her palms together. She did not pray. She did not know how.

She whispered once, to the empty room, to try out a rule in her own voice. “I hear you,” she said softly. “But I don’t answer.”

The room did not change. The fog lay still against the glass. The streetlight hummed. Somewhere far off, a siren cried and then stopped.

Lira kept her eyes open until they closed on their own. She did not sleep well. She slept like somebody holding on.

The night did not ring again. It did not need to. The sound inside her bones was enough to carry into morning.