L I R A

The world doesn’t end after something says your name. It should. But instead, everything just… slows.

I don’t remember moving, but suddenly I’m several steps away from Ezra and Callen, my palm braced against the cold wall like it’s the only thing keeping me upright. Frost dust melts on the tiles, retreating into nothing like it was never there. Students peek around doorframes, hushed and wide-eyed, trying to decide if whatever just happened is actually over. It’s not.

My ribs feel bruised from the inside. My breath stutters like it’s hitting sharp corners on the way out. There’s still a whispering pressure under my heartbeat, curled tight like a fist waiting to unclench inside me.

I squeeze my eyes shut, but it doesn’t help. The hallway looks… normal again. That’s what scares me. Horror shouldn’t reset this fast.

“Lira.”

Ezra’s voice. Too fast. Too close. His breath is unsteady like he didn’t realize I’d drifted away. His hands hover near my shoulders, then drop, like he wants to help but doesn’t know where it hurts.

“Why did you move away?” he asks quietly. “I just, I turned for a second, and..”

“I didn’t mean to,” I say. My voice sounds wrong. Thin. Like something scraped the edges off.

Ezra’s eyes flick down my frame, checking for damage, frostbite, cracks in my sanity, whatever category I fall into now. His worry should feel grounding. It doesn’t. It feels like a weight pulling at me. His hand rises toward my elbow like he wants to steady me. I flinch before I can stop myself. He drops his hand immediately, something in his expression fracturing. A group of juniors hover near the lockers, whispering not quietly enough.

“Was she the one in the circle?”

“I heard it carved a word at her feet.”

“Ezra and Callen both ran. Of course they did.”

“Maybe it wants her.”

Their eyes dart away when I glare, but the damage is done. Their words stick in my skin like splinters. I don’t know what I want more, an explanation, or for them to stop looking at me like I’m the next strip about to drop. A shift in the air makes my heart jerk.

Callen steps through the thinning crowd like he’s tracking something only he can see. His posture is tense, shoulders braced, steps measured the way they were right before the frost lunged. Students part for him instinctively, leaving a corridor straight to where I’m standing.

His eyes land on me, and something sharpens. A silent calculation. Worry, maybe. Or something heavier.

Ezra stiffens beside me, shoulders straightening in that protective way that feels like a boundary he’s drawing around me.

Callen stops a few feet away—close enough that I feel the colder pocket of air around him. He glances at the dissolving frost, then at Ezra. His jaw flexes.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he says quietly.

I hate how my pulse jumps at the sound of his voice.

Ezra shifts subtly between us—not a block, just a presence. A statement.

“She’s fine,” Ezra says, tone polite-but-not.

Callen doesn’t look at him. Not at first. His eyes stay on me.

“This hallway’s unstable after a strike,” he says. “The frost echoes.”

I swallow. “Echoes?”

A beat of silence. His gaze dips, then rises again.

“It tries again,” he says softly.

Ezra breathes out a sharp, frustrated sound. “Lira doesn’t need vague warnings.”

Callen finally meets his eyes. His expression stays unreadable, but the tension spikes like invisible wires tightened between them.

“She needs accuracy,” Callen murmurs.

Ezra’s jaw clenches.

And I’m standing between them, feeling something in my chest pull in two directions—one warm, one cold, both terrifying.

A shiver snakes down my spine.

The lights flicker once, twice. My breath fogs in front of me.

“No,” I whisper. “Not again.”

A thin crack of frost threads across the tile near Callen’s shoe.

Callen goes still.

The frost doesn’t spread outward this time. It moves… toward him. Or maybe toward me. It’s hard to tell, because the moment it reaches the shadow of his stance—it changes direction. Slides toward my feet like it found the true target.

But it’s not the same frost as before. This one is slower, deliberate. Each line forms with strange certainty, like it’s carving a message planned long before this moment.

Ezra grabs my wrist. “Lira, come on.”

“Wait.” I don’t recognize my own voice. Breathless. Pulled tight by something I can’t resist.

The frost curves into letters.

HEAR ME

The words glow faintly, pulsing once—soft but unmistakable.

My heart slams the inside of my ribs.

“Do you see that?” I whisper.

Ezra looks down, eyes darting over blank tile. “See what? Lira, what?”

Callen’s jaw tightens hard enough I hear the faint grind of teeth. His eyes flick to the message, then to me, and his whole posture shifts. Alert. Braced. Worried.

He sees it.

Of course he does.

The frost pulses again. A second heartbeat.

Then shatters into glittering dust.

Something tugs inside my chest the moment it disappears, like a thread snapping.

And I reach out.

I don’t think. I don’t choose. I just reach—straight for Callen.

He jerks back, reflex fast, but not fast enough.

Our skin brushes.

And the world hums.

A vibration bursts up my arm, warm and electric, sliding under my skin like a shockwave made of breath. It’s not a noise. It’s deeper—bone deep. A resonance that hits my ribs so hard my breath folds in on itself.

Callen inhales sharply, a small, quiet sound I’ve never heard from him. His eyes widen—not anger, not pain—recognition. Like he’s been struck by the same invisible thing.

I yank my hand back, but the connection lingers, humming between us like an afterimage.

Ezra saw.
Every second of it.

“What the hell was that?” he demands, voice cracking.

“I—I don’t know,” I whisper.

Callen swallows, eyes never leaving mine. Something unspoken flickers behind them.

Ezra steps in front of me, too fast, too close. “Why him, Lira?”

“Ezra..”

“You look at him like..” He cuts himself off, breathing jagged. “You don’t look at me like that. Ever.”

My stomach twists. “I’m not.”

“You are.” His voice softens in a way that’s worse than anger. “You’re not who I thought.”

The words stick in my throat. “Neither are you.”

He flinches like I hit him.

Callen’s gaze flicks away, jaw tight, like he’s giving me space even though the cold in the hallway is thickening again.

A breath of air drops to freezing.

Frost veins crackle across locker doors.

The curse reacts to emotion.
To mine.
To his.

Ezra steps closer again, but the frost ripples away from him—like the cold itself doesn’t want him near me. Like it recognizes something he doesn’t.

Callen watches it happen, eyes narrowing, calculating.

Ezra doesn’t notice. He’s too focused on me, on whatever he thinks he’s losing.

A metallic click goes off behind my ear.

I freeze.

Another click.
Then another.
Faster. Closer.

“Lira,” Callen warns, stepping toward me with a sudden urgency.

Ezra reaches out—but before his fingers touch me, a ring of frost explodes outward around my feet.

He hits the edge of it. Hard.

“Lira!”
The frost sparks where his palm meets it and rejects him, shoving him backward.

Callen approaches slowly, hands raised like he’s coaxing a wild animal—or stepping toward a bomb.

“Don’t move,” he says. “Lira, listen to me, don’t.”

But something cold and deliberate slides under my ribs again, curling around my heartbeat. Hear me. The voice isn’t a whisper this time. It’s inside me. I gasp, folding forward, trapped in the frost circle as it tightens like a snare.

Ezra’s shouting. Callen’s saying my name in a low, terrified tone that cracks something in me. But none of them can reach me. The frost at my feet begins carving again, fast, jittery strokes like it’s racing something unseen.

D
U
E

A slash.A curl. A final, trembling carve.

DUE / 0

The air thins.
Sound warps.
The circle tightens until I can barely breathe.

And just before everything tilts into white, a cold, intimate voice presses directly against my mind:

Lira.