Lira woke to the smell of burnt toast and the faint hum of the refrigerator.
For a moment, she wasn’t sure what day it was. Her room looked the same—same pile of clothes on the chair, same stack of homework on the desk—but her chest felt heavy, like she’d been holding her breath all night.

The bell. Two chimes.

It was almost easier to believe she’d imagined them… until she remembered the way her name had been in the whisper.

Downstairs, her mother had the radio on low. Lira poured herself a glass of water, trying to ignore the flicker of unease in her stomach.

“…breaking news out of Greystone,” the announcer’s voice said. “Local resident Patricia Weaver was found dead in her home early this morning. Authorities say—”

The glass slipped in Lira’s hand, clinking hard against the counter.

Patricia Weaver. The name meant nothing to her, but the timing made her skin crawl.

Her mother turned the volume down. “Don’t listen to that before school, Lira. It’s depressing.”

But Lira couldn’t unhear it.

On the walk to school, she passed the diner. Two old men hunched in the corner booth, their voices muffled through the glass. “…the night all the clocks went backward…” one was saying. The other shook his head. “Don’t start with that again.” Lira didn’t linger—just shoved her hands deeper into her pockets and kept moving.

She found Ezra at his locker before first period, eyes shadowed from lack of sleep. He didn’t waste time on greetings. “Did you hear?”

“Yes.”

“Details are sketchy,” he said, lowering his voice, “but if the tower rang yesterday at four-thirty, we’re already nine hours into the window.”

Ryke strolled up behind them, eating a granola bar. “You two realize how insane you sound, right? Correlation isn’t causation, or whatever.”

“Then explain this,” Ezra said, thrusting his phone at him. On the screen was a photo of the dead crow from last night—except now, zoomed in, Lira could see faint markings etched into the strip of metal in its beak.

Letters.

Ryke squinted. “That says… L?”

“Not just L,” Ezra said grimly. “It says Lira.”

Lira’s first instinct was to laugh. To point out how ridiculous it was that a dead bird could be carrying a scrap of metal with her name on it. But the sound wouldn’t come.

Her name was there. The letters were faint, worn down by time and something sharper than weather.

“Could be another Lira,” Ryke said with a shrug that was too forced. “It’s not like your name’s that rare.”

Ezra gave him a look. “In this town, it is.”

The hallway chatter swelled as students rushed to first period. Lockers banged. Someone dropped a binder and swore. It was all too normal for what Lira was holding in her head.

She shoved the phone back at Ezra. “Delete it.”

“What? No—”

“Delete it,” she said, sharper this time. “I don’t want my name floating around in your little cursed evidence folder.”

Ezra’s mouth pressed into a thin line. But he pocketed the phone.

By lunch, the news about Patricia Weaver was everywhere. No one could agree on how she died—heart attack, fall, “weird gas leak” according to one sophomore who clearly wanted attention.

Lira picked at her sandwich in the corner of the cafeteria. Ezra sat across from her, a stack of photocopied articles beside his tray. One of the pages at the bottom was a brittle, yellowed newspaper clipping with a headline so faint she almost missed it: BELL RINGS AFTER HALF A CENTURY — FOUR DEAD IN A WEEK. Ezra kept it face-down, like he didn’t want her to see it yet.

Ryke wandered over mid-bite of an apple and dropped into the seat next to her.

“Update,” Ryke said. “Patricia Weaver lived alone. No kids, no spouse. If the curse is real, it didn’t exactly pick the most dramatic target.”

Lira shot him a glare. “A woman’s dead, Ryke.”

He raised a hand in mock surrender. “I’m just saying, if we’re in a horror movie, the stakes aren’t—”

“That’s the thing,” Ezra cut in. “The stakes are higher. The bell doesn’t care if you’re important. It just… chooses.”

Lira swallowed. “And you think I’m next.”

Ezra didn’t answer. Which was answer enough.

The final bell of the day found them loitering near the back of the library, away from the noise of the main hall. Callen was there before they arrived, leaning against a shelf of dust-coated reference books.

Lira noticed he was standing near the window that faced the tower. When the floor above them creaked faintly, he tilted his head—like he was listening to something beyond the building.

“You have about six hours,” he said, as if commenting on the weather.

Lira stared at him. “Excuse me?”

“That’s when the window closes. If the bell claimed her,” he tilted his chin.”

Ryke laughed, short and humorless. “Right, because that’s easy.”

Callen’s gaze didn’t waver. “It’s easier than outrunning it.”

They didn’t talk about how they ended up outside the bell tower again, but as the sun slid behind the hills, the four of them stood at its base. The chain was back on the gate, the padlock shut tight—as if it had never fallen open the night before.

Ezra shook it. “We’ll never make it in time without—”

Click.

The lock dropped into his hand.

Ryke stepped back. “Okay, nope. We’re not pretending that’s normal.”

Lira’s pulse thudded in her ears. The metal was cold against her fingers as she pushed the gate open.

Inside, the dust seemed thicker than before, clinging to their shoes, swirling in the beam of Ryke’s flashlight. The carved word LISTEN was still on the first step—but now it was joined by another, gouged deeper into the stone.

RUN.

A sound bloomed above them—low, metallic, and close.

The bell.

Not once. Not twice.

Three times.

The air shuddered with each toll. By the third, Lira’s knees felt weak, her skin prickled with static, and something in the shadows above moved.

Something that wasn’t part of the tower.