The toll still reverberated.It rolled through the chamber like a quake, shaking the chains overhead until they screamed against their hooks. The floor pulsed with spirals of light, radiating outward from the stone pedestal in the center.Eli’s ears rang, his vision blurred. He stumbled but didn’t fall. His gaze was locked on the thing before him.The ledger.Bound in skin, inked with blood, alive with whispers.It shifted when he looked at it, its cover twitching as though something underneath were trying to escape. The spirals etched into its flesh pulsed in rhythm with the bell above, each one dragging at his vision like a whirlpool.His name burned on its surface.ELIAS KINGSTON.The letters flared, molten white, brighter than any others. The light clawed at him, demanding his attention.Behind him, Lena whispered, “It knows you.”Caelan gritted his teeth. “No. It’s claiming him.”Callum stumbled forward, drawn like a moth to fire. His face was ashen, his marked palm glowing faint

The eleventh toll hadn’t been subtle.Every stone, every tower, every hidden chamber of Crestborne shook with its weight. When the twelfth followed, the world itself seemed to hold its breath.Students fled the lecture halls in waves, screaming as chandeliers shattered and bookshelves toppled. Professors shouted over the chaos, trying to herd them toward exits that themselves buckled under unseen pressure.Outside, the sky had changed.A spiral of storm clouds swirled over the main spire, black threaded with veins of red lightning. The winds keened with a voice too sharp to be natural. Even the ravens that haunted the rooftops of Crestborne scattered, crying in agitation as though sensing the return of something ancient.Marian Thorne, Headmistress of Crestborne, hadn’t run.When the first cracks tore through the Great Hall’s marble floor, she had already known what it meant. She stood in the collapsing chamber with her staff of ash and iron, eyes locked on the storm clawing its way i

The chains struck like snakes.Eli barely had time to raise his arm before one coiled around his wrist, burning cold against his skin. Another snapped around his ankle, dragging him forward with inhuman force.Lena lunged, her knife flashing. She sliced through the air toward the masked figure closest to her, but the blade bounced off the chain like it had struck stone.The figure tilted its head without a word. Another chain lashed out, wrapping Lena’s torso. She gasped, the knife clattering to the floor as she was yanked off her feet.The Collectors didn’t move. They stood in a ring around the chamber, jaws gnashing, eyes hollow. They weren’t attacking. They were… waiting. Watching.The leader of the masked figures stepped forward. His mask was darker than the others, carved with a single serpent’s eye across its surface. The chains in his hands pulsed faintly with red light.“The debtor,” he said, his voice echoing strangely, layered with tones that weren’t human. “And his witness.

The Crest was too quiet.When Eli and Lena emerged from the east wing, dust still clinging to their clothes, the air outside felt wrong. The night was cool, but sharp — every breath tasted like metal, like the residue of lightning.They crossed the threshold into the quadrangle and stopped.Every light in the academy had gone out. Dorm windows, the library’s lanterns, even the towers where lamps usually glowed — all black. Only the moon lit the courtyard, and even it looked dimmer, its pale face veiled.Lena shivered. “Where is everyone?”Eli scanned the open lawns and the long stone paths. Not a single student. Not even the usual patrol of Watchers. The quadrangle was a dead stage, and the silence pressed in so heavily it felt like being underwater.“They know,” he said quietly.Lena turned to him, hair still matted with dust. “Know what?”“That I woke it up. That the thirteenth toll wasn’t just an echo. The whole place is listening now.”The cube pulsed once in his jacket, as if in

The first crack of the bell split the night like lightning through stone.It wasn’t just sound. It was force. The quadrangle trembled, fissures crawling across the flagstones as if the ground itself recoiled from the noise.Eli doubled over. The serpent’s eye on his palm yawned open so wide it nearly consumed his hand. His blood sang in rhythm with the toll — not his heartbeat anymore, but something older, heavier.The Collectors didn’t flinch. They dropped to their knees as one, arms lifted toward the bell tower. The clicking of their jaws turned frenzied, faster than human tongues should move, until it was no longer sound but a vibration in the air.Lena fell beside him, clutching her ears. “Eli, make it stop!”“I can’t—” The words tore out of him raw. “It’s not me. It’s them!”The bell tolled again.And the world bled.At first Eli thought it was his eyes, but no — the air itself had thickened, black lines spidering through the night sky like ink dropped in water. The quadrangle bl