The bells did not ring the way they were meant to.
They were chapel bells—meant for hours and weddings, for funerals and festivals, for the slow, steady marking of days in a city that
liked to pretend time obeyed it.
Tonight, they screamed.
The first peal tore through the tower as a high, jagged sound that made John's teeth ache. The second came too soon, as if someone had grabbed the rope with both hands and yanked, not for rhythm, but for alarm.
Brian jerked awake in his cradle, eyes flying open.
The chalk stars flickered.
The hum in the walls went from steady to knife-edge.
John was already moving.
He rolled off the pallet, bare feet hitting stone, hand reaching for the sword he'd been pretending he didn't need beside the bed.
Doris sat bolt upright, heart thudding.
"Chapel," she breathed.
Dorothy was on her feet by the door before they'd finished the word, staff in hand, eyes gone hard.
"Stay," she snapped at Flint, who was halfway out of the chair, hair wild. "For now. If I need you, I'll shout."
"What's happening?" Flint demanded.
"Wrong hymn," Dorothy said, and yanked the door open.
The corridor outside was chaos in motion—wardens scrambling, students pressed against walls, one warden standing in the middle shouting, "Move with purpose, not with panic!"
The tower hum had changed in that particular way John now recognised: a distant wrongness, threaded with water and incense and old stone.
Chapel.
Underneath it, something else pulsed.
Sanctum.
He grabbed his boots with one hand and jammed his feet in as he followed Dorothy, Doris at his shoulder, Brian scooped up and clutched tight against her chest.
"Leave him here," John hissed.
She shook her head once, fiercely. "Not while the chapel and the sanctum are fighting," she said. "I'm not leaving him in a pattern I can't
feel directly."
Behind them, Flint hovered in the doorway, torn.
Dorothy spared him a glance. "Suite," she snapped. "Now. Lock. Listen. If the hum goes wrong in here, you hold this room or die trying."
Flint swallowed. For once, he didn't joke.
"Yes, ma'am," he said, and slammed the door.
The bell screamed again.
This time, there was something underneath the metal—an ugly, grinding undertone, like someone had carved cracks into the sound itself.
Doris flinched.
"That's wrong," she whispered. "That's not chapel."
"No," John said. "That's someone trying to teach the bell a new song."
They weren't the only ones running toward the trouble.
By the time they reached the main stair, Orane and two wardens had already joined the surge, armor half-buckled, hair damp with sweat.
"Where?" Orane barked at the nearest runner.
"Third Chapel!" the boy gasped. "Hymn took a turn, Rector says—"
"Move," Orane snapped, shoving past him.
Halvar met them one level down, chain crooked, eyes bloodshot, shirt half-tucked. He didn't look like he'd slept; John wasn't sure
he'd even tried.
"Good," Halvar said when he saw them. "You heard. Doriane, with me. John, on her hip. Dorothy, I want your staff on anything that hums wrong. Orane, you keep idiots from dying."
"Define 'idiots,'" Orane said.
"Anyone who's not in this corridor," Halvar replied.
They ran.
The tower's internal stair spat them out into a side hall that fed into the temple quarter.
The air changed as they neared the chapel district—grew thicker, laden with incense and old prayers and the faint, familiar chapel
resonance they'd been practicing with in the quiet room.
Except tonight, that hum was warped.
Not fully.
Not everywhere.
Just in patches—a wrong note woven into the hymn.
"Serais?" Doris gasped.
"Already there," Halvar said. "And angry. Stay behind me until we see what they've done."
They burst out into the small plaza before Third Chapel.
Normally it was a place of quiet—stone benches under a few gnarled trees, an alcove with a worn statue, candles in alcoves.
Tonight, the plaza was full.
Students.
Citizens.
Wardens trying to push both back.
The main chapel doors stood open, light and smoke streaming out. The bell rope flailed as if yanked by an invisible hand.
And from inside, over the bell's shriek, came a sound that made John's skin crawl:
A hymn.
Familiar.
Wrong.
The melody was an old one—he'd heard it in quiet room drills and on the road, hummed by caravan folk who had picked up the tune from city pilgrims.
But here, the notes had been twisted—intervals sharpened, cadences broken, the words slurred on certain lines to fit crack sigils instead of blessings.
Serais stood in the doorway, robes askew, hair mussed, blocking the entrance with both arms.
"Not that verse!" he shouted into the smoke. "Skip it! Skip it!"
Inside, voices stumbled.
Someone screamed.
"Move," Halvar snapped, and warded through the crowd like a knife through cloth.
Orane flanked him, one hand on her sword, the other on her belt, ready to drag anyone back from the threshold.
Dorothy slammed her staff down once, and the nearest gaggle of students scattered instinctively, memories of being smacked in training making way before conscious thought.
Doris clutched Brian closer and followed.
The chapel's interior was a blur of stone and light and bodies.
Candles guttered in high racks.
Incense smoke rolled like fog.
People knelt in the pews, some still trying to sing, some clutching their heads.
At the far end, below the icon wall, the altar stone glowed with a sickly light.
Cracks radiated from its base—not physical breaks, not yet, but shimmering lines in the air, visible even to John's untrained eyes.
The hum here was a chaotic mess—chapel resonance, sanctum field, and Paragon wrongness all trying to occupy the same space.
Serais stood just inside, his voice hoarse, shouting a different hymn over the corrupted one, trying to drown it out.
"Saints of stone, saints of the road—hold—" he bellowed, but the congregation was ragged, their responses faltering.
Halvar pulled up short beside him.
"Report," he snapped.
Serais didn't take his eyes off the altar.
"They snuck a crack verse into the evening hymn," he said. "Hidden in a 'renewal' stanza. Whatever fool of a junior deacon picked it
didn't read past the first line."
Lyr would have had an aneurysm, John thought.
"Ritual language?" Halvar demanded.
"It references breaking old bonds and welcoming 'true flame,'" Serais spat. "Classic Paragon trash dressed up as reform. The stone didn't buy it. Not fully. But it heard. The anchor below twitched. I'm trying to give it something else to listen to."
"Where's Lyr?" Halvar asked.
"Stacks," Serais said. "Hunting dust. Orane sent for her."
"Of course she did," Halvar muttered.
The bell shrieked again overhead.
Doris flinched.
"It's hooked," she said. "They've tied part of the ritual to the bell. Every time it rings, it reinforces the wrong verse."
"Can we cut it?" Orane asked.
Halvar glanced up.
"Not from here," he said. "The bell's anchored to the chapel lattice. If we sever it blindly, we risk dropping the whole net."
"So what do we do?" John asked.
"Stop the verse," Serais said through gritted teeth. "The anchor listens to echoes, not intent. We drown it in a better song."
His voice was breaking.
Doris heard the strain in the foundation, too.
The chapel hum was used to small mistakes—missed notes, wrong words, personal crises shouted at indifferent gods.
It wasn't used to a deliberate crack hidden in its heart.
The sanctum below stirred uneasily.
It wasn't fully awake.
But it was listening.
Halvar looked at her.
"Doriane," he said. "Can you feel how far the sanctum field has risen?"
She closed her eyes, hand tight on Brian, and reached.
It was all there—the baseline of the chapel, the Sanctum's deeper thrum, the jagged Paragon overlay hooked to the bell.
It felt like standing in the practice hall again, only louder and riskier and full of panicked people.
"Just past the altar," she said. "It hasn't reached the pews yet. It's testing."
"Then we stop the test," Halvar said. "Serais, change the hymn. Pick something the stone knows better than the crack."
Serais barked a laugh that was only slightly hysterical.
"You think I haven't tried?" he said. "They're
half-entranced. The bell keeps yanking them back into the wrong line."
"Then we make the bell listen to something else," Dorothy said.
Halvar blinked. "How?" he demanded. "We can't reach it."
Dorothy looked at Brian.
"Oh no," John said immediately.
Doris tightened her hold. "Absolutely not," she snapped. "He is not a tuning fork."
"He already is," Dorothy said quietly. "You've all felt it. The hum likes him. The bells like him. When he laughs, the lattice responds. When the river misbehaved, he laughed and the pattern weakened. We're not using him. We're giving the bell another note to copy."
"That's semantics," John said.
"Yes," Dorothy said. "Welcome to magic."
Halvar swore under his breath. "This is a terrible idea," he said. "I hate it. I'm not sure I can live with myself if we don't try it."
"Doriane?" Maevra's voice cut through the noise from behind.
John hadn't seen her arrive, but there she was, near the back, cloak thrown over a simple dress, eyes sharp, taking in everything.
She must have run from some meeting in the Spire the instant the bell twisted.
"If we do nothing," Maevra said, "how bad?"
"The verse finishes," Doris said quickly. "The anchor below hears it. It might not crack the sanctuary shell, but it'll remember the words.
The Paragons will have a foothold. Every time that hymn is sung again, the scar deepens."
"And if we do what Dorothy suggests?" Maevra asked.
Doris looked down at her son.
Brian's eyes were wide, confused, overwhelmed by sound and smoke.
His little fists clutched her robe.
She could feel the hum clinging to him like cobweb.
"If we do nothing, we lose ground now," she said slowly. "If we do this, we risk making him… louder. To them. But we also teach the chapel pattern that his sound exists. That it can follow him instead of the crack."
John's throat was tight.
"You are not required to—" Maevra began.
"Yes, I am," Doris snapped. "We're already in it. The Paragons have fingers on the bell. We don't get to pretend he's not part of this just because it makes us feel better."
She swallowed.
"Tell Serais to sing something simple," she said. "Something even a baby can copy."
Serais, hearing his name, paused in his chant.
Sweat dripped down his temple.
"How about 'Turning of the Year'?" he rasped. "Everyone knows that one. Even pagans."
"Perfect," Dorothy said. "Children love circles."
Halvar caught on. "New hymn!" he roared, voice amplified by a small ward he slapped against his throat. "Drop the verse! 'Turning of the Year'—first stanza! Now!"
There was a moment of stunned silence.
Then, to John's amazement, people obeyed.
They always did, when fear reached a certain pitch. They had to cling to something. Orders. Tradition. A familiar tune.
Serais began, voice rough but strong:
"Wheel turns, stone stays,
Light falls, shadow plays…"
A dozen voices joined.
Then a dozen more.
The hymn was simple—circular, repetitive, an old song sung at festivals and funerals, at harvests and house blessings.
The chapel recognised it.
So did the anchor.
The wrongness in the hum wavered.
But the bell kept trying to drag the tune back toward the crack verse, warping certain notes.
"Doriane," Dorothy said. "Now."
Doris took a breath that felt too big for her chest.
She shifted Brian so he faced her, his small body cradled between her hands.
He stared up at her, cheeks flushed.
She forced a smile.
"Hey," she whispered. "Remember windows? And rain? And chalk stars?"
His expression did not say yes.
But his eyes focused on her mouth.
She began to hum.
Not loudly.
Not like Serais.
Softly, intimately, the way she did at night in the suite.
"Wheel turns, stone stays…"
Brian blinked.
His fingers uncurled.
"You like this one," she whispered. "You laughed last time I got the words wrong."
She let the hymn flow out of her in the version she knew, not the formal liturgical one—slightly off, with caravan inflections and
mismatched phrases.
The tower knew that version now, too.
So did their walls.
The hum around them shifted.
The bell overhead wobbled.
The crack-thread in its sound faltered.
Brian made a small, questioning noise.
"Come on," she whispered. "Sing with me."
He couldn't.
Not properly.
He was a baby, with no words yet and barely a sense of his own noises.
But he could echo.
He'd been echoing since he'd first cried in the
tower—matching tones, patterns.
Tonight, with incense in his nose and stone under his mother's feet and a hundred people singing an old song, he did something small
and devastating.
He laughed.
Not a shriek.
Not a wail.
A simple, delighted burst of sound—startled and startled again by his own noise.
It cut through the warped hymn like a clear bell.
Every wardline in the chapel flared.
John felt it in his bones.
The bell tone changed.
For a heartbeat, sound and stone and sanctum field all became one thing—a resonance that carried Brian's laugh up the tower and down into the anchor's shell.
The crack verse, already faltering, collapsed like a poorly built scaffold.
The wrongness in the hum snapped.
The bell's shriek smoothed into a normal, if still frantic, peal.
The light around the altar steadied.
The thin shimmering cracks in the air evaporated.
Serais slumped, half-collapsing against the doorframe.
The congregation's voices stumbled, then surged into the proper tune, relieved to have something that felt right to cling to.
Halvar stared at the ceiling as if expecting it to fall on his head.
Maevra blew out a breath through her nose.
Dorothy smiled, a small, fierce baring of teeth.
Doris clutched Brian, who gurgled again, pleased with himself.
The sanctum below did not fully retreat.
Doris could feel it, awake now, aware.
But it was humming to a different pattern.
Not the crack verse.
Not Paragon language.
Something older.
Something that had just decided a baby's laugh was part of "home."
John stepped up beside Doris, hand trembling as he touched the wall.
He felt the difference—small but there.
The chapel field had tilted.
Just a fraction.
Just enough.
"Ledger," he whispered automatically.
"Later," Doris said, weak with relief.
After the immediate crisis—the hymn finished, the bell stilled, the panicked faithful herded gently out into the plaza—the tower's
real work began.
Orane's wardens secured the chapel, checking every alcove, every side door, every candle rack for sigils or bones or tucked-away charms.
They found two crack marks, small and subtle, etched into the underside of a pew and the inside lip of a donation box.
"Neat work," Orane growled, scraping one off with the edge of her dagger. "This wasn't an accident."
"Nothing about tonight was," Serais said, kneeling at the altar to examine the stone. His hands shook as he sprinkled salt along its base. "They wanted to see how far they could push a sanctioned ritual before the anchor complained."
"And how fast we would respond," Halvar said. "They know now that we're listening."
"Good," Maevra said. "Let them be nervous too."
On the way back up to the tower, Brian fell asleep.
He drooled on Doris's shoulder, blissfully unaware he'd just been the loudest voice in the chapel.
John walked on the other side, hand never quite leaving the wall.
"You're sure he's all right?" he asked for the fifth time.
"Yes," Doris said. "He's tired. The pattern tugged at him. He tugged back. It's like… like him playing with a curtain. Only the curtain is
made of stone hum."
"That's a terrifying metaphor," John said.
"Welcome to my childhood," she replied.
Back in the suite, Flint nearly tackled them at the door.
"What happened?" he demanded. "The hum went sideways, then up, then weird. The chalk stars flickered and I swear the window tried to sing."
"Just a hymn problem," Dorothy said, collapsing into her chair with a groan. "Paragons teaching old songs new tricks. We corrected them."
Flint eyed Brian, saw the dried saliva on his chin, and narrowed his eyes.
"What did he do?" he asked.
"Nothing," John lied.
Flint looked insulted. "Don't you dare keep his disasters from me," he said. "If he starts toppling chapels with giggles, I need to be
emotionally prepared."
Doris sank onto the pallet, easing Brian down beside her.
The crooked star glowed, reacting to his proximity with what John was starting to recognise as affection.
"Ledger," Doris murmured.
John went to the table, opened the book, and wrote with a hand that still shook a little:
— Chapel attack tonight. Paragons hid crack-verse in "renewal" hymn. Hooked part of field to bell. Sanctum below stirred. Serais tried to drown verse with proper hymn, bell kept dragging it back. Doriane hummed "Turning of the Year" (caravan version). Brian laughed. Chapel field + sanctum shell copied his note. Crack pattern collapsed. Bell tone normalised. No physical damage. Field now carries faint echo of his laugh.
He paused.
Then added, in smaller, darker script:
— They know now that he's a voice the stone listens to. We made him louder. We also gave the chapel another pattern to prefer. Risk and
gain, intertwined.
Doris came to stand behind him, reading.
She added:
— If he ever reads this: I am sorry we used your laugh as a weapon. I am not sorry it worked.
Flint leaned over.
"'Weapon' is a strong word," he said.
Doris looked at Brian, then at the chalk stars, then at the ink.
"Yes," she said. "That's why I chose it."
Later, when the tower had calmed and Serais had gone off to yell at his junior clergy until their ears burned, Halvar stood in the chapel
alone.
The candles had been relit.
The incense replaced.
The bell rope hung still.
He placed his hand on the altar stone.
The hum met him—calmer, but still alert.
Underneath the expected chapel resonance, there was a tiny, bright thread.
A note that hadn't been there before.
It was fragile.
Ridiculous.
Hopeful.
It made the corners of his mouth twitch.
"You're learning new tricks," he murmured to the stone. "Good. You'll need them."
He traced a small, simple sigil along the edge—nothing fancy, just an acknowledgment: a ward to remind the anchor that tonight's
refusal mattered.
Then he left the chapel to its candles and its ghosts.
In a hidden chamber under the city, Echo listened as the lines reported back.
Not in words.
In tremors.
They felt the failed verse.
The drowned crack.
The sudden, sharp, bright intrusion that snapped their ritual like a rotten thread.
They smiled.
"Interesting," they said to the empty air. "You're not just plugging leaks. You're teaching the stone new songs."
They tapped the wall with two fingers.
The hum shivered.
"What will you do," Echo murmured, "when he's old enough to decide his own verse?"
They had no answer.
Yet.
They went back to their diagrams.
This test had failed in one way and succeeded in several others.
The sanctum was awake.
The chapel remembered a new note.
The Aetherbound child was louder.
All useful data.
In the suite, under chalk stars and beside a pinned letter to a friend who didn't yet know the world had tilted, a family slept badly and
held tightly.
John woke twice in the night with the echo of bell screams in his ears.
Each time, he touched the wall and felt the field settle around a memory that hadn't existed yesterday: the way a baby's laugh had made a sanctum hesitate.
Doris dreamed of old halls and new hymns.
Brian dreamed of nothing anyone could name.
The tower hummed.
The chapel held.
The crack in the hymn had been patched—for now.
Tomorrow, the Paragons would try something else.
Tomorrow, the Emperor's letter would feel heavier.
Tomorrow, the descent into the true sanctum would be one step closer.
But tonight, under stone that had chosen to remember delight as well as danger, a child slept, and the world did not end.
The line had bent.
It had not broken.
Not yet.