The lantern hissed on the table, its dim flame warped behind cloudy glass. The air was thick with dust, with the faint mildew of stone. Isaac moved along the far wall, fingers dragging over shelves stacked with chipped jars and broken tools. His boots creaked against the boards as he tested the seams in the floor, pacing slow, like a wolf circling a pen.
Isabelle clutched the parcel in her chest. Her shoulders curled forward, defensive. Tomas leaned against the table, watching the paper like it was a joke no one else got.
"Well," he said, slow and lilting. "Isn't that precious. The happy little family portrait. Shame about the brother though."
"Tomas," Isabelle snapped.
He arched a brow. "I'm just saying what's in front of me." He tapped the edge of the drawing. "Our imaginary friend has vanished, maybe it means something."
Ian's jaw tightened. "Say another word."
"Relax," Tomas drawled, spreading his hands. His eyes drifted to the bundle Isabelle clung to. "What's in the bag anyway? Feels like that might be worth a look."
Isabelle pulled it tighter against her chest. "That has nothing to do with this."
"Doesn't it?" Tomas smirked. "Jack hands you something on the same day Cala goes missing and you don't think to peek inside? Not even curious?"
"It isn't ours to question," Isabelle shot back. Her knuckles whitened on the paper wrapping. "We're couriers. That means trust. Break that, and there's nothing left."
Tomas gave a little shrug. "Not like he said you couldn't look."
"That's a given. You idiot."
Isaac pressed his palm against a wall, testing apanel. He said nothing.
Ian leaned forward, his eyes fixed on the parcel. "Maybe he's right."
Isabelle turned on him, stunned. "Ian, no."
"What if it's a clue?" Ian's voice cracked. His fingers twitched against the table. "What else could we be delivering at a time like this? No one cares enough about Cala to send her anything. Not unless it's from them. The Church is behind this, Isabelle. You know that."
"You're grasping at straws."
"Then give it here." Ian thrust out his hand.
"No."
"I said give it here." His voice rose, sharp as glass.
"Over my dead body," she hissed.
Ian lunged across the table, palm slamming down over the parcel. Isabelle jerked it back toward herself. They grappled in silence, their breaths ragged, the paper crinkling under their grip. Isabelle's face was red, trembling. Ian's eyes were wild.
Isaac's boots creaked against the floorboards as he paced along the edge of the room, crouching to brush dust from a warped plank. He glanced back once, then went on testing seams.
"Do you even believe me?" Ian spat, tugging at the package. "Or are you just tagging along, like always, adding nothing?"
The words landed like a stone. Isabelle's mouth opened, but no sound came. Her arms tightened around the parcel like a shield.
Ian pressed harder, voice cracking. "You never take a stand. You just hover at the edges. What good are you if you don't even trust me?"
Tears stung her eyes. Her lip trembled, but she refused to let go.
"I'm always there," she snapped, her voice breaking. "When you fall apart. When Isaac collapses. I'm the one who steadies things, who keeps us from tearing each other to shreds. If my support means nothing, then fine. I'll give it all to Isaac instead. Lord knows he needs it."
Ian's chest heaved. His grip slackened for a heartbeat, but the fury didn't leave.
"You think support solves anything? You think standing around watching helps? Opening this could give us what we need. It's the only clue we've got. What exactly do you think we're delivering? Some toy? The Church wants this delivered, Isabelle. The same Church that took her. Wake up."
Her tears finally spilled. She shook her head, teeth clenched. "I want the Ian back who sat with me after class. The Ian who stayed late drilling me on equations, who wouldn't let me fail when everyone else wrote me off. That Ian believed in me. He wasn't cruel. He wasn't this."
The words hit him harder than he expected.
The silence split with Tomas's whistle, low and mocking.
"Aren't you a charming bunch."
Both Isabelle and Ian snapped in unison.
"Shut up."
Tomas only grinned wider, now sitting down he leaned back on two chair legs.
Isaac had stopped prowling. He stood now at the edge of a rug, staring down at the faded weave. His face was unreadable, shadowed in the lanternlight.
Isabelle's voice cracked as she pressed the parcel to her chest. "If you don't want my support, fine. Maybe I'll give it to Tomas he's an idiot but at least he doesn't hurt me."
That broke something in Ian. His hands fell away from the package. He stood trembling, jaw locked, eyes wet.
Isaac finally moved. He bent, hooked his hands under the edge of the rug, and ripped it back. Dust billowed up, choking the room. A dark outline revealed itself beneath.
A trapdoor.
"Enough," Isaac said, voice flat. His eyes swept all three of them, hard and cold. "You're wasting time."
He looked straight at Ian. Then at Isabelle. Then Tomas.
"Shut up. All of you."
He set his fingers on the iron ring, lifted, and the wood groaned open. A draft of damp air rolled up from the black below.
"Let's go."
The draft of air reeked of earth and rust. It coiled around their ankles, damp and sour, as Isaac held the hatch open.
No one moved at first. Isabelle clutched the parcel to her chest like a child clutching a doll. Her eyes were rimmed red, her breath hitching. Ian stood frozen in place, fists half-clenched at his sides, his shoulders tight enough to snap. Tomas tipped his chair back further, grinning faintly at the spectacle, as though none of it touched him.
Isaac didn't blink. "Down."
The lantern's glow stuttered against the black mouth of the hole. Isabelle shifted her grip on the bundle, swallowing hard. "What if it isn't stable?"
"Then you'll find out quick," Isaac said.
She flinched at his bluntness.
Ian finally moved, wiping at his eyes with the heel of his hand like he could scrub the weakness away. His voice was low, but the edge in it hadn't dulled. "I'll go first."
"Good boy," Tomas murmured.
Ian's glare snapped over his shoulder. "Say one more thing."
"Just observing," Tomas said, raising both hands, palms out. His chair legs hit the floor with a thud. "Go on, hero. Lead the way."
Ian grabbed the lantern, its glass rattling in his grip, and set his foot on the ladder's top rung. The wood groaned under his weight, dust sifting down. He climbed slowly, the flame swinging with him, painting long shadows against the walls as he descended.
Isabelle hesitated, shifting in place. Her fingers kneaded the parcel like she wanted to crush it into pulp. "What if there's… something down there?"
"There is," Isaac said. His boots thudded once against the floorboards as he stepped closer. "Move."
She bit her lip, but when he loomed over her shoulder, she swallowed her fear and lowered herself through the hatch, parcel still pressed tight to her chest. The ladder creaked under her, joints stiff with age.
Tomas was next, humming a little tune as he swung his legs over the opening. He climbed with infuriating ease, pausing just long enough to grin at Isaac before slipping into the dark below.
Isaac went last. He dropped straight through the hatch without touching the ladder, landing with a dull thud that echoed through the chamber below.
The air down there was colder, the smell of mold and old iron thicker. Ian held the lantern high, its glow revealing a corridor of stone lined with dripping pipes. Water trickled along the walls, forming dark veins that glistened in the weak light.
"What is this place?" Isabelle whispered. Her voice trembled.
"Undercroft," Isaac said. His tone was flat, certain.
Ian glanced back at him, frustrated. "How would you know that?"
"Because it feels wrong."
The words hung in the chill. Isabelle shivered and hugged the parcel closer.
Tomas trailed his fingers along the damp stone, smirking. "Well, isn't this cozy. Nothing like crawling into a tomb to patch up family drama."
"Shut up," Ian muttered, not looking at him.
They moved in single file, boots splashing in shallow puddles. The lantern light caught faint carvings along the walls—runes, or letters, their edges worn to blurs by water. Isabelle lingered on them, lips moving like she wanted to read, but she stayed silent.
At the first bend, the corridor opened into a round chamber. Rusted chains hung from the ceiling like dead vines. A broken chair sat overturned in the corner. The damp was worse here; drops fell steadily from somewhere above, pattering into a dark puddle that smelled faintly of copper.
Ian stopped in the middle, raising the lantern higher. His jaw clenched. "What the hell is this?"
Tomas stepped forward and kicked at the overturned chair "Looks like where they keep their secrets."
Isabelle shivered again. Her eyes darted around the chamber, then fixed on Ian. "We shouldn't be here."
"We don't have a choice," Ian said. "This is where she leads."
"She?" Isabelle's voice cracked.
"The trail," Ian said. "Cala. It has to be."
Isaac stepped past him, stooping to touch the puddle. His fingers came away red-brown. He rubbed it between thumb and forefinger, eyes narrowing.
"Blood," he said.
The word fell like a hammer. Isabelle's breath hitched. Ian's stomach twisted. Even Tomas faltered, his smirk dimming for a moment before it slid back into place.
They went on and the tunnel bent one last time opening into a cavern. The lantern's glow faltered, swallowed by the space.
There it stood.
A bell. Enormous, green with corrosion, its lip sinking into the black mire that spread across the floor. From the rim dripped a slow, steady trickle of dark water. Each drop hit the puddle below with the sound of something too heavy, too final—like nails hammered into wood.
Around it, the mud was crowded with hundreds of footprints. Small ones. Bare. Children's feet circling endlessly in the same groove until the earth had hardened into rings. No path led in. No path led out.
Isabelle froze where she stood, the parcel clutched so tightly her knuckles had gone white. Her lips parted, but no sound came.
Ian's chest heaved as he stepped closer, raising the lantern. "It's… ringing."
The bell trembled. The clapper swung. The rope lashed faintly against its side. But no sound came. Instead, the silence pushed through their bones, a low vibration that made their teeth ache. It was less a tone than a pressure, squeezing the air from their lungs.
"Stop," Isabelle whispered, covering her ears though there was nothing to block. Her knees buckled.
Isaac caught her by the shoulder before she fell, steadying her. His hand lingered, firm but gentle, the only thing keeping her upright. His eyes never left the bell.
Across the corroded bronze, the surface was carved. Thousands of names, gouged deep into the metal, layered over each other until the letters blurred into a crowd of scars. Some were half-faded, illegible. Some glistened fresh, as if cut only yesterday.
Ian lifted the lantern higher. The last three names carved at the lip shone clear: IAN. ISAAC. ISABELLE.
His breath caught in his throat. "No."
The names twitched. The scratches shifted like worms in the metal. Slowly, unbearably slow, Isabelle's name began to fade. Letter by letter, the bronze swallowed it back into itself.
She screamed and lurched forward, but Isaac's grip held her fast. Her cry echoed sharp against the stone—yet the bell's tolling silence swallowed even that, until all that remained was the steady drip of black water, like tears, striking the pool below.
Ian stumbled back, eyes wide, chest hammering. "It's erasing her. It's—"
The rope swayed, still as if freshly pulled.
The iron seemed to breathe, vibrating with a low tremor that rattled their ribs.
Ian lifted the lantern higher. The glow fell upon a figure crumpled against the base of the bell.
A boy's body, small, no older than twelve. His limbs hung like snapped reeds, his skin thin as wax, his mouth parted in a frozen half-breath. His eyes were glassed over, pale and soured, but his frame was too intact for rot, too whole to be only a corpse.
Isabelle screamed. The sound tore itself raw from her throat before she could smother it. She dropped to her knees, the parcel slipping from her grasp and striking the stone with a flat, hollow thud.
Ian staggered back so hard the lantern swung wild, spilling light crazed across the walls. "Oh God—no—" His words broke apart, strangled by the sight. He clamped a hand over his mouth, gagging as bile climbed his throat.
Tomas cursed under his breath, too sharp, too fast. He shoved his fists against his temples as if trying to crush the vision out of his skull. "What the hell—what the hell is that—"
Isaac froze. His face was carved in stone, but even he flinched—his shoulders drawn tight, fists locking hard at his sides. His eyes darted over the husk like he couldn't decide whether it was dead, alive, or something in between.
The silence that followed was violent. Only their gasping breaths filled it. The bell loomed above, humming faintly, as though it were pleased by their horror.
Isabelle pressed her hands to her face, sobbing through her fingers. "It's a child—it's—oh God, oh God—" Her voice fractured into shallow gulps of air.
Ian shook his head in jerks, words tumbling out broken. "No—no, this isn't—this can't—" He bent double, clutching the lantern so tightly his knuckles blanched, the flame quivering in time with his shudders.
Tomas spat onto the ground, gagging, like the taste of the air itself had soured in his mouth. He whispered low, more to himself than to them: "Not a body. Not a body. Something else. Has to be."
Isaac's voice came slow, rough, like it cost him to speak. "It's not… gone. Whatever happened—it didn't finish."
And now that the lantern glow steadied, the shape was clearer. The slant of the jaw, the curve of the brow—details that seemed familiar in a way that clawed at memory. Ian's stomach lurched with recognition.
"Elias," he rasped, though the name felt wrong even as it left him. The husk bore the same cast of features, the same fragile bones of the boy they knew.
The husk sat there, slack, unmoving, yet the more they looked, the more wrong it became—as if a whisper of presence clung to it, faint but undeniable. Something that should not exist, and yet could not quite fade.
Ian's stare latched onto the husk like a starving man clinging to bread. His lips trembled, soundless at first, then words slipped out like cracks in stone.
"…Not Elias."
The others froze.
His voice split higher, ragged, delirious. "It's not Elias-it's Leor." The name broke out of him as a sob—and then, before anyone could breathe, it twisted into laughter. Sharp, jagged, sick laughter that filled the chamber like broken glass spilling down stone.
Isabelle shrieked and stumbled backward, colliding with Isaac's side. Her fists gripped his shirt like a child clinging to her father's robes. "Make him stop—please make him stop—"
But Ian didn't hear. Or if he did, it only drove him further. He swung the lantern wild, the light crazed across the bell and the husk, across his own face his eyes wide and wet, his teeth bared in a grin that wasn't joy but collapse.
"You SEE him, don't you? The jaw the brow it's him." His voice screeched upward, breaking into shrill laughter, then plunging back into sobs. "Cala wasn't lying—I wasn't mad! They said I was sick—they said I was seeing ghosts—but here he is, here he is! Leor-Leor-LEOR!" He pounded his fist into his chest like the name was hammering through his ribs.
Tomas backed to the wall, his fists limp at his sides. The bravado was gone; his face was pale and glistening. He shook his head violently, muttering, "No, no he's not right,he's not right in the head—" His voice was small, frightened, nothing like his usual sharpness.
Isaac's jaw worked, his throat tight. His fists loosened at his sides. For once there was no bite in him—only a raw, quiet ache. He looked at Ian like he wasn't an enemy, but a boy breaking in front of him. His voice came low, almost tender, almost pleading.
"Ian… please . Just look at me.Breathe. Don't let it take you too."
But Ian only screamed louder. "BREATHE?!" He cackled, raw and hoarse, the sound bouncing off stone. "Don't you see? He's still here,they tried to take him and they couldn't! He fought them! He fought the church and they FAILED!"
He dropped to his knees, the lantern nearly clattering from his grip. The light jittered as his whole body shook, laughter rattling into sobs, sobs into giggles, his voice swinging on a pendulum of madness. He clawed at his own face, leaving streaks of grime down his cheeks. "I want to puke,I want to rip my throat out-but I can't-I can't because this means we were right! Cala was right. I was right. He was real." His laughter broke again into a scream, piercing, ragged, echoing down the stone throat of the cavern.
Isabelle buried her face against Isaac's arm, sobbing into his sleeve, tugging at him with shaking hands. "Make him stop, make him stop—he's scaring me, Isaac"
But Isaac only stood rigid, torn between stepping forward and holding ground.
Tomas's whisper broke into a plea. "He's not himself anymore. He's gone, Isaacpull him back or we'll lose him"
The bell above them groaned, metal on stone, a guttural scrape that vibrated in their teeth. CALA's name on its side bled faster, the letters collapsing into smears. The iron pulsed like something alive, feeding off Ian's hysteria.
Ian fell forward, catching himself on his palms, the lantern swinging madly at his side. His forehead pressed to the damp stone as his words gushed out in torrents, half-prayer, half-mad song. "Don't take her—don't take her too—don't—don't—leave me something, leave me her—I'll burn, I'll cut, I'll give anything—just don't take her—"
His shoulders heaved. He began to laugh again—quiet this time, almost giddy—his face twisted with tears and spit and snot, eyes gleaming like feverfire.
And then
The husk twitched.
Its head jerked, slow and unnatural, and those cloudy eyes rolled toward him. Its lips trembled, peeling open with a sound like wet leather tearing.
All three of the others gasped. Isabelle clutched Isaac's arm so tightly her nails dug into his skin. Tomas covered his mouth, choking on bile. Even Isaac stepped back, his face shattering into disbelief.
But Ian crawled closer, lantern dragging, his grin stretched wide and grotesque. "Say it. Say it, Leor. Tell them. Tell them I was right."
The husk wheezed, breathless and brittle. Then, in a voice like stone scraping stone:
"…Further in… where the water breaks. She waits… with him."