The Academy of Pact-Law stood on the hillside, like a great harp set against the wind. Three bell towers flanked the main hall, its dark stone walls echoing faintly with every gust.
On the brass-grille gate, each square was engraved with the initial of a surname, worn smooth and bright by time.
The digits on the ring read: 00:38:02.
"Quickly," Archibald said, his voice low. He tapped the bell on the inner side of the gate with his cane.
The hinges creaked softly, and the gate opened inward just enough for one person to pass. A dry, cold air flowed out, carrying the scent of disturbed archive paper.
Beyond lay a long, narrow cloister with a brass line embedded in the floor, leading forward. At its end stood a wall of black stone, into which three doors were set: Gear, Aether, and Frostsong.
The ring-pull of each door was connected to a small bell, their ropes hanging still as frozen waterfalls.
"The Hall of Naming," Archibald said. "You hang your name on the door, and only then does the Academy recognize you.
Once they do, your 'name' has a certified repository. For the other party to touch it, the procedure becomes unpleasantly complicated."
Piers remained at the cloister's entrance, holding his umbrella like a steadfast sentinel.
Elias followed the brass line, his heartbeat as steady as the line itself. The Resonance Notebook was warm in his palm, like a waking cat. He reached out and grasped the cold ring-pull of the Gear door.
The bell behind the door gave a soft "tick"—a test tone. He could hear the faint, impure friction of gear-teeth meshing within the door.
Someone at a distance was pulling a thread, trying to introduce interference into his "name-frequency."
"They've already begun the contest-signing," Archibald's voice was as flat as a blade laid down. "The Black Oak Society excels at creating signature interference."
"I hear it." Elias clipped the E.M. badge to the tail of the Resonance Notebook and tightened it. He pressed the barrel of the pen against the ring-pull, like a doctor placing a stethoscope on skin. Then he reined in his own heartbeat by a single beat, aligning it with the bell's test tone.
"Find your own frequency," Archibald murmured. "Don't amplify. Just shave off the static."
Elias nodded. He drew a fine line on the page, writing: E.M./Signature Freq. Est./72.4Hz±. As the stroke finished, the interference within the door was lifted as if by a hand, revealing a gap.
He scraped the pen along the brass ring-pull, releasing a very narrow inverse wave.
"Cancel," he said in his mind.
The sound of the gears inside immediately aligned, and the bell clapper swung gently back to center.
A previously blurred space on the black stone wall suddenly cleared, glowing with a faint golden light, just large enough to hold two letters.
"Hang it," Archibald prompted.
Elias placed the badge on the spot. It needed no nail; it adhered to the black stone with a soft "click." Simultaneously, a brass name-peg extended from below the ring-pull as if growing from the stone itself, engraved with: MORTON, Elias / Gear Door / Provisional.
As the peg appeared, the digits on the ring jumped: 00:33:19. Then they jumped back a second, as if someone had pulled from the other side but failed to get a grip.
"The other party just issued a 'recall' from the Sunken Bell Tower." Archibald's brow twitched. "They want to draw your name toward their ledger."
"The Academy recognized me first," Elias said. He tapped the tip of his pen firmly in the Resonance Notebook, recording: Interference canceled / Cost—three hours' tinnitus (acceptable).
A faint ringing immediately began in his ears, like the hum of distant power lines in summer.
"Very good." Archibald handed him a thin, folded booklet. "Your syllabus. Basic Pact-Law, Accounts and Tariffs, Sigil-lore, Introduction to Gear-Sequencing, and Legal Contest & Counter. The pre-admission assessment is in three days. The topic is 'Identifying and Rolling Back Forged Annotations'."
"I'll sit in the back row for the Counter class," Piers said, his tone as flat as if he were stating the weather.
In the Hall of Naming, the bell of the third door—Frostsong—chimed without a touch, a single low, long note.
Archibald glanced over. "Ignore it. Someone on the other side is projecting a chilling frequency to disrupt the field." He wound the silver thread tighter inside his cane, as if reinforcing an unseen knot.
The ring-pull returned to its place. The golden light on the black stone wall slowly receded, drawing the "E.M." into the stone and leaving behind a thin brass line that led from the Gear door deeper into the Academy.
"Naming complete," said a dry voice from within the wall, as if speaking from a page. "Morton, Elias, provisional on the Gear Door, effective until midnight. The Academy grants his name Level One protection during this period."
"One is sufficient," Archibald nodded. "Now, to get the 'key-chit'."
The brass line led them through two more corridors to a semicircular wooden door. A white tin plate was nailed to it: KEY VAULT.
Inside was a small counter where a Key-warden with round glasses was methodically moving strings of key-chits from one set of hooks to another.
"Good evening, Mr. Greenwell." The Key-warden looked up, his gaze softening a fraction behind his spectacles. "A new student's key-chit, or a temporary loan?"
"A loan." Archibald placed a silver leaf on the counter. "Gear Door. Effective until midnight."
The Key-warden nodded and retrieved a thin chit from a drawer. It looked like a folded brass leaf, engraved with fine gear-teeth, its edges faintly luminous.
He pushed it across. "Billed by the minute for nocturnal use. If the terms of loan are violated, the lock-tool self-destructs."
"Thank you." Archibald passed the chit to Elias. "This is a 'Seam-Key'. Against a legitimate barrier, it won't break the door for you; it only cleans the interference from the seam. Once it's clean, you do the pushing."
"I prefer to do my own pushing," Elias said with a small smile, sliding the Seam-Key into an inner flap of the Resonance Notebook.
The two thin pieces of metal clicked together, aligning as if two leaves had found the same current of wind.
Outside the vault, the wind was colder than before. The digits on his ring had reached 00:27:51. The sky was as dark as ink, with the three Academy bell towers silhouetted against it. Archibald glanced north. "Let's go. To the Sunken Bell Tower."
"The Academy doesn't prevent us from going out at night?" Piers asked.
"Once your name is on the books, the Academy considers you a person 'of account'," Archibald said coolly. "A person of account has the right to pursue his own name. Otherwise, the ledgers would be a lie."
They left through a side gate. The latch was a pair of fine chains holding a transparent stone between them, which looked as if it contained a frozen raindrop.
Archibald tapped the stone with his cane, and it flipped their shadows over to the other side of the gate.
The Sunken Bell Tower was not far. Down a sloping stone street to its end, the tower stood like an overturned bell-casing, half-buried in the night. Black moss covered its surface, and the bell rope at its mouth was broken, a portion of it hanging in the air like an unfinished sentence.
They paused for a moment outside. A damp, metallic wind blew from the tower's crevices. Elias placed his hand on a rivet on the tower door.
The tinnitus spread out like a fine rain, and beneath the hum, he heard something else—the low scratching of a pencil on the back of a piece of paper.
"Signature interference," he murmured. "They're writing our names at the bottom of the tower."
"Not 'our'," Archibald corrected. "Yours. And what they're writing are 'annotations'."
Piers stood beside them, his umbrella dripping with water that did not belong to this night. He was only watching the mouth of the street. "Two o'clock. A tail. Black Oak's mark."
"Let them listen," Archibald said. He drew a length of fine silver thread from his cane and tied it around Elias's wrist. "If the frequency in the tower gets too low, pull this. Don't let yourself fall into the 'cold resonance'."
Elias nodded. He gently pressed the Seam-Key to the crack of the tower door. The teeth on its edge lit up, combing through the seam like an invisible comb.
The interference was sorted into several clear strands. He followed one of them, extending the tip of his pen from the Resonance Notebook and tapping it lightly.
"Open," he said, almost with his hearing alone.
The door didn't move. Instead, a 'click' sounded from some unseen place within the tower, like a stuck gear-tooth giving way.
Then, as if hesitating, the seam of the door slowly, very slowly, shifted open to the width of a man. The blackness within was like extinguished music.
"I'm first," Piers murmured, stepping into the dark.
"You're second," Archibald said to Elias. "Walk with your ears. Don't light a fire."
"I won't," Elias said, gripping the notebook and the key-chit, and stepped inside. The darkness enveloped him like water, but it wasn't quiet.
A long, cold song emanated from deep within the tower walls, a song related to the Frostsong bell, but older, narrower, like winter squeezed from a crack in the stone.
They descended the spiral staircase. With every few steps, the digits on his ring flashed. 00:19:43. 00:18:59. 00:18:58—the other party was pulling on this thread of time as well, from the other end.
After the third turn, a tiny blue light appeared ahead. Not fire, but a cold light, veiled in a thin mist. Within the mist was a table, and on the table was a glass plate, under which several paper strips were pressed. Names were written on the strips in a very fine hand. One was half-erased, its end a blur.
Elias drew closer, the blue light illuminating his face. He saw that the last two letters left on the half-erased strip were: R.M.
His throat tightened for a moment, just as it had in the previous chapter. But this time, after it tightened, the pressure in his chest did not release.
Behind the blue light, a figure leaned against the wall, laughing softly. The sound circled the tower chamber like wind striking glass.
"Midnight is approaching, Master Morton," said the light, airy female voice. "I'm glad you managed to hang your name. Now, let's see how you take it back from us."
Under the blue light, the paper strip beneath the glass twitched, as if turned by an unseen hand. The digits on the ring jumped to 00:15:00 and began to pulse as clearly as a heartbeat.
Archibald did not look at the figure. He only planted his cane on the floor, his finger pressing the invisible silver thread at its tip. "Elias, remember the three clauses you wrote on the dais.
Incur no debt without provenance; do not, by gear, interfere with the will of the living; and all power traded must have its cost recorded."
"I remember." Elias flipped the Resonance Notebook back to the first page. It already read: E.M., Gear Pact, Initiate. Below it, a small line was blank, as if waiting for him to write tonight's next entry.
He raised his pen and listened. The cold song of the tower walls, the friction of paper under glass, the frequency of the figure's breath in the blue light, the faint sound of boot heels from the Black Oak tail on the street above—they were like several lines from different directions, all about to converge.
"Alright," he said softly. "Let's begin to settle the account."