By the time we reached the shrine, the moon had climbed high enough to watch us plainly.
"Thank you once again for your help," I said as we passed beneath the torii gate. My voice sounded too loud in the night.
"It was my pleasure," Mr. Mumei-shi replied. Zinnia slept soundly in his arms, her face peaceful, her silver hair catching faint moonlight. Not a single butterfly followed her now.
That alone unsettled me.
The shrine should have been calm at this hour. Instead, the lanterns flickered as if undecided, shadows stretching and shrinking with every breath of wind. The air was tight—like the moment before a storm decides whether to break.
"You were gone far longer than expected," Miss Li Hua said from the right side of the courtyard. Her parasol was closed, resting against her shoulder like a sheathed blade.
"Good evening to you as well," Mr. Mumei-shi replied smoothly. His gaze had already moved past her—past us—to the courtyard's center.
The bell.
The massive bronze bonshō lay on its side, displaced from its stand like a fallen giant. Its surface reflected moonlight dully, inscriptions half-hidden in shadow.
"You should put Zinnia down," Miss Li Hua said quietly, her eyes flicking to me.
I did so at once.
"What happened?" I asked when I returned. Monks stood around the bell, murmuring among themselves, some pressing palms together in prayer, others examining the metal with visible confusion.
"One of the monks from the temple arrived earlier," Mr. Mumei-shi said. "According to them, when they attempted to ring the bell—per the agreement—it produced no sound."
As if summoned by his words, one of the monks struck it again.
Nothing.
No reverberation. No echo. Just a dull, dead contact—metal against metal, swallowed instantly by the night.
Victoria swallowed audibly.
"Victoria," Mr. Mumei-shi said without looking away from the bell, "were you able to speak with the son of the late Marquis?"
"Yes," she replied quickly. "He told us some important things—really important things."
Before she could elaborate—
"Check the mouth of the bell," Heiwa said sharply, already moving.
Lantern light was brought closer. One of the monks crouched and angled it upward.
Inside the bell—etched deep into the bronze—glyphs glimmered faintly.
Silence fell hard.
"How did this get there?" one of the monks asked, his voice thin.
"Elder," Miss Li Hua said, turning to the oldest among them, "the bell was being rung to tally the dead, yes? What number would this particular strike have marked?"
The monk hesitated. Then—
"The one thousandth."
Someone echoed it softly. "One thousand."
The number settled over us like ash.
"We may need the son of the Marquis far sooner than anticipated," Miss Li Hua said. "Heiwa. Victoria."
They were already moving.
It didn't take long.
The Marquis's son arrived with his maid, eyes sharp behind thin lenses, curiosity warring with unease as he took in the shrine grounds.
"My apologies for the disturbance," Miss Li Hua said. "But we require your expertise."
He crouched beside the bell almost reverently, removing his gloves, his glasses following soon after. His maid accepted them without a word.
After a long silence, he exhaled.
"A duplicate glyph," he said. "And a siphon."
Heiwa stiffened. "So it's confirmed."
"Yes." He nodded once. "This bell was not merely rung—it was *used*."
Mr. Mumei-shi leaned closer to Miss Li Hua, clearly waiting for translation.
"The culprit is not a simple mage," she said quietly.
"A mage who is not merely a mage," I thought. That was worse.
"If I were to guess," the Marquis's son continued, half-speaking to himself now, "the bell's sound was being recorded—copied—traced. Sound turned into structure."
He straightened slowly.
"The bell did not just mark death. It gave it form."
Understanding crawled unpleasantly up my spine.
A voodoo doll, I thought. A very mage-like one.
"And the silence after the thousandth death," he added, "suggests either completion… or transition."
"To what?" someone asked.
He shook his head. "That, I cannot yet say."
"What can we do?" Miss Li Hua asked, snapping the room back into focus.
The Marquis's son hesitated. "The cemetery may hold answers."
Victoria leaned toward Heiwa. "Is it because dead men tell no tales?" she whispered.
"They tell plenty," I murmured back. "If you know how to listen."
She froze.
"There is little we can do now," Mr. Mumei-shi said at last, gazing into the courtyard as though expecting something to step out of the shadows. "We wait. And we prepare."
"Mommy," Zinnia's voice called softly.
The tension fractured just enough for movement to resume. The monks dispersed, prayers resumed, the bell remained—silent, accusing—on the ground.
Just when it felt like the worst had passed—
Life, as always, added another entry to the record.