Mira's boot crossed the dark smear of blood in the sand—
—and the beach gave way beneath her as if it had been waiting for permission.
There wasn't a crack, or a clean collapse. The ground simply *unlatched*. Wet sand liquefied around her ankle and dropped, pulling the rest with it in a soft, hungry rush. Mira's balance vanished. Her arms flung out, charm still clenched in her fist, and she fell forward into a sudden slope that wasn't there a second ago.
She didn't hit the ground.
The ground moved like a throat.
Mira's mouth opened on a startled gasp, and the fog swallowed the sound.
Elias moved before thought could catch up.
The bay's pull had been tightening around his ribcage, forcing his lips into the first shape of a name he hadn't spoken in a century. It had been winning—slowly, patiently—until Mira fell.
Then something in him snapped into a simpler truth.
*Mira is falling.*
He lunged.
The instant his foot crossed the boundary line he and Mira had bled into the sand, the air changed. It thickened, like stepping from shore into deep water fully clothed. Cold pressure wrapped his bones. His vision sharpened and flattened at the same time, the world taking on the brittle clarity of a dream.
The bay noticed him crossing.
It welcomed him.
Elias didn't look at the water-arch. He didn't look at the bell sinking toward the forming hollow. He looked at Mira.
He caught her wrist.
Her skin was warm—shockingly, stubbornly human in the bay's cold—and her grip on the charm was iron. For a second, the two of them held each other in a terrible balance: Mira sliding downward; Elias planted on sand that was trying to become water; both of them suspended over a mouth opening in the beach.
Mira's eyes were wide, white-rimmed with fear. "Elias—"
"Don't," Elias rasped.
It came out rough. Not a command, not instruction—more like a plea dragged from a throat that didn't plead.
Mira swallowed hard and clamped her mouth shut, as if afraid words could be stolen.
The sand under her hips collapsed further. Her free hand scrabbled for purchase, fingers sinking into grit that refused to be solid. The fog curled low and fast around them, pressing close, eager to hide what the bay was doing.
Elias tightened his grip and hauled.
Mira moved an inch toward him.
Then the beach yanked her back twice that far.
She made a strangled sound through closed teeth.
Elias's feet slid. He dug his shoes into the wet sand until they hit something firmer beneath—packed, darker sediment. It held for half a heartbeat.
The bay did not like being resisted.
The water-arch flared brighter, pale light swelling beneath the surface like an underwater lantern being turned up. The light didn't illuminate so much as *bleach*. It washed the scene in a colorless intensity that made Mira's face look carved from stone and made Elias's shadow on the sand look thin, sickly.
The bell rang once, sharp as a snapped wire.
The sound traveled through Elias's bones and tugged—hard—at the part of him that belonged to old agreements.
His jaw clenched. His lips twitched, threatening to open.
Not his human name.
The other one.
The one the bay had spoken.
Mira saw the change in his face. She shook her head frantically, eyes shining. She couldn't talk. She didn't dare.
So she did the only thing she could:
She squeezed his wrist like she was trying to anchor him to her heartbeat.
The contact hit Elias like a hook in the opposite direction—small, imperfect, but real.
He forced his mouth shut.
The shadows at his feet stirred, sensing his intent. They rose in reluctant ribbons, stretching across the sand toward Mira's sliding body like hands reaching for a drowning person.
The underwater light flared again.
The shadows thinned instantly, burned pale at the edges, retreating with a hiss only Elias could hear.
The bay's voice pressed into the fog—not quite sound, not quite thought.
*Witness.*
The word sank into the air like a stone.
Mira's eyes darted wildly past Elias's shoulder, toward the dunes.
As if she'd heard it too.
As if she suddenly knew to look.
Elias followed her gaze.
At the top of the beach path, just beyond the reach of the fog, a silhouette stood motionless among the wind-bent grasses.
A long coat.
A head tilted at an angle that suggested listening.
Even from this distance, Elias felt the figure's attention like fingers against the back of his neck.
The stitched-mouth thing.
It hadn't followed them like a hunter.
It had followed them like a *guest* arriving at a ceremony.
Mira's breath stuttered. Her eyes tracked the figure, and fear sharpened into something else—recognition without context.
The silhouette lifted one hand slowly, not waving.
Gesturing.
As if giving permission.
The sand under Mira dropped again.
Her shoulder dipped below the level of the beach. Wet grit slid up against her neck, cold and suffocating, trying to cover her mouth.
Mira's eyes widened in pure panic.
Elias yanked hard enough that his own shoulder threatened to dislocate.
Mira moved—another inch. Her body jerked upward against the pull.
Then the sand tightened like a fist around her ribs and dragged her down again.
Elias's grip burned. His fingers locked harder, tendons standing out. He did not let go.
He couldn't.
Behind them, the bell tipped fully into the hollow and began to slide as if on oiled velvet, the wet sand funneling it downward with horrible gentleness.
Elias felt the vow tighten as the bell sank.
A line went taut inside him.
Not a thread in air this time.
A thread in his *name*.
The bay spoke again, closer now, intimate as breath against skin.
His true name shaped itself in the fog, not fully spoken but present—pressing against his lips from the inside, demanding exit.
Mira's gaze snapped back to him, pleading. Her mouth trembled, still closed. Her eyes begged him to stay himself.
Elias didn't know if he could.
He dragged in a breath that tasted like salt and iron and old coastline. He looked down at Mira—at her clenched jaw, the charm still trapped in her fist like a talisman, her body half-swallowed by the beach.
Then he made a decision that felt less like bravery and more like arithmetic.
He shifted his stance and dropped to one knee, bringing his center of gravity lower. He wrapped his free arm around a half-buried driftwood stump near the edge of the collapse—something the tide had left behind days ago, dark and heavy with waterlogged weight.
Wood creaked. Wet sand gave.
Elias held anyway.
"Mira," he said, voice raw. "Look at me."
Mira's eyes locked on his immediately.
Good. Good.
Elias forced his own attention away from the water-arch, away from the bell, away from the bay's beckoning path. He focused on Mira's face—the human details the bay couldn't replicate. The fine freckle near her left eye. The salt damp on her lashes. The fury under her fear, refusing to be extinguished.
"Throw it," Elias said, nodding at the charm in her fist.
Mira blinked, confused.
"The charm," Elias repeated. "Throw it to me."
Mira's grip tightened, instinctively protective. She didn't want to lose the only thing she trusted.
Elias's voice sharpened. "Now."
Mira's eyes flicked to the sinking bell, then to the water-arch, then to the stitched-mouth silhouette above the dunes like a witness at trial.
She made her choice.
Mira flung the charm.
It tumbled through fog and pale light, spinning end over end.
Elias caught it with his free hand.
The moment the metal hit his palm, a jolt ran up his arm—cold, clean, corrective. Like stepping onto stone after walking too long on sand that shifted under every footfall.
The bay reacted instantly.
The underwater light flared, and the air around Elias's hand felt suddenly heavier, as if the charm had become an anchor the bay wanted to rip away.
Elias drove the charm down into the wet sand at the edge of the collapse like a stake.
Not delicately. Not carefully. He slammed it in until the metal vanished halfway, embedded in packed grit.
The etched marks on its surface caught the pale light and—just for a second—seemed to *darken*, absorbing brightness instead of reflecting it.
The sand around the charm shuddered.
Then it held.
Not solid, not safe—but less eager to swallow.
Mira gasped as the pull on her body lessened by a fraction. She seized the moment and clawed upward, fingers finding purchase on firmer sand near Elias's knee.
Elias grabbed her forearm with his now-free hand and hauled again, using the driftwood stump as leverage.
Mira slid upward, wet sand scraping her clothes, grit streaking her cheek. The beach tried to take her back, but the charm-stake's presence seemed to irritate whatever mechanism was chewing through the shore.
Mira's shoulder cleared the edge.
Then her ribs.
Then, with a final desperate heave, Elias dragged her fully onto the intact sand beside him.
Mira collapsed hard against his thigh, coughing and spitting sand, chest heaving. Her hands shook. She kept her mouth clenched shut between coughs like she didn't trust it to stay hers.
Elias stayed kneeling, one arm still looped around the driftwood, the other braced behind Mira's back to keep her from sliding back in.
He could feel the bay's attention narrowing onto them.
Angry now.
The water-arch pulsed brighter, as if fed by indignation.
The bell, half-submerged in the collapsing hollow, rang again—muffled this time, as if already underwater.
Mira lifted her head, eyes wild, and finally forced words out through grit. "The… charm—"
"Stay down," Elias said.
Mira ignored him and pushed herself upright anyway, coughing once more. She looked over Elias's shoulder toward the dunes and froze.
The stitched-mouth figure was closer.
Not by walking. It hadn't moved in any human way.
It was simply *nearer*, as if distance had stopped applying.
The long coat hung still despite the wind. The head remained tilted, attentive.
The stitched mouth flexed.
And this time it spoke out loud, the sound faint but real through the fog.
"You should have let her be taken."
Mira's blood ran cold. Elias felt it in the way she stiffened beside him.
Elias rose slowly, keeping himself between Mira and the figure. His posture was calm, but there was no softness in it now. No attempt at appearing harmless.
"Why do you need witnesses?" Elias asked.
The stitched-mouth thing's head tilted further, almost fond. "Because it must be remembered correctly."
Mira's voice came out brittle. "What must be remembered?"
The thing's attention slid to her—cold fingers across the back of the neck.
"Mira Sayeed," it said, savoring the name like a taste.
Mira's jaw clenched again. She didn't answer. Her eyes flicked to Elias, desperate, seeking direction without words.
Elias felt his own mouth twitch, the bay's pull pressing at his lips again, eager for his true name.
He hated that the stitched-mouth thing used names like that. Like keys. Like knives.
Elias spoke without looking at Mira, voice low. "Behind me."
Mira obeyed instantly this time.
Elias kept his eyes on the witness. "You're not the bay," he said.
The stitched mouth creaked, widening slightly, as if smiling beneath thread. "No."
"You're its herald."
"Someone must ring the bell," the figure replied. "Someone must open the way. Someone must ensure the vow is honored."
Elias's fingers curled, nails biting into his own palm where the earlier cut had reopened during the struggle. Blood—dark and slow—slid across his skin. He didn't look at it. He could feel it anyway, warm against cold.
The stitched-mouth thing's attention sharpened when it sensed the blood.
Like a dog smelling meat.
Mira's voice shook from behind Elias. "Elias… the charm—"
Elias heard it too.
The charm-stake in the sand was vibrating.
Not visibly. Not like a loose object rattling.
More like a tuning fork caught by a note only it could hear.
And the note was coming from the bell.
The bell rang again—fainter, deeper. A sound traveling up through water and sand.
The hollow in the beach widened.
The charm-stake began to tilt as the ground beneath it softened again, the bay slowly finding a way around the boundary.
Elias's jaw tightened.
He could keep fighting the sand, the fog, the pull.
But the bay wasn't trying to win quickly.
It was trying to win *correctly*.
With witnesses.
With names spoken.
With steps taken across thresholds.
Elias turned his head slightly, just enough that Mira could see the edge of his profile. "When I tell you to run," he said, "you run back to the car. Don't stop for anything. Don't look behind you."
Mira's breath caught. "No."
Elias's voice went colder. "Mira."
Mira stepped forward, fury flashing through her fear. "You don't get to—"
The bay spoke again.
His true name, half-formed, pressed against the inside of Elias's teeth.
His lips parted against his will.
A sound began—ancient, wrong in the human mouth.
Mira froze, seeing it happen.
Elias forced his jaw shut so hard it hurt. Pain blossomed along his teeth and up into his skull, white and anchoring. He tasted iron.
The stitched-mouth figure leaned in, delighted. "Yes," it whispered. "Say it."
The water-arch brightened until it looked like a doorway cut into the world. Inside its curve, darkness churned—not empty darkness, but moving darkness, like a crowded room seen through a keyhole.
Mira stared at the arch, horrified. "There's… something in there."
Elias didn't look.
He couldn't afford to.
If he looked, part of him would recognize it too deeply.
The bell slid another inch downward into the hollow.
The charm-stake lurched, then sank an inch as the sand softened.
Mira reached for it instinctively, but Elias caught her wrist.
"Don't," he said.
Mira's eyes flashed. "It's ours—"
"It's not ours," Elias corrected, voice harsh. "It's a loan. Your family didn't forge it for you. They forged it to keep a boundary between themselves and something like *this*."
Mira went still, the words landing like a slap of truth. Her mouth opened—then closed again, as if she didn't trust her voice.
Elias turned back to the stitched-mouth witness. "Who gave the museum the bell?" he demanded.
The figure's stitched mouth flexed. "A commission. A signature. A hand that trembled while it wrote. You saw the paper."
"Harlow," Mira whispered behind Elias, realization sharp. "He signed."
The witness tilted its head. "He was afraid. Fear makes excellent ink."
Elias's gaze narrowed. "You're using the museum as a stage."
"Yes," the witness said simply. "Glass old enough to reflect what is not there. A bell old enough to remember its purpose. A place full of dead stories."
Mira's voice shook. "And us?"
The witness's attention slid back to Mira, heavy and intimate. "A witness who fights. A witness who bleeds. And the one who owes."
Elias felt the bay's pull tighten again, impatient now.
His true name surged up his throat like bile.
He couldn't hold it much longer.
Mira saw his struggle and did something unexpectedly gentle: she pressed her hand to his forearm, just above his wrist, grounding. Not pleading. Not clinging.
Present.
Human.
It was such a simple thing, and it struck Elias harder than the bay's tug.
For a fraction of a second, his lips stopped moving.
The witness noticed.
Its head snapped slightly, the first abrupt movement Elias had seen from it. The stitched mouth creaked as if the thread was under strain.
"Careful," it warned Mira softly. "Don't tether him to yourself. He'll take you down with him."
Mira's fingers tightened on Elias's arm anyway. Her voice came out low, fierce. "Then he won't go alone."
Elias turned his head just enough to look at her.
In her eyes he saw fear—yes—but also something else, stubborn and burning, a refusal to be a bystander to someone else's doom.
It was the kind of look that changed outcomes.
Elias hated it.
Because it made him want things.
Because it made him remember the cost of wanting.
The bell rang again—deep, muffled, underwater.
The beach hollow widened, and the water-arch surged forward a fraction, the doorway drawing closer as if the bay was tired of waiting.
Elias felt the vow inside him twist, tightening like rope around a wrist.
His lips parted.
This time the sound that came out wasn't his true name.
It was a different word—short, old, shaped like refusal.
The sand shuddered.
The water-arch flickered.
The witness hissed through its stitched mouth, thread creaking.
Elias used the flicker.
He grabbed Mira by the back of her jacket and shoved her backward—hard—toward the dunes. "Run."
Mira stumbled, caught herself, eyes blazing with protest.
Elias didn't give her time to argue.
He stepped forward—one deliberate step—placing himself between the collapsing hollow and the path back to shore.
Placing himself where the bay wanted him.
The pull eased slightly, satisfied by his movement.
The witness's head tilted in approval.
Mira's voice broke. "Elias!"
Elias didn't look back.
If he looked back, he might follow.
If he followed, the bay would take them both.
He fixed his gaze on the water-arch and finally let himself see what was inside.
Not darkness.
A corridor.
A long, narrow stretch of space lit by the faintest gray glow, like moonlight filtered through bone. Shapes lined the sides—too still to be alive, too present to be memory.
And at the far end of the corridor, something stood waiting.
Tall.
Coated.
Head tilted.
But this one's mouth was not stitched shut.
It smiled.
And in the corridor's air, Elias heard a bell ring without any bell being struck.
From behind him, Mira did not run.
Her boots hit sand, fast, closing distance.
Elias's stomach dropped.
The bay, delighted by disobedience, surged.
The beach hollow opened like a mouth.
And the doorway in the water widened—
wide enough for two.