Chapter 32 · Before the Last Bell

The bell tower smelled like burnt copper and old blood. Cass could taste it on his tongue, metallic and wrong, as he climbed the last stone steps with Mara half-dragging him by the collar.

"Move faster," she hissed. Her knife was out, catching the sick green light bleeding through the cracks in the walls. "Seraphina's starting the final mark. We've got maybe five minutes."

Cass stumbled. His father's ring felt like it was burning through his finger, hot enough to sear bone. Every loop he'd lived through was pressing into his skull at once. Deaths stacked on top of deaths. The thing with teeth. The fall from the exam hall balcony. Drowning in the flooded basement while Nix screamed his name. He'd died so many times he couldn't remember which pain belonged to which morning.

"I know," he said. His voice came out raw. "I know."

Mara shoved the tower door open with her shoulder. The wood splintered like it had been waiting to break. Inside, the bell hung silent in the center of the room, massive and black and older than the school itself.