Chapter 22 · Loopbound - Chapter 22: Behind the Clock
The chiming shouldn't be possible. The clock tower's been dead for fifteen years, ever since the wards locked it down after some idiot third-year tried to use it for a temporal anchor and fried half the mechanism.
Callum's already running.
The sound's coming from the east wing, past the restricted archive, past the section Vera told him was sealed after the first experiment. His boots slam against marble. The hallway lights flicker with each chime. Seven. Eight. Nine.
He counts them the way he used to count mortars.
Twelve chimes. Then silence.
The hallway dead-ends at a maintenance door he's never seen open. Tonight it's cracked. Just enough. No light inside. He can smell old copper and something else. Ozone, maybe. Or blood that's dried and re-wet too many times.
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