Maren had rung the hollow bells over six hundred graves. Each toll dragged a dead soul up just long enough for one last word. She'd done it so long it bored her. But tonight the bell rang before she touched the rope. One cold iron note rolled across the frozen yard. She opened her casebook to write it down, and the page was already full, in handwriting that was not hers.

Maren had a rule: never answer a bell she didn't ring. So she tore the strange page out, held it to the lantern flame, and let it burn. The writing didn't char. The letters lifted off the paper, hung in the cold air, and rearranged into new words. "Burning the message," they spelled, "does not cancel the debt."