Chapter 5

Low tide came gray and cold.

The salvage crew was six men from the Salt Guild, all debt-bound, all silent. They rowed me through the flooded streets of the lower district, where water lapped at second-story windows and children watched from rooftops. The cathedral rose ahead, half-sunk, its spire broken like a tooth. The air smelled of dead fish and candle wax.

Inside, the water was at my waist again. The Bell waited, barnacled and black. The gold crack caught the light. I felt it before I saw it: the hum in my teeth, the pull in my chest.

"Clear the rim," the crew chief said. "We leave before high tide."

I climbed onto the Bell's lip. The bronze was slick. I scraped barnacles and old weed, slow, careful. The crew watched from the water. Maud's soldiers waited on the ledge. Lottie was not there. Not yet.

When I reached the inner curve, I found words carved into the metal. They were old tide-script, deeper than the barnacles. I traced them with my fingers. I could not read them, but I recognized my mother's name.

Elin Callis.

Beneath it, smaller: Warden. Beneath that, a phrase I knew from Pell: I am the lock, not the door.

My hand trembled. The Bell hummed.

"Wren," a voice said. Not Pell. Not Maud. It came from the water, from the bronze, from my own bones. "Daughter."

I froze. The crew chief shouted something. The water began to rise. Not the tide. Too fast. The cathedral groaned. The soldiers on the ledge drew their swords.

"Get out!" the chief yelled.

The crew ran for the doors. I tried to climb down, but the Bell's hum locked my legs. The water climbed my chest. The doors slammed shut. I heard the heavy bar fall. Betrayed. Maud had never meant to let me prepare. She meant to trap me with the Bell until I had no choice but to ring it.

The dark water swirled. A golden eye opened beneath me, vast and calm. The Grief's voice filled the cathedral.

"Little minnow. You came back."

"You're not my mother," I said. "My mother drowned."

The eye blinked. The water rose to my chin. "I did drown. I chose the vow. I chose the cage. I did it to keep you and Lottie alive."

"Liar."

"Ask Maud what she promised me six years ago. Ask her why the Bell was silent. Ask her who cut the clapper."

The water lifted me. I floated above the flooded nave, helpless, the Bell humming at my back. The Grief's shadow moved beneath me, longer than the cathedral. I saw her shape through the black water: not a monster. A woman made of salt and grief, her hair drifting like kelp, her hands pressed to the inside of an invisible cage.

"I am the lock," she said. "And you are the key."