The bell’s chime carries on travelling when it changes. It reaches an end at last. For an ear-piercing split second, it behaves as if it understands what an echo is. The sound comes back with a different pitch, cleaner and harder than their ears expect, where the warped wood may have swapped itself for marble.…

The glazed panes of the entrance judder in their frames at the slightest effort. No return sound comes out of the bell. Eli shoots a look at it over his shoulder. *That bell. I don’t even remember the last time it worked properly.* He carries in the raindrops on his jacket and damp on his…

*Don’t think about Eli. Just count. Stack, slot, move.* It is more a surrender than a welcome, the way The Frayed Spine bookshop opens around Maz. A rusted brass bell above the door swings as if it is trying to ring. It only musters a single note of a one-way whimper, yet still manages to…