The next day felt like walking through fog.
Every sound seemed too sharp. Every stranger's glance lingered too long. Elara couldn't shake the feeling that eyes were still following her—even through solid walls.
She took the photo from last night and shoved it deep into her coat pocket. She hadn't slept. She couldn't.
All night, the words echoed in her mind: "You'll meet the second when the night begins to sing."
And then the black envelope… with her photo.
They're not just watching me, she realized. They're testing me.
Testing her limits. Testing how far she'd go before she gave up.
She wasn't going to.
Not after what they did to Liora.
By noon, Elara stood in front of the university's old music building. It had been closed down after the fire at St. Alden's Chapel—but part of the records, she hoped, might still be archived in the main office.
She headed for the administration building instead.
"Can I help you?" the clerk behind the glass asked, chewing gum lazily.
"I'm doing a paper on choir history," Elara lied smoothly. "Do you have access to any old student files? Specifically from 2021 to 2024?"
The woman raised a brow. "You got permission from the dean?"
"Not yet," Elara admitted, then smiled. "But if you could just let me glance at the name Juliet Wren, I'll be out of your way in two minutes."
The clerk rolled her eyes. "One minute."
Elara nodded gratefully as the woman disappeared into the back room.
She came back with a dusty binder.
"Last known enrollment. That's all I can give."
Elara flipped through pages until she found it.
Juliet Wren. Choir Department. Enrolled 2023. Deceased 2024.
There was a note scribbled beside the entry.
> "Performance cancelled due to incident. Fire ruled accidental. Case closed."
But something caught Elara's attention.
Another name listed on the same page:
Professor D. Ferren.
She recognized the name. Liora had once mentioned him in a journal entry: "Ferren hides too much behind his smile. He knows what happened to Juliet."
Elara quickly copied down the address listed for him.
An hour later, she stood outside a narrow townhouse nestled behind a row of overgrown hedges. She rang the bell once. Twice.
No answer.
But as she turned to leave, the door creaked open.
An old man with sunken eyes and a trembling voice peered out.
"Who are you?"
"Elara Vance," she said carefully. "I'm looking into what happened to Juliet Wren. And to Liora."
The professor's expression changed—like a light went out behind his eyes.
"You shouldn't be here."
"Please. Just one question. Why did Juliet die in that fire? It wasn't an accident, was it?"
He said nothing.
Elara reached into her pocket and pulled out the photo she'd found in the chapel.
His face went pale.
"Where… where did you get that?"
"She's the second, isn't she?"
He looked down. "No. She was the first attempt."
Elara's breath caught. "What do you mean?"
The professor leaned in, voice barely a whisper.
"They were chosen. Not because they were guilty—but because they knew who was."
"Who?" she demanded.
He shook his head. "There is no name. Just the symbol. Just the circle."
Before she could ask more, he slammed the door shut.
A strange silence followed.
Then she heard something.
A melody.
Soft.
Distant.
Faint singing—like a child's lullaby, drifting through the wind.
Elara turned.
There, carved into the wood of the professor's fence, was a symbol she hadn't noticed before:
A circle.
And within it—
Seven lines.
Seven letters.
Seven deaths.
She stared at the symbol—seven lines inside a perfect circle—etched deeply into the wood. Her fingers hovered above it, afraid to touch, as if it might burn. Something about it felt deliberate, like a signature left by someone who knew she'd come looking.
The singing continued.
Soft.
Almost too soft to follow.
But it was there—floating on the air, threading through the branches behind the townhouse like a whisper with a purpose.
Elara followed it.
Off the path, behind the houses, into the trees.
It wasn't a song anyone should have known. The melody wasn't sweet—it was haunting. The lyrics drifted in and out of her ears, like forgotten words of a childhood rhyme that had grown twisted in the dark.
> "One by one, they fall asleep...
Secrets buried, secrets deep…"
The trees grew denser. Old. Gnarled. They bowed toward each other like sentinels. The singing got louder—not closer, but more insistent, as if it were calling her to remember something she never knew.
Then she saw it.
A shack.
Collapsed on one side, half-swallowed by ivy. It looked abandoned—no light, no sound except the song.
She hesitated.
But something inside her—a voice not her own—urged her forward.
She pushed open the creaking door. The music stopped.
Not suddenly.
Like a breath held.
Inside, it smelled of ash and rotting wood. A single chair sat in the middle of the room, and on that chair was an old music box, its lid wide open. Its metal cylinder still spun, slowly, though no sound came out now.
Elara approached it cautiously.
Below the box sat a leather-bound journal. Cracked and water-stained. She picked it up and read the name on the first page, her chest tightening.
> Juliet Wren.
Elara dropped to her knees, flipping through the pages.
The ink was faded, but legible. And what she found wasn't just diary entries.
It was confession.
> "Professor Ferren warned me. He said asking questions could kill me. That the others were 'chosen' for a reason. But they're not protecting us. They're protecting him."
> "I heard them in the chapel basement. Seven names on a list. Seven roles. The girl who tells the truth. The boy who hides the knife. The witness. The liar. The sacrifice. The mistake. The survivor."
> "They told me I was number four. But Liora found the letters too soon. So they moved her up. And me…"
The entry ended mid-sentence.
Elara flipped to the last written page.
Only one line:
> "He's still watching."
She didn't know who he was.
But as she looked around that broken room, a single truth settled over her:
This wasn't about Liora alone.
Juliet had been part of it.
And now, so was she.