Interlude I: A Bell Hums Without Being Touched

Rain fell across the broken stones of the old bridge.

The Abhorsen’s House stood quiet in the dim light, its tall windows casting long reflections across the churning waters of the Ratterlin. The gate was closed. The wards pulsed with steady Charter-light.

Inside, a bell rang.

Not loudly.

Not even with sound.

It vibrated, high up on its wooden peg above the fireplace — Saraneth, the Binder, swayed gently as if catching a breeze no one else could feel.

Karreth, a second-year Charter adept in soft grey robes, looked up from his ledger. He had been copying the bell names again, his fingers sore with ink and his jaw clenched from effort.

He stood slowly. His boots squeaked on the polished floorboards.

No one had touched the bell.

And it had moved.

Not far. A quarter turn to the left. As though turning its ear.

He knew better than to touch it. Even the Abhorsen-in-Waiting, Lady Lirael, only used the bells when called to it — and she wasn’t here. She was out in the west, chasing something that still had no name.

So Karreth lit a candle, walked carefully to the edge of the room, and opened the window.

Cold wind swept in, and with it—whispers.

Not Dead speech. Not Free Magic.

Something older. Rooted.

He held his Charter mark steady and listened. Not with ears. With his bones.

North, said the wind. North and deep. A door under a hill opens backwards. The spiral unwinds. One walks without bells but binds all the same.

Karreth closed the window.

The bell stopped moving.

He stared at it for a long time.

Then, setting aside the ledger, he took out a clean piece of parchment and wrote a single sentence in crisp Charter script:

“The Cairn stirs. Send word to Belisaere. The line may break again.”

He folded the note and sealed it with blue wax.

There were no birds at the House, no messengers. Just the river and its long watch.

So he took the message down to the water’s edge, knelt at the Charter stone with the bell carving, and whispered it into the flow.

The river took it. The Charter would carry it.

And Karreth returned to his desk and pretended the bell hadn't moved.