The air in the undercroft grew thick with the scent of damp earth and old copper as Lira's collarbone erupted in searing pain. The wound Ate Rosario had barely stitched hours before now blazed like a shard of sunlight trapped beneath her skin, its blue-white glow pulsing in rhythm with the twelfth skeleton's jerky movements. Shadows danced across the ancient stone walls like living things, twisting in time with each throb of light.

Elias saw Lira stagger and moved to steady her, his corrupted arm screaming in protest as he reached out. The gold veins had reached his shoulder now, spiderwebbing across his collarbone in intricate patterns that mirrored the baybayin script on the Spanish pistol. His fingers brushed her arm - and the contact sent a jolt through both of them.

A memory not their own flooded their minds:

A moonlit beach centuries past. Twelve figures in bone masks standing knee-deep in the surf. A thirteenth figure - a young woman with Lira's sharp cheekbones - pressing a dagger to the Hollow King's throat while the others chanted. The crash of waves nearly drowning out his whispered plea: "You don't know what you're awakening."

The vision shattered as the Index's bone-whip cracked through the air where Elias's head had been. He rolled aside, the Spanish pistol's weight unfamiliar in his grip. The ancient weapon felt alive, its engravings warming against his palm as if recognizing its purpose after centuries of waiting.

Lira gasped as the glow from her wound intensified, spreading down her arm in branching patterns that formed complete baybayin phrases. The twelfth skeleton's jaw creaked open impossibly wide, and from its hollow throat poured a melody that made the very stones tremble - a lullaby Lira hadn't heard since childhood nights in her lola's nipa hut.

"That's... impossible," she breathed. "That song died with my grandmother."

The Index froze mid-attack, its four remaining mouths slack with something almost like recognition. The stitched-together creature tilted its head, and for a fleeting moment, Elias saw the ghost of human features beneath the grotesque patchwork - a woman's nose here, a man's brow there - all stolen, all suffering.

"Last daughter," the Index whispered, its voices blending into something almost reverent. "Blood of the first betrayer."

Elias didn't hesitate. He fired the Spanish pistol twice in rapid succession. The first bullet tore through the Index's central mouth in an explosion of mercury and black ichor. The second struck its chest, the baybayin engravings flaring white-hot as they burrowed into rotting flesh.

The creature howled - a sound of rage and relief intermingled - as Lira lunged forward, her glowing hand outstretched. The moment her fingers made contact with the Index's wrist, where a faded tribal tattoo peeked through the stitching, the undercroft erupted in golden light.

Elias watched in horrified fascination as the stitches holding the Index together began unraveling of their own accord. Each thread that snapped free revealed glimpses of the people whose parts had been taken - a farmer's calloused hand here, a child's delicate finger there - all dissolving into motes of light as they were finally released.

The first silver nail clattered to the stone floor with a sound like a bell being struck.

Above them, the cathedral's great bell began to toll on its own, each reverberation shaking dust from the ceiling. The remaining eleven skeletons trembled in their suspension, their bones rattling against invisible bonds as cracks spread through the undercroft's walls.

Lira collapsed to her knees, the glow from her wound dimming to a faint pulse. Elias caught her as she swayed, his corrupted arm numb with a cold that had nothing to do with temperature. The twelfth skeleton stood motionless now, its hollow eye sockets fixed on the empty space beside it - a space that seemed to darken and deepen with each toll of the bell.

Somewhere in the city, four more bells answered the call.