Dawn theme - Making multicolumn images go to url? Code help please!

[KLDC]

Hello folks! I'm doing some homepage customizations for a client (in Dawn) and have hit a snag with the multicolumn section.

The client would like a row of images that each click to their own external URL. The theme only includes the option to link text, so I'm editing the theme code.

In multicolumn.liquid, I've added the following schema:

{
"type": "url",
"id": "image_link",
"label": "Image link"
},

... which worked great, the option to add an image link shows up in the theme editor.

And then back inmulticolumn.liquid I wrapped the following a tag around the div:

<a href="{{ section.settings.image_link }}">
<div class="multicolumn-card__image-wrapper multicolumn-card__image-wrapper--{{ section.settings.image_width }}-width{% if section.settings.image_width != 'full' or spaced_image %} multicolumn-card-spacing{% endif %}">
<div class="media media--transparent media--{{ section.settings.image_ratio }}"
{% if section.settings.image_ratio == 'adapt' %}
style="padding-bottom: {{ 1 | divided_by: highest_ratio | times: 100 }}%;"
{% endif %}>
<img
srcset="{%- if block.settings.image.width >= 275 -%}{{ block.settings.image | img_url: '275x' }} 275w,{%- endif -%}
{%- if block.settings.image.width >= 550 -%}{{ block.settings.image | img_url: '550x' }} 550w,{%- endif -%}
{%- if block.settings.image.width >= 710 -%}{{ block.settings.image | img_url: '710x' }} 710w,{%- endif -%}
{%- if block.settings.image.width >= 1420 -%}{{ block.settings.image | img_url: '1420x' }} 1420w,{%- endif -%}"
src="{{ block.settings.image | img_url: '550x' }}"
sizes="(min-width: 990px) {% if section.blocks.size <= 2 %}710px{% else %}550px{% endif %},
(min-width: 750px) {% if section.blocks.size == 1 %}710px{% else %}550px{% endif %},
calc(100vw - 30px)"
alt="{{ block.settings.title }}"
height="{{ block.settings.image.height }}"
width="{{ block.settings.image.width }}"
loading="lazy"
>
</div>
</div>
</a>

So, the image is clickable, but instead of going to the URL I'd specified in the theme editor, it just goes back to the homepage (https://dherese.myshopify.com/). I'm so stumped. 

Any thoughts? Much appreciated folks.

K.