Repairing a wing under a thirty-five-hour invasion clock was not restful.
It was still necessary.
Kest disliked both facts.
“I can walk.”
“You can also bleed.”
Greymarrow’s living floor carried my words through the corridor.
“I have demonstrated both.”
“That does not make them equally desirable.”
Behind us, Tallow limped with one hand against the wall whenever his injured leg failed to cooperate.
Kest glanced back at him.
Then at me.
“Do not start.”
“I said nothing.”
“You were about to.”
“I am naturally judgmental.”
“Professionally?”
“Formerly professionally.”
The Wayfarer Mendery opened ahead.
Blue light ran through its restored channels.
Marda had remained below with Nera, Pebble, and Rill. Nera’s release had been accepted, but the Continuance exception still held the machinery around her.
Leaving her behind had felt wrong.
Dragging three injured people directly into another unknown mechanism would have been worse.
I was beginning to understand the difference.
Greymarrow opened the mendery door.
Kest entered first.
Tallow followed more slowly.
I pulled myself across the threshold with the pale fibers beneath my base.
The wrapped appraisal knife remained secured outside my rear strap.
I could feel its presence without touching it.
Evidence.
Witness anchor.
Murder weapon.
Food, according to several deeply unhelpful instincts.
I ignored them.
The workbed warmed.
“Wing first.”
Kest stopped.
“Leg first.”
Tallow shook his head immediately.
Kest pointed at him.
“See?”
“No.”
Tallow pointed at her brace.
They glared at one another.
I reviewed the evidence.
“Kest first. Tallow sits while we work.”
Tallow looked betrayed.
“Then Tallow.”
Kest looked satisfied.
“Then me.”
Her satisfaction vanished.
“You are already repaired.”
“Temporarily.”
Marda’s earlier judgment returned to me.
Broken box reaches nothing.
I had been learning from stonejaws more often than professional pride preferred.
Kest climbed onto the workbed.
Her injured wing remained folded against her flank.
The ironwood splints still held.
The resin did not.
A narrow crack had opened along the lower bond where the heart-platform struggle had twisted the brace.
I touched the splint.
The support bone had not broken again.
Good.
The surrounding tissue remained swollen and badly healed.
Less good.
“The brace shifted. The wing itself did not break again.”
“Excellent. Then we are finished.”
“No.”
“You ruin good news efficiently.”
Tallow sat beside the workbed while I directed the repair.
His injured leg stretched stiffly before him.
Kest caught me looking.
“Do not inspect him while pretending not to.”
“I was not pretending.”
Tallow covered the leg with both hands.
This group had developed unreasonable expectations of privacy.
We softened the existing binder rather than removing the splints.
Tallow heated it in short bursts.
Kest bit down on the same bent pry-bar fragment she had once driven through my hinge.
I loosened the lower brace.
The resin released.
Kest’s claws dug into the workbed.
No sound.
That was not reassurance.
“Pain?”
She glared at me around the metal.
“Useful question.”
I shifted the splint less than half an inch.
Enough to remove pressure from the damaged joint.
Fresh mineral binder flowed into the gap.
Pebble was not here to cool it, so I opened a shallow water channel beneath the brace.
The resin hardened slowly.
Kest tested the wing.
Half fold.
Stop.
No tearing.
“Still no flying.”
“I had planned to become dramatically airborne immediately.”
“Plans benefit from review.”
She removed the pry bar.
“So do appraisers.”
Fair.
Tallow tried to stand.
Kest pushed him back down with one rear claw.
“Your turn.”
He protested with several rapid taps.
Tok-tok-tok-tok.
“Overruled.”
I moved closer.
Tallow’s injury had existed since the first chamber I remembered after waking.
He had limped through collapsed passages.
Crawled into blocked water channels.
Heated seized mechanisms while the leg folded beneath him.
I had noticed every time.
Then repeatedly treated noticing as sufficient.
That was another habit worth retiring.
“May I?”
Tallow stared at me.
Then extended the leg.
The mendery was not a hospital.
It could stabilize damage.
It could not erase an old fracture that had healed badly.
The lower leg remained misaligned.
The joint above it had compensated for too long.
Recent overuse had inflamed the surrounding tissue.
No miracle waited in the room.
Support did.
“We brace it.”
Tallow’s flame dipped.
“Not forever.”
He narrowed his eyes.
“Until someone with actual medical skill says something better.”
Acceptable.
Only scraps of ironwood remained.
Not enough for another proper splint.
But the exchange furnace still held thin brass offcuts.
And an old polishing frame on the stripped tool wall retained one leather suspension strap the Guild had apparently considered worthless.
Low salvage value.
High current value.
Professional satisfaction returned briefly.
Kest cut two narrow brass ribs.
We wrapped them in leather and fitted them along Tallow’s lower leg.
Not straightening the healed bone.
Supporting it.
Redistributing weight away from the worst angle.
Tallow stood carefully.
One step.
Then another.
The limp remained.
Smaller.
He crossed half the mendery.
Kest pointed at him.
“No running.”
He accelerated.
His third step hurt.
He stopped.
Kest’s beak curved.
“Excellent experiment.”
Tallow pointed at her wing.
The smile disappeared.
Justice had become remarkably efficient.
My turn required less work.
The internal ironwood brace remained seated.
Rear shim intact.
Upper band still twisted.
The heart extraction had loosened one edge of binder but not compromised the repair.
I accepted a narrow reinforcement strip.
Nothing more.
No heroics.
No new property.
No System reward.
Repair remained repair.
That felt increasingly important.
By the time we finished, several hours had passed.
Approximately thirty-five remained.
Kest settled beside the workbed.
Tallow stayed seated despite clearly wanting another test walk.
For perhaps thirty seconds, nobody pursued a mystery.
Then I looked at the wrapped knife.
Kest saw it.
“No.”
“I am not eating it.”
“You looked thoughtful.”
“I remain capable of thought without consuming nearby objects.”
“Evidence remains limited.”
I ignored her.
The black metal wrapped around the blade had come from the released heart clamp.
Until now, I had inspected it only enough to know that it was inert.
Urgency encouraged narrow questions.
Now I had a better one.
Why had the recovery protocol specifically ordered:
PREVENT LOCAL SEVERANCE
I removed the knife from my rear strap.
Placed it on the workbed.
Then unfolded one edge of the black plate without touching the blade.
Direct contact.
The material resolved.
Authority insulation.
Mechanical retention layer.
Emergency fracture channel.
I stopped.
Kest noticed.
“What?”
“Again.”
I shifted my keyplate to the inside surface.
There.
Nearly hidden beneath the fold.
A service inscription.
Not intended for appraisers.
For installers.
SOURCE ANCHOR ASSEMBLY — FIELD SERVICE
Below:
NETWORK FAULT RESPONSE
REMOTE ISOLATION
Then:
LOCAL SEVERANCE — LAST RESORT
Nobody spoke.
Kest moved closer.
“That.”
“Yes.”
The phrase had been sitting on the clamp hardware the entire time.
We had simply never had the reason—or time—to inspect the discarded component deeply enough.
I continued.
Most of the detailed procedure lived somewhere else.
One safety summary remained locally accessible.
LOCAL SEVERANCE
Physically isolates source authority from Continuance receiver network when remote isolation is unavailable.
EFFECTS:
NETWORK TRANSFER PATH TERMINATED
SOURCE RESERVATION INVALIDATED
My hinge tightened.
Kest watched me.
“That sounds good.”
“Potentially.”
“There is always another word.”
I read on.
REMOTE RESTORATION DISABLED
Still good.
Then:
WARNING
Severance under active load may cause authority recoil at source.
CUSTODIAL STABILIZATION REQUIRED
There it was.
The price.
Kest looked toward the floor.
“Nera.”
“Yes.”
The original Custodian role existed partly to stabilize Greymarrow during dangerous authority transitions.
Local severance could cut Continuance away.
Invalidate Greymarrow’s reserved receiver slot.
Prevent remote restoration of the transfer path.
But if we severed the line while authority still loaded the source—
Greymarrow could take the recoil.
And Nera was still physically trapped.
Weak.
Half released.
Tallow tapped the workbed.
Once.
Then pointed downward.
“Not at the heart.”
I inspected the service mark again.
SOURCE TRANSFER TRUNK
The same term used along the conduit route.
Where did that trunk become physically separable?
Another maintenance field appeared.
LOCAL SEVERANCE STATION: LS-1
ACCESS: SOURCE SERVICE SPINE
Kest frowned.
“Know it?”
“No.”
Greymarrow cooled beneath us.
That was an answer of its own.
“Greymarrow.”
Silence.
“Do you know the Source Service Spine?”
A reluctant image entered the mendery.
Not a room.
A route.
From the heart infrastructure.
Upward behind the eastern conduit wall.
Past the old waterworks.
Toward—
I recognized the endpoint.
“The tollhouse.”
Kest straightened.
“The Guild entrance.”
“Yes.”
Of course.
Continuance had installed its last-resort isolation mechanism where its own technicians could reach it without entering the heart chamber.
A safety feature.
Conveniently located near the people most likely to stop anyone else from touching it.
Greymarrow sent another fragment.
Black conduit.
Bronze wheel.
White Guild seal.
Then newer stone closing the route.
Closed.
“Guild?”
Yes.
Kest looked at me.
“So the thing they are afraid we might cut is under their own front door.”
“Approximately.”
“That seems poorly planned.”
“For them or us?”
“Yes.”
Tallow stood.
His new brace accepted his weight.
He pointed toward the passage.
Kest pointed at him.
“No.”
He pointed at her wing.
She pointed at my repaired side.
I closed my lid.
“We have just completed the part of the day where we learn from our mistakes.”
Tallow slowly lowered his hand.
Victory.
Small.
Suspicious.
Kest looked at the service inscription.
“Can we sever it now?”
“No.”
“Because Nera.”
“Because Nera. Because authority recoil. Because we have not inspected LS-1. And because an Office recovery team arrives in roughly thirty-five hours.”
“That last one argues for speed.”
“It argues against improvising at the only known switch capable of disconnecting Greymarrow from the network.”
Kest considered that.
“Annoyingly reasonable.”
“I treasure these moments.”
The mendery floor warmed.
Greymarrow sent one word.
Cut.
Not an instruction.
A desire.
Eighteen years of intrusion.
Nine completed transfers.
A tenth receiver slot already carrying Greymarrow’s name.
And now the dungeon knew there was a mechanism capable of cutting it free from Continuance.
I pressed my keyplate against the floor.
“We will.”
Warmth spread beneath me.
“But correctly.”
Less warmth.
Progress.
I folded the clamp plate back around the knife.
Secured the evidence against my rear strap.
Then looked toward the route leading beneath the tollhouse.
Before touching LS-1, we needed two things.
A Custodian capable of stabilizing Greymarrow.
And access to a Guild-sealed station sitting almost directly beneath the enemy entrance.
Kest followed my attention.
“What first?”
“Nera.”
“Because severance requires her.”
“Yes.”
“And because she is currently half trapped in a chair.”
“Yes.”
Kest nodded.
“Good.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“You put the person before the mechanism.”
I had no useful response.
Tallow tok-tokked my iron band.
Greymarrow warmed beneath us.
Apparently everyone had noticed.
I pulled myself toward the mendery door.
Thirty-five hours.
One injured Custodian.
One sealed severance station.
One recovery team coming to stop us.
Continuance had spent eighteen years building a system Greymarrow could not refuse.
Somewhere beneath the Guild’s own front door, they had also left a way to disconnect it.
And now we knew exactly what they were coming to stop us from doing.
Cut the line.