The light-hook hisses toward us—bright, barbed, greedy.
I plant two ring coins—one under heel, one under toe. Their warmth climbs my calves like decent advice. The lantern sits good-heavy between our hands. Kirella's thumb writes calm at my wrist. One—two—three—four.
"Stand," Lupa says.
The travelers crouch behind the milestone rail, slips clenched—BOWL-NAME ONLY chalked into their skin like little flags. Wolves melt into fern shade, not gone, just everywhere.
The hook reaches for the palanquin's brace where we tied WAIT like a stubborn ribbon. Kirella touches the plate again—just a breath of the WORD—and the metal remembers how to be polite.
"Brine," he murmurs.
I flick the vial with the boat hook. A thin mist crosses the light-rope. It frizzes, its clean edge going to split ends. Stone-Reed snaps a shade cloth into its arc; the hook drags cloth, not people, and sulks.
It still has bite. There's a trolley ring of metal at the hook's throat where it rides the mirror seam. I give the tırpan one handspan of extension—no more—and catch that ring like you catch a bucket lip. Lever, not slice. My palm stings as I pin the hook down into the small ring I've set at my feet. The rope grounds against the ring's warmth and slackens, confused like a dog that found a gate open and a kitchen telling it to sit.
Kirella's count keeps my hand where it belongs. One—two—three—four.
"Door," I say.
We move as if we rehearsed it. I run a thin ring seam around the ambulance mirror's rim; the warmth slicks into the frame like a tight-lidded pot finding its place on the stove. Kirella presses the WORD plate to the hinge—WAIT sits on the metal like a hand on a shoulder. Lupa kicks wheel chocks under the rear tires; Stone-Reed taps pegs up under the springs with the heel of his palm. The mirror doorway hesitates and holds half-open, the way a yawn pauses when someone asks a good question.
The box tries to argue. Law answers back.
"Two truths," I tell the bay.
"We keep doors open; we return for three," I say.
"No names to paper or stone," Kirella adds.
The silver on the mirror surface settles from hungry to dumb. The doorway goes from mouth to hall.
The driver jumps down fast because someone told him speed is bravery. I meet him close—shaft bind, hip turn, quick knee tap—and set him on his back with air leaving his chest like a secret. His hook rope skates low; I staple it to the bumper—wood and metal kissing, no skin invited.
One medic reaches for Kirella; the cloak does what it loves. Wrap, figure-four, a calm Drop that handles pride like a dish that shouldn't be cracked. The second medic tries to go past Lupa. She doesn't stop him. She stops the ground he wanted, knee neat across triceps. "Breathe," she says. He reddens. He breathes.
Inside the bay, the plates flare to make a second hook. I flick moon balm in a small haze; it lands cool and mint on silver and the reflections muddle as if winter breathed on them. The pale filaments slither to sip breath—one brine dab each and they gag politely and forget what they were for.
The bell cord in the corner snickers for authority. I thumb WAIT on its little striker and Kirella sets a kept-loop on the pull. The sound goes from order to please.
I take out the voice stone we cleaned and set it in a small ring on the step. It glows with a timbre that is no one's now, and when it plays, it loops Promise Choir the way a kitchen hums when the soup has decided to be right:
We won't pay.
We won't sell.
Travelers lower their heads, almost praying, and put their bowl-names into the tune: Blue Apron. Spindle Hand. Brown Apron. The plates taste the sound and get bored at once. You can't bill for ours.
"Tag it," I say.
Stone-Reed slides under the axle like a man who knows which boards bite. He weaves a thin kept-thread around the housing—a hair of vow in the grease. I lay a faint ring seam along the frame—audit quiet—so any restart has to argue with our we first. Kirella ties a three-visit release on the rear latch. On the wheel arch I chalk a small stubborn:
WE KEEP EACH OTHER →
Arrow toward the forest path.
The tall mask pings a restart from nowhere, voice coming out of a hub shard at ankle height. "On my count," he sings, like a man ordering pastry. "Three—"
Stone-Reed's thumb leaves balm across the shard and the reflection starves, honest as mud.
"Let it run," Kirella says, which is not the same as let it win.
"Track," Lupa answers. She flicks her chin at the trees. Ash-Fletch steps out of shade with two wolves on light feet. "Tail the box. Don't eat the driver. If someone tries to be a hero, kindly disagree."
Ash-Fletch's mouth goes flat—her version of a grin. "Yes."
"To the queue," Lupa says to the wardens who were brave and stupid here tonight. "Go home dry."
They nod, both relieved and insulted, which is the correct shape for men who were planning to be more useful than they were.
We pull the chocks and kick the pegs loose. Kirella loosens the seam on the hook's trolley ring, and I let the extension breathe back into the tırpan's hinge until the blade is short again and my palm decides to be a hand instead of a lesson. The mirror doorway remains half-asleep under the truths. The driver clambers back into the seat like a man who has found a kinder order to obey.
"Take it," Lupa tells him. "But understand: if you bring mirrors to kitchens, you'll go home with WAIT written on your soup."
He drives. The ambulance rolls away down the cut, tag shining on its underbelly like a single hair no one else will notice until we tug.
The road opens into marsh. The haul tower stands there with its arms up like a giant surrendering—pulleys and cables, the wire road that drags carts over the bog to the Auction relay yard. Lamps burn along the ridgeline like careful lies.
We move. Wolves on the banks. Civilians dispersing in pairs with chalk on their palms. The palanquin sits kept at the shrine, humming small and useful for once.
As we jog, the count stays under my skin. One—two—three—four.
"Climb?" Lupa asks, chin toward the haul tower ladders.
"We ride the frame," Kirella says, looking at the carriage cradle. He sees chain angles the way some men see weather. "Cradle rail has a notch. We can hug the crossbar. Her rings will keep it quiet. The tag will do the pointing."
"Then we go," Lupa says. First Fang is a good name for her; she knows how far ahead teeth should be.
The ambulance reaches the base of the tower. Men in white jackets wave it onto a wire cradle—a sling that bites the axle and kisses the frame with iron lips. Our kept-thread glints a hair's breadth as it slides into the clamp.
"Two breaths," Kirella says.
"Walk with me," I answer.
He tightens my wrap; I tilt my forehead to his temple for one breath, the way kitchens seal jars before winter.
We approach the shadow side of the tower—low, quiet. Stone-Reed shows me the notch with two blunt taps. I slide onto the cradle rail like a thief finding the warm space behind a stove. The ring seam I lay along the crossbar whispers be still to the metal and the metal chooses to pretend.
Lupa waits at the ladders with two wolves to break any line that breaks for us. Ash-Fletch and her trackers ghost along the bank to keep the sight line honest. The ambulance crew shouts numbers that mean nothing to kitchens and everything to pulleys. The winch whines the way men whine when things work as designed.
The cradle rises. The bog opens beneath, black and polite. The cable hums a song that would like to be a law. Our tag hums quieter at the axle: we.
Behind us on the road, the milestone shrine looks smaller, and people look larger. That is the right way round.
Halfway up the tower, the ambulance mirror shivers in its sleep and tries to dream a hook. My ring seam along the frame tightens like a belt and the dream forgets itself.
At the top, the cradle clicks onto the long wire road—a taut line stretching through marsh and moon, toward a yard where Auction keeps its teeth in neat drawers.
"Us first," Kirella breathes.
"Then the rest," I say, and mean ten years quietly even here, even now.
The cradle lurches forward, cable singing, our palms welded to the iron by kept and want. Wolves below melt through reed and black water like punctuation looking for a sentence. The tall mask watches from some friendly shard, hungry to turn the next page, and finds the page has teeth.
And the chapter ends there—with the ambulance lifting into the night on the wire like a polite abduction, our tag a hair of promise under its axle, Lupa's trackers sliding through the treeline, the haul tower letting us go with a squeal that might be warning or blessing, and my blade short in my hand while Kirella's count keeps my palm from remembering pain the way mirrors remember names.