The shuttle wants to write a line through us.
Its bell arm lifts, eager. The catch pin at its elbow gleams like a small, smug truth.
"Count," I say, because breath behaves when it's told a bedtime story.
"One—two—three—four," Kirella answers, voice steady, roof over weather.
On two, the short scythe is already under the pin—metal only—sting in my palm pricking and then agreeing to live inside the number. On four, I lift a handspan of faith.
Ting.
The shuttle drops onto its own brake like a dog told stay. Kirella brushes the bell with the plate as it thinks about making a point.
"WAIT."
The bell coughs polite. We cross the line first.
The ambulance slides beneath the grate—roof clean, straps humming. The gondola to my left shivers in its cradle, empty and willing. Both roads are honest; one is quicker.
"Roof," I say.
"Roof," Lupa echoes, already a calculation in motion.
We step as one—me first, Lupa after, Kirella last with our moving room of shade. The drop is knee-high and a promise deep. My boots kiss glass, then learn the grip of woven straps. I lay a thin ring seam under our soles so the roof remembers to be floor. Name-salt on my wrists and collarbone; the air forgets our exactness.
Lupa lands without a sound that counts. She touches the nearest buckle with two fingers. "Talk soft," she tells the metal. I feed a breath of brine into the tongue and it stops wanting to explain itself.
Kirella lowers the shade cloth like a small tent over us, breaking our outline into furniture. The wolf slides under his knee, a quiet hinge with teeth.
The corridor swallows us whole. THREADING NORTH is a tunnel made of patience: walls white as neglected vows; vents that breathe confession; small bells installed wherever men imagined their fear would be most useful. Every third beam holds a mirror mouth shaped to pull breath and taste for true.
The first confession vent wakes as we pass. Brass lips purse. A sigh gathers to catch the end of my name.
I lift the cap a quarter-turn inward and mist brine across its throat. It inhales its own pride. On the wall, a little mirror ledger blinks NAME TO PASS and the bell above it trembles like a timid rabbit.
"WAIT," Kirella says, plate near, not touching. The bell chooses courtesy. I draw a finger-seam along the doorstep; SIGN fogs to WAIT, then sets to KEEP the way a pot makes peace with heat.
We ride the roof slow, matching the car's obedience with our own better kind. The tag against my ribs warms steady toward north. Through a slit in the webbing, I glimpse a rubber-stamped corner of paper inside the casket.
Myor — requisition / Threading Seq.
Not a rumor then. A sentence trying to become a paragraph.
"Copy," Kirella says.
I slip the boat hook under a side panel seam and pry a slot card free by its ribbon. TURNUSOL: THREADING ETA flickers in clerk-hand. The ink wants to run; I kiss its edge with brine and it sits. SORRY eats the card, damp and quiet.
Ahead, a narrow arch—first of the confession rooms—dresses itself polite: NAME TO PASS stitched across its lintel, floor scuffed by men who have practiced failing with dignity. Inside, the air tastes like breath forced through gauze.
We ready what we are: two breaths and a choir.
"Red Ladle," I say, low.
"Steady Hand," Kirella says, tapping one—two—three—four on the strap with a knuckle.
"First Fang," Lupa answers, the wolf rumbling the four so the room remembers rhythm belongs to people, not bells.
SIGN → WAIT → KEEP. The room tries to sigh names off our tongues and drinks its own perfume instead.
Two stitch techs step from a side slit, shirts tidy with someone else's cleanliness. One's hand goes for a bell lever; the other lifts a yoke—a collar with opinions and a latch meant to obey.
Lupa crosses the roof like water that made up its mind. Wrist, hip, seat: she sets the first tech on the ambulance's forward spine, his breath catching up later. Kirella shows the bell the plate.
"WAIT."
The lever obeys a better etiquette than the man holding it.
I meet the second tech at the yoke. The throat latch hides a split-pin in a fold that looks decorative until someone like me cares.
"Count," I say.
"One—two—three—four."
On two, the short scythe nestles under metal. On four, I lift a handspan. Ting. The yoke decides to be a loop and not a trap. I tie a small kept-knot through its hinge—three honest pulls will open it for a neck that predicates please with a breath.
The tech blinks at my hands as if I explained a language no one taught him. He keeps his bones. He keeps his job later if he's lucky. He keeps his pride if he chooses better.
We leave him the choice.
The ambulance hums. Threading North slides past in segments: a window with nothing behind it; a fan with that particular auditorium whirr; a wall chart with time turned into a ladder. Above us, the overhead rails carry maintenance gondolas like patient beetles; every now and then a mirror-net shuttle peeks at a crossing and decides to wait, remembering a bell's politeness.
We seed the tunnel.
Ring-coin A goes under the faucet plinth in the confession room's corner. I press it there until the stone learns keep that water can remember later. Ring-coin B tucks under the first turn post past the arch, where feet will step and think careful without knowing why. A thumb of name-salt on each coin's edge and on my own wrists again. We teach the air to forget me.
Beneath our knees, something inside the casket thumps—not mechanics. A heart, stuffed deep, wrapped in paper manners. The thump has the particular patience of people who were asked to wait by someone who has never had to.
My hand finds a metal seal by the strap—another pin, this one stamped with a polite crest. Opening it here makes a noise even good knots can't forgive. Closing it again would not erase that noise.
I lay a ring coin by the seal and draw the warmth along its rim with my thumb like a chalk arrow: WE KEEP EACH OTHER → return for three.
Lupa meets my eyes and says wait with her mouth closed. Kirella sets the count at my shoulder so my hurry learns to be a person.
We move with the car through a turn that thinks it's important. The air cools in that way ceilings do when they believe they're above weather.
Then the Sunline wakes.
A grid of holy-glass set in the tunnel ceiling—the city's cruel imitation of day—flares to life in a run of pale plates. It throws a white-cold that isn't heat and still burns all the same. The straps under my palms warm enough to whisper trouble. My cheek prickles, then tightens. The seam under our boots feels like the last warm coin in a winter pocket.
"Grid," Lupa says, eyes narrowing to slits a wolf would respect.
The Sunline is meant to bleach ring-warmth thin and make vampires count badly. It is also held in place by men who liked how catch pins look when they're clever.
Ahead, in the grid's first frame, a bypass pin gleams—little split-ring tucked in a bracket's shadow where only someone who loves hinges more than sleep would see it.
The bell for this section lives behind a grill, already lifting its mouth. Kirella is a step from it, plate angled like a blessing men with good coats wish they'd invented.
"WAIT," he says, and the bell chooses to be dignified instead of loud.
The grid still climbs.
"Angles," Lupa says, sliding right to become my second floor if I forget how to stand. The wolf coils its cloth like a tongue meant to catch glare and eat it.
Palm sting wakes as I crawl forward on the roofline, my ribs selected and cataloged by something that hates admitting it is not the sun. I keep the short scythe close—no drama, only angle. The pin lives elbow-high to a man standing on a proper ladder. We did not bring a proper ladder. We brought count.
"One—two—three—four," Kirella breathes into the inside of my ear even though he is at my back. The sound arrives there; that is enough.
On two, the hook is under the split-ring. Metal only. The sting bites and then falls asleep.
A mirror mouth up-beam yawns to sip truth. I turn its cap inward with a wrist flick and sneeze brine through its vanity. It discovers the taste of itself and behaves.
The Sunline brightens another tooth. I smell cloth warming—the faint tut of my glove's seam thinking about smoke. The seam under our feet thins, not gone, just brave in a larger room.
"Four," Kirella says, the word not loud, exactly wide.
I lift a handspan.
Ting.
The grid's first plate sighs, surprised to be asked to rest. Light drops a fraction, the kind you feel behind the eyes before you see. The next plate in the run takes offense and brightens twice as proud. The bypass has friends.
"Again," Lupa says, and her stance becomes a ledge.
We roll with the car into the next square. Another bypass pin waits—smaller, petty, clever in the way men are when they learn a weakness by watching someone else survive it.
"Count."
"One—two—three—four."
Ting. Light tucks its shirt back in. A breath of cool licks my cheek. The seam underfoot plumps like bread. I want to laugh. I do not. I count.
A stitch tech looks up through a service grate we are not supposed to see. He sees nothing: only the missing courage of a grid that decided to be mannered and the shadow of his own job getting smaller. He touches the bell by reflex. It coughs polite into a sleeve and refuses to gossip.
We run the plates one by one—pin, ting, drop—like cutting a crooked hem true. I am careful not to hurry, careful not to let satisfaction take a seat. Satisfaction is a bad friend on roofs.
By the fourth plate, the Sunline accepts a compromise: it glows like an apology instead of a rule. My skin stops crawling. My mouth relearns the taste of ordinary breath.
"West spur," Kirella says, nodding at a sign meant for hands in uniforms: HOLDING →. Parallel beam. A maintenance gondola clicks into motion there, unmanned. The mirror-net shuttle we delayed earlier wakes again far behind, but it will have to run a longer ladder now.
"Stay roof," Lupa says. "Holding sees hands. Rails see ghosts."
We creep with the ambulance into a long throat where the Threading machines hum their terrible competence. The walls here have ears—little parabolic cups under trims, each with a small scent wick. I trot the cap inward as we pass each and let them enjoy their own perfume. Bells along this run have learned polite for the day. We have taught them. They may forget tomorrow. We'll be here.
The casket gives another thump—weaker? Or was that my worry trying a new voice. I press two fingers to the ring coin I left by the seal. The warmth answers we; the arrow sits bright under my thumb—return for three.
"North end," Kirella murmurs. "Holding drop."
The corridor narrows to a knife slot. A door faces the path—no handles, just a mirror ledger and a petulant posture. NAME TO PASS glows like a teacher who enjoys the test more than the learning.
We do the small ritual because small rituals guard against big mistakes.
"Red Ladle."
"Steady Hand."
"First Fang."
SIGN → WAIT → KEEP. The door accepts something it didn't ask for, for once.
Through the grate, I see the Holding hall beyond—rows of narrow bunks with belts instead of blankets; a trolley with neat needles; a board with times that pretend to equal lives. At the far end, a mirror ambulance like ours is being unloaded by men whose faces have mistaken obedience for goodness.
We will have to step off soon—roof to beam, beam to shadow, shadow to floor. We will have to move as people and not ghosts.
"Stop point," Lupa says. She means last quiet, the breath you take when the path becomes a staircase.
The grid above us goes white again—further on—a final Sunline cluster at the Holding mouth. Somewhere a clerk with a taste for drama has decided it is time to be theatrical. A bypass pin lives in the cluster's elbow, proud of its hiding place.
I crawl the last arm lengths. Palm sting wakes like an old ache that loves me. The short scythe is a letter opener in a room full of sealed envelopes.
"Count," I say, throat dry, stubborn.
"One—two—three—four," Kirella answers, steady as wet rope.
On two, the hook slides under the split-ring. On four, I lift the lie out of the light.
Ting.
The Sunline flickers, then sits. The aisle ahead breathes a gray that doesn't hate me. The seam underfoot swells to a small certainty.
Below, a tech turns with a yoke in his hands and a thought in his mouth. Lupa's weight shifts. The wolf holds its glare in a fold of cloth. The ambulance becomes an arrow, bowstring ready to sing now.
"Down," Lupa whispers.
We ready to drop—me first, then her, then the room Kirella carries with his cloak—onto the thin strip of beam that will lead us into Holding before anyone with a baton finishes practicing his speech.
The tag at my ribs warms like a coin that remembers who earned it.
And the chapter ends there—with the shuttle pacified behind us, the Sunline behaving as if it learned manners, the crown we stole sleeping somewhere behind in cloth, the wall's MI— frozen ugly and unfinished, the casket's thump answering we through a ring coin, Threading North admitting our bowl-names, Holding showing its tidy cruelty through the grate, Lupa ready, the wolf coiled, Kirella's count steady—and my short scythe tucked back against my wrist, one breath before we leave the roof and teach a floor how to carry us.