We drop like a decision no one heard but everyone felt.
Beam, not floor. The strip of iron under the Holding arch accepts our weight with a small, surprised hum. I lay a thin ring seam beneath our boots—warmth the width of a thumb, stubborn as a promise.
"One—two—three—four," Kirella breathes. The count sits my lungs in a chair and tells them to behave.
Name-salt at my wrists. Shade cloth over our edges. The wolf folds itself at Lupa's shin like a hinge that knows nothing rattles if you respect angles.
Two stitch techs turn at the sound the world insists we made. One reaches for a bell lever tucked beside a post; the other hefts a yoke with a latch that thinks it can make a neck agree.
Lupa meets them halfway with the politeness of gravity.
She takes wrist then hip, body turning like a hinge that never squeals, steering the first tech into a chair that wasn't there a breath ago. His breath arrives late and finds him already sitting. The second tech raises the yoke; I am there, palm steady on the hinge, short scythe ready to talk metal in a voice screws understand.
"Count," I say.
"One—two—three—four," Kirella answers, plate already near the lever. "WAIT."
The bell coughs polite instead of ringing. On four, I slip the scythe under the yoke's hidden split-pin and lift a handspan.
Ting.
The yoke decides not to be a trap. I tie a small kept-knot through its throat—three honest pulls will free any neck that asks nicely. The tech stares, surprise taking a second step into his face. He keeps his bones. He keeps his tomorrow. Pride will have to negotiate with the truth.
We move past them into the room built to make breathing into paperwork.
Holding is a rectangle of tidy cruelty: bunks narrow as apologies, belts instead of blankets, a trolley with needles arranged like polite reasons. In the middle stands the Weir—a waist-high pillar of vents and bells and mirror-ears, all fed by a floor grate that looks like a mouth pretending to be math.
Air moves through the Weir with intent. It wants names. It wants the shape of breath at the moment someone admits a fear.
I touch the pillar with the back of my knuckles. It is the temperature of rooms that practice being innocent.
"Three legs," Lupa says, already mapping it the way she maps men. "Vent. Ear. Bell."
"One—two—three—four," Kirella hums. The count keeps time while we unlearn the room.
Leg a: Vent. Brass cap, too shiny; throat shaped to sigh truth. I quarter-turn the cap inward and tap a breath of brine from the igne across the lip. The vent inhales itself and blushes into quiet.
Leg b: Mirror Ear. The listening column, mirror dust stitched into a paper throat, eager. I draw a thin seam around its base; warmth sits in the stone like a trivet. Kirella lifts the WORD plate to the metal filigree and says the only thing a good bell understands.
"WAIT."
The ear waits. It is surprisingly good at it.
Leg c: Bell. Plinth of nice bronze; striker cocked for dignity. I press a ring-coin under the base, thumb the rim until the coin's breath warms the metal. Kirella's plate kisses air near the striker again.
"WAIT."
The bell swallows its opinion.
The room's hum drops a step. The floor grate still whispers, old air describing a habit. I kneel and lay a palm flat—pull a seam up from the ring until the grate knows keep the way a kitchen knows when a pot is about to boil.
"Manifest," Lupa reminds me.
The Weir has a sulking panel at its flank. I slide the boat hook under the lip and lift until a slot card shivers out by its ribbon. Clerk-hand, small and careful:
Holding Transfer — Stitchery Intake
Subject: Myor (Requisition / Threading Seq.)
ETA: 9 marks post sunline.
I touch the edge with brine so the ink sits. The slip disappears into SORRY, damp and obedient.
"Rota," Kirella says, eyes up. On the beam above us a thin strip blinks: Holding → Stitchery Intake with numbers that think they're a map. He reads it and tucks it into the pocket behind his ribs where useful things go.
We seed the corners, because walks are routes and routes grow into safety only if you plant them.
Coin A goes under the faucet plinth near the Weir. Coin B tucks under the first turn post marked → Stitchery. Both get a brush of name-salt; both answer with a little warmth that says you can step here later and not feel alone.
A third tech squeezes in from a side slit, late to his own duty. His hand finds his belt, the horn there. Behind him, a Mirror Patrol in a tidy coat scans the room with a gaze that wants to learn people the way ledgers do.
The patrol's hand closes on the horn too, double habit. The wolf's head lifts. Lupa's weight shifts. Kirella's plate isn't where it needs to be and then it is.
"WAIT."
The horn forgets to be proud.
The patrol still moves. Baton, no blade. He steps wrong. Lupa finds the mistake with her hip and gives it back to him. Wrist, hip, seat. The wall is kinder than his ego. He sits. He stays.
His belt has a catch-pin meant to lock the baton into a rack; it glints at me like a boast. I slide the short scythe beneath and lift a whisper.
Ting.
The baton skitters a half-step and reconsiders. He blinks at the floor with deep offense. Three kept-knots later, he and the late tech are breathing like people who will tell themselves later that everything that happened happened to someone else.
We might get away with this. I think the thought and apologize to the room for saying it out loud in my head.
The Weir decides to be clever.
A small wheel on its spine twitches. The vent we gentled tries for a reset—draw stronger, dig harder. The mirror ear hums under its breath like a gossiper at a door. Little Sunline films under the grate blink awake, squares of pale bright that don't heat, just thin everything that isn't obedient. The warmth at our feet feels smaller, not gone, only brave in too much room. My cheek tightens; the inside of my mouth tastes like paper cut.
The wall to our right answers with a tiny tick. Not the pantry stone, not that scratch, but the same hunger—MI— trying the first letter again from very far away. The seam under my palm tells it a quiet no.
"Count," Kirella says, which is what you tell fear when it thinks it's a person.
"One—two—three—four."
The Weir inhales again, harder. I track the sound to a side panel—temper glass grille pressed into a frame too proud to be practical. Behind it, tucked in the elbow of a bracket, a bypass pin gleams. Split-ring, little as a boast. Clever men love seconds and safeties. So do I.
"Grille," Lupa says.
"Shade," I answer.
The wolf steps forward and lifts the shade cloth from Kirella's hand like a page being turned. It drapes the Weir's mouth in a fold that makes glare into furniture. The bell above the panel lifts its chin. Kirella's plate is already there to praise it into silence.
"WAIT."
I set the boat hook through the grille, teeth open, and bridge the little reach where knuckles would chatter. The hook bites the backside of the bracket. My fingers find the short scythe grip. Sting wakes in my palm and remembers why it came.
The split-ring is mean and shy. The pin sits in its pride at an angle that suggests it thinks no one who loves their ribs would ever try this.
"Two breaths," Lupa says under the cloth, voice a shelf. Her stance becomes a math problem that solved itself five minutes ago.
"One—two—three—four," Kirella says at my shoulder. He isn't that close; the number knows how to arrive where it's needed.
On two, the scythe hook tucks under the ring—metal only. Palm sting bites and then falls into the number. The Sunline films flicker again under the grate, little squares trying to bleach me into bad arithmetic. I squint smaller and become angles.
"Breathe," Lupa murmurs. The wolf holds the cloth tighter in its teeth, eyes politely on nothing.
I push a breath into my hand instead of out of my chest. The Weir pulls. I do not give.
"Four," Kirella says, and the world remembers the floor is allowed.
I lift the pin a handspan.
Ting.
The Weir's hum drops a note. The pull slackens, then gulps and tries to learn to be a river again. The Sunline films sputter; one goes out; two think about it. The mirror ear huffs with wounded vanity and then finds itself already waiting, because we told it WAIT and it likes to obey people who sound like someone taught them manners.
"Again," Lupa says, not because the pin didn't work, but because good rooms are full of seconds.
I feel for the sibling split-pin in the shadow of the first. There—there it is, little and proud and tucked so far back it hopes my wrist will complain. It does. I ignore it.
The bell above the panel twitches again, wanting to be a character. Kirella lets the plate hover like a blessing no one deserves. "WAIT," he says softly, and the bell chooses dignity over drama.
The Weir throws one last tantrum. The floor grate sucks, the kind you feel in the sinuses, a string tug behind the eyes. The seam under my palm thins and still holds its ground. The far wall gives a little MI— tick like a child knocking on a door he isn't supposed to know is there.
"Count," I say. My throat tastes like coins and mint.
"One—two—three—four."
On two, the hook is under the second ring. On four, I ask the metal a question with my wrist.
The Weir answers with a sound like a promise remembering which way it was written.
Not yet ting; almost.
"Angle," Lupa murmurs, heel sliding a half-inch, knee offering me a landing if gravity forgets friendship. The wolf adjusts the cloth so glare becomes a shrug.
Under the grate, light lifts once more, trying for sun and missing like always. The pull on my temples tightens. Somewhere beyond this room, an obedient drum walks D-1 one notch toward D-0 with the pride of a boy straightening a rug. I don't let that boy set my table.
I breathe to the count.
"One—two—three—"
A Mirror Patrol at the far door returns with a friend and a face that thinks it is news. The horn on his chest remembers it is allowed to feel important. The bell above him lifts and then, hearing Kirella's patience arriving, pretends it had never considered noise.
"—four," Kirella finishes, and the room is ready to believe me.
I lift.
—
And the chapter ends there—with the short scythe tucked under the bypass pin behind the temper grille, palm sting rising into count, the Weir's pull tugging at my sinuses like a bad idea trying to be a law, Sunline films stuttering pale under the grate, the far wall's MI— tapping a rude little rhythm it will not finish, the first ring coin warm by the faucet and the second under the Stitchery post, the manifest with Myor asleep inside SORRY, Lupa a ledge at my ribs, the wolf holding glare in its teeth, Kirella's plate steady over bells that want to be praised into silence—and one breath poised between a clean ting that will drown the Weir quiet, or a sidestep to the knife-latch that will make a longer, safer lie.