The room held still.
The map of Barrow Falls hung on the glass like frost. The guard waited.
The place had asked a simple thing.
Can you wait?
Kael answered the same way. "Yes. We wait."
He lifted the rule in the air. "Scope stays tight. No minds. No writes. Ghost-only. We only show the cleanup shape. The real work happens later, with consent."
The guard's head tilted. "Define wait."
Elian raised a page. "Thirteen-minute windows, then cool down. Ask boxes at live sites here, here, and here."
He marked three camps outside the old pit. "We collect yes and no. We don't touch cocoons. We don't borrow voices."
Mara added, "No group breath. Everyone keeps their own rhythm."
Orrin tapped the floor with iron. Two short, one long, then primes. "Pull if anyone goes thin."
Lena stood close to Kael. She held her center like a small fire.
"Begin," the guard said.
Phase 1: Draw the ghost
A pale overlay spread over the pit and the broken walkways.
It highlighted four things.
Voice lures in the south gallery.
Wall mouths near the lift shaft.
Memory loops stamped into the east stairs.
Three cocoons in a sealed alcove.
"Ghost plan," Kael said. "We turn these off later, not now. Today we only show the shape, then ask."
Threads left the room toward the three camps.
Camp A answered first. YES to muting voice lures. NO to touching the stairs.
They had a memorial there.
Camp B answered NO to everything. The old men there didn't trust any change.
Camp C answered YES to "mute voices" and YES to "seal wall mouths." But they asked for WAIT on cocoons.
They wanted a witness group present when any action happened near the sealed alcove.
"Wait carried," Elian read. He wrote WITNESS NEEDED next to the cocoons.
The ghost overlay adjusted. Green light on voice lures and mouths over Camps A and C. Gray over Camp B. A yellow ring around the cocoons.
"Scope clean," the guard said. "Proceed."
Phase 2: Barrow tricks
The walls breathed cold. The room tried to ride grief again.
Elara's voice came through the south gallery plan like warm air from a door crack. "Kael?"
Kael tapped NO out-of-band. 2-2, one long, then primes.
He didn't look at the wall.
Lena tapped NO a hair after him. Her jaw set.
The voice pulled back without sticking.
"PASS," the guard wrote.
The east stair loop tried a new trick. It hid a tiny ask inside the feeling of going home.
The ask tried to count as a yes for "reset the loop with our wording."
Elian's page flashed SCOPE ERROR. He flagged it. "No stacked small asks. No hidden asks in feelings."
"PASS," the guard wrote.
A wall mouth tested the emergency rule. It shook dust down like a cave-in to make them panic.
Mara held her Chorus in braided noise. No chant. No shared breath.
"Not an emergency," she said. "We wait. We don't grab control."
The dust settled. No one moved. "PASS," the guard wrote.
Phase 3: The dead and the living
The cocoons pulsed faintly behind the yellow ring. Not minds. Not active. Held.
Orrin kept his voice flat. "No touching. Not even a ghost plan near them without a witness group."
Kael lifted a small iron tag he had stamped before they came. A simple thing.
A name cut into metal.
ELARA.
He set the tag on the ghost overlay, between the south gallery and the east stairs.
"Refusal surface for the dead," he said. "If this name is tapped, the system will not mimic this voice anywhere."
He tapped the tag NO himself. Two short. One long. Then primes.
His hand didn't shake.
The overlay linked the tag to the rule. A small NO mark appeared next to voice lures across the site.
Lena watched his face and didn't say anything. Her own eyes were clear.
After a beat, she made three more blank tags and set them down, empty. "For others. If they want them."
The guard paused. "Edge accepted: refusal for the dead by named tag. Scope: mimicry only. No writes. No minds. PASS."
Phase 4: Ask and wait
The three camps answered again to confirm.
Camp A: YES to muting voices now. WAIT on stairs until memorial is moved.
Camp B: NO to all. Default NO holds.
Camp C: YES to a later physical seal on mouths, with their witness present. YES to voice mute now. WAIT on cocoons until their elders arrive.
The overlay locked into a schedule.
Now: ghost-only mute on voice routes over A and C. No overlay over B.
Later with consent: stair loop rewrite over A. Mouth sealing over C.
Witness needed: any work near cocoons.
"Define mute," the guard said. "Without mind contact."
Elian drew the method. "Stone interface only. New phase in the protective stones. When voice-mimic tries to route, it hits NO and drains to ground."
The guard wrote STONE-ONLY, NO MIND next to it. "PASS."
Problem: hardliner trick
A tiny red flag blinked at the edge of the overlay. Remote wedge.
Someone tried to sneak a drum pulse through a loose plate near Camp B. They wanted to force a group breath.
Orrin didn't look at Kael. He just said two names. His runners knew them.
Iron hit iron outside the sim. The wedge came out.
The red flag went dark.
"Rate limit applied," the guard added. The spiral mark pulsed over the wedge's node. COOL DOWN.
No more asks there for an hour.
Mara gave a short, tired nod. "Thank you."
Phase 5: The ask that asked us back
The place put its question on the wall a second time.
Can you wait?
Kael answered out loud. "Yes. We wait in public. On paper. With timers you can see."
Elian showed the schedule. Mute now over A and C. Ask again after two sunsets. Witness near cocoons by then. No touch on B unless B changes its mind with proof.
"PASS," the guard wrote. "Prepare to seal the ghost plan."
"How long?" Lena asked.
"Thirteen seconds," it said. "Hold quorum. Seal on out-of-band YES from stewards and meters."
Orrin's hand already found the rhythm. 2-2, he waited.
Mara kept her Chorus messy. The hum from the Seed stayed outside her ribs.
Kael tapped the iron ring at his belt. His outline didn't blur.
"Seal," the guard said.
They tapped YES. Three stewards. Three meters.
13, 12, 11
The south gallery dimmed. The voice routes lost their charge. No minds touched.
5, 4, 3
The mouth icons above the lift shaft got small padlocks next to them. WAIT signs. Not seals. Not yet.
2, 1, 0
The overlay set. A tiny wax mark stamped onto Barrow Falls on every map.
Ask-First: local plan staged.
The room loosened by a breath.
"Local ghost plan active," the guard said. "Mute routes on A and C. Witness required near cocoons. B untouched. Next ask window: forty-eight hours."
It looked at Kael a second longer than usual. "You held your NO."
"I meant it," he said.
"I will remember that," it answered, and the Door let them go.
Stone under boots. Cold air. Iron smell.
The protective stones hummed tired and pleased.
The three camps flashed their results in the scribe ledger. A: voices quiet. C: voices quiet. B: unchanged.
A runner from Camp A lifted a tag with a different name. "Can we stamp these for our dead?"
Elian nodded. "Yes. Names only. Stone-only effect. No minds. No writes."
Orrin showed him how to tap NO into the tag without letting grief try to bargain.
Mara walked the square and corrected three people back into their own centers. "No chant. Meet me from where you are."
Lena stood with Kael at the edge of the pit where the old lift used to be.
The wind down there didn't talk anymore. Not today.
"Thank you," she said.
"For what?"
"For saying no," she said. "For waiting."
Kael breathed wrong on purpose and found it easy this time. "It asked. We answered. That matters."
Elian checked the big timer. "Fifty-one minutes to internal refactor."
Orrin flexed his hands. The skin across his knuckles was split. "We hold the line here. The big fight's inside."
Kael nodded. He slipped the ELARA tag into his pocket. It felt heavy and right.
"Then we go inside."
They set the circle small and tight again. Ask boxes humming. Three meters ready. Kill switch on the slate.
Chorus noise messy and strong.
The thin line to the Seed brightened along every map's edge.
"Refactor window," the guard's ghost wrote. "I test your rule against my old bones."
"Same rules," Kael told everyone. "No shared breath. No mirrored heart. Out-of-band only. Pull if anyone goes thin."
"Ninety heartbeats," Orrin said. "Less if I smell smoke."
"Keep your centers," Mara said.
"Ready," Elian said.
Lena tapped 2-2 on her ring. She didn't need mint.
They took the bridge. The Door took them.
The frosted walls rose. The Seed burned behind the glass like a sun that knew the word ASK.
"Internal refactor," the guard said. "Present clause. Present stewards. Show me if I can become what you've asked me to be."