The old rail under the bathhouse kept grinding.
Ty felt it through the tile against his spine. The sound was too deep to belong to pipes. It moved through the floor in sections, one heavy answer after another, like something huge under the pools had started remembering its job.
JJ stood three steps away from him with her arms folded tight.
Steam moved between them from a cracked vent, thin enough that he could still see her face. She looked tired. He hated noticing that before he decided whether she deserved it.
Ty shifted his shoulder against the wall and made his ribs complain. "Start with the part where Rui-Chai used me as cargo."
JJ’s mouth tightened. "Start by sitting where your ribs stop making you stupid."
"I am already on the floor, so your medical advice needs work."
"Then stop trying to win the room with your posture."
He wanted a better answer than that. His body gave him a worse one. Pain folded through his side when he tried to straighten, so he stayed down and let the wall take his weight.
JJ saw the choice and kept the victory off her face.
That helped her live through the next breath.
"Rui-Chai called this route Sword x Demon before he stayed behind," she said. "He meant the trained sword and the unwanted demon."
Ty looked at her hands first. They were empty. "You are the sword in that little joke."
"I was raised to be one, even when they called it service."
"That makes me the demon, which still sounds like his problem."
"It became your problem when Threxian’s court started chasing your name before you understood why."
The rail knocked under the floor again. Water in the nearest pool shivered against the cracked stone lip.
Ty remembered the books he had read because he had needed something to do between injuries and bad decisions. Kingdom names. Founder myths. The Titan Goddess blessing the first Heian king with authority and order. Neat lies printed clean enough for children and soldiers.
JJ watched his face change. "You read the approved version written for soldiers."
"I read whatever people left where I could reach it."
"Then you read throne work, polished until blood looked educational."
"That means less than you think it means."
"It means the family that won the slaughter wrote the lesson afterward."
Ty looked at her for a while, then past her at the door Milo had used. Nobody interrupted. The Black Bulls had left them alone because Osalf ordered it, and because whatever sat under the bathhouse had begun moving with enough force to make every wall unsafe.
JJ lowered herself onto the edge of the nearest dry pool. She kept one boot on the tile, ready to stand. "The demon clans existed before the Heian Kingdom had a throne to polish."
"Clans, plural, because the books hate messy categories."
"Many. Different lines. Different gifts. Some monstrous, some ordinary enough to pass if they hid the right things. The books made them one shape because fear is easier to sell when it has one face."
Ty touched his own jaw without meaning to.
JJ saw that too. "Rui-Chai believes Vishu was one of the names that survived."
"You keep saying believes like it makes this cleaner."
"It makes it less clean. Belief lets people do stupid things with a straight back."
That sounded too honest for comfort, which made it harder to dismiss.
Ty looked down at his wet clothes. "I came from Earth, JJ. Your prophecy has the wrong corpse."
"Maybe. Rui-Chai never cared where you came from as much as where the court tried to place you."
"That sounds like word games for people with safer chairs."
"Threxian’s people have been trying to name you into a box since you arrived. Demon. Weapon. Evidence. Prize. Mistake. Every name lets someone own the next step."
Ty felt the sentence hit the old bruise of the day.
The king had called him demon with the ease of someone sorting property. Osalf had called him Vishu like a lever. The Black Bulls had looked at him as useful trouble. Even rescue had arrived with a handle already tied to it.
"What did the Heian line do after winning?" he asked.
JJ looked toward the pool water before answering. "They hunted the clans down and called it peace."
"That is the clean version people can repeat over dinner."
"The unclean version has children in it, so nobody prints that one."
Ty’s anger shifted without leaving. "Say enough for me to know what I am being dragged through."
"The first Heian king used the Titan Goddess as his banner. He told the armies that demon blood corrupted the world. Villages handed over neighbors to prove loyalty. Families cut horns, burned records, broke their own bloodlines into pieces small enough to hide."
Ty held still because moving would give the answer somewhere easier to land.
JJ’s voice stayed level because she had probably practiced the story until level was the only way through. "When the king finished, the survivors learned to pass as whatever would keep them breathing. Rui-Chai’s people came from those scraps."
"The Black Bulls are demon descendants by blood or shelter."
"Some. Some are families that hid them. Some are criminals who learned the kingdom’s mercy only works for people useful to the court."
The rail gave a harder knock. Dust fell from a broken seam near the ceiling and speckled the pool between them.
Ty glanced up. "Your train sounds close to dying under us."
"It is older than the laws being used to kill us. Old things complain when they work."
"That was almost a Milo answer, which worries me."
"I will recover from the insult after this conversation."
His hand prickled before Blue moved under the wet cloth.
Blue stirred in his palm from under a fold of wet fabric, her small wings stuck crooked against her back. Her glow came weak and uneven, more like a lantern with bad oil than the sharp flicker he knew.
Ty opened his hand carefully. "Please tell me you woke up after the winning part."
Blue blinked, took in his face, JJ, the cracked pools, and the shaking floor. "If this is winning, I want the losing team investigated."
Ty felt something in his chest loosen against his will.
JJ leaned forward a little. "I kept you covered during the transfer circle."
Blue looked at her with suspicion strong enough to count as posture. "That sentence has too many missing charges attached."
"Fair enough, because I dislike incomplete crimes too."
"Good. I prefer honest danger over polite kidnapping."
JJ accepted that without flinching. "The Black Bulls asked about the coin already."
Blue’s wings stopped moving, and Ty felt the change against his palm.
Ty’s fingers closed around his palm, shielding her by instinct. "Which coin are they asking about right now?"
JJ gave him a look. "Do that if you need to, but we both know there is only one coin worth this much fear."
Blue’s voice dropped. "How much did you tell them before we woke?"
"Less than they wanted and more than I liked being asked."
Ty leaned forward despite his ribs. "Answer her straight before this room gets worse."
"I told them I saw a power source tied to you. I told them I lacked access to it, lacked the method to remove it, and lacked proof it could help them."
Blue stared at her. "That is a careful lie wearing official boots."
"It is an ugly truth trimmed until dangerous people stopped reaching for the middle."
Ty hated that answer because it sounded useful.
"Why keep it from them after joining them?" he asked.
JJ looked at him then, really looked, and some of the careful posture left her shoulders. "Because the Black Bulls are desperate, and desperate people call theft strategy when they want the same target badly enough."
"That sounds like every room I have entered lately."
"The kingdom is worse because it has offices for this."
"That bar is underground, and they still found it."
"If Threxian learns what the Goddess gave you, he will send every office, soldier, priest, bounty line, and family hostage he can aim. He will take the coin. If taking it kills you, they will write a cleaner report."
Blue folded her arms as much as her size allowed. "I deeply dislike how plausible that sounded already."
Ty kept looking at JJ. "And where do you stand when the grabbing starts?"
"I want you alive long enough to choose."
"That is not the same as answering my question."
"I want Fernando dead enough to admit it plainly."
The name came out with no decoration. That made it worse.
Ty remembered Fernando’s grin, the violence around him, the way every mention of the man seemed to lead back to someone else’s grave. JJ’s face had changed around the name in a way her training failed to hide.
"That is about your parents and Fernando, then," Ty said.
JJ nodded once. "For what he did, and for whoever paid him to do it."
"You know someone hired him and pointed him at them."
"Fernando likes pain, money, and permission. Someone gave him all three."
Blue looked from JJ to Ty. "That is the kind of sentence people say before making a terrible alliance."
JJ’s hands tightened in her lap. "The kingdom made me useful, then told me usefulness was honor. The Black Bulls want to use me too. I know that. I am here because this is the first path that might put me close enough to the person behind Fernando."
Ty heard the rail catch on something below them. The whole room jerked sideways, and water slapped over the edge of the pool. JJ grabbed the stone lip with one hand. Ty caught Blue against his chest before the motion threw her from his palm.
Metal shrieked under the floor, then settled into a steadier pull.
The whole bathhouse had started moving around them.
Not like a cart. The walls stayed still around them for a few seconds too long, while the sound underneath slid forward. Then the far arch blurred at the edges, showing tile, then darkness, then tile again.
Blue pressed both hands against Ty’s thumb. "I missed too much while I was unconscious."
"You missed the part where everyone got worse."
"That is usually the part I am present for."
JJ stood and reached toward Ty before stopping herself. "The rail will drop us near an old maintenance junction. Osalf will try to regroup there."
Ty let Blue climb to his shoulder and forced himself upright with the wall. "And after that, you expect me to join Rui-Chai’s plan."
"I expect you to hear the plan before you throw yourself at the next person with a crown."
"That criticism is specific enough to sound personal."
"It is specific because you keep proving it."
Ty stood fully and waited for the floor to quit tilting under his feet. It never did, so he learned the angle and stayed on it.
JJ watched him find balance. "Rui-Chai believes the court will keep trying to force you into the demon name. He wants you to use that against them."
"By pretending his prophecy fits long enough to hurt them."
"By making every person trying to own the word pay for touching it."
Ty checked Blue before answering, because she had earned that much.
Blue’s glow had steadied a little. She still looked exhausted, but her eyes had sharpened. "For the record, I vote against being handed to either faction as a portable miracle."
Ty looked at her, then at Blue on his shoulder. "Nobody gets the coin from me or her."
JJ’s face changed by the smallest amount, and the relief in it annoyed him.
"That includes you, no matter what story gets told."
"Good, because if I ask for it, assume someone broke me."
The rail lurched again, harder this time. Somewhere beyond the wall, voices rose from the Black Bulls. Milo shouted something about ancient engineering and personal betrayal.
Ty almost smiled. It failed halfway because his ribs remembered who owned them.
JJ moved toward the arch. "We need to be with the others when it stops."
Ty followed because staying behind was pointless, and because the floor had started carrying him whether he approved or not.
At the arch, JJ paused and looked back at him. "Sword x Demon was Rui-Chai’s name for a move, Ty. It does not have to be yours."
Ty kept one hand near the wall and one near Blue. "Then tell Osalf to stop saying Vishu like he already owns my future."
"I will tell him before he turns it into doctrine."
Ty stopped near the arch, and JJ waited for the rest.
"And JJ, if Fernando shows up before I get answers, I am asking my questions first."
JJ’s face hardened around the pain under it. "Then ask fast, because I have been saving mine longer."