The first monitor came on while the bathhouse was still moving.
It was mounted above the arch where the Black Bulls had gathered, a cracked square of glass that should have been too old to carry a royal signal. Static crawled across it in white lines. Then the feed steadied, and every person in the room stopped pretending to treat wounds.
Ty knew the room before the king stepped into view.
Stone walls. Fire cups fixed in iron brackets. Chains hanging from a ceiling lost above the camera angle. The feed had been framed for fear, which meant Threxian had chosen it himself or approved the person who had.
Rui-Chai hung at the center of it.
His wrists were locked in black cuffs above his head. Blood had dried through the side of his shirt where Threxian’s plate had taken the blade. One arm sat wrong in the socket. His burned hand hung open, fingers swollen from the coin’s heat.
He was alive, and that should have helped more than it did. It made Ty’s chest hurt worse.
Milo stood near the front of the group with both hands loose at his sides. His jokes had gone somewhere else for the moment. Osalf stood by the arch with his coat still buttoned wrong. JJ came up beside Ty, close enough that he could feel her stop herself from touching his arm.
Blue sat on his shoulder with one hand tangled in his wet collar.
"Tell me this is old footage from before the rail opened," she said, and nobody in the room answered her.
On the screen, Threxian entered from the left side of the frame. He had changed armor. The new chest plate covered the cuts Rui-Chai and Heriean had earned, but it sat stiffly against his side. The repair was clean. The body under it was less clean.
Ty noticed that because he needed something useful to do with his eyes.
Threxian looked into the lens. "Citizens of Heian and subjects beyond its walls, watch carefully."
The room tightened around the word subjects because everyone heard the ownership inside it.
Threxian lifted one hand, and the camera drew closer to Rui-Chai’s hanging body. "This man led criminals under a false cause. He endangered contestants, attacked royal authority, and mistook mercy for weakness."
Milo whispered, "Mercy must have happened while I was drowning skeletons."
Osalf gave him a look sharp enough to close his mouth, which told Ty more about the feed than the words did.
Threxian continued. "The Arena of Life will resume in three days. The final challengers will return to the floor, and the world will see order restored without rumor, panic, or rebel theater."
JJ’s fingers closed around the edge of her sleeve.
The phrase final challengers hit the room in different places. Ty saw two wounded Bulls look at each other because they knew what three days meant. Time for Threxian to heal. Time for soldiers to close exits. Time for every official lie to harden.
Then Threxian turned his head, as if someone behind the camera had given him the next line.
"As for the bone-bodied boy called demon by frightened mouths, I do not believe you belong to these rebels yet."
Ty felt Blue grip his collar harder as the speech turned toward him.
"You attacked your king under confusion. That confusion can be corrected. The name Vishu has been placed on you by traitors who need an old superstition to hide a new crime."
Osalf’s face changed by almost nothing, but Ty saw it anyway.
Threxian took a step closer to Rui-Chai and rested two fingers against the black cuff. Rui-Chai’s body jerked. The chain groaned under his weight, but he kept his head down.
"Come to the arena when called. Stand under lawful witness. Answer what you are. The kingdom will decide whether you are diseased, deceived, or guilty."
Ty’s mouth went dry enough that swallowing hurt his throat.
JJ said quietly, "He is trying to pull you away from the Bulls before they can use you."
"He can get in line behind everyone else today," Ty said.
The king looked straight into the lens again. "Until then, rebellion remains on hold by royal decree."
He closed his hand, and the cuff around Rui-Chai’s burned wrist went red at the seams. Rui-Chai’s shoulders locked. His face lifted just enough for the camera to catch one eye open.
He made no sound, and that made the room worse.
Threxian released the cuff. "You have three days to remember obedience properly."
The feed cut to static before anyone in the bathhouse breathed right.
Nobody moved until the monitor gave a final pop and went black.
Ty heard water dripping from someone’s sleeve. He heard the old rail grinding under them. He heard his own breathing come out too rough, then forced it down because Threxian had already taken enough from the room.
The scarred Bull from earlier spoke first. "We go back before he runs out of blood."
Osalf answered without looking at him. "We would die before reaching the first gate."
"Then he dies alone while we ride away."
"Rui-Chai made that choice before the circle opened."
The scarred Bull turned on him. "Convenient words from the man who always survives plans."
Osalf’s calm held, but something acidic moved under it. "Survival is useful when people still need orders."
Ty looked at him then, and Daemon’s name rose before he decided to speak it.
"You killed Lieutenant Daemon before I reached the arena."
JJ turned toward him fast. Blue’s hand tightened at his collar. Several Bulls looked away with the quick discomfort of people who knew a door had opened under their feet.
Osalf met Ty’s stare. "Yes, and hiding it now would waste time."
The answer was too clean, which made Ty want to break it.
Ty stepped toward him. His ribs objected. He kept moving anyway. "Say the rest of it with everybody listening."
Osalf’s jaw shifted. "Daemon was loyal to the kingdom and positioned where his loyalty would ruin the route."
"He helped me survive when every one of you was a rumor with knives."
"Placement does not erase what he did for me."
JJ crossed the space between them before Ty reached Osalf. She put herself half a step to the side, not blocking Ty, not letting Osalf own the angle either.
"You told me Daemon was collateral from the arena breach," she said.
Osalf’s eyes moved to her. "I told you he died because the breach needed to happen."
"That is not the same sentence you gave me."
"It led to the same result in the ground."
JJ hit him, and the sound snapped across the bathhouse harder than the rail beneath them.
Osalf’s head turned with the blow. He stayed on his feet. A red mark opened across his cheek where her ring had caught skin.
Milo said under his breath, "Fire meets acid at the worst possible family dinner."
Nobody laughed because the room had too many fresh dead inside it.
JJ’s voice came low. "Daemon was a good man, and you used that word necessary because cowardice sounds bad in front of witnesses."
Osalf touched his cheek and looked at the blood on his fingers. "You agreed to burn the old world with me."
"I agreed to find the rot and cut it out."
"Rot has roots, and roots hide under decent men."
"Then aim for the roots without using decent men as kindling."
Ty watched her and hated the part of himself that needed to see it. JJ had joined them. JJ had lied by trimming truth. JJ wanted Fernando dead badly enough to walk with criminals.
She still knew Daemon’s name had weight, and that mattered even when it fixed nothing.
Osalf looked from JJ to Ty. "Daemon would have stopped the rail route tonight."
Ty’s hands curled. "Then maybe your route deserved stopping before this."
"Without this route, Threxian keeps every captured Bull, every contestant, every child he can turn into public leverage."
"You keep buying every clean sentence with bodies."
"So does the king, which should shame you."
"That is a confession, not a defense today."
The rail lurched, throwing someone against the far wall. A pipe burst near the ceiling and sprayed hot water across broken tile. Two Bulls dragged an injured woman away from the steam while the monitor sparked above them.
Blue flinched against Ty’s neck. He lifted one hand to shield her from the spray.
JJ turned toward the damage. "The rail is fighting the royal signal in the walls."
Osalf moved to a cracked panel under the monitor and tore it open. Old wires hung inside beside a strip of copper etched with black symbols. "The king piggybacked through a court line. It is burning the junction."
"Can you cut it before the rail breaks?" JJ asked.
"Cutting it blind could throw us out between stations."
Milo looked at the smoking panel. "That is the least comforting sentence you have contributed today."
The scarred Bull shoved past him with a wrapped hand. "Tell me which part to break before it breaks us."
Osalf’s eyes flicked over the panel. "Fire line on the left. Acid reservoir under the plate. Separate them before they eat the conductor."
The title finally made sense in Ty’s head only because the room gave it teeth.
Fire and acid. Old rail design. One line fed heat. One line cleaned the channel. Together, under a royal override, they were trying to chew through the same throat.
"Move aside before the panel finishes cooking us," Ty said.
Osalf looked at him. "You are injured badly enough to be useless."
"Everyone here is injured. Point at the part that kills us first."
JJ crouched beside the panel before Osalf could answer. "Blue, can you see the heat path from there?"
Blue climbed from Ty’s shoulder to JJ’s sleeve with a look that promised later complaints. "I can see the angry one and the hungrier one."
"Useful enough if we enjoy living through this."
Ty knelt despite his ribs and grabbed the plate edge with both hands. Heat bit through his palms. He held on. The scarred Bull wedged a broken knife under the other side and pried.
Osalf pointed. "When the plate lifts, pull the copper strip away from the green line."
Milo leaned over Ty’s shoulder. "Green line means acid, in case your Earth education skipped obvious death colors."
"Talk less near my ear while things are melting."
"That is fair. Your ear looks busy bleeding."
The plate came loose, and steam, heat, and sharp chemical stink punched into Ty’s face. Blue shouted a warning from JJ’s sleeve. JJ grabbed the copper strip with a torn piece of cloth and yanked it sideways.
Acid spat across the tile where Ty’s knee had been.
The rail screamed under them before the sound evened out.
The bathhouse settled into forward motion again, still rough, still old, but finally moving without tearing itself apart from the inside.
Ty sat back against the wall and realized his palms were burned.
JJ dropped the cloth. The copper had eaten through half of it. Her fingers shook once before she closed them.
Osalf looked at the ruined panel. "That bought the route for another stretch tonight."
Ty looked up at him. "Daemon bought your route too, according to you."
Osalf said nothing, which served Ty better than another answer.
Ty had run out of patience for useful answers that smelled like graves.
The black monitor above them flickered one more time, showing only the empty chain room and Rui-Chai’s blood on the floor beneath the cuffs.
Then even that vanished from the dead glass above them.
Ty looked at JJ. "I still want Earth at the end of this."
Her face held too much to read cleanly. "I know that part has never changed for you."
"Wanting it leaves me no room to leave him hanging there."
Blue rested against his neck, warm and weak. "That sounds dangerously close to joining a plan."
Ty kept staring at the dead monitor. "It sounds like we have three days left."