The empty sled sat in the middle of the drainage road with frost still crawling over its braces.
For one hard breath, nobody on the road moved.
Then Iven Marr lowered his hand toward the sled.
"Recover the volume and strip the rebel route down to its foundation," he said. "Leave the wounded alive only if they become useful."
Carden answered by charging across the broken ice.
JJ shoved Ty behind a bent rail and met him halfway. Their blades struck above the smoking ice, and the sound ran through Ty’s teeth. His legs tried to fold under him. He caught the rail with his torn hand and paid for the grip in fresh blood.
Blue pulled herself out from his collar, hair stuck to her face.
"If you pass out now, I am stealing your name and using it irresponsibly," she said. "Stay rude enough to prevent that from happening."
"I am staying alive out of spite and brand protection," Ty said.
Osalf moved to cover Tressa before Iven redirected.
She had one knee in the mud and both hands buried wrist deep in the black remains of her pool. The route had collapsed into a slick mark no wider than a shield, but it kept twitching like something underneath was still chewing.
Milo slid beside her with Ronnick’s cracked lens.
"The route wrote something before it folded shut," he said. "Either that or I am hallucinating letters from stress."
Ronnick crawled over, took the lens, and held it above the black smear. Red light trembled over the mud. The smear answered by pulling the glow into two thin marks.
G to A showed in the red lens.
Ronnick blinked before the meaning reached him fully.
"Gate Spur to Anchor is the route mark," he said. "The volume landed in an Anchor line somewhere."
Ty pushed himself higher against the rail again.
"Anchor line sounds less like a place and more like a trap with a budget."
"Old transit architecture tied under the capital roads," Ronnick said. "Heavy routing. Stone tied to stone. If a route cannot carry mass cleanly, it drops mass into the nearest anchor channel."
Tressa’s voice came rough from effort behind clenched teeth.
"Translation for people currently bleeding right now, please."
"The case went somewhere built to hold weight," Ronnick said. "That is good for the case and terrible for whoever stands below it."
The black smear pulsed again under the lens.
Ty felt the pulse in his burned palm.
The old body had gone through first, but the road had left a string behind. Not a voice. Not an invitation. A pull through stone and cold and blood where his hand still leaked.
He stepped toward Tressa before sense caught him.
JJ caught the movement while fighting Carden. She drove her shoulder into his chest, used the impact to shove him back, then looked over one arm.
"Tell me you are walking toward a medic, not the cursed puddle," she said.
"I am walking toward the cursed puddle with medical concerns."
"That sentence made every part worse somehow again."
Carden came in again before she could say more. His blade scraped along hers and bit into the rail beside Ty. JJ twisted under his arm and kicked his damaged greave. He staggered, but Vaela covered him with a fresh burst of vapor before JJ could press.
The acid stayed lower now. Rosana’s shot had damaged the tank harness, and Vaela fought the weight every time she moved. That made her slower. Slower still killed people if they acted proud.
Osalf sent two timed bursts into the vapor. The first scattered the low wave. The second knocked an attendant away from the sled before Carden’s blade could use them as a shield.
Iven watched the saved worker with open disgust.
"Your side wastes tactical advantage on disposable hands," he said. "That habit explains your losses better than tactics."
Ty looked at the worker scrambling behind the support wall.
"If disposable hands keep running away from you, maybe the hands disagree."
Iven finally looked directly at him through vapor.
The attention felt colder than the heavy volume.
"You stole royal property with a rebel route and damaged protected recovery workers," Iven said. "There will be charges once this road clears."
"Add them to my invoice. Milo probably has a box for that."
Milo raised one hand from beside Tressa without looking up.
"I have several boxes and none of them like nobles."
Tressa’s pool snapped at his fingers. Milo yanked his hand back.
"The route remains offended by charm and proximity," he said.
"The route is dying faster than my hands," Tressa said. "If we want Anchor, we open it now or chase the case blind later."
Osalf looked toward the far side, where Rosana had the wounded staged behind the support wall. Vellor’s blanket smoked at one corner. Xuan Wei stood with both hands braced against stone, keeping wraiths between the acid and the stretchers.
"How many can you send through cleanly right now?" Osalf asked.
Tressa looked at the smear and swallowed once.
"Two clean, maybe three if one of them is light and everyone forgives me later."
Blue lifted her head from Ty’s collar slowly.
"I am light and deeply unwilling to count as cargo."
Ty looked at JJ and already knew the answer.
She knew before he spoke and hated it.
"No, and I need you hearing that clearly," she said. "You are half standing because anger has bones right now."
"The case is tied to me. If I stay, we lose the trail."
"If you go and collapse, the trail gets a corpse with excellent timing."
"Then come with me and complain professionally properly."
JJ stared at him while Carden laughed behind her.
"You two argue like married smugglers at a border gate," Carden said.
JJ turned just enough to keep him in view.
"You flirt like a man raised by training manuals and mirrors."
Carden’s laugh cut off behind his throat guard.
Ty would have enjoyed that more if his palm had any skin left.
Ronnick shifted the cracked lens and pointed with two fingers.
"Anchor signal is sliding away from the lens," he said. "The case is moving below us or the line is carrying it. Pick now."
Tressa dug both hands deeper into the black smear.
The pool opened under Tressa’s shaking hands again.
It looked wrong from the start. A clean route made a circle. This one stretched into a narrow oval, edges tearing into threads that snapped back against Tressa’s wrists. Under the surface Ty saw stone ribs, dripping channels, and the bottom of the heavy volume case scraping along a sloped floor.
The old body inside moved one bound hand against the glass.
Ty’s knees went weak under the old pull.
JJ saw it and put her shoulder under his arm again.
"You get one collapse after we are through," she said. "Use it badly and I will be annoyed."
"Your bedside manner has become competitive with Blue’s."
"Good. She needed standards from someone else today."
Blue, still under Ty’s collar, made an offended sound but stayed hidden.
Osalf stepped close enough that only they could hear him over the fight.
"Anchor channels split under the old capital roads," he said. "If you land near a marker, read it before moving the case. Some lines have drop shafts."
"You knew that before now and waited, Osalf?" Ty asked.
"I knew the architecture. I lacked a stolen body in a royal box to test the theory."
"Your education keeps finding awful field trips again."
Osalf almost smiled, then looked past him toward Iven.
"Do not let the body decide your direction," he said. "Your body, old or new, is still being used by people who prefer you reactive."
Ty wanted to argue with more strength available.
No clean argument came fast enough to help.
Tressa’s pool widened another handspan and tore skin from her wrists where the edges snapped back.
"Choose before my hands become part of the road," she said.
JJ grabbed Ty’s belt with one hand and Blue with the other, tucking the smaller girl deeper against his chest.
"We go through, find the case, mark the path, and return if the route lets us," she said. "If the route closes, we stop making heroic promises and start solving the room we land in."
"That is the least comforting plan anyone has made today."
"Good. Comfort has been underperforming all morning anyway."
Carden lunged before the route finished widening fully.
Osalf met him before he reached them first.
The old Bull took the red blade on a short force shield and drove his elbow into Carden’s throat guard. Carden staggered back into Vaela’s damaged vapor. Vaela tried to lift her mask hose for another burst, but Xuan Wei’s wraith wrapped around the tank and pulled it sideways.
Acid sprayed into the broken walking frame hard.
Metal smoked where the acid found joints inside.
Iven stepped away from the mess with the first visible crack in his composure.
"Stop them before the damaged route opens fully," he said. "The captive does not enter that route alive."
Rosana fired again from behind the support wall.
The shot struck the mud near Iven’s boot. Close enough to make him move. Far enough to keep the worker behind him alive.
"He enters if he is stupid enough to volunteer," Rosana shouted. "I am currently too busy to stop him."
"Your support means a lot right now, Rosana," Ty shouted back.
"It means survive or I wasted a bullet."
Tressa’s route began folding at the far edge.
JJ pulled Ty forward by the belt hard.
For two steps, his injured foot refused the road. On the third, pain returned hot enough to give him shape. He leaned into JJ, kept his burned hand tucked against his chest, and stepped into the black oval as the drainage road split into cold lines around him.
The route took them badly from the start.
There was no fall, only pressure from all sides.
Stone pressed against Ty’s back, then his chest, then the inside of his skull. Blue cursed into his shirt. JJ’s grip stayed locked on his belt. The world dragged sideways through old water and colder dark.
They landed hard on sloped stone and water.
Ty hit first, shoulder and ribs taking the floor. JJ hit beside him and kept hold of his belt through the slide. Blue rolled out of his collar, bounced once against JJ’s thigh, and came up furious enough to stand.
The route snapped shut above them with a sound like wet cloth tearing.
Dark water ran around Ty’s hands and knees.
Somewhere below, heavy metal scraped across stone again.
JJ pushed herself up and listened down the channel.
"That is the case moving below us now," she said. "Please tell me Anchor channels have railings down there."
Ty looked down the slope toward the scraping.
The black case slid through the dark ahead of them, trailing broken chain, old frost, and a thin line of Ty’s blood from the pin.
It was moving faster than the water now.
The channel dropped out of sight twenty paces ahead.
Ty forced himself onto one knee in water.
"We found the case before it found worse ground," he said. "Now we stop it before Anchor shows us the drop shaft."