The heavy volume slid faster than the water.
Ty pushed off the sloped stone and nearly lost his bad foot under him. The Anchor channel dropped in a long curve ahead, slick with black water and old mineral frost. The case scraped along the center groove, chains jumping behind it like angry tails.
JJ caught his belt before he went sideways.
"Your foot is filing complaints through your whole body," she said. "Lean on me before it wins completely today."
"I am leaning with dignity and controlled panic."
"Your dignity is making grinding noises under pressure."
Blue ran ahead on the left wall where the stone ribs gave her handholds. She moved faster than Ty expected after the route threw them down here. Fear had made her sharp. Anger had made her useful.
"The channel drops ahead into open space below," she called. "I can hear open space, and I hate how far it sounds."
Ty saw it after three more uneven steps.
The floor ended where the channel broke around a circular shaft. Water poured over the lip and vanished into dark. The case was headed straight for it, too heavy, too slick, too already moving.
JJ saw the drop and pulled Ty harder.
"We need chain around stone before the drop," she said. "If the case goes over clean, we lose it."
"If I go over with it, I want it recorded that I objected late."
"Your objection is accepted and ignored under pressure."
They ran because the case kept winning ground.
Running turned every injury into a separate voice. Ty’s ribs argued with his shoulder. His burned palm argued with air. His foot gave up on pain and settled into a hot, useless throb that changed his stride every time the stone dipped.
The case bounced off a raised rib in the floor.
One rear chain snapped upward from the case.
JJ lunged and caught it with both hands. The chain dragged her forward. Ty grabbed the back of her coat and slammed his good heel against a stone ridge. The impact ran up his leg and nearly emptied him.
The chain kept moving despite both their weight.
"Blue, find an anchor that still believes in structure," JJ shouted. "Preferably before this thing makes us decorative today."
"Your requirements are specific and terrible under pressure," Blue shouted back.
She jumped from the wall to a carved post near the shaft. The post had been worn smooth by water, but a metal ring still jutted from one side. Blue wrapped both arms around the ring and kicked at a crusted latch below it.
The latch refused with old stubborn metal inside.
Blue bit it because subtlety had failed already.
Ty would have laughed if the chain had given him air for it.
The latch cracked loose under her teeth finally.
JJ hauled the chain toward the post. Ty hauled JJ. The case dragged all three of them another body length down the slope. Water sprayed over Ty’s knees. The edge of the shaft came close enough for the sound below to change from water to emptiness.
Blue looped the chain through the ring twice.
The case jerked against the first anchor hard.
For half a breath, the heavy volume slowed.
Ty felt hope try to stand up inside him and shoved it back down before it got anyone killed.
"Second loop before the ring tears out of stone," JJ said. "One anchor will not hold that much weight."
"I need another ring or a miracle with handles," Blue said.
Ty looked around the channel for anything useful.
The old builders had cut steps into the side wall, narrow and steep, leading up to a maintenance slit. Half the steps were gone. Iron staples ran beside them, each rusted into the stone. Not enough for the case. Enough for a chain if the chain wanted to ruin everyone’s day first.
"Left wall staples can take the loose chain," Ty said. "Run the loose chain through them before it passes."
JJ looked at the distance, then at his foot.
"You cannot climb that with your foot ruined."
"Correct. I am going to fall upward with intent."
"That remains a bad category of movement today."
He moved anyway because waiting solved less now.
JJ cursed and went with him because anger made her loyal in practical directions. She kept one hand on the chain and the other under Ty’s arm. Blue held the first ring with both feet braced against the post, face tight from strain.
Ty reached the wall and found the first staple.
The first staple sat above shoulder height. He caught it with his burned hand and almost lost the world. The pain came clean and white, stripping every clever thought down to the next grip, the next breath, the next stupid inch.
JJ shoved the chain up against him again.
"Hook it and let go before your hand comes apart," she said.
"You are making several attractive promises under stress."
"I will make better ones when you stop bleeding on ancient fixtures."
Ty looped the chain over the staple hard.
It caught with a sound Ty felt deep.
The case slowed again against the chain’s pull.
Water surged around it. The bound body inside shifted under the glass, one skeletal hand still pressed against the pane. Frost spread from the fingertips in crooked lines. The glass creaked, not breaking, not holding comfortably either.
Ty stared at that hand too long inside.
The chain ripped against the staple and pulled him off balance.
JJ slammed him back into the wall with her shoulder. The blow knocked breath from him and kept him out of the shaft. He accepted the trade because the alternative had teeth.
"Stop watching it like it can answer you," she said.
"It keeps moving when I look away anyway."
"That is exactly why looking is losing now."
Blue shouted from the post above the water.
"The ring is pulling free, and I refuse to become part of the architecture."
Ty grabbed the second staple with his good hand.
Good was generous. Less ruined was closer to truth.
He wrapped chain around it and pulled. JJ added her weight. The case groaned lower in the channel. The sled brace under it bent. For the first time, the heavy volume stopped sliding and simply strained against the anchor points.
Ty’s knees shook hard against the sloped floor.
JJ’s boots slipped across the wet stone under her.
Blue’s post cracked at the base under strain.
The shaft waited three paces away, wide and dark.
"We have it for one ugly breath left," Ty said.
"Say that quieter before the world hears you," JJ said.
The world heard him anyway and answered badly.
Inside the case, the old body’s hand moved from the glass to the nearest inner strap. Two missing fingers made the grip wrong, but wrong still worked. The strap snapped.
The case shifted its own weight inside the channel.
Not much became enough before anyone could correct it.
The first ring tore out of the post.
Blue jumped clear as stone burst under her feet. The chain whipped free and slashed across the water where she had been. JJ caught Blue against her chest with one arm and kept her sword hand locked on the chain with the other.
The second staple ripped halfway out of the wall.
Ty threw his shoulder into the chain again.
His body had little left to give, so it gave badly. Something in his ribs slipped with a hot click. His burned palm opened again. The chain dragged through his grip and painted the stone under him red.
The case moved toward the shaft with patience.
"Ty, release before it takes you over too," JJ said.
"It is my body in there behind glass."
"Your body is also here, and this one is currently losing."
He knew she was right and hated it.
That made letting go harder than holding on.
The second staple tore free from stone fully.
JJ hit him from the side with purpose.
The impact drove Ty away from the chain and into the wall. The heavy volume dropped over the lip. The remaining chain snapped straight between them, caught for one final instant on the broken staple, then tore loose and followed the case down.
Sound vanished after it into the shaft below.
Ty lay on his side in the water, trying to make his lungs remember their job. Blue crouched near his face with both hands in his hair, tiny fingers gripping hard enough to hurt.
JJ stood over them, breathing hard, sword lowered.
"That was the attempt, and it failed cleanly," she said. "We are alive enough to make another one."
Ty stared at the shaft while water ran.
The dark below changed under a spreading frost.
Frost spread along the inner wall, starting far down where the case had fallen. It climbed upward in narrow ridges that caught the weak channel light. Step shapes formed out of old water and cold mineral crust, not smooth, not safe, but real.
Blue leaned forward with both hands clenched hard.
"The body is making a path under us," she said. "I dislike helpful corpses in every possible way."
"It is not helping. It is pulling us down," JJ said.
Ty pushed himself upright through pain and water.
Everything hurt except the parts that had gone numb, and those worried him more.
The frost reached the lip of the shaft.
The first step held under the running water.
Then the second formed beneath it through runoff.
Water ran over both and froze at the edges.
Ty looked at JJ through the frost light.
"You knocked me away from the chain hard."
"You were seconds from becoming part of the fall."
"Thank you for making that decision before me."
JJ’s face changed a little, not soft, just less armored.
"You can thank me by using the steps rather than inventing another way to bleed."
Blue stood on Ty’s shoulder and glared down the shaft.
"I vote we rest, heal, eat something, and chase the body after it stops behaving like bait."
The frost formed a third step below the lip.
Below them, metal scraped once through the dark.
Ty got his good foot under him slowly.
"The vote is noted and betrayed for cause," he said. "We go before the path melts or decides it only wanted me."