The service door opened into a kitchen built behind a wall.
Ty expected storage, pipes, or another shaft with teeth hidden under the floor. He got flour dust baked into old stone, three iron tables bolted to the ground, and a row of pie tins hanging from hooks above a heat vent. The tins moved gently in the warm air, tapping each other with soft little clicks.
"This is either the strangest maintenance room or workers were smarter than kings," Blue said.
JJ stepped through first and checked both corners.
"Workers already proved they were smarter than kings three rooms ago," she said. "The question is whether their lunch room wants us dead."
Scizor pulled the case through the door behind them.
The cutter moved slower in the kitchen. Its wheels dragged across a shallow groove cut into the floor, and its jaws kept both chains locked around the case. The worker rail continued beneath it, running between the tables before diving under a counter at the far wall.
Warm air rolled over the glass and softened the frost.
The frost on the case began to loosen.
Ty felt it in his shoulder before he saw it. The pull changed from a cold bite to a dull pressure under the bandage. His skin ached in a wider patch. The old body’s fingers inside the glass slid down by half an inch and stopped near the lower band.
"The warmth is changing the case, and it feels less sharp and more awake," Ty said.
"Those are both bad categories from you, so pick one with fewer consequences," JJ said.
"I would love a menu of better categories," Ty said.
Blue moved under the hanging pie tins and lifted one with the back of Marcus’s bit.
The tin had a name scratched into the rim. Nessa. Another tin beside it read Folt. A third carried Diaz in the same hard hand as the calendar strip. The names had been written by workers, not stamped by an office. Each tin had a different notch on the edge, a private mark for hands that knew the room.
"They had lunch tokens, not royal chits, actual people claiming actual food," Blue said.
JJ looked at the counter with her sword lowered.
Old racks sat behind it, empty except for dust, two broken knives, and a sealed ceramic jar with a cloth tied over the top. A chalk line ran along the wall above the racks, faded but readable under grease.
The chalk line read Pie yonder if the vent is kind.
"That is almost cheerful, and I distrust it on principle," JJ said.
"Cheerful can survive in walls if management rarely visits," Blue said.
Ty kept walking beside the case while Scizor dragged.
The kitchen made the old body easier to see. Frost peeled from the glass in thin wet lines. A skull shape emerged first, then the curve of the ribcage, then one shoulder jammed against the inner brace. The body looked smaller through clear glass than it had through frost.
That bothered him more than the frost had.
The shape belonged to him by theft and argument, but the kitchen light made it look less like a relic and more like somebody laid out badly after a long shift. Ty hated the gentleness of that thought. It gave the bones too much room.
"Ty, you are staring too long at the case again," JJ said.
"The glass is clearing, and I am trying to learn what changes before it uses me to learn," Ty said.
"Acceptable answer with unpleasant wording from you today," JJ said.
Blue crossed to the far counter and crouched by the rail.
The worker rail vanished through a low slot under the counter, but Scizor stayed too high for it. Its red housing scraped the top of the slot before it reached the wall. The case would fit if the cutter lowered. The cutter would lower only if its jaws released some chain.
Blue tapped Marcus’s bit against her teeth without biting it.
"We have a slot problem under the counter," Blue said. "Scizor is too tall while holding the case like a responsible nightmare."
"Can Scizor crouch enough to fit through that slot?" JJ asked.
"It has drop wheels under the rear housing," Blue said. "Marcus used one earlier. Diaz’s turntable probably reset the second. The third is tied to the dead lock."
Ty looked at the black latch under the lower band.
The latch had collected water from the melting frost. Drops clung around its edges and ran along the case trim. The royal metal looked less sure of itself in the kitchen, like shine had been its whole argument and heat had ruined the speech.
"Releasing the third pin touches the dead lock," Ty said.
"Correct, and I hate when parts agree in dangerous ways," Blue said.
JJ moved closer to the counter with the blade angled down.
"What do the pie tins do besides make this room more unsettling?" she asked.
Blue looked up at the hanging row with Marcus’s bit in hand.
"They are marked by person and notch along the rim," she said. "This room probably worked on trust. Take your tin, take your food, leave the right chit or owe somebody later."
"You are making lunch sound like a legal structure," JJ said.
"All good lunch requires enforceable trust around here," Blue said.
Ty looked at the tins again and found Diaz’s.
Diaz’s tin hung near the vent, lower than the others. Its notch was square, the same shape Marcus’s bit had stamped into the false chit. A smaller scratch marked the underside. Ty leaned close without touching it and found the word Trust cut into the metal.
He read it twice before speaking to either of them.
"Diaz has another mark here, and the word on the underside is trust," Ty said.
JJ came to his side and studied the tin.
"That sounds too neat after everything else like this," she said. "Dead workers should stop naming problems before we arrive."
Blue took Diaz’s tin down carefully with both hands.
The hook above it dipped under the weight change and clicked inside the wall. Every pie tin along the row lifted a fraction, then settled back. Beneath the far counter, something released with a wooden knock.
Scizor’s front wheels unlocked under the counterweight and dropped.
The cutter dropped lower by two inches and held.
The case dipped with it toward the floor groove.
Ty caught the side of the case before thinking and stopped his palm a finger from the glass. The old body’s hand inside lifted at the same time, palm lining up with his through the clearing surface.
JJ grabbed the back of his coat before contact.
"You stopped yourself that time, so I am counting that as progress," she said.
"I hate that progress feels like almost touching a corpse," Ty said.
"Progress is rarely flattering in your life around you," JJ said.
Blue held Diaz’s tin like a shield against blame.
"The pie tins are counterweights for the hook line," she said. "Trust mark lowers Scizor enough for the slot, but it also wakes the lock path."
"How awake is the lock path getting now?" JJ asked.
Blue pointed with Marcus’s bit toward the latch.
The dead lock had opened one narrow line.
The opening stayed too narrow to free the case, but it showed a strip of dark space beneath the latch. Warm air entered it and came back colder, carrying the old stone smell from deeper inside the case.
Ty backed away by one step from the glass.
The old hand stayed against the glass after him.
"The lock knows this room, or the body does," Ty said.
"Tell me which one before I feel better," JJ said.
"I am not close enough to lie properly," Ty said.
Blue set Diaz’s tin on the counter beside the jar.
Inside the tin, under years of dust, someone had tucked a folded scrap of oilcloth. It had survived because the tin hung above the vent, warm and dry. Blue unfolded it with two fingers and read the worker writing.
"If the rail comes from Diaz and the case comes warm, lower Scizor with trust," Blue read. "Do not open the lock by hand. Let the table take confession first."
JJ looked at the iron tables with immediate dislike.
One table had a shallow circular plate set into its center. Flour dust covered the plate, but the edge showed marks where something heavy had sat many times. A groove ran from the table down into the floor and lined up with the rail slot.
"The table takes confession, and that sentence makes me want to leave," JJ said.
"Same, and it probably means weight test before lock release," Blue said.
Ty studied the table under the flour dust.
It was wide enough for the case, if Scizor could roll it there. The circular plate had four hand grips and a thin channel along one side. A pie server lay beside it, warped by age, still hanging from a peg like somebody expected dessert after disaster.
"They disguised a weigh plate as a kitchen table," Ty said.
"Workers hiding machinery inside lunch furniture feels correct now," JJ said.
Blue read the oilcloth again from the start.
"There is another line near the oilcloth fold," she said. "Trust means one person watches the lock, one person turns the table, and one person keeps hands visible."
JJ stared at the scrap with her brows drawn.
"That is division of labor with witnesses pretending to be trust," JJ said.
"For workers, that may have been trust enough," Ty said.
JJ looked at him for longer than the answer deserved.
He knew why. The old body waited behind glass. His living hand had almost answered it twice. Trust, here, meant someone else watching your worst reach and staying close anyway.
"We need three jobs now, lock watcher, table turner, visible hands," Blue said.
"Ty keeps visible hands because that part is not a vote," JJ said.
"I accept the insulting wisdom of that assignment," Ty said.
Blue looked at the table and then at Scizor.
"I can turn the table if Marcus’s bit fits the center," she said. "JJ watches the lock because she can cut anything that starts opening wrong."
"Cutting the wrong thing near Ty’s old body is a poor comfort," JJ said.
"It is better than watching me hold a sword," Blue said.
Scizor rolled toward the table after Blue rehung Diaz’s tin on the lower hook.
The cutter’s lowered frame fit the rail slot under the counter. It dragged the case onto the kitchen line and stopped beside the weigh plate. The case looked absurd there, royal glass and black latch beside flour stains and old pie tins.
Ty stood where JJ pointed beside the table.
Both hands stayed visible near his chest on purpose.
He held them palm out near his chest, away from the glass, away from the latch, away from the old fingers that had returned to rest under the case band. His shoulder throbbed under the bandage. Warmth made it worse in a different way, fuller and more alive.
"I dislike how obedient this makes me look," Ty said.
"I am enjoying it for professional reasons today," JJ said.
Blue fitted Marcus’s bit into the table center.
The bit sank into the plate with a better fit than it had in Scizor. The table had been built for it. Marcus had known the kitchen too, or Diaz had borrowed from him, or every worker in the west wall had shared whatever tools kept them alive.
Blue put both hands on the bit and braced.
"When I turn this, the table takes the case weight," she said. "JJ watches the dead lock. Ty keeps hands where I can see them and says something before feeling anything strange."
"Something before strange feeling is clear and humiliating," Ty said.
"Good, I like instructions that embarrass you into following them," Blue said.
She turned the bit with both shoulders tight.
The table plate rose under the case with a scrape.
Scizor released one chain by a link. The case settled onto the circular plate with a heavy scrape. The dead lock opened another narrow line. JJ stepped close enough for her sword to touch the black latch, blade flat against the side rather than edge forward.
"The latch is moving slow enough for me to hate it properly," JJ said.
Ty’s right hand twitched toward the clearing glass.
He caught it with his left wrist and held both hands where they were.
"My hand wants the glass, and I am keeping it here," he said.
JJ’s eyes flicked to him, then back to the latch.
"Good, keep talking if it changes again on you," she said.
Blue turned the bit another notch under pressure.
The weigh plate dropped beneath the case weight.
The case sank a fraction and stopped against the plate.
Under the table, a drawer slid open by itself. Inside lay three small tin markers, each stamped with a word. Marcus. Diaz. Trust. The first two had scratches from use. The third looked almost untouched.
Blue stared at the markers inside the drawer.
"The table wants us to choose which word carries the case next," she said.
JJ kept her blade flat against the latch.
"What happens if we choose wrong from here?" she asked.
Ty looked at the third marker under the table.
The old body’s hand opened against the glass again.
This time, the hand reached toward the table. The palm faced the wood, fingers spread above the marker that nobody had worn smooth.
"Then we learn what trust means in this room," Ty said.