The gate took Balisk’s push and answered with another steel crash.
The case lurched forward by less than an inch. The two guard leaves held against each other, crossed wrong in front of the rail. One blade sat high enough to scrape the upper frame. The other leaned low, its sharpened inner edge almost touching the glass near the lower band.
"Balisk is stronger than the gate is sensible, which is a bad pairing," Blue said.
JJ planted her sword flat against the lower leaf and shoved.
The steel leaf barely moved. The force traveled through her arms and into her shoulders, but she kept the blade angled so it would slide rather than bite. Sparks scraped from the contact line and fell into the rail groove.
"This gate is opening out of order right now," JJ said. "Blue, tell me the lever can fix that before Balisk turns the case into evidence."
Blue had both hands on the broken handle.
"The lever is not a lever anymore, it is a metal insult attached to a problem," she said.
Ty stayed beside the case with both hands visible.
The claimant mark on his palm throbbed each time Balisk pushed. The old body inside the glass held one palm against the side closest to the gate, not reaching for him now. It wanted the route through the steel leaves, and the wanting came through Ty as pressure rather than command.
"The body still wants the gate, and it is not trying to take my hand," Ty said.
"Good, keep your hand and send the gate a complaint," JJ said.
Blue looked beneath the broken lever with Marcus’s bit.
Stelia’s name sat above the second scratched name. The lower name had been chopped through by an old blade strike, leaving only a few letters and a long cut in the metal. Blue rubbed grease away with her sleeve and leaned close.
"The second name starts with But, and the rest got cut away," she said.
"Please do not tell me the gate needs a man named But," JJ said.
"I am choosing to believe workers had better names than that," Blue said.
Balisk pushed again into the crossed leaves hard.
The upper leaf jumped, then dropped back into the lower one. The clash rang through the chamber and shook dust loose from the throat behind them. The case frame touched the low steel edge with a dull scrape.
Ty felt the scrape along his marked palm.
He stepped sideways without touching the glass as Balisk pushed.
"The lower leaf touched the case, scraping frame but not glass," he said.
"That is the last acceptable scrape from this gate," JJ said.
She shoved harder against the lower leaf again.
Her sword flexed against the leaf. The lower steel moved by a hair, then sprang back. JJ’s boots slid in the flour dust and water. Ty saw her shoulder dip before she lost position and moved without thinking too far ahead.
He planted his boot behind hers for bracing.
JJ caught the support and pushed again without slipping.
"Useful foot, keep the rest of you out of trouble," she said.
"That is where I usually store the rest of me," Ty said.
Blue crouched under the lever housing with Marcus’s bit.
The mechanism above the rail had two exposed rods. One rod led to the high leaf. The other led to the low leaf. The high rod had moved. The low rod had stuck halfway through its travel. Old grease had hardened around the joint into a black crust.
"The lower leaf is jammed in its bite path," Blue said. "It needs the joint cleared before the lever can finish."
"Can you clear it from that position, Blue?" Ty asked.
"With time, tools, and a room that stops pushing a coffin at knives," Blue said. "We currently have only one of those available."
Balisk’s rollers turned another notch under the case.
The case pressed harder toward the crossed leaves.
The old body inside rolled slightly, shoulder against glass. Ty felt the impact travel across his bandage and down into the claimant mark. He gripped his own sleeve with his left hand and kept his right open.
"Impact moved through the old shoulder, still mine, palm hurts more," he said.
JJ heard the change in his report immediately.
"Blue, faster needs to become now for me," she said.
Blue pulled Marcus’s bit from her belt and dug it into the crust around the low rod.
The bit chipped grease and old grit away in stubborn flakes. The rod shifted once, then stuck harder. Blue muttered under her breath, not quite words, more like a private argument with metal that had survived several dead supervisors.
"It is not just stuck, someone cut the stop tooth," Blue said.
"Was the stop tooth cut on purpose there?" Ty asked.
"With a blade and spite, by the look," Blue said. "The same strike that cut the name. Whoever came after Stelia damaged the lower sequence."
JJ braced her sword against the lower leaf again.
"Can we force the leaf up while Blue clears it?" she asked.
Blue shook her head without looking back at Ty.
"Force makes the broken tooth jump and drop again," she said. "That is probably how the case gets sliced."
Ty looked at the gate and the case.
The two leaves had closed wrong and stayed locked there. They had argued with each other and frozen there. The high leaf wanted to retract. The low leaf wanted to rise. Balisk wanted to send the case through both of them because Balisk had accepted west and expected the rest of the wall to keep promises.
"Balisk needs to stop pushing right now first," Ty said.
"Balisk takes its timing from the claimant path," Blue said. "It probably stops if the claimant withdraws wrong."
JJ looked at his marked palm and frowned.
"No, your face began offering before you spoke," she said before Ty could consider it.
"I have not offered anything to Balisk yet," Ty said.
Blue scraped another piece of crust free with the bit.
"If Ty withdraws wrong, Balisk may mark the load unresolved and send it to reject," she said. "I vote against learning that with our bodies."
"Good vote from everyone with survival interest today," JJ said.
Ty kept his palm open and looked at the claimant mark.
The mark had begun to fade, but the pressure under it remained. Stelia’s plate had made him a claimant for the transfer. Balisk listened to the claim. If he could report through it, maybe he could pause through it. The problem was doing that without turning his hand into another lever for the old body.
"What did Stelia’s rule say about trouble following the hand?" Ty asked.
Blue paused with Marcus’s bit under the tooth.
"Trouble follows the hand, and load means responsibility without ownership," she said.
"Then the claimant can report trouble through Stelia’s plate," Ty said. "Maybe Balisk has a way to hear it."
JJ gave him a look that promised consequences if he became poetic.
"Say the practical version before trying it first," she said.
Ty put his marked palm against the side rail, not the glass.
The metal was warm from Balisk’s drive. The claimant mark prickled under his skin. The old body inside the case turned its hand toward the rail too, but the glass stayed between them.
"Claimant reports blocked gate, load still sealed, worker rail blocked by clashed steel," Ty said.
Balisk pushed once more into the clashed steels.
Then it stopped with the rail still loaded.
The silence after the rollers halted felt too large, so Ty filled it with a practical detail before fear could climb into it.
"Balisk stopped pushing, and my hand is still mine," he said.
JJ exhaled through her nose and shoved the lower leaf again.
"Then we have a short mercy, Blue, use it," she said.
Blue drove Marcus’s bit under the cut stop tooth.
The tooth lifted enough to show the problem. Beneath it, packed into the joint, was a strip of old cloth soaked in hardened fat. Not machine grease. Kitchen fat. The cloth had fused into the hinge and turned it into a plug.
Blue stared at it under the lever housing.
"This is deliberate damage inside the lower hinge," she said. "Someone buttered the hinge and left cloth inside it."
"Buttered feels like the wrong word near a blade gate," JJ said.
"It is the right material and the wrong century," Blue said.
Ty looked at the chopped name under Stelia’s.
The only remaining letters read But under Stelia.
Not a name beginning. A maintenance note cut off by damage.
"The lower mark may have said buttered, Stelia’s rule, then buttered hinge," Ty said.
Blue’s eyes tracked the thought and sharpened quickly.
"Kitchen fat for emergency release under heat there," she said. "It melts under heat and lets the lower leaf move if the proper tray feeds it. Whoever jammed it left the cloth in the joint."
"Can we melt it now in time here?" JJ asked.
Blue looked back toward the kitchen over her shoulder.
"The heat vent might do it, but not fast enough for us," she said. "The pie room had jars. One was sealed."
"Was that sealed jar butter for the hinge?" Ty asked.
"Maybe old fat, maybe oil, maybe poison with better packaging," Blue said. "At this point, I will accept slippery today."
Balisk clicked behind the case under the rail.
The claimant pause had a short life. The machine had stopped pushing, but the pressure remained in the rail under their feet. Ty felt it like a held breath, except the room had no lungs and he refused to give it any.
"How long before Balisk ignores the report from here?" JJ asked.
Blue checked the side guide with her fingers.
"The claimant pause has three teeth, and one is already spent," she said.
Another tooth clicked under the rail below them.
"Two are already spent from the guide now," Blue said.
JJ cursed under her breath and shifted stance.
"Ty, stay with the case while Blue gets the jar and I hold the leaves," she said.
Blue ran back toward the kitchen for the jar.
JJ set her sword between the crossed steels and leaned into the lower leaf again. Her arms shook with the effort. Ty stayed beside the side rail, palm pressed to metal, feeling Balisk wait under him with less patience each second.
The old body inside the case kept its hand turned toward the gate.
Ty kept reporting because reporting was the only useful thing his body could do without making everything worse.
"Case steady, old body wants gate, claimant mark holding, Balisk pressure rising under the rail," he said.
JJ’s jaw tightened as the pressure rose underfoot.
"That last part is the one I hate," she said.
Blue came back carrying the sealed ceramic jar from the kitchen counter.
She slid on the wet floor, caught herself against the wall, and dropped beside the lever housing. The cloth over the jar had been tied so tight she had to cut it with Marcus’s bit. When the seal broke, a heavy smell of old fat and herbs rolled out.
"It is absolutely butter-adjacent, and no one eat anything from this wall," Blue said.
"Nobody was planning lunch from the wall today," JJ said.
Blue scooped the old fat with the flat of Marcus’s bit and packed it into the low rod joint. The first layer softened against the warm metal. The second worked into the cloth plug. The third started to slide.
The final tooth clicked hard under Ty’s palm.
Balisk started pushing again into the gate hard.
"Now, Blue, Balisk is moving into the gate again," Ty said.
Blue slammed the broken lever down with one hand and shoved the bit into the low rod with the other.
The buttered joint gave under the bit finally.
The lower leaf jumped up along the track.
JJ’s sword caught the edge and guided it, steel screaming against steel as the blade leaf rose clear of the case. The high leaf retracted with a brutal snap. The gate opened unevenly, wide enough for the case and not much more.
Balisk shoved the case through the open gap.
The glass cleared the lower edge by two fingers.
Ty felt the scrape that almost happened and nearly lost his balance.
JJ grabbed his coat with her free hand and pulled him after the case.
Behind them, the two steel leaves clashed shut again, this time in the correct order, locking Balisk and the kitchen behind them.
Ahead, the west rail entered a narrower corridor slick with fresh heat and old fat. Blue held up the jar, breathing hard, with Marcus’s bit still buried in the buttered mess.
"We are keeping this because apparently butter is survival equipment now," she said.