The two sickles opened beneath the board and held there. Neither blade cut, which made Ty keep his hand still above the tray strip.
The board ground against the cracked fuse again. The sound was low, dry, and wrong in the teeth. Blue kept the gray cloth pressed over the fuse, using just enough pressure to hold it in Daemon’s cut.
"They are waiting for the correction path to speak clearly," Blue said.
"The path has been loud enough for my taste," JJ said.
"Loud is different from clear when the board wants a path."
Rusuf shifted his wrist under the stone lip.
The maintenance sword still held, but the lip had started to ride lower along the flat. Dust gathered on the back of his hand. His fingers stayed wrapped around the grip with no wasted movement.
"If the sickles need time, say how much time," he said.
"Long enough for the board to try the wrong thing twice," Blue said.
"That is not a time. That is a legal threat with gears."
The board answered with another grind, and the left sickle twitched toward the case-track depression while the right sickle stayed open.
Ty saw the problem before Blue said it.
"Only one side heard the case, and the right stayed blind," he said.
Blue nodded without looking away from the fuse.
"If the left cuts now, the correction path may reroute through the buried body," she said.
Yun-Jin kept the cloth edge under the loose hook contact.
"Then we make the right sickle hear the same lie," she said.
The buried body’s half-closed hand tightened another fraction, but Yun-Jin kept her eyes on the hook.
Ty respected that. Looking down would make the hand into a person asking for help. It might be that. It might also be the receiver wearing a dead hand like a lever.
"We need the board to show the full wrong route," Ty said. "Case to stone, stone to case, then Daemon’s cut."
JJ pressed harder into the case frame with her shoulder.
"The case body is pushing forward again against the frame," she said.
"Hold it on the track position, because if it slides, the sample mark shifts," Blue said.
"I am holding a corpse inside a glass box to keep a board from misreading a murder," JJ said. "Everyone should appreciate how specific my day has become."
The old body in the case pressed its finger into the glass until the frost mark widened.
The board groove pulled against the dead fuse, the left sickle trembled harder, and the right sickle finally moved.
It turned toward the stone-trough depression and stopped with its contact tooth above the darkened dust line.
"Right side heard the stone and stopped over the dust line," Rusuf said.
"They are still separate on the board, and that is the problem," Blue said. "They need to hear the same correction, not two separate bodies."
Ty looked at the angled mark on the black film.
The mark pointed away from both bodies, but it began at the point where Daemon’s cut crossed the line. Daemon drew a wound and a drain rather than an escape.
"The wrong path has to hit the fuse," Ty said.
Blue’s eyes narrowed as she followed the groove.
"That means we stop holding the fuse down like a wall and let it lift enough to knock."
JJ looked at her with the case still pushing.
"I hate every verb in that sentence and most nouns."
"I agree with your hatred and still need the cloth."
Blue loosened her pressure by a finger’s width.
The cracked fuse lifted inside the groove, and the board bit at it at once.
The sound changed. It became sharper, closer to a tool skipping across a notch. The left sickle dipped. The right sickle dipped after it. Both contact teeth touched the board at the same time.
Ty felt the receiver tooth heat without touching it.
The copper hook jumped toward the wrist ring.
Yun-Jin shoved the cloth edge under it and took the pressure through her knuckles.
"Hook is trying to close the feed through the wrist ring," she said.
"Keep it open without touching the bare metal," Ty said.
"I know which disaster I am holding right now."
The sickles listened through the board, which was the only word Ty had for it. The blades held their contact teeth on the wrong path and vibrated with the grinding fuse. The vibration traveled through the tray, into the receiver, and up through the glass case.
The case body stopped pressing, the buried body’s hand stopped tightening, and for one breath, both bodies stayed still.
The sickles cut with less movement than Ty expected. Each blade moved less than the width of his thumb. The left sickle shaved across the case-track line. The right sickle shaved across the stone-trough line. Both cuts met at Daemon’s broken fuse.
The groove went quiet while Blue kept the cloth over the fuse.
"Do we like that silence or fear it properly?" JJ asked.
"We distrust it until it proves useful to everyone," Blue said.
The proof came through heat as the tray’s back edge warmed under Ty’s fingers. The warmth spread under the hidden panel and ran along two narrow lines that stayed hidden before the cut. They traveled away from both body depressions and toward the bridge wall.
Rusuf exhaled once through his nose and adjusted his grip.
"The lip is getting lighter against the sword," he said.
Yun-Jin kept the hook blocked and checked the exposed hand under stone.
"The buried body is still pinned under the stone," she said.
JJ looked into the case without easing her shoulder.
"The case body is still rude but stationary inside the glass."
Ty watched the heat lines move through the tray.
They fed neither body. They carried the correction away from both positions and into the hidden channel Daemon’s film had pointed toward. The wrong kill remained unsolved, but the sickles had cut it loose from the bodies.
"The signal is leaving the board through the hidden channel," Ty said.
Blue followed the heat lines with her eyes.
"It is going into a fire channel behind the receiver," she said.
"Is that a worker firebreak or something worse?" Rusuf asked.
"Or worker burn line. Depends who built this part and how forgiving they felt."
The tray clicked beneath the panel, and the two sickles withdrew from the groove and folded halfway back. Their hooked tips stayed aimed toward the heat lines, ready to cut again if the correction tried to return.
Yun-Jin looked at them with a tired anger Ty understood.
"Daemon built them to keep listening after the first cut," she said.
"He expected the route to argue after the first cut," Blue said.
"He expected everything to argue until it ran out of teeth."
The bridge wall behind the receiver answered with a low thump.
JJ turned her head toward the bridge wall.
Another thump followed from farther down the wall. Then another. It moved away from them in measured spacing, one hidden burner or valve at a time.
The air above the bridge rail warmed, and frost slid off the case glass in thin sheets.
Ty pulled his sore hand away from the tray edge before the heat reached the torn bandage.
"The fire channel is opening behind the receiver," Blue said.
Rusuf eased the maintenance sword a fraction and tested the lip.
The lip stayed up without grinding down against the sword.
"The stone lip is carrying less weight now," he said.
"Good, because I would enjoy one kind sentence from the architecture before we burn," JJ said.
The wall thumped again behind the receiver hard enough to rattle the board.
This time orange light showed through a row of narrow seams behind the receiver. It stayed contained for now, thin and straight, but every line pointed back toward the board and the bodies it had spared.
Blue stood slowly, keeping the dead fuse pinned.
"The sickles heard the wrong kill, and now the fire line gets the argument," she said.
Ty looked at the seams as the next row opened.
The fire storm answered from inside the walls.