The truce held because both sides were afraid to pull.
That made it useful under pressure, never safe.
The two sickles hung over the shared line with their hooks pointed down. One hook waited above the buried wrist ring. The other waited above the case seal. The line between the bodies stayed tight, heated by the receiver and held open by Daemon’s dead fuse.
JJ kept her shoulder against the glass frame.
"I hate how quiet the case got right now," she said. "Quiet usually means the next problem is choosing clothes."
Blue flexed her burned fingers over the fuse.
"It is learning the clamp faster than expected," she said. "Both bodies are learning it with the case."
Rusuf looked at the buried wrist ring under the stone lip.
"The ring stopped pulling toward the hook for now," he said. "It is pulling toward the case now as well."
Yun-Jin kept the torn cloth around the loose hook and shifted her stance.
"The case is pulling back through the shared line," she said. "That is an argument wearing peace clothes today."
"Call it a truce, because peace has better lighting," Ty said.
JJ breathed once through her nose and pressed the case lower in the track.
"Say what moves next before something smarter than us guesses."
Blue looked along the receiver tray. The brick wall had cleared the guide teeth, but the case still needed to pass the receiver mouth. The buried ring needed to stay level with it. If one side lagged, the shared line would tilt. If the shared line tilted, one sickle would bite first and make the receiver choose pain as proof.
"We advance the receiver by the smallest track tooth," Blue said. "JJ moves the case. Rusuf lifts the ring with the sword. Ty keeps the service pin under the ring. Yun-Jin keeps the hook homeless."
"Hook homeless is the kindest phrase anyone has given this thing," Yun-Jin said.
Ty looked at the sickles hanging over both grooves.
"What do the teeth do while we move?" he asked.
"They punish greed before either side owns everything," Blue said. "If either body pulls ahead, the nearest sickle cuts the signature path enough to make it let go."
JJ glanced through the glass at the body inside.
"So we are trusting two blades to teach manners."
"We are trusting pain to interrupt ownership early," Blue said. "Manners are beyond the scope of this hallway."
The case body pressed its fingers to the panel.
The buried hand twitched under the stone weight.
Both sickles dipped by the same small measure.
Both bodies stopped pulling against the line together.
Ty felt the answer through the service pin. The truce worked because it was mean. Nothing in the line promised cooperation. It only promised that the first side to cheat would lose flesh, seal, or whatever counted as leverage inside a dead claim.
That was enough to keep everyone working alive.
Blue counted the heat pulses with her hand flat on the fuse.
"Case side moves on my first heat count," she said. "Stone side on my second count. Move on my third count, then freeze."
"Freezing is one of my strongest current skills," JJ said.
"Your jokes are worse when the case is heavy," Yun-Jin said.
"Everything is worse when the case is heavy."
Blue waited through one pulse, then another. The board warmed under her palms in two uneven waves. The case seal answered first, clean and sharp. The buried ring answered late, rough through stone and powder.
"First count, case side pressure only until I call," Blue said.
JJ pressed the case forward by the width of a guide tooth.
The glass body tried to help with the push.
That became the first problem immediately for everyone.
It leaned into JJ’s push, fingers spreading against the panel, and the shared line snapped tight toward the glass. The right sickle dropped. Its hook bit into the case seal path with a thin scrape that made the glass shiver.
The body stopped leaning into JJ’s shoulder then.
JJ held the frame with both arms anyway.
"That is a very aggressive manners lesson there," she said.
"It learned faster than several officials already today," Yun-Jin said.
"Second count, stone side pressure comes up now," Blue said.
Rusuf lifted the stone lip with the sword.
Ty pressed the service pin under the wrist ring and drove upward through his wrist. The ring rose, dragged by the pin, the sword, and whatever stubbornness still sat inside the buried body. The shared line straightened.
The buried hand twitched harder under the stone.
It tried to pull the line downward again.
The left sickle dropped and kissed the wrist ring groove.
Stone dust spat from the lip. Rusuf’s sword jumped in his grip, and Yun-Jin yanked the hook farther away before the copper edge could take advantage of the shock.
The buried hand stilled beneath the lip again.
Ty’s fingers locked around the service pin again.
"The teeth work too well from here already," Rusuf said. "They also hate everyone standing within reach today."
"Useful teeth usually hate everyone standing nearby anyway," Blue said.
"Third count, everyone freezes until the tray settles," she said.
Everyone froze around the receiver and held pressure.
The receiver tray slid forward by the smallest amount.
The motion came as pressure rather than sound. The tray settled into the next tooth. The brick wall held. The case stayed centered. The wrist ring stayed level under the lip. The hook stayed homeless in Yun-Jin’s smoking cloth.
For three breaths, nothing stole the motion from them.
JJ looked at Blue without moving her shoulder.
"That was one tooth out of seven cleared," she said. "How many teeth before the receiver mouth clears the case?"
Blue looked at the track, then at the tray, then at the fire vents beyond the brick wall.
"Seven if the guide keeps its shape properly," she said.
JJ closed her eyes for a beat first.
"I asked, which means I deserved the answer."
The fourth heat pulse came early through the board.
Blue felt it through the fuse and shoved both hands down.
"Hold every pressure point where it sits now."
The shared line twisted between both signatures hard.
Neither body pulled first this time. The receiver pulled both of them sideways together. The line bowed toward Ty’s service pin, then toward the brick wall, searching for a third point that could carry the strain without belonging to either body.
Ty felt the pull climb the service pin.
The pressure entered his hand through locked fingers.
His locked fingers tightened around the metal until fine cracks opened along his knuckles. The sickles trembled above the grooves, confused by a pull that belonged to neither signature. The truce had teeth for cheating bodies. The receiver itself dragged the bargain sideways through a gap.
"The line is using the service pin now," Ty said.
Blue looked up sharply from the fuse cut.
"Remove your hand from the pin before it anchors."
"The hand is part of the pin right now."
JJ shifted as if she could reach him and the case at the same time.
"Tell me what to hit before it chooses him."
"Nothing until we know where the pull wants to land," Blue said.
The pull answered by moving higher through the pin.
It ran through the service pin, through Ty’s wrist, and into the powder set between his bones. His arm jerked toward the shared line. The sickles dipped together, aimed away from both bodies and toward the place where Ty’s hand had become the easiest third point.
Yun-Jin saw it before the hooks chose him.
She dropped the torn cloth with one hand and snapped two fingers of her free hand open.
Pink light unwound from her wrist in a thin strand.
The hook swung toward the buried wrist ring again.
Yun-Jin caught it with the cloth again and bit back whatever sound wanted out of her throat. The pink strand stayed moving. It looped around the service pin, crossed the brick wall, and bit into the receiver frame beside Daemon’s cut.
Blood rose through the skin at her wrist.
JJ stared at the strand wrapped around him.
"That is you inside the line now, Yun-Jin," she said.
"A little of me is enough to be rude," Yun-Jin said.
Blue looked at the pink strand and understood faster than anyone else wanted.
"The truce needs an anchor outside both bodies."
"I know exactly what the truce needs now," Yun-Jin said.
"The receiver will pull through you as payment."
"It was already pulling through Ty before me," Yun-Jin said. "He is very bad at sharing work alone."
Ty tried to pull his hand from the pin again. The strand tightened around the metal and took part of the pressure from his wrist. Two of his fingers cracked free, painful and immediate. The sickles lifted a fraction, returning their hooks to the two signatures.
The shared line stopped climbing his arm there.
Yun-Jin’s knees bent under the new weight.
JJ moved one hand from the case frame and caught the back of Yun-Jin’s belt before she could drop. The case shifted under that missing hand, and JJ slammed her shoulder back into place with a grunt.
"Do not make me rescue you while holding furniture," JJ said.
"Then stop calling the corpse box furniture while I am busy," Yun-Jin said.
The pink strand pulsed once around the pin.
The shared line settled against the pink strand.
The receiver tray stopped hunting for Ty’s hand and leaned into the new anchor. The sickles held above the bodies. The brick wall held. The hook stayed away from the ring by less than a finger, close enough that Yun-Jin’s cloth smoked through.
Blue exhaled through her teeth and counted pressure.
"That gives us a third point to hold," she said. "It may give us the next six teeth if she can stand."
Yun-Jin looked at Ty first, then at JJ’s hand still hooked in her belt.
"I can stand if people stop making it emotionally annoying."
"I will try medical annoyance as my contribution," JJ said.
Ty loosened his broken grip around the service pin.
The strand pulled the pressure cleanly enough for his hand to come free. Grit and a thin layer of bone scraped from his fingers and stayed cooked to the metal.
The truce held around the two bodies there.
The teeth waited above both signature grooves silently.
The pink anchor took the weight before either body could.