Omina asked for a chair, and that frightened Ty more than the missing finger.
She asked for no help, no sympathy, and no permission to acknowledge the raw place where her field command privilege had been torn out. She looked at the Lost Property clerk and set one hand on the counter, calm enough to make the nearby drawers stop moving.
"Bring me a chair before your office mistakes pain for surrender."
The clerk pointed to a stack of three-legged stools. "Seating is not guaranteed during contested ownership proceedings."
Omina stared.
The clerk stared back.
Yun-Jin picked up one stool, broke the weakest leg off against the counter, wedged the remaining two legs through the lower shelf, and pressed down until the whole thing held steady.
"Here is the chair your office failed to understand."
Omina sat.
No one commented. JJ looked like silence was causing physical pain. Heissman had the solemn grief of a man burying seven excellent remarks. Ty respected the silence because silence was cheaper than being attacked by everyone in the room.
The black case sat on the counter between them. Inside, Ty’s missing finger tapped once every few seconds. The sound had no impatience in it.
It was counting.
Omina held the claim options in one hand and the pencil in the other.
"Purchase is bait because the office offered it first."
JJ nodded. "The price will be something we cannot afford, or something we can afford and should never pay."
"Theft is bait because it rewards speed over judgment."
Yun-Jin glanced at Ty.
"Briefly, and with only modest property damage in mind."
Four faces turned to him.
Ty adjusted his grip on the sickle.
"I considered theft briefly before developing as a person."
Heissman lifted one finger.
"In the interest of precision, your brief thoughts often arrive with broken furniture."
The clerk stamped a form in the margin without looking up, marking Heissman’s statement accurate enough to file.
Ty pointed at the stamp.
"Do not join the conversation through office equipment."
The clerk returned to her umbrella magazine. Omina tapped the list with the blunt end of the pencil.
"Duel is bait because Erebos would choose stranger violence than a posted fight."
JJ leaned closer to the paper.
"What does inheritance require in a room like this?"
"Chain of possession before death, after death, through undeath, and across the skeleton separation."
Heissman grimaced. "A beautiful nightmare for someone less urgently alive."
Yun-Jin read the next option. Her voice shifted when she reached it.
"What does apology cost in this room when Erebos wrote it?"
The finger stopped tapping.
Everyone looked at the case.
Ty’s chest flame lowered until the light touched the counter in a thin blue line.
"Whatever it means, that option stays dead today."
JJ studied him, then the case.
"You do not know what it means yet."
"The finger knows enough for both of us."
Omina crossed apology out. She spent no energy arguing with the wound Ty had not opened for them.
"That leaves negligence claim, improper custody, and purpose contest."
The clerk’s pen paused for half a breath.
Omina saw it. So did JJ. Even Ty, who hated offices on principle, understood that stillness meant they had touched a nerve.
"There is the first honest answer this office gave us."
Heissman leaned closer.
"We have found the pulse under the paperwork."
Omina turned the claim sheet toward the case.
"Erebos assigned purpose. That means he accepted responsibility for use. If the assigned purpose damaged the original holder’s name integrity, he exposed the claim."
JJ followed it faster than Ty did, which annoyed him less than usual because her face went sharp in a useful way.
"We are not arguing the finger belongs to Ty because it was his. We are arguing Erebos used the finger badly."
Ty looked at Omina.
"Badly for the finger, or badly for me?"
Omina looked at the case. The tap came again, softer now, as if the bone had moved closer to the glass.
"For the finger, if this room respects its own poison."
The answer settled harder than Ty expected.
Heissman exhaled through his nose.
"Horrifyingly elegant. If the finger is treated as witness or claimant instead of passive property, then Erebos’s basis can be attacked from inside its own logic."
Yun-Jin frowned at him.
"Translate that before I resent your education more than usual."
"The finger gets to complain about its employer."
"That version should have come first and saved everyone time."
The clerk closed the magazine.
That was the first honest sign of danger.
"Negligence challenges require a counter-witness with standing against the highest claimant."
Omina placed the pencil flat on the counter.
"Define standing before I start breaking your categories."
The clerk slid a pale card onto the counter and spoke as if each option had a price. The original holder had direct interest, which made Ty too entangled. A sponsor had material interest, which made JJ too invested. A pain-bonded witness lacked custody relevance, which made Yun-Jin’s jaw tighten. A hostile officer without custody chain had no useful standing, which made Heissman look personally offended.
He lifted his hand anyway.
"I have hated Erebos in a rigorous and documented capacity."
"Academic hatred lacks standing under property negligence rules."
"Your institution remains philistine in multiple departments at once."
The clerk stamped another margin note, marking the complaint common and unhelpful.
Omina leaned back on the ruined stool, and her face lost color. Yun-Jin shifted closer. She waited until Omina gave the smallest nod, then steadied her shoulder as if the movement were tactical rather than tender.
Ty watched that nod.
It bothered him in a way he lacked words for. Yun-Jin helping was simple. Omina needing help without saying help looked harder than bleeding.
JJ rested both hands on the counter.
"Then tell us who has standing before I start guessing expensively."
The clerk slid a new form across the counter. Acceptable counter-witnesses included an Earth witness affected by claim use, a hostile agent with traceable service to Erebos Alkandros, a prior custodian, or an assigned purpose recipient.
JJ read the list once, and the color left her expression.
"The Earth witness affected by claim use is Jade."
Ty’s hand tightened around the sickle. Omina saw it at once.
"We do not pull Jade into this room for convenience."
"The challenge requires her category if you want standing recognized."
Omina’s eyes cut toward the clerk.
"That is convenience wearing necessity’s coat for court."
The clerk smiled faintly. "Convenience often survives long enough to become necessity."
JJ muttered under her breath, but loud enough for the office to hear.
"I want to buy this entire office and fire it into a lake."
"Bodies of water reject municipal burdens under old agreement."
Heissman looked wounded by delight.
"That was almost wit, and I resent enjoying it."
Ty tapped the black case with one knuckle. The finger answered with three soft knocks.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Yun-Jin tilted her head.
"The rhythm changed after Jade’s category appeared on the summons."
Ty listened again.
"I know the sound, but I cannot place where."
He could, somewhere. Or some piece of him could. A memory with no picture brushed the inside of his skull. Bone against table. Rain against glass. Three knocks from under a floor.
The clerk opened a drawer and removed two witness summons. One was white. One was black.
"Challenge accepted for preliminary scheduling. Bring one Earth witness affected by claim use and one hostile witness with traceable service to Erebos Alkandros."
Rima’s name appeared on the black summons before anyone spoke.
JJ read it upside down.
"That answer arrived too easily to be innocent."
Omina’s mouth thinned.
"Too convenient means someone prepared the hook before we arrived."
Jade’s name appeared on the white summons, blurred, then returned with a red line through one eye.
Ty picked up the paper. It cut into his fingers. No blood came because bone had little to give, so the summons drank blue fire instead.
The clerk stamped the case, opening the preliminary purpose contest.
The shelves behind her shifted, forming a narrow aisle toward the handleless door. The soul-door tag swung once.
The first line on the tag warned that the door should not wake without administrative need.
The second line rewrote itself while they watched.
Administrative need was now under review.
Omina stood too fast. Yun-Jin caught her before the stool tipped.
"No door opens while we are still bleeding from the last one."
For once, the office listened. The aisle stopped moving. Heissman lowered his voice.
"Our next error appears to be waiting politely."
Ty held the summons until the edge stopped burning.
"Then we finish this contest before the next door wakes."
The finger tapped inside the case.
This time, it sounded like agreement.