The scream reached Applause Junction before the office notice did.
Zunoder caught himself against the tiled wall behind the upper stairs. The gallery above him kept cheering at a fight that had already turned into paperwork below their feet. His mouth filled with blood because Ty's tongue was still Ty's tongue, and so old animal part of the body had bitten down the instant the Na Office stamped the wrong truth.
People on the landing scattered from him.
Good.
Fear made space. Space beca a stage if a man knew where to stand.
He pressed two fingers to the back of his mouth and found the ache in the stolen tooth. The bone below had paid. The woman on Earth had interfered. The na had split, yet it had not abandoned him completely, and that was the insulting part. Zunoder had stolen a face. He had not expected the face to keep voting.
"Rude," he said, and spat blood into the gutter slot beside the stairs.
A crow landed on the rail above his shoulder. One red eye watched him with the patience of sothing that had never needed to pay rent.
Zunoder stared at it. "Tell him I heard."
The bird tilted its head.
"Do you work for Erebos," Zunoder asked, "or for the piece of I am going to cut out?"
The crow opened its beak.
Jade laughed.
The mory arrived as a stolen scrap dragged through black feathers: rain on pavent, a tired woman laughing because Ty had said sothing stupid and ant it. The stolen body reached for the sound before Zunoder could stop it. Fingers, throat, ribs, all of it leaned toward her like a dog toward a hand.
Zunoder grabbed the crow by the neck. The limp weight in his grip gave him the answer. He squeezed until the feathers broke into black dust, and Jade's laugh ended halfway through a breath.
Above the landing, the public crystals changed.
PUBLIC NA CONFLICT STABILIZED
TY HOCKENSON: SPLIT CLAIM
BONE HALF: TEMPORARY REGISTERED
FACE USER: ZUNODER
Three seconds was enough. Every watcher who had taken his free food saw the office admit a split before it could explain the danger of one.
Zunoder wiped Ty's mouth with the back of Ty's hand and turned toward the closest woman on the stair. She held a paper bowl of noodles he had bought with another man's goodwill.
"See?" he said. "Even their office agrees there are two of us. Ask yourself which one ca up here to speak to people, and which one hid under stone with blades."
The woman backed down one step.
Zunoder let her.
Fear still worked. It simply needed better instructions.
Far below, the Na Office returned to business by pretending it had never been afraid.
Ty stood with one hand on the cracked desk and one tooth missing from the back of his jaw. The pain stayed bright and local. He preferred that. Pain had an address. The rainy-street mory ended at the edge of Jade's laugh.
The silver-haired clerk stamped the final paper and slid it toward him without a trace of pity.
"Temporary registration complete. Custor remains disputed. Please avoid additional title contamination until the contest window resolves."
Ty read the slate.
REGISTERED BONE PARTY: TY, BONE HALF
PUBLIC TITLE RESTRICTION: SKELETON KING UNCLAID
FACE USER CONTEST WINDOW: OPEN
OBJECTIVE GENERATED
JJ leaned over the desk. Her wrist panel flickered through the cracks, throwing pink light across the form. "Generated by who, exactly? Because if the answer is the office, the King, Erebos, or any vague legal horror pretending those are different categories, I'm going to need a longer complaint form."
The office answered her with procedure. Every lamp turned red. Every desk drawer opened. Each clerk removed an identical black card and placed it face up in the sa asured motion.
ROUND TWO PUBLIC OBJECTIVE
RETRIEVE FACE USER BEFORE EARTH CONSENT LOCK
FAILURE CONDITION: FACE USER GAINS EARTH PRIMARY RECOGNITION
REWARD: NA STABILIZATION, BONE ROUTE ACCESS, ONE ITEM FROM LOST PROPERTY
PENALTY: SKELETON KING TITLE AUTO-APPLIED
Ty stared at the last line until the letters stopped moving.
JJ's mouth tightened. "No. Absolutely not. We're not letting a stolen face vote him into a monster title because so basent office discovered branding."
Heissman picked up one black card, read both sides, then picked up a second card with the weary care of a scholar disproving a rumor he already hated.
"They are identical," he said. "Which ans this institution has achieved the rare administrative miracle of wasting my ti without even varying the ink."
Yun-Jin looked at Omina. "Earth primary recognition?"
Omina had lost field command privilege, aura weight, and too much blood, but the room still adjusted when she focused. "Zunoder reaches Jade's world first. Enough humans accept that face as Ty. The office then treats public belief as a signature."
"Then the bones beco the title," JJ said. "Not Ty. The thing they can sell."
"Yes," Omina said.
Ty lifted the sickles. His jaw hurt when he spoke, so he spent no words on anything extra. "Route."
The clerk pointed toward the far wall.
A door stood there now, fitted between two filing shelves that had been solid stone when Ty entered. It had an iron fra, a cracked glass window, and a brass plate dulled by handprints.
LOST PROPERTY
The cart clerk, still lingering near the wall as if misfortune paid hourly, sucked in a breath. "That departnt is terrible."
"Good," Ty said.
"No, custor. Terrible for you. Important distinction."
The silver-haired clerk dipped her pen. "Lost Property contains items, nas, body parts, witnesses, regrets, small gods, damaged weapons, lunch containers, and improperly surrendered leverage. The face user passed near it."
JJ narrowed her eyes. "Near it?"
"He stopped outside."
"Why not?"
The clerk's pen paused above the form. "An item inside recognized him and requested rent."
Ty stepped toward the door.
Omina caught his arm. Her grip had no aura behind it now. It still stopped him because she chose the exact tendon that mattered.
"No," she said. "You do not charge through the first door that ntions a missing piece of you. Zunoder wants speed. Erebos wants emotional shortcuts. The office wants paynt. We give none of them the easiest version of us."
"Zunoder is going to Earth."
"Yes. Through a prepared route, with a crowd above us repeating whatever he feeds them and Jade being used as both shield and lever. That is why we move with a plan instead of running at every open mouth."
Correct words were worse when Ty hated them.
Yun-Jin saw the hesitation and pressed one hand to her ribs. "She is right."
Ty turned his skull toward her.
She grimaced. "Deeply unpleasant for too."
JJ lifted her panel and forced it to wake. The screen blinked twice before holding. "The reward says one item from Lost Property after success. That ans the office knows sothing in there matters."
Heissman adjusted his grip on the broken sword. "Or it knows we are desperate enough to treat implication as evidence."
"Both can be true," JJ said.
"Tragically, yes. That is how traps afford furniture."
Ty looked through the cracked glass.
Behind it waited shelves, hooks, boxes, hanging tags, and shadows with labels tied to them. Sothing small tapped a shelf at shoulder height.
A finger bone.
His missing finger.
The one Griswald had used. The one Erebos had placed on a table. The one too many people had treated like a key.
Blue fire crawled up both sickles.
"My finger is in there."
"Many things are in there," the clerk said. "Please avoid emotional prioritization until your ticket is called."
"Who put it there?"
"Lost Property records claims, not guilt. Losing an item opens a shelf. Claiming it starts the fight."
JJ moved closer to the door, careful not to cross the threshold. "If we get that finger back, does it help lock the na?"
The silver-haired clerk stopped writing.
The silence answered better than her mouth could.
Heissman gave the office a pleased look. "I do enjoy bureaucracy when it becos nervous. It is the only ti paperwork develops a pulse."
The floor shook once.
Above them, the gallery crowd roared. A broadcast crystal dropped from the ceiling guide wire and cracked against the desk. It flickered through public static, showing Zunoder in a hooded coat on a stairwell packed with frightened civilians.
Then the image changed.
Earth ca through in broken pieces: a school basent, water under folding tables, Jade with blood running into her palm, Rima behind her with one hand inside her coat, faceless responders at the sealed door, and paper hands pushing up through the cracked floor near the dead.
Zunoder's voice crossed both worlds.
"Jade. Open the wrong door for ."
Ty drove one sickle into the desk. Wood split. The pain in his jaw flashed white enough to blind thought, and the office clerks scattered with impressive professional speed.
The silver-haired woman sighed. "Violence against furniture creates fewer disciplinary forms than violence against staff. Continue making efficient mistakes."
JJ grabbed Ty's wrist with both hands. "Ty. Plan. You heard Omina, and you know she's right, which is awful for everyone, but still useful."
The Lost Property door unlocked.
No one touched it.
A tag swung into view behind the cracked glass.
ITEM: SKELETON FINGER
CLAIMANT LIMIT: ONE
CURRENT HIGHEST CLAIMANT: EREBOS ALKANDROS
The Na Office lamps went black.
Sowhere far above and far below, twelve empty helms turned toward Ty at the sa ti.
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