Chapter 926 - 926: Ty Lets Jade Keep Watch

Ty's pelvis scraped halfway off its shelf for the third time.

He felt the movement from across Kestra's storehouse, where his skull rested against Jade's hip. One edge caught a nail head. The other kept pulling south toward the closed lock that remembered sideways rain.

Dessel stopped it with his heel.

The effort pushed Dessel's back against the lower shelf. His injured shoulder shifted with him, and his face tightened before he found a position that left the useless arm alone.

"Your pelvis keeps trying to take my good leg with it."

"Move your heel before the shelf starts charging rent for both of us."

Kestra looked up from the copper tally in her pan.

"The shelf already charges by occupied width, including wandering bones."

Jade put her boot against Ty's lower spine and slid it back onto the folded sack beneath Dessel. She kept the pressure there until the southward pull eased.

"You are done watching the door until your pelvis behaves."

"The door has behaved worse than my pelvis tonight."

"The door is closed, and you are scattered across six shelves."

Ty counted again because counting had become easier than admitting she was right.

His skull stayed with Jade. His left hand supported Tovan's breathing cup. His right forearm lay on the third shelf beside an iron hinge with no matching door. Kestra's chain held three ribs against the north wall. His pelvis remained under Dessel's heel, and the rest of his frame occupied two numbered racks farther back.

The recovered piece from his left index finger waited inside Jade's coat pocket. The older right index finger waited somewhere that had learned how to keep it.

Five closed lock faces surrounded the bare floor patch between them.

The unnamed carrier slept on his side with both burned hands wrapped in loose cloth. Folded door tags beneath his wrists kept both palms above the stone. His order ending the pitch test still governed the room.

Tovan drew another breath through the white tube. Ty felt the support cup lift against his fingers, pause, then settle without losing the sixth count.

"Tovan's cup needs watching, while Dessel cannot brace another pull. The carrier's hands need somebody awake beside them."

Jade lowered herself onto an overturned crate between the carriers and the front door.

"I stood here while each problem became a problem. I remember them."

Ty tried to turn his right forearm so the fingertips faced the door. The shelf edge caught his wrist and rolled the arm back.

Jade heard the scrape.

"You cannot guard five directions using pieces that still need repair."

"I have more pieces available than most night watches."

"You have one cracked rib and a pelvis with travel plans."

Kestra carried a small brass clamp from her counter and set it beside the three chained ribs. A strip of boiled linen hung between its jaws.

"Repair the wash rail damage before it becomes returned powder. The clamp costs less if you leave some cloth for my chair."

The rib he had driven under the carrier rail bore a split along its inner curve. Gray wash grit remained packed inside. When Ty pulled it toward the rest of his chest, the crack widened and the other two ribs knocked against Kestra's chain.

Jade moved her crate to the north wall. She kept her left eye on the door while her living hand worked the clamp open.

Her damaged right eye remained closed beneath the cheek patch. The White Reaper hand rested on her thigh with its fingers spread where Ty could see them.

She washed the grit from his rib with water from Kestra's basin. Her thumb followed the split until it found the place where one edge had folded beneath the other.

"Pull the lower half toward me after I straighten this edge."

Ty drew on the bone. The rib jumped against her palm.

"That was toward your chest, which remains three shelves behind me."

"My sense of direction suffered when you carried my head away."

Jade pressed his jaw against her side with her elbow and set the rib again. The position trapped his view between her coat and the damaged bone.

He stopped trying to see the door.

The lower half moved under her thumb. Jade closed the clamp until both broken edges met inside the boiled linen. Pressure crossed Ty's scattered frame, knocking the loose forearm against the shelf and grinding his pelvis into Dessel's boot. Beneath Tovan's cup, three fingers tightened.

Tovan kept his mouth near the tube.

"Your hand may shake, but the cup stays below my jaw."

Ty spread his fingers until the support leveled. Dessel changed the angle of his heel without loading his injured shoulder.

Jade held the clamp steady.

"Everyone else has your loose parts, so work on this one."

Ty pulled his awareness into the cracked rib. The rest of the storehouse receded unevenly. He still felt Tovan's breath against his knuckles and the shelf digging into his right wrist. Jade's thumb stayed above the break, close enough for every bad alignment to push back against her.

The bone edges ground together.

He drew them tighter. A thin ridge rose under the cloth, broke, and settled. The force reached his pelvis next, but Dessel's heel kept it from sliding. Kestra's chain caught both loose ribs when they tried to answer the north lock.

The split narrowed across half its length.

Ty released the pull before the chained rib inside his absent chest could join it.

Jade loosened the clamp by one turn and checked the seam.

"Half repaired is better than another route using the whole bone."

Her coat shifted. The left index phalanx tapped once against his jaw from inside the pocket.

"That bone probably belongs closer to the hand it came from."

"Your hand already has work. This bone keeps wandering beside me."

"You realize that sounds like our engagement, right?"

Jade took the phalanx from her pocket and turned it between two fingers. White scoring marked one end where the Angelic line had pulled it away. The other end still fit the gap in his left index.

She tapped it against his jaw again.

"Our engagement survived worse travel arrangements than this one."

She returned the bone to her pocket and closed the flap.

Across the room, metal touched metal beneath Nessa's left hand.

Ty felt the contact through his left fingers before his skull found the sound. The recovered West Four hinge remained tied to Kestra's lower rail. Nessa had pulled the cutter from her forearm and laid it beside the hinge without opening the handle that held the prison sliver.

Her numb right arm rested over a wash pan. Three bent cage needles still sat beneath the skin near her elbow. She caught one exposed end with Kestra's narrow pliers and drew it out using her left hand.

The needle came free with a plug of gray tissue. Her deadened arm gave no warning, so Nessa measured the wound with her eyes.

Jade kept her seat.

"You are building something behind the rail without asking Kestra."

Nessa wiped the needle and pushed it through the double maintenance punch in the hinge.

"I am sending West Four a lost team pulse. The signal carries my unit mark and nothing from this storehouse."

Kestra left her counter and crouched beside the lower rail.

"Stolen metal never carries only what its current hand intends."

Nessa rotated the hinge until the strip of blue brewery paint faced upward. She placed the cutter's brass safety catch against the needle. Blood gathered beneath her right elbow while the deadened arm lay open over the pan.

"I have sent Meren no report since Palla cut the return. My soldiers deserve proof that I chose to stay alive."

Ty pulled his left hand away from the hinge's direction as far as Tovan's cup allowed. The five lock faces stayed shut. The recovered hinge gave no light and opened no seam.

Nessa pressed her usable thumb into the cutter catch.

The pulse entered the needle as three slow knocks, one close knock, then three more. Ty felt the pattern pass beneath his left palm without touching Tovan's throat. It reached the blue lock face, ran around its closed teeth, and left through the stolen hinge.

Kestra's invoice cords tightened across three different shelves.

One pulled west, toward the direction Ty's left hand had seen Meren's roof. Another drew against the sealed east service door that had taken Nessa's field crate. The third lifted the copper tally bearing seven cuts from Kestra's pan and set it back down.

All five route faces stayed closed while Nessa removed her thumb after the final knock, leaving the bent needle lodged through the maintenance punch.

Kestra checked each cord before looking at her.

"My shelves felt three listeners, and only one carries your blue paint."

"One warning may reach Meren, while the other two learn I survived."

"Those other listeners already own rails beneath my storehouse."

Nessa wrapped her bleeding elbow with the hand that still worked.

"Add that risk to my unloading debt. Keep it away from the carriers."

Jade shifted Ty's skull until the repaired rib filled his view again. Her living hand stayed on the clamp. The borrowed white hand remained open on her thigh.

"I still have the watch, and you still have half a fracture."

Ty drew the rib edges together beneath her thumb.

Behind him, Nessa's hinge gave no answer. Jade's fingers stopped his jaw whenever he tried to turn toward the door.