Chapter 980: The Angelic Takes One Bone

The new white loop pulled Ty’s wheel cut rib toward Jade’s chest.

She caught the bone with her living hand before it reached Dimitri’s inner ring. The jaw chain ran through its lower groove and back to Ty’s teeth. Every link shook against her wrist.

Ty’s right foot remained inside the outer measure. His four present fingers held the grooved loose rib against the ward rail while Tressa’s strap kept its lower end inside a floor cup.

The white loop took another finger width.

Jade opened her damaged eye.

Pulling the rib back drove the chain through Ty’s jaw. His measured ankle broke, his right hand opened, and the grooved rib left the rail with three occupied beds behind it.

Cutting Dimitri’s wrist loop freed Ty’s bone. Dimitri’s changed fingers peeled from the upper gallery, and the old woman’s breathing hose wound around her throat when bed six rolled.

Feeding the chain through kept the ward and Ty’s remaining structure. The rib crossed the inner ring alone. A white mark stayed on the last link after it left.

Jade covered the damaged eye.

She tightened her hand around the bone and looked at Dimitri.

"Release the rib without changing the upper gallery or Ty’s measure."

Dimitri held twelve beds across the spread fingers of his damaged hand. The black fiber beneath his wrist pushed one knuckle sideways. His white band turned above it, pulling Ty’s rib while the gallery rested on the same arm.

"Opening this wrist releases both, and the ward beds move before his rib returns."

Tressa stood beside the old woman with one hand beneath the breathing hose. Her other hand stayed on Ty’s bed strap.

"Those beds are not purchasing the bone that kept us alive."

Ty’s jaw shifted around the chain.

"They are not. I am choosing which part the thief gets."

Jade kept the rib against her palm.

"You are not making that choice while your commands are still crossing."

He turned his green eye toward her. The inner ring passed between them without touching his chest.

"Then ask everything again, and make me earn the bad decision."

Jade slid her forearm behind his skull.

"Tell me who is holding your skull before you choose."

"You are, Jade. My skull and chest remain above common down with you."

"Tell me what remains against the upper ward rail."

"My grooved loose rib and present right hand remain there under Tressa’s strap."

"Tell me what the white loop holds right now."

"One wheel cut rib I chose for the bridge, not for Dimitri."

His answers reached the proper pieces. The fingers at the rail stayed closed. His measured foot pressed flat inside the outer ring. The rib in Jade’s hand pulled toward Dimitri without taking Ty’s jaw first.

Ty kept his eye on hers.

"Feed my chain through it. I keep the people, the rest of me, and the right to call this theft."

Jade wanted to refuse him. The refusal sat behind her teeth and had nowhere useful to go.

He had chosen the bridge before Nessa touched him. He understood the body price. The ward beds above them belonged to people whose names Tressa could recite, not a number Dimitri had invented.

Jade looked to Lera.

"Put his name and refusal on the bone before it crosses."

Lera pulled her council key from Lower Eleven’s rescue knot. Hessa Dorn caught the rope while the key came free. The names cut into the rope stayed under her palm.

"The bone carries Ty Hockenson, Lower Nine rescue use, and custody refused."

"Cut it where his thief has to preserve the evidence."

Dimitri’s bare foot shifted against Tower Five.

"Your public record cannot alter standing Angelic retrieval authority. My band answered a divided soul before your key touched it, and this gallery leaves me no free hand to appeal."

Lera placed the key against the rib’s outer curve.

"It can tell the next court exactly who you were when you used it."

She scored Ty’s full name first. The key dragged through the hard surface and left pale bone dust across Jade’s thumb. Beneath the name, Lera cut the same three turns used in Lower Nine’s rescue knot. She finished with two crossing lines that denied custody.

Hessa came off the rescue rope with her brass address plate still beneath her belt. She had refused to let that same council key move her household before checking every cut herself.

"Ty Hockenson, tell me whether these marks match the choice you made."

Ty turned his green eye toward the bone.

"My name, Lower Nine’s rescue, and custody crossed out. Those marks match my choice."

Hessa traced each cut with her thumbnail and moved aside so Jade could raise the rib toward Dimitri’s ring.

The white loop tightened across the custody mark, leaving every cut visible.

Dimitri watched Lera work while his changed hand kept the gallery from moving.

"I will preserve the measured bone without cutting or claiming your name."

Ty’s teeth scraped one chain link.

"You have already claimed enough to make that promise decorative."

Jade almost laughed. The anger stayed, but it had company now.

Nessa crawled to the ward rail with her marked plate. Blood had soaked the side of her glove where the smallest finger was gone. She pulled every strand of Vale tissue back beneath the plate before touching Ty’s grooved rib.

"My living count ended. I can wedge dead metal under his hand without lending the suit another opinion."

"Hold his rib against the rail while I feed the free chain."

Nessa slid the black plate beneath Ty’s four fingers. Tressa tightened the bed strap over it. The grooved rib sat between ward iron and marked metal, with Ty’s hand closing both.

Tressa checked the old woman’s hose, bed six, and every buckle along the upper rail.

"The ward holds, and none of my straps are buying ownership."

Lera returned her key to Hessa’s rope. Hessa drove it through the rescue knot and held all three Lower Eleven names beneath it.

Jade moved her grip from the wheel cut rib to the jaw chain beyond it. The white loop pulled the bone toward the inner ring while Ty bit down on the other end.

"I need six free links before the bone reaches his ring."

"Take seven, because my jaw dislikes precise optimism."

Jade fed the first link backward through the wheel groove. It scraped across Lera’s rescue cuts without blurring them.

The second link caught. Ty turned his skull toward Jade’s shoulder and changed the angle. She pushed the metal through.

At the ward rail, his present hand tightened around Nessa’s plate. The correct piece answered.

Jade fed a third link. Dimitri’s white loop shortened and took the slack.

The inner ring touched the rib’s cut end, and cold moved through the bone into Jade’s palm before stopping at her wrist. Ty felt it in his jaw and nowhere else.

"Name the piece at the rail before I give him another link."

"My grooved rib remains under my right hand, Nessa’s plate, and Tressa’s strap."

Jade fed the fourth.

The wheel cut rib entered Dimitri’s inner ring to Lera’s crossed custody mark. The ring closed around the middle and left Ty’s name visible on Jade’s side.

She held the chain and made the band pull against her.

Dimitri’s upper arm shook. Bed six rolled the width of a nail before Tressa’s floor cup stopped it. The old woman’s hose stayed loose.

"Jade, the next pull moves the gallery before it changes my order."

"Then carry his refusal beside your order and your weapon."

She shoved the fifth and sixth links through together.

The wheel cut rib left her palm. Ty’s name crossed the inner ring, followed by the rescue knot and the custody mark. The bone emerged beneath Dimitri’s wrist band, held against his blue sleeve by the white loop.

Ty’s chain pulled free.

Jade caught the loose end before it struck the open inner ring. She wrapped it twice around her living forearm and dragged it back toward Ty’s jaw.

His right hand remained at the ward rail. His grooved rib stayed under it. His skull, chest, handless left arm, pelvis, and both legs held together beneath Jade’s grip.

"Can you still feel the bone Dimitri carries beside his wrist?"

Ty’s jaw moved against the chain she had returned.

"I feel the cut name, the white loop, and your hand holding everything else."

The old future call ring remained near his jaw, cold and inactive.

A second white collar sat around the chain link that had last touched the stolen rib.

Dimitri lowered his wrist by one finger. The captured bone moved with him.

The new collar pulled one of Ty’s links after it.