Chapter 17: Hour

"There we go, there we go...!"

With the wooden podium squeezed between his knees, Milo levered it off the floor and tipped it gently onto another. Slowly, because one slip would send the whole row over.

Anyone opening the door now would find a boy wrestling a hundred-pound block of wood for the sake of dropping a piece of amber into his mouth.

The top edge reached slightly above him. Milo tilted his head back under it, mouth wide and tongue out.

A careful nudge started Weck’s Knucklebone on its inevitable descent.

"AA—"

The moment the amber touched his tongue and rolled into his throat, its Ward sent current from his jaw to his ankle.

The tissue locked short of his esophagus.

"N-No, n-no. C-Come on, c-come on!" he choked out.

His throat forced the amber back to his palate. Milo clenched his jaw and dropped to his knees.

When the knucklebone struck his teeth and bounced back, he swallowed with every muscle that remained his to command, and froze.

It lodged.

"KHHOM ON!!" He pressed both fists down the front of his neck. "GHHAUKH!!!"

A few more seconds of burning and kneading, and the amber dropped into his stomach.

Milo fell onto his back, chest heaving, his muscles still cramped.

The yellow sheet opened above him.

[ Absorption complete. ]

[ Consumed: Weck’s Knucklebone. ]

[ Trait: Quake. ] 𓂃🖋

"Shut the fuck up."

Flat on the tiles, Milo covered his stinging eyes with one arm.

"Physical pain..." The scoff came out as a wheeze. "I didn’t mean it. Come back. Progress toward Hour?"

[ Progress toward Hour: 33.3% ]

He lifted his arm long enough to read the number and covered his eyes again.

"One third..."

A minute on the floor was all he gave himself.

By the time he got back to his feet, the phantom burns had faded to needles under his skin.

Ready to call it a night, he spun around in search of the baton outline. The far end of the second floor, and moving away from him.

Seems Mr. Cald was in no hurry to go back to his nest, and Milo had not yet seen the inside of it.

He placed his palm on the door’s handle and looked back over the room..

The door was locked anyway. He was trapped in a room full of relics.

Obviously, Milo went back along the cases, shaking the feeling into his hand between appraisals.

At the podium he’d stumbled into, he stopped.

[ Grade: Blessed ]

[ Name: Brother Ansel’s Soles ]

[ Type: Vestments ]

[ Longevity: Day ]

[ Mercies: Still Step ]

[ Litany: Unavailable ]

[ Description: Worn thin in the service of the sleeping. The wearer’s footfalls make no sound. ] 𓂃🖋

"Oh..."

His heel scraped the tile.

"Uh..."

He checked the baton’s outline.

"Do I get Still Step if I eat these?"

[ A Mercy may be preserved. ] 𓂃🖋

"May? What decides?"

The page closed.

So he went to work, wedging the podium between his knees again, only to confront the size of the next meal.

Each sandal was as long as his foot.

During the consumption of Weck’s Knucklebone, however, he felt as though the amber had become softer, to the point where his seizing throat could squash it a little and help it pass.

Maybe in his hand, the relics were tough. But in his mouth, metal became wood. Stone became rubber. Wood became cardboard.

And what else was a sandal but leather and plant fibers wrapped around some wood?

"What if I cut a relic in half first?"

No answer appeared. He lacked the tools. A broken relic might also become two useless pieces.

Milo worked the first sandal to the edge of its case and closed his fingers around the heel.

The item’s Ward locked his arm to the shoulder. Heat bored along every nerve, but he jerked the sandal free, dropping it onto the slanted podium.

"Easy peasy," he gasped.

The heel slid between his teeth, and his jaw snapped shut.

Leather softened on his tongue.

While the current clenched his neck, he wrung the strip and forced the wet lump to the back of his mouth.

"GRHK—!"

Carrot soup burst up. Milo folded over with his mouth open and one hand clamped across it. Orange vomit ran between his fingers, joining the blood and tears on the floor.

The chewed leather stayed behind his teeth.

He smeared his palm clean on the slanted wood and tried to straighten before another convulsion bent him in half, sending his hip into the next podium.

Wood toppled. Glass shattered on the floor with a deafening clatter.

"C-Christ—"

A blackened stone carved into a miniature mountain struck his ribs. Its Ward discharged and locked one of his legs straight.

"GLK!"

Vomit pressed at the back of his throat.

Milo covered his lips and rolled twice, shoulder over shoulder, leaving the stone by the broken case.

He landed on his back.

Bulging between his teeth, the sandal left his jaw throbbing at both hinges, and every attempt to chew closed his throat harder. In a shard of the broken case, one blue eye stared back above lips darkening at the edges.

Am I suffocating?!

He cupped his chin with his free hand, shoving the heel deeper into his mouth. Leather yielded between his teeth, cord and sole mashing together. His heels drummed the tiles and would not stop.

Air whistled out of his nose, and some came back the same way.

The first sandal went down in pieces. From the case, he snatched the second. A full-body jolt came with it, but he crammed its toe into his stuffed mouth. As his vision narrowed, the relic room blurred into one gray ring.

He stole some air through his nose. The second sole softened.

When his throat seized again, he rolled to his knees and wrenched the iron Turnhook out of its case. Both hands glued themselves to the current, and he barely heard himself scream.

Milo pushed the leather with the blunt end of the pole, forcing the chewed soles deeper by inches.

One thrust followed another, and another, and another, and finally the last piece slipped beyond the reach of his tongue and dropped.

The hook rang off the tiles. He collapsed. Each gulp of air hurt.

Above his face, the yellow sheet opened.

[ Absorption complete. ]

[ Consumed: Brother Ansel’s Soles. ]

[ Trait: Drought. ]

[ Mercy: Still Step (!) ] 𓂃🖋

Milo wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist, staining the blue sweater’s sleeve orange and red.

"Progress toward Hour?" he asked, voice shaking.

[ Progress toward Hour: 100% (!) ]

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⋆˚࿔ Coming right up: "Doors (Part 1)" ... ⤵︎ [!]