Chapter 916 - 916: The Angelic Measures The Missing Bone

The red rivet carrier stopped breathing while the black route was still closing around Ty's loose hand.

For one brief pull, somebody familiar had been on the other side. The route carried a laugh that belonged beside bad coffee, noisy children, and arguments Todd continued after everybody else went to bed.

Then the black joint released.

The carrier's white tube folded beneath his chin.

Nessa braced her shortened hand against the crate. "The red rivet has taken the pressure Brinna removed from the other harness."

Kestra leaned across the crate and pushed two fingers beneath the man's jaw. "Knowing who moved it will matter after this tube carries air again."

Ty's skull rested against Jade's hip. His left hand occupied a shelf across the storehouse with its fingers tied loosely around a return handle. He released the handle and crawled the hand over stacked door numbers, one knuckle at a time.

"That pull carried Todd, or somebody borrowed enough of him to fool me."

Jade steadied his skull against her side. "Call it Todd after he answers something nobody else would enjoy remembering."

Ty had several questions in mind, most involving a broken office chair and Todd's refusal to replace coffee after drinking the last cup. The route had already taken the chance to ask.

"Move the gray cup below his chin, and my hand can hold the tube open."

Kestra kicked the cup across the floor. Ty dropped his hand from the shelf, caught the rim with two fingers, and slid it beneath the carrier's neck. His thumb raised the tube. The man's throat opened enough for a dry breath that stopped halfway down.

Nessa put her shortened hand against the red rivet. "The new load enters through the black wrist joint and leaves through this stone. Cutting either end moves everything into the body between them."

"Then give me the part that can be held without cutting him."

"That part is currently your hand, which makes losing any finger inconvenient."

A white line entered through the storehouse roof without opening a hole.

It crossed Kestra's hanging doors, Nessa's floor chains, and every gravity strap without bending toward any of them. The freed woman's seven taps continued against the shelf. The line stopped above Ty's left index finger.

A narrow ring closed around the middle phalanx.

Ty pulled. The finger bone rose out of the joint and left the rest of his hand beneath the tube.

No shelf moved with it. Kestra's chains stayed slack. The black joint and red rivet continued loading one another as if the white line occupied no route they could feel.

Jade caught Ty's wrist before the hand followed. "This is the same width that measured your buried rib beneath the brewery."

The phalanx climbed past her shoulder.

Ty felt the bone without controlling its direction. The white ring turned it once, paused over each end, then lifted it toward the rafters.

His remaining fingers lost their angle beneath the cup. The carrier's tube began folding again.

"My index finger is leaving, but the hand can keep working if somebody turns the cup right."

Kestra grabbed the rim and rotated it beneath Ty's thumb. "Your hand stays on the tube until this man decides whether he can breathe without it."

As the white line tightened, Ty's index knuckle pulled toward the empty joint. Calling the phalanx back would close the hand and roll the cup away from the carrier.

Four working fingers spread farther around the tube. Beyond them, the missing bone passed through a gap between roof boards until half the phalanx crossed outside.

The ring shifted the phalanx one inch toward Kestra's front wall, returned it above the joint, then moved it twice as far toward the rear shelves. Each position held until Ty tried to bend the absent finger.

The third shift pulled his blue fire hard against one rib before releasing it. The bone remained above the roof while the pressure inside Ty returned to the center.

Ty's blue fire pressed against the left side of his chest. No pain reached him from the bone, but the fire kept trying to divide around a place too small to hold it. His jaw worked without permission, teeth closing against the edge of Jade's coat.

"My soul is trying to answer through the missing joint, and the answer keeps arriving in my jaw."

Jade pulled his skull away from the cloth. Blood ran from the open right eye to the white patch on her cheek. "Keep talking while I find the part of that line which believes distance protects it."

"Todd was there before the line arrived, or somebody has learned his laugh well enough to annoy me."

"You can chase him after the person under your hand finishes one useful breath."

The carrier pulled air through the tube. It reached his chest and came out in a cough that moved the red rivet against Nessa's palm.

She followed the motion to a thin strip beneath the black joint. Blue metal sat between two iron teeth, shaved down by years of pressure until one end showed through the grease.

"Kestra, hold the wrist joint level while I remove one sliver from its lower brace."

"Removing storehouse hardware adds the replacement cost to your unloading shift."

"Put the charge beside the bed you already billed to a skeleton in six pieces."

Ty would have laughed if the white ring had stopped pulling his teeth together.

Nessa drove her cutter beneath the exposed blue edge. The first lift made the black joint tighten around the other carrier's wrists. She lowered the cutter, shifted its tip by the width of her shortened finger, and tried again.

The sliver came free with black grease along one side.

Pressure left the wrist joint and entered Nessa's cutter. Her forearm stiffened. She trapped the sliver beneath the red rivet before the numbness reached her elbow.

The red stone rose away from the carrier's ribs. He dragged air through the tube, held it, and opened one eye toward Ty's hand.

His own fingers closed around Ty's thumb.

"I can hold the cup now, but your hand needs to stop climbing across my face."

"That hand usually receives complaints from the rest of me before strangers join the line."

The man's next breath lasted long enough for words. "My name is Tovan Eris. The man in the black wrist iron is Dessel, and he has been awake since the crate opened."

Dessel moved one bound thumb beneath the joint. The iron covered the motion from Kestra, but Ty felt it through the fragment cuts still facing his hand.

"Dessel gets the next free shelf after Tovan keeps this tube level through three breaths."

Tovan tightened his hold around the cup. "Give him the lower shelf because his left shoulder no longer carries weight."

The carrier kept his grip. Ty let the hand release the tube without calling the missing phalanx home.

The white ring pulled the bone fully above the roof.

Ty remained inside his skull, spine, ribs, scattered shelves, and the hand held by the carrier. The soul pressure in his jaw eased once the hand stopped working, though the lifted bone still answered whenever he tried to bend the absent joint.

The line lowered the phalanx one inch, raised it again, and waited.

Jade watched through the damaged eye. Her white hand opened beside Ty's skull. A thread ran from the pale cheek patch, crossed her palm, and wrapped once around the line above them.

The white line appeared doubled through her living eye and single through the damaged one. Jade covered the living eye with her wrist. Blood reached the corner of her mouth while she kept the other lid open and followed the single path between two roof boards.

Her fingers began shaking before she closed them.

"The white path enters beside your soul rather than through the storehouse routes. I can cut where it crosses my thread, but your bone will fall from above the roof."

"Cut it after Kestra moves the wash basin under the hole."

Kestra dragged the basin across the floor. "Anything landing in my clean water pays for a second wash."

"Charge the observer when it comes downstairs to collect the receipt."

Jade pulled.

The thread cut through the white line. Her right eye filled red to the lower lid, and the white hand locked around nothing. Above the roof, the ring opened.

Ty's phalanx struck one board, bounced through the gap, and dropped into Kestra's wash basin.

Jade reached into the water with her living hand. She closed her fingers around the bone while Ty tried to bend it from inside her grip.

The severed white line remained over the shelf long enough to make two more rings.

One closed around Ty's skull at Jade's hip. The other circled his four working fingers inside the carrier's hand.

Both rings tightened once.

The carrier squeezed Ty's thumb. Ty answered with the fingers missing one phalanx.

The two white rings opened together and passed through the roof.