Chapter 956 - 956: The Kitchen Falls To The Ceiling

The kitchen floor became the ceiling while Ty was halfway through its serving hatch.

His skull cleared first. The bell beside the pantry struck its iron frame, and every cook grabbed a rail before the second note finished. Lids locked over the breakfast pots. Ladles swung into leather loops. A row of clay bowls rotated beneath a wooden bar and stayed against the counter.

Ty's pelvis came through after his ribs. His right hand caught the hatch frame. The handless left arm struck the wall and hooked its wrist end beneath a pipe.

Ruvan's red belt whipped back through the closing route behind him. Jade came through holding the belt with her living hand, followed by Nessa and Todd tangled around the same split staff.

The old floor pulled away beneath them.

Workers lowered themselves toward the ceiling rails on short waist cords. One woman kept her two burned fingers wrapped around a stew handle while she shoved a child toward the grain counter with her hip.

"Dey, clip both knees under the counter rail and keep counting bowls."

The child caught the rail. His left knee entered the loop. The right missed when the kitchen turned another quarter.

Jade's damaged eye found the death road.

"Knife rack above the grain counter. The largest blade reaches his neck first."

Ty looked where her living eye was not pointing.

The rack still hung from the former wall. One leather catch held six knives and a cleaver against their hooks. A fresh cut crossed the catch beside black packing grease.

Outside the round kitchen window, the receiving operator crawled along the roadback skin. One bare foot left blood on the braces. He had looped the cut end of the kitchen catch around the carrier board strapped ahead of him.

The living blank helm kicked beneath its restraints.

One hand slipped under the chin guard and opened toward the window. Ty had enough chain to catch the carrier board if he sent the hook before it cleared the brace. The same hook held the only reach between the knife rack and Dey.

The prisoner's fingers closed around empty air. Dey's loose knee struck the grain counter as the leather catch stretched above him.

The board pulled. Leather tore.

Six knives left their hooks and traveled toward Dey.

Ty released the hatch with his right hand and dropped across the changing room. His left arm stayed under the pipe. The shoulder opened, turned, and carried his rib cage around it.

He threw his jaw chain at the rack. The hook missed the wooden spine and caught the cleaver handle.

The chain pulled five knives off course. The sixth struck a soup lid, skipped across the ceiling, and cut through Dey's empty knee loop.

The woman let go of the stew pot and caught her child by the apron.

Her burned fingers opened under his weight.

Ty's right hand closed around the apron strap before both of them crossed the grain counter. His missing index bed pressed into cloth while the other four fingers held.

The cleaver kept coming through his jaw chain.

"Jade, move the child inside my ribs before the chain runs out."

With her left boot through a ceiling rail, Jade reached using her living hand; the cold right arm arrived late and brushed Dey's sleeve after she already had his wrist.

Beside the pantry, Nessa struck the recovered field finger into a square brace. The plated joint chose the kitchen ceiling, pulling her damaged shoulder off Todd's staff.

Todd jammed the split wood between the pantry and grain counter. His plain section bent toward Nessa. The Cross Link half pointed through the round window after the escaping carrier.

"My staff holds Nessa or follows that board, and the shoulder gets my vote."

Nessa pulled against the brace with her back.

"Keep voting until my elbow reaches the rail beside you."

Ty drew Solla and Dey against his chest. Jade guided the child between two ribs and hooked his apron strap around Ty's sternum.

The woman kicked at Ty's pelvis.

"My son stays outside the dead runner until I can hold him myself."

"Your son stays where the knives are not, and you may argue after the cleaver stops."

The cleaver handle hit Ty's teeth. His jaw snapped sideways, and the marked white chain link struck bone beneath his ear. The Reaper's future ring stayed closed without opening a road.

Ty bit the chain and pulled the rack toward his left shoulder. The handless arm tightened under the wall pipe. Its elbow accepted that surface as down, giving the rest of him enough resistance to turn.

Jade moved Dey from his ribs into the grain rail. She threaded the intact apron strap through two loops and placed the child's hand over the buckle.

"Close this after your mother reaches the same rail."

Dey caught his mother's sleeve with the other hand.

Ty let the cook slide across his right forearm. Solla hooked both knees beneath the counter rail and closed Dey's buckle before touching her own.

The rack hit Ty across the spine.

Two loose ribs passed through the empty knife slots. He turned them sideways and trapped the wooden spine against his back while Jade took the cleaver from the chain with her living hand.

The other knives struck the rack and remained caught between bone and wood.

Across the kitchen, the stew pot finished its trip toward the ceiling. Its locked lid held. Solla watched it strike a rope net and swing above three workers who had already shifted their waist cords to the new rail.

"Pan brace takes the stew, then bowl line moves under it before anyone opens a lid."

The cooks answered her with hands rather than words. Two pulled the net toward a ceiling hook. Another rotated the bowl bar and counted every cup that stayed in its groove.

Dey joined the count from inside his apron strap. He reached thirty seven, found a cracked bowl trapped beneath the bar, and started again from thirty six so the missing place stayed honest.

Solla corrected the net angle with her heel while keeping one arm around him.

"Forty two bowls leave before the next bell. West brace crews worked through yesterday's meal, and empty stomachs lose arguments with anchor bars."

One cook found three bowls beneath the old floor rail. Another opened a cupboard only as wide as his wrist, removed a sack of meal, and locked it before the roadback could change again. Breakfast kept moving around the knives.

Solla checked Dey's knees, the apron buckle, and both hands. Only then did she look at Ty.

"Unweighted dead runners go overboard when their bones keep a direction the roadback has released."

"I carried your child in the same direction your counter chose."

"Your chest did. That arm still belongs to my wall."

Ty called the left arm toward his shoulder.

The wrist end ground harder beneath the pipe. His elbow refused to lift from the wall, while the shoulder socket rotated until one rib slid loose beside Dey's shoe.

Solla caught the rib before the child stepped on it. She held it away from both of them without offering it back.

"My kitchen drill covers dropped tools and workers who miss a rail. Dead bones teaching walls to steal people fall under deck contamination."

Jade kept the cleaver flat against the grain counter.

"The cut safety catch caused this shift to reach your child. The same man who cut it passed your window with a breathing prisoner."

Solla turned toward the severed leather. Black grease coated one edge. Blood from the operator's foot marked the outside brace beneath it.

"Provision Master Dellin approved one fixed ground repair crew at dawn. They carried a five point board and claimed the kitchen catch as a crossing fee."

Nessa pulled the field finger free of the pantry brace. It pointed through the round window and along the blood marks.

"That crew stole Rillhold's oldest stake, lost it, and kept the only worker still breathing."

Solla placed Ty's rib inside an empty bowl groove and locked the wooden bar over it.

"Then Dellin answers for the catch before breakfast leaves this room. Your skeleton answers for the arm before it takes my wall with him."

Ty pulled again.

His handless left arm stayed beneath the pipe. The shoulder turned toward the wall and dragged the rest of his rib cage one bone out of line.