Chapter 965: Todd Follows A Direction No Stake Knows

Todd put the copper edge against House Twelve’s floor, and it climbed his thumb.

The four prison plates under the house kept pulling down. Pio’s spoon pieces rolled toward the same wall. The nails in Darra’s fixed chair agreed with both.

The Cross Link fragment pointed between two floorboards and pulled toward a place with no floor at all.

Todd pressed harder. One long ache crossed the cut in his thumb. Six shorter bites followed. The Kavel splinter inside the copper moved against its crack.

Jade kept Nessa’s belt short while the caged arm reached after Vask’s vanished platform. Ty’s cradle rested against the passenger beam with Holl behind its brake.

"That direction belongs to Cava, and her brand has company."

Holl lowered one measuring hook beside the fragment. Its weighted end dropped toward the prison plates.

"My hook cannot find anything beneath your hand."

"That is why Griswald used people for addresses instead of road signs."

Todd turned the fragment over. Ty waited through the courier clasp on one side, while pale stone driven through the other tugged at the floor seam through a crack widened by the yoke teeth.

Todd had kept the crack closed with wire until the yoke teeth tore the binding away. His grip could no longer force both pulls through the same piece.

Ty’s right hand left the passenger beam and crossed the boards on its fingertips.

"Can your fragment open enough road for two bodies?"

"It can barely make one good decision with my body."

The hand tapped the copper beside Todd’s thumb. The courier clasp bit down. A familiar pressure entered Todd’s wrist, carrying Ty’s jaw, Jade’s hand on the skull cloth, and the uneven rib that kept catching under the cradle strap.

The Kavel splinter answered by turning the fragment sideways.

For one blink, Todd saw Rillhold’s maintenance yard through the gap between the boards.

Cava stood with her injured ankle strapped to the oldest community stake. Her damaged recovery jaw held the stake’s upper ring. Ruvan’s red belt crossed the lower ring twice. Black cords pushed out of the stone beneath her boot and climbed toward the seven cuts on her shoulder.

Havel and Sima were cutting cords as they surfaced. More kept coming.

The view closed when Ty’s clasp pulled Todd’s wrist back.

"She remains at Rillhold, and the recovery route is climbing through their oldest stake."

Jade crouched beside him. Her cold hand missed the floor seam once before the fingers settled on the boards.

"Can we warn Ruvan without giving that route another address?"

"Cava already knows because she put her bad ankle on the problem."

Nessa dragged her cage beneath one knee. The plate shaped cup under her thumb kept turning after the sample Vask had taken.

"A warning changes nothing unless someone reaches the cutting side, and Rillhold cannot spend another worker holding that route open while we chase Vask."

"That sounds like permission from the woman carrying six knives in her teeth."

"It sounds like arithmetic from the woman missing an obedient arm."

Todd slid the fragment into the split at the end of his staff. The copper fitted against the dent left by Cava’s recovery jaw.

He leaned on it.

The floorboards stayed closed. The crack in the fragment opened another hair.

The clasp pulled toward Ty. The Kavel stone pulled toward Cava. Todd’s injured thumb sat between them and began bleeding into both cuts.

Darra moved Pio’s chair away from the seam. She kept the matched source strip tied around her wrist.

"You saved this deck, so please avoid opening it beneath my son."

"I intend to use the wall because your floor has suffered enough."

Pio held up the thicker spoon half.

"My mother says walls become floors here, which ruins your plan."

Todd looked at Darra.

"He has identified the weakness in my professional method."

"He does that before breakfast whenever breakfast remains available."

Todd moved to the outer wall. House Twelve had lost its lower ledge, three window braces, and most of a cupboard. A narrow board remained between two beds. Its nails pointed toward the plates, but the Cross Link dragged across their heads without choosing either side.

He set the staff against the board and pushed.

The courier clasp tightened around the copper. Ty’s hand closed over the opposite end before it could twist from Todd’s grip.

"Your route wants my chain, and the white link comes with it."

"Then keep your cursed jewelry away from my unreliable door."

Ty held the staff steady. The white ring near his jaw remained quiet, but the route around the clasp narrowed as if tasting it.

Todd had no interest in giving the Reaper a road to Cava.

He pulled the fragment free and laid its existing crack across one iron corner, with pale Kavel stone exposed on one side and the courier clasp holding the other.

Jade understood before Ty did. She caught his hand by the wrist and moved it back.

"Breaking that leaves you without a reliable road toward us."

"Keeping it whole leaves Cava without a reliable shoulder."

Todd raised the third yoke tooth he had removed from the platform. Its square end covered the entire crack.

Ty shifted in the cradle. Holl put one palm against the shoulder wrap before the skeleton could lean forward.

"Give me the clasp half after you separate them."

"You may keep it, but you are forbidden from following the first pull because Griswald knows what blade holders chase when someone else screams."

"I dislike orders that arrive with borrowed pieces of my friends."

"Practice disliking this one because I cannot promise a quick return."

Todd struck the copper.

The fragment broke along the old crack. The courier clasp half jumped toward Ty and closed around his chain two links below the white ring. The Kavel half stayed against Todd’s palm, its stone point buried in the cut at the base of his thumb.

The wall board opened down its middle. A line of brass steps pressed against the inside of the wall, each one narrow enough for half a boot. They climbed left, which House Twelve considered sideways and Todd’s stomach considered rude.

The first step carried one long groove and six short ones.

Todd wrapped Nana’s cut red cord around his waist. He gave the loose end to Ty’s right hand, then cut it after one arm’s length.

Ty held the useless end.

"That cord should be longer if you expect a rescue."

"It is proof I left on purpose, not permission to follow."

Todd tucked his remaining staff section beneath one arm and placed his boot on the brass step. His weight moved into the wall.

Holl’s hook still pointed toward the prison plates. Darra’s chair nails still chose the saved floor. Nothing local acknowledged the opening around Todd’s body.

Nessa pushed the broken yoke tooth after him.

"Carry this because Cava may need an honest piece of leverage."

Todd caught it against his chest.

"Tell your arm I appreciated working with the cooperative half."

"Find Cava before Griswald teaches your weapon another direction."

Jade kept one hand on Ty’s chain while Todd moved onto the second step.

"We follow Vask, and you keep Rillhold from becoming his shortcut."

"Keep Ty’s hand attached long enough for me to complain later."

The wall closed behind Todd’s shoulders.

The brass steps carried him through a space that kept changing which knee bore his weight. He followed the drag through his injured thumb. Whenever he tried to turn back, the Kavel half cut deeper and showed him Cava’s boot against the stake.

The black cords had reached her knee.

Todd climbed faster until his staff struck a metal jaw hidden above the fourth step. The jaw closed around the shaft and pulled him through the remaining route.

He landed on Rillhold’s maintenance stones beside Cava’s strapped ankle.

Six recovery clamps had already fastened around the oldest stake. Each one opened a black cord into a different wall of the settlement.

Cava held the seventh clamp between both hands. Its teeth were turning toward her shoulder.

She saw the broken fragment in Todd’s palm and shoved the clamp against his iron yoke tooth.

"Break every cord before this one learns where Rillhold sleeps, eats, and keeps the patients who cannot survive another floor change."

The seventh clamp closed around Todd’s wrist before he could swing.