Beside Ash Company and Dane Rook, Buk’s place on the door stayed empty. Vera read all three spaces aloud.
Each breath Buk took on Brant’s shield squeezed the wool under his right flank. Blood had worked through all three pads. It was slower now, but slow was not the same as stopped.
Dane knocked once and tipped his lock toward him.
The door did nothing.
"He can’t offer your answer for you," Holt said. His voice had gone rough with fatigue. "I don’t think any of us can."
Buk swallowed. "Inside for how long?"
"One cycle, then a clearing bell," Vera said. "Your challenge happens before the cycle ends. After that, you choose again."
"Choose while outside claim waits?"
Nobody hurried to soften that.
"Yes," Brant said. "We’re buying time, not making the shafts kind."
Buk shifted. Cloth dragged against torn scales, and his next breath broke in the middle.
"Hold still," Ada said.
"Still is not answer." Buk drew another breath, shallower this time. "If Buk says inside, Buk owes this door?"
"Testimony," Vera said. "No carrying. No repairs. Ada won’t clear you for either."
"And no one owns the answer," Holt added.
The silver band around Buk’s left wrist gave a faint chime. He listened to it fade.
"Buk stays one cycle," he said. "Buk belongs to Buk during it."
Dane struck the floor once.
Grain whispered through the living lintel while Vera read what surfaced.
INSIDE: BUK / ONE CYCLE / SELF-CLAIMED
The grown ash bar dropped into both catches. Beyond the calcite, the claim lines stopped scratching at the threshold. Dane could still taste their iron stink through his cracked seams, but the pressure withdrew.
A hammer tapped twice from the watch bay.
"Don’t celebrate against the bar," a woman called. "The right catch is young."
Wet roots dragged over stone. Someone with a heavier left step came through, followed by two workers carrying enough soaked fiber to make the chamber smell like a split cellar wall.
"Lir," the woman said. "I keep Hingehold’s thresholds standing. You have five wounded humans, one wounded goblin, one wounded chest, and more enemies than spare exits. We need terms before the next full vein."
One worker grunted. "Root down first, Lir."
"Yes, Mev. Root down first."
The bundle hit calcite with a slap. Three fingers caught the fiber when it began to unroll; the shortened ends of Lir’s left hand knocked softly against the floor. Living letters pushed up under her palm.
Brant’s shield scraped as he angled himself toward her voice. "Claims stay outside until we’re clear."
"Until the clearing bell ends," Lir said. "Your cycle begins at full vein and ends at the next full vein. One bell after that, we open whichever is usable: the neutral upper route or the undead storage shaft."
"Usable means safe?" Tess asked.
"Usable means it opens and reaches somewhere else."
"Charming."
"You came through our laundry throat. I assumed charm wasn’t the deciding factor."
Mev snorted. Lir’s hammer kept moving.
Brant said, "The claim release comes after the clearing bell. Write it in that order. If you open first and the chains return while we’re moving Buk, your exit is a funnel."
The fibers under Lir’s hand shifted. "Agreed."
"And if both routes fail?"
"Then you remain sheltered and fed until one opens. A date is ours to promise. The quality of the road isn’t."
Hot marrow smell slipped under Dane’s lid before the bowls arrived. Buk heard the clay knock together and tried to lift his head.
"Terms first," Lir told him.
"Smell first," Buk said. "Terms are slower."
The worker carrying the bowls crouched near the shield. "Broth, salt water, root cake. Nobody touches yours until the fiber closes."
"Whole cake?"
Lir’s heel stopped on the contract. "Five human portions. One full goblin portion sized for blood loss. Every waking half-cycle."
"Rank cuts cake in half?" Buk asked.
"Rank stays out of my oven. You get the whole cake."
Ada cut across them. "Clean water, boiled cloth, resin-free dressing. He needs all three before he needs your wall. No magic healing written between the roots, either. If you don’t provide it, say so."
"We stabilize. We don’t regrow flesh." Lir spoke to the bowl carrier. "Set the water by her rods."
Clay touched down. Ada’s wrap rasped as she reached, then stopped short of the heat.
Vera said, "I’ll move it when she tells me where."
"Outside his reach," Ada said.
Vera placed the bowl without brushing Dane. She had remembered the bite line even with both hands burned.
Lir turned to him. "We don’t know what a safe ration is for you. I won’t solve that by bleeding somebody over a bowl. If we discover a nonliving ration you can take safely, it is yours. Otherwise Hingehold owes you the same value in getting out: carriers, root brace, hauling line, or other physical help you approve. Once you are beyond our threshold, the obligation ends without buying any part of you."
Dane knocked once.
Hunger tightened his tongue against the crooked tooth. Broth was food only to the people he was trying not to eat.
Holt tried to rise when Mev hauled the second root bundle toward the lintel.
"I can guide that corner," he said.
The stone caught his bandage, and wet opened under both palms.
"Sit down," Ada said.
"I said guide."
"With what, your elbows?"
"If required."
"Not required," Lir said. "You and Ada inspect two inner lintels. Nothing in your hands. Brant plans the watch and the brace; he carries neither. Vera witnesses one watch. No hauling, chalk pressure, or threshold contact with those burns."
"Tess?" Brant asked.
Metal clicked near the root partition. Tess had found the repair roll by sound or temptation.
"Inventory only," Lir said. "Edged tools, claim tools, route tools, collector tools: two approvals and a watcher before she handles them."
"That leaves spoons," Tess said.
"I can add spoons."
"Inventory is fine."
The room gave a tired laugh. Tess waited until it ended.
"If work done under your direction opens one of these wounds?" she asked.
Lir’s hammer went still. "We stop. Shelter, food, dressings, and transport continue until moving the injured person will not worsen it."
"Suppose your overseer keeps pushing."
"Then the overseer can put their own hinge in the frame."
Mev’s next root pull covered a cough that might have been laughter.
She set Buk’s part next. He owed the neutral challenge hearing and nothing physical while fresh blood showed through the witness dressing. He could answer questions about maintenance from the pallet. He could also refuse without losing food.
"Work name?" Buk asked.
"What about it?"
"Buk marks fiber. Door makes Buk a worker. Worker gets name from wall."
"No." Lir’s answer came without ornament. "Your name remains spoken and contested until the hearing. I can stop the door from answering for you. I can’t give you the answer."
Buk was quiet long enough for blood to drip from the shield rim.
"And if challenge says move now?" Holt asked.
"He can’t walk," Ada said.
"One litter and two Hingehold carriers go into the exit terms," Lir said. The root letters changed beneath her fingers.
Only Dane’s work remained.
Lir described one bell aligned with an existing frame, divided into quarter-bell blocks. He would answer true approaches and copied knocks if Ada cleared him. Two knocks from Dane ended a block. Fresh blood, wider hinge separation, slower lid response, lock movement, or trouble with his tongue ended it with or without the knock.
"Tongue obstruction," Vera said. Her voice came from beyond his reach. "Use those words. He cut it again today."
The fibers rustled.
"Added," Lir said.
No term granted ownership, form rights, feeding access, future labor, or an extension beyond the cycle.
The living contract tightened across the floor. Vera read it aloud.
/==[ Hingehold One-Cycle Shelter ]==\
| Inside: Dane Rook / Ash Company / Buk Self-Claimed
| Shelter: One Cycle + Clearing Bell
| Claims: Excluded Until Clearing Bell Ends
| Ration: Six Living Portions / Dane Exit Credit
| Labor: Bounded By Injury And Stop Rule
| Hearing: Buk Before Cycle End
| Ownership / Future Debt: None Granted
\==[ Exit Date: Second Full Vein ]==/
Ada marked the care and stop terms. Tess signed beneath her restriction. Holt and Brant witnessed. Buk pressed one unbroken left claw into the fiber. Vera waited until Lir read the exit order back, then signed.
Dane accepted with one knock.
The root letters sank into the inner lintel.
"I want one preparation check before rest," Lir said. "Zero load. Nobody crosses. Mev will stand in the corridor and approach your front lock. Vera will stand inside and approach your rear-left hinge. Stop short of the threshold on both sides. You may feel pressure. You will receive no identity or other content. Two knocks stop both approaches immediately. Ada still owns clearance. The work bell remains untouched."
"Corridor position," Mev called from beyond the bar.
"Room position," Vera said.
"Dane?" Lir asked.
He considered his torn lock, his widened left hinge, and the broth smell needling his mouth. Then he knocked once.
The bar lifted. Footsteps separated: one set muffled beyond the fungal mat, one set brushing the room’s calcite. Each stopped.
Lir said, "Begin."
The next corridor footfall arrived through Dane’s front lock as a dull weight. A room-side vibration pulled at the rear-left hinge. Neither pressure carried a name. There was only direction: iron ache in front, raw drag behind.
Another step on each side.
His strap sockets burned. The folded right corner tried to brace and skidded against stone. Air continued moving through the opening around him. He could sense two bodies approaching a doorway he could neither close nor command.
The front pressure struck his lock tear. The room pressure opened the hinge ache all the way to his wounded tongue.
He knocked twice.
Both sets of steps stopped before the second blow finished ringing. The pressure vanished. Nobody crossed.
Ada came close enough for rod one to click against the floor. Its tip stopped outside contact.
"No fresh blood at the hinge," she said. "The gap looks unchanged. His lid delay is worse by one breath. That’s all I can certify."
Pale text surfaced inside Dane’s lockplate.
/==[ Threshold Preparation ]==\
| Alignment: One Existing Frame
| Perception: Two-Sided Pressure / Initial
| Identity Content: None
| Crossing Control: None
| Form: Unchanged
\==[ Stop Honored ]==/
The rear-left ache stayed after the words faded.
"Ada decides whether he enters a frame tomorrow," Lir said. "Anyone eager to call that pain productive may volunteer a hinge."
The bar came down. It seated with a wooden thud that held.
Broth reached the others while steam still escaped the lids. Buk bit his root cake, stopped chewing, then felt along the remaining half with his left claws.
"Still whole," he murmured.
"It generally remains that way after you bite it," Tess said.
Buk ate the evidence.
Boiled cloth replaced the wool under his flank. Clay warmed wrapped hands. Someone slurped, someone swore at the heat, and Brant’s shield finally stopped scraping the floor.
Dane received no bowl. Lir fixed a hauling line, two carriers, and a fitted root brace into his exit obligation instead. The smell still hurt, but nobody offered him blood to make the shares look even.
The veins dimmed. The claim lines stayed beyond the calcite. No alarm touched the bar during vein-dark, and no hand came asking for one more clause.
At full vein, the wooden threshold bell sounded once.
Ada’s voice rose from the injury alcove. "Nobody puts him in a frame until I’ve checked that hinge again."