The sanctuary guard scrubbed the white line until the brush rasp changed from wet to dry. Diluted blood still smelled of copper below the thorned mark.
Behind Dane, cloth tightened as Ada rebound Brant’s right shoulder. His dead arm stayed against his ribs.
From the inspection slit, the guard said, "Three thorn buds. The first is red-black with the laborer’s blood. The other two are hollow. Current attachment is none. Maturity count is one of three."
Lir pressed two shortened fingertips to the inner root. "The mark wants three proofs that its claim touches this threshold. Blood gave it one. A named boundary response gives another. Repeating that response makes the third."
"And to cut the claim, Hingehold has to release the root that’s rejecting it," Vera said.
"For eight breaths, if your handless hook works. During those breaths, another holder must keep our side distinct from theirs."
Holt’s new palm wraps rubbed together. "When Dane holds the frame—"
"If Dane holds it," Vera said. "We haven’t shown him an exit."
Holt stopped worrying the cloth. "If he agrees, after we show him."
No one asked Dane to answer an unfinished plan.
The inner test frame stood between the threshold room and an empty repair bay.
Lir and the guard took the cradle rails. Holt slid both forearms beneath Dane’s base while his wrapped palms hung clear. Brant waxed the rim of his shield, then worked it under Dane’s left side with his splinted arm and good shoulder; the rebound right shoulder carried nothing.
"Lift on my breath," Lir said. "One."
Wood groaned. Holt’s forearm loops bit his sleeves. Brant’s shield squealed across stone, bearing just enough of Dane’s tilt to keep the widened left hinge off the floor.
"Down. Ada checks before the second lift."
Rod one touched the hinge root. Ada smelled of fresh blood beneath her own upper-arm dressing, but her voice stayed exact. "Old separation only. Carry."
They moved the cradle the remaining distance. Vera’s boots kept pace beside it, but her wrapped hands never joined the load. Buk stayed on his litter. Tess’s injured step followed with dead cord dragging over stone.
At the test frame, Lir named each part for Dane. A grown root shutter closed the doorway; two side braces bore its weight. A yellow breakaway pin joined those braces to the sanctuary-side floor root.
She pulled the pin with nobody in the frame.
The braces kicked loose. The shutter tipped into the empty bay, and its load bled through the wall roots instead of Dane. Lir reset it, seated the pin, and made the guard pull it a second time from his station beside the frame.
"If you cannot knock, the pin still comes out," Lir said. "He can pull it. I can kick it. Brant still has to prove his reach."
Brant caught the yellow root with his shield hook from the left side. His splint creaked before the pin came free, but his right arm never left its sling.
Ada tied a cord from the pin to her ankle. "Red cord. I own injury stops. Dane owns each start. Two knocks, fresh separation, doubled lid lag, or a lost true signal ends the hold. If I fall, this pulls."
"If you fall toward the pin, it goes slack," Tess said.
Ada tested her once and found the slack. She moved the cord to her belt, turned her back to the pin, then fell sideways and forward in separate drops. Each time her body tore the yellow root free before her injured arm reached the floor.
Dane angled his lock toward the pin, then toward Brant’s shield hook.
Lir understood the request without inventing an answer for him. "Do you accept this breakaway as the exit for one test, including if you cannot signal?"
One knock.
She left the pin out.
"Before we load it," Lir said, "you hear the other cost. If Door completes, every threshold it actively holds announces both sides to any major claim listening: Thorne’s license, old Brackenvault ownership, sanctuary roots, collector routes. Reversion ends that call. Use the form again, and it calls again."
"Not forever after?" Brant asked.
"Only while the Door exists. Long enough to refuse one crossing across one aligned width. Long enough for Vera to reach the actual claim."
Vera stayed beyond Dane’s mouth and hinge. "Practice is still a named boundary response. The first hold gives the glyph its second proof. Ada will drop the pin on injury, and two knocks stop it sooner. Knowing that, do you choose one three-breath test?"
Dane struck once.
Lir seated the yellow pin. The guard closed the physical shutter, and its braces took the weight. Dane aligned his lock with the doorway. Empty repair-bay pressure gathered on one side; injured pulses and uneven breathing occupied the other.
Watered wood grain rose through the frame. The plane carried sight and sound into a blur, nothing more. Every root and body could still cross if the shutter failed.
"One," Ada counted.
Pressure entered below Dane’s lock and pulled backward through both raw strap sockets.
"Two. Left hinge widening inside the old gap."
"Three. Hold ends here."
From the outer slit, the guard called, "Second bud filled. Maturity count two of three. Current attachment still none."
The fourth breath began before Ada finished inhaling. Dane’s lid answered twice as late.
Ada dropped.
Her belt cord ripped the pin free. Braces released; the shutter tipped toward the empty bay, alignment collapsed, and the plane left Dane before his lagging lid clapped shut.
Rod one returned to his hinge. "Back to the old gap," Ada said. "The lock tear is bleeding again. Three was safe. Four doubled the lag, so four is my stop."
Inside Dane, nothing had shifted. The gutter that once held free copper stayed empty. Dirty copper remained below intake; thin silver and the square-holed red-string coin rested deeper with cloth, brass, broken token, and the belt-knife vessel. The load left only fresh blood in the old tear.
Lir opened a root box near the frame. Its hinges sighed. "Claim hook: white root, glass edge, forearm cuff. The cuff takes your shoulder, not your hands. This wire is dead practice material. The real thorned line stays outside."
Vera slid a wrapped forearm into the cuff. The guard tapped a breath count against stone while she set the glass under the black-gold wire. Her first draw slipped at the burned wrist.
"I protected the wrong joint," she said. Irritation roughened the words, most of it aimed at herself. She changed her feet, let the cuff take her weight, and turned from the shoulder.
Glass severed the practice wire on the seventh tap.
"Seven to cut," Ada said. "The eighth belongs to my release."
Dane angled his lock toward the yellow pin.
Lir asked, "For another hold, are you asking for the same independent breakaway?"
One knock.
He angled toward the severed wire.
Ada took that question. "Do you choose an eight-breath limit, seven for Vera’s cut and eight for my drop?"
One knock.
The guard remained at the slit. "Repetition will fill the last bud and bring the count to final. Attachment remains none, but we cannot undo that proof. Do you understand?"
One knock.
"I object," Vera said.
Silence held around the cradle.
"Your fourth breath was already failure. Eight is twice the warning, and I will be the one with glass in the wall while your hinge opens. I won’t call that safe because we need it."
Ada waited until the last word settled. "Knowing the count will finish and Vera objects, do you still choose the second hold?"
Dane struck once.
Only then did Tess’s stylus scratch. Buk’s safe left claws clicked once against the litter rail and stayed there as witness. Neither answered for Dane.
Brant reset his shield hook beneath the yellow pin. Ada’s red belt cord stayed taut. Lir seated the root; the guard closed the shutter.
Dane raised the plane.
"One," Ada said as the shutter load found his lock.
"Two." The left hinge root drew tight enough to pulse against rod one.
"Three." The guard reported black-gold light entering the last hollow bud.
"Four. Lid lag starting."
Hunger opened toward the empty bay. It offered Dane an impossible mouthful of shutter, wall, and room. He kept his lid down and held only the difference between sides.
"Five."
Vera’s glass hook caught the practice wire. "Six." Blood reached the bottom edge of Dane’s lockplate.
The guard’s voice crossed the room. "Maturity count final. Current attachment none. No name stroke filled."
"Seven."
Vera turned her shoulder. The dead wire snapped against glass.
"Eight. Releasing."
Ada dropped. The cord tore out the pin; Brant pulled with the shield hook as the braces let go. The shutter fell toward the repair bay. Dane’s left hinge struck the cradle hard enough to lift one corner of his base, then returned to its old separation under rod one.
The plane vanished. No new form answered.
Lir and the guard carried Dane’s cradle back toward the outer frame with Holt under the base and Brant’s waxed shield protecting the left hinge. There they seated the tested yellow pin on the sanctuary side. Ada kept the red cord at her belt; Brant left his hook beneath the root while Vera reset glass in the cuff.
Along the exterior corridor, heavy iron scraped forward and stopped beyond the white line.
Lir opened the slit and reported, "Tarn returned alone. One-person ram on his shoulder, thorned-T head. Orth and the injured worker are absent. He’s lowered it into both hands, one handspan above the floor. He has not struck."
The guard checked the mark once more. "Final count. Current attachment none."
Outside, Tarn adjusted his feet beneath the weight.
Inside, the yellow pin waited for the first blow.