Jaro stopped at the entrance so suddenly that Renn walked into his back.
The chamber beyond them was round and wide enough for the fourteen survivors to stand without touching the walls. Black glass covered the floor, except for a low platform in the center and a ring of pale shapes floating around it. Each shape was as tall as a person, flat from the side, and empty where a face should have been.
Kael watched Jaro instead of the room. The boy had tucked his bandaged palms beneath his arms, and his shoulders had risen almost to his ears. He kept looking everywhere except at the platform.
Orrek noticed as well. He lowered his chain and leaned close enough to speak without sending his voice across the chamber. "You know this place, don’t you? Take your time, but do not leave us guessing until one of those things decides to move."
Jaro swallowed.
GULP!
The sound crossed the chamber and returned from the wall behind the platform. A dark mirror brightened there, showing Jaro as he was now for half a breath before the image shrank into a much younger boy with a cord around his neck.
Jaro tore one hand free, snatched a loose chip from beside the doorway, and threw it at the reflection.
CLINK!
The chip struck the mirror and bounced across the floor. The younger image vanished.
Jaro stumbled backward. Renn caught his elbow with one burned hand and held on even when Jaro tried to pull away.
"Look at me," Renn said. His damaged throat made the words rough, but he did not rush them. "You are standing beside us, and no one has tied anything around your neck. Tell me what you remember when you can."
Jaro stared at him until the younger reflection faded. "I remember kneeling. There were three other children beside me, and a clerk stood behind us with his eyes covered. I never saw the whole room because they made us keep our heads down."
Vaela moved closer without touching him. Blood had dried along the crack in her white blade, and her free hand remained near the bandages around his palms. "You saw enough to recognize it. Start with what can hurt us, and leave the rest until you can breathe without shaking."
Jaro drew an uneven breath. "They called it a Triage Judge. It looks at whoever survived an accident and decides whose actions caused the damage. The people running the pipe chapel used one when I was small."
Questions about the other children stayed unspoken. Jaro’s face made asking them cruel.
Kael entered first. The black floor took his weight without bending, although the wound in his left calf opened beneath Vaela’s binding. A drop of blood struck the glass near his heel.
DRIP!
The nearest pale shape turned toward him.
All fourteen shapes moved a moment later. They spread their attention across the counted line without choosing by distance or staying with one body. The shape before Renn tilted toward his hands. Another watched Orrek’s injured shoulder, while the nearest one to Jaro remained fixed on his mouth.
"It already knows where we are hurt," Renn said. He pressed his palm against Dorran’s and continued the living count he had begun in the last chamber. "The one near me is watching the hands I use to keep everyone together."
Orrek rolled his shoulder by an inch and stopped when pain pulled across his face. "Mine has found an old injury and fallen in love. I would like to disappoint it before the feeling becomes serious."
Vaela gave him a brief look. "Keep the shoulder where I set it. You can insult the room after we know what makes those shapes move."
The joke eased one frightened breath from the furnace-scar woman. She held the boy against her chest while Tavin and Dorran helped the slower survivors spread along the entrance wall, keeping every hand connected to Renn’s count.
Kael walked around the platform. Its surface was smooth except for a circle cut into the center, where three broken curves matched the crown he had destroyed. Narrow grooves ran from the circle toward the floating shapes, but nothing flowed through them yet.
The Sovereign Root remained silent inside him. The room had not attacked, and recognition alone earned nothing. Kael had no shards waiting to cover a mistake, so he studied the platform’s height, the mirrors, and the distance between every survivor.
"What happens if it finishes looking at us?" he asked.
Jaro rubbed his wrapped palms against his sides. "The room chooses one version of what happened. People who survive can be punished because it decides their choices caused the damage. I never learned what happens after the platform closes, because I got out before mine did."
"How did you get out?" Renn asked.
"I lied badly enough to make the clerk angry." A little color returned to Jaro’s face. "He pulled me away before the room could finish. I thought being beaten was the worst thing that could happen, so I was pleased with myself for several years."
Orrek’s mouth tightened. "You were a child. Being alive afterward means the idea worked."
Jaro looked at him, surprised by the gentleness hidden beneath the rough voice. "Please go back to making jokes. I know what to do when you are unpleasant."
A low vibration passed through the platform.
HUM!
The circle rose a finger’s width. The grooves in the floor filled with white light, and the dark mirror behind it showed Kael driving his body through the Quarantine Crown. Survivors appeared behind him in the reflection, vanished, and appeared again in different positions.
The room kept changing the memory. One version showed Kael striking while the survivors stood safely beyond the crown, another placed them in front of him as if he had driven them into danger, and a third erased them completely until his attack looked like destruction without reason.
Renn’s fingers tightened around Dorran’s wrist. "It keeps moving us because it cannot decide why Kael broke the crown."
"It is trying to find a picture that makes him the cause," Jaro said. His words came faster, but they no longer sounded like facts recited for a clerk. "The old room did the same thing with a burst pipe. It moved the four of us around until one child looked guilty enough."
Vaela studied the light in the floor. "The pictures cannot become real by themselves. Something in this chamber has to connect its chosen version to the crown Kael actually broke."
Jaro nodded and crouched beside her. Fear still shook his hands, yet he forced himself to follow the nearest groove with his eyes. "The face and platform are meant to hold our attention. I remember the clerk watching the floor whenever the mirror changed."
The black glass above the platform began to swell. A smooth brow rose first, followed by closed eyes, a straight nose, and a calm mouth. The face was beautiful because every feature had been made even. It had no skin, breath, or warmth.
Jaro looked away. "I hated this part when I was young. A kind face makes people wait for kindness, even when the room has already chosen to hurt them."
"We will not wait for it," Kael said. "Watch the floor and tell Vaela where the false picture touches the real break."
White lines slid out from the raised circle. Each one crossed a backward footprint left by the previous chamber and continued toward a pale human shape.
SCRAPE! SCRAPE! SCRAPE!
The lines stopped beneath the survivors’ feet. Renn shifted his count, but Vaela caught his sleeve before he could move the others.
"Keep everyone where they are," she said. "A random step could drag the line across another person. I need to see which mark follows the truth and which one is trying to replace it."
Renn nodded and warned the survivors in a voice calm enough for the children to follow. "Hold the person beside you and stay on the same piece of floor. Speak if your feet begin to slide, even if you think everyone can already see it."
Orrek planted himself between the pale shapes and the weakest survivors. His shoulder trembled under the strain of holding the chain ready. "I can keep these empty things away from the children for a while. I would appreciate learning what they are before they start borrowing faces."
"The room used them as places for survivors," Jaro said. "Once it chose its story, each child was made to stand inside one. I do not know what happened after I was dragged out."
The furnace-scar woman pulled the boy closer. Tavin took her free hand while Dorran kept contact with Renn, preserving the fourteen-person count in one uneven line. Jaro remained beside Vaela, outside their chain.
The face opened its eyes.
Every pale shape brightened at once. Cold gathered around each of Kael’s wounds without pulling or cutting, so no shard appeared. The Judge was still arranging the people it meant to use.
Vaela unwrapped the damaged white edge. Its crack caught the light while she traced the grooves without touching them. "One of these lines is tied to the real crown break. The others are only copies meant to waste our time."
Jaro knelt beside her, fighting the urge to look at the face. "The true connection will be quieter. The old Judge always hid its important work beneath whatever frightened us most."
Kael stepped between them and the platform. "Find it before the room finishes choosing."
The Judge smiled.
The expression held no cruelty. It looked patient, almost concerned, and the gentleness made the survivors recoil more than bared teeth would have done. Jaro recognized the look from childhood and whispered for the others to keep their eyes on the floor.
The platform lowered by a fraction and began counting the fourteen pale shapes.
TAP!
The first beat entered the glass beneath their feet. A second was already gathering while Vaela searched for the one white line joining the Judge’s false memory to the crown Kael had truly broken.