The ladder came down one rung at a time. Nobody touched it. Nobody had to. It unfolded from the black seam beneath the service lane, iron joints clicking, wet chains sliding over each other with a tired sound. Arena water ran off every rung. Each drop hit the stone and crawled back toward the hole instead of spreading.
Heissman watched one drop climb uphill and tightened his hand on the half sword.
"Sanitation has ambition now," he said.
Omina's mouth flattened. She had one hand under Yun-Jin's ribs and the other pressed against the wall. Green-gold light leaked through her fingers, thin and ugly, because whatever she had spent to keep arena law off the Earth shelter had not come cheap.
Yun-Jin noticed.
"Stop wasting aura on me."
"Stop bleeding through my sleeve."
"I liked this sleeve."
"Then save the rest of it by being quiet."
JJ wiped rainwater from her chin and looked down the hole. There was no bottom she could see. There was only a narrow shaft, black stone, ladder rungs, and three pale lights far below that moved like eyes behind dirty glass.
Ty stood closest. Red fire burned along his ribs and skull, weaker than before but steady. The water hit his shin and jumped into steam. He had not moved since the knock matched Jade's heartbeat. JJ hated that stillness.
Ty was always worst when he went quiet. Words meant he was thinking with people near him. Silence meant he had found a place in himself where nobody else got a vote.
"Ty."
His skull turned. The sickles lowered a little.
"I heard it."
"Everyone heard it."
"The heartbeat under it."
JJ swallowed. The ladder clicked again. A slate tile slid out of the stone beside the opening. Words scratched themselves across it in white grit.
LOWER LANE ACCESS REQUESTED
PAYMENT DUE BEFORE DESCENT
AUTHORIZED CATEGORIES:
NAME
MEMORY
BONE
Omina swore under her breath. Heissman leaned close enough to read it and then leaned away.
"I withdraw my complaint about sanitation. Sanitation used to be honest."
"Can we break it?" Yun-Jin asked.
Ty lifted one sickle. The blade rang before it touched the slate. The sound hit every rib in his chest and sent him back one step. The slate added a line.
VIOLENCE ACCEPTED AS BONE PAYMENT IF USER INSISTS
JJ grabbed his arm before he could try again. Her fingers closed around warm bone.
"Do not pay the creepy ladder with yourself because it has nice handwriting."
Ty looked at her hand. So did Omina. So did Yun-Jin. JJ kept hold.
"What? He is thinking about doing something stupid. I am allowed."
Heissman coughed once.
"I support the sponsor on the legal theory of not feeding yourself to architecture."
Ty's fire moved across his jaw.
"Jade is below."
"Jade is on Earth," JJ said.
"Both are true."
That shut the lane up for half a second. Even the water slowed. Omina's eyes sharpened.
"Explain."
Ty pointed the sickle down through the hole.
"The knock came from below. Same rhythm as her heart after the gym."
Yun-Jin's face changed at that. JJ saw it and pretended not to. Yun-Jin had lost too much control lately, but she was still a fighter. Fighters hated being watched while they discovered a wound.
"Could be bait," Omina said.
"It is bait," Ty said.
"And?"
"Bait still tells you where the hook is."
The slate scratched again.
PAYMENT DUE
JJ pulled her wrist panel up. The sponsor glass flickered between pink and black. Half the letters were still burned from the last claim fight. She tapped it twice until a menu opened with a sound like a cracked bell.
"Sponsor payment?"
The slate paused.
SPONSOR CREDIT ACCEPTED FOR TOUR SEATS, FUNERAL RIGHTS, AND BASIC BLAME TRANSFER
LOWER LANE ACCESS REQUIRES DIRECT MATERIAL
"Basic blame transfer," Heissman said. "I would like to know why that is basic."
"You are welcome to ask after we survive," Omina said.
Ty reached toward his ribs. JJ caught his wrist harder.
"No."
"I can spare bone."
"You keep saying that like bones are pocket change."
"They grow back."
"Do they? Or do you keep finding new ways to be less you?"
Ty stopped. That one landed. JJ let it stay sharp. Time gave her no chance to make it prettier. Behind them, the gate above groaned. The King had opened something in the arena, and whatever waited on the other side was pushing pressure down the pipes. Red light flashed through the water.
Omina looked over her shoulder.
"We have less than a minute."
The slate waited. Yun-Jin shifted against Omina and reached for the knife at her belt. Omina slapped her hand away.
"Try to pay with blood and I drop you."
"I was going to cut a ribbon."
"You were going to cut your palm."
"You do not know that."
"I know you."
Yun-Jin closed her mouth. JJ heard the hurt under that and filed it away for a day when nobody was trying to buy a road into the floor. Ty reached up instead of in. His fingers touched his skull, near the left side of his jaw.
"Memory, then."
"Which one?" JJ asked.
His answer came late. The ladder became the simplest thing in the room.
"Ty."
"A small one."
"Do not lie to the creepy toll office. It probably eats lies as a snack."
Heissman raised a finger.
"If it eats lies, I nominate the King. Plenty of supply."
The slate scratched.
FALSE PAYMENT DETECTED IN JOKE FORM
Heissman lowered his finger.
"Rude."
Ty looked past JJ, toward the black shaft.
"Jade laughing on a rainy street. Before all of this."
JJ's grip loosened against her better judgment. That memory had never belonged to her. She had no right to protect it. That made it worse. Omina's voice cut in.
"A personal anchor."
Ty nodded.
"It is small."
"It is not small," JJ said.
The red in his ribs dimmed.
"No."
He touched two fingers to the side of his skull. For a moment the service lane smelled like wet asphalt, cheap coffee, and a city bus braking too hard. A woman's laugh jumped through the lane, quick and bright, followed by Ty's human voice saying something too soft for JJ to catch.
Then the sound folded into a red ember between his fingers. Ty glanced once. If he had, JJ might have begged. He pressed the ember to the slate. The stone drank it.
PAYMENT ACCEPTED
MEMORY CLASS: ANCHOR
REFUND: UNLIKELY
"Unlikely?" JJ snapped.
The ladder dropped the last three rungs at once. From below, someone cleared his throat. It was a bored sound, the kind a clerk made when a line had gotten too long.
"Next party," a voice called up, "keep your weapons visible and your regrets organized."
Ty put one foot on the ladder. JJ followed before anyone could tell her not to. The rung was cold through her boot. Omina helped Yun-Jin after her. Heissman came last, muttering about forms, ceilings, and poor municipal ethics.
The shaft closed above them with a wet scrape. Darkness took the service lane away. Below, a cart bell rang once. The bored voice called again, closer now.
"Bone customer arriving."
Ty's fire went still. JJ looked down. Three pale lamps waited at the bottom, and beneath them stood a man with no eyes, a clipboard, and Ty's old face sketched badly on the first page.
"Late," the man said.
Then he stamped the page in red.