The fifth wire folded the cradle rail around Ty’s right wrist.
Jade caught his forearm with her living hand before the bend reached the joint. Metal pressed between her thumb and his radius. His four fingers opened against the pull, leaving the empty index bed aimed at Vask’s cap.
"The rail can keep the wrist if it asks politely."
Nessa drove the broken root of her first channel through the table. The wire beside Ty kept tightening.
"The table line is cut, and this pull already left Account Five."
Vask held his metal cap against the blood under his folded ear. Its fifth wire had sunk into the wall behind him.
"Tower Five accepted the copied movement before Captain Nessa broke my table."
Lera Kott came down the lower stair with vote chalk on her sleeve and a ring of council keys clipped to her belt. She looked from Ty’s wrist to the wire disappearing through city stone.
"Tower Five appears nowhere in the source summaries I keep."
Vask lifted the cap wire away from his cheek. "The tower began as survey equipment before this council kept public load books."
"Your survey equipment is trying to inventory my fiance’s hand."
Jade pulled the black bridge plate from beneath the cradle and wedged it between rail and wrist. The plate took part of the bend. Ty’s thumb found the edge and held it there.
Holl kept Ty’s handless left arm bound toward House Twelve while he released the cradle wheels. "I can move his trunk on this floor, while that arm keeps the first roadback."
"Move the parts you own, and leave my useful wrist with Jade."
They followed the wire out of Account Five.
Tower Five stood behind the fixed ward wash tanks, an iron cylinder driven through both roadbacks. One stair climbed from the fixed gallery. Another crossed the same shaft from the turning side and treated the first stair as a wall.
Ward sheets had been tied across the lower vents to keep soap spray from reaching the beds. Each time the city shifted, water ran from one stair gutter into the other.
Lera tried three council keys before the tower door released.
"The old survey key opens it. Somebody kept this tower inside council maintenance, charged my cleaning crews for every wash, and left the machine outside every public count."
Vask entered behind her. "Maintenance access proves a useful machine survived its original name."
"It proves you knew which key would work."
Inside, four copper grooves spread across a black hand frame. Thumb, middle, ring, and smallest finger had each worn a smooth path into the metal. The index position ended in a round cuff holding empty air.
The cuff turned when Ty crossed the threshold.
His wrist struck the cradle rail. Jade felt the joint open beneath her palm and shoved it closed before the bone could climb over itself.
Nessa followed the cap wire to the base of the frame. "The first four grooves carry copied pressure, but the fifth has no plate or finger inside it."
Vask rested two fingertips above the cuff. "A removed joint leaves measurable work in the hand that keeps reaching for it."
"You built a tower around the gap in whose hand?"
"Any hand whose missing joint keeps pulling after removal."
Ty’s jaw chain drew tight across his teeth. "That answer becomes more personal when your tower bends my wrist."
Jade lifted the lid of her damaged eye with her thumb.
Pain pressed from the back of the socket into her temple. The tower remained iron and wet stone to her living eye. Through the damaged one, white paths gathered around the empty cuff.
Three ended in Ty’s right hand coming apart at different joints. Another passed through his empty index bed, crossed the tower, and entered a living forearm far beyond the city.
A pulse knocked beneath skin where a black strap held a plastic specimen cup against the inner wrist. The strap had tightened until its edge sank into the arm. Two fingers on the remote hand had lost color, and the thumb kept scraping the cup lid whenever the fifth cuff turned.
Bone tapped inside the plastic while the label rolled into view beneath the strap.
HAMBERTON, TYRONE.
Jade lowered her damaged lid before the tower could turn the distant pulse into another set of deaths. The pressure stayed behind her eye.
Ty’s jaw chain stopped scraping against the cradle rail.
"That is the cup Mason saw leave with a faceless man."
"The arm holding it is alive, and this tower is tightening the strap."
Vask adjusted the cap above his ear. The empty cuff rotated another tooth toward Ty.
"Seat the index wound inside the cuff, and the complete road will identify its current bearer."
Nessa put her cage between Ty and the hand frame. "Your last complete road used every joint after we authorized one."
"The bearer is already attached, while delay increases the load on both wrists."
Ty pulled his right arm toward his chest. The cuff followed, taking the cap wire and part of the wall plaster with it.
Jade opened her deathward far enough to check the remote forearm again. The strap cut deeper whenever Ty resisted straight back. When his wrist moved sideways, the cup shifted and the remote thumb recovered a little color.
"The cuff expects you to pull directly away from the bearer. Move across it and make the grip open."
Ty unwound one unmarked jaw chain link and laid it across the round cuff. The single white future call link stayed beside his mouth, clear of the tower.
His thumb, middle finger, ring finger, and smallest finger closed around the chain outside the frame. The empty index bed remained above the hole.
"Then count every piece before this tower sends one elsewhere."
Holl named Ty’s shoulder, elbow, wrist, and four present fingers while Jade held the wrist bones together. Nessa trapped Vask’s fifth cap wire beneath three cage teeth and watched its angle.
Ty pulled sideways.
The cuff tried to close around the chain. Its top edge struck the empty index bed and found no bone to carry. The lower edge followed Ty’s four finger grip across the frame.
One cradle wheel left the floor. Holl threw his weight across Ty’s ribs while the handless left arm kept pointing through the opposite stair.
Jade’s living thumb slipped between Ty’s wrist bones. The joint ground against her nail, then settled on the correct side of the rail.
"Keep moving across the cuff, because the bearer still has a pulse."
Vask reached for the cap wire. "Closing the grip for one count gives us the route before the tower loses it."
Jade set her cold wrist across his fingers. The delayed hand arrived hard enough to pin him against the frame.
"You already spent your one count inside Vessa’s locked cup."
Ty dragged the chain to the far edge.
The remote specimen cup rolled under its strap. Jade saw the living forearm twist with it rather than against it. Blood returned to the two pale fingers. The bearer caught the cup against their ribs and crawled beneath a freight hatch using the other arm.
Their face stayed outside the deathward route.
Nessa bent closer to Vask’s wire. "The cup is moving against the stake route, and its bearer is changing vehicles between pulls."
"Give me the direction without turning the person into another handle."
Ty held the chain across the cuff until the remote strap loosened by the width of a finger. His wrist shook under Jade’s palm. He could pull harder and bring the cup toward the tower. The same pull would drag the bearer against the freight hatch by the strapped arm.
He opened his four fingers.
The chain stayed lodged across the cuff, preserving a narrow angle while the direct pull released his wound.
"We follow the person carrying it, and my finger can keep waiting."
Jade shifted her thumb from Ty’s wrist only after all four present fingers answered Holl’s count. The remote bearer remained alive beneath the hatch, cup held against their chest.
Lera looped one council key through the cap wire to mark its angle. "This direction enters the public evidence book before anybody calls the bearer cargo."
Every key on her belt lifted toward the tower ceiling.
Water left both stair gutters and crossed the shaft in a straight sheet. Nessa’s transfer comb struck the top of her cage. Ty’s loose ribs rose from the cradle until Holl’s straps caught them.
Both roadbacks had begun falling toward the same patch of open sky.
Beyond the tower mouth, bare feet rested on nothing.