Jade lowered herself past Lower Eleven’s first address bell.
Common down kept the rope straight beneath Tower Five. The roadback fell beside it in broken rooms. Cooking shelves, sleeping walls, and pen rails moved at different speeds while their household cords tried to keep them one street.
Above Jade, Ty’s right leg remained inside Dimitri’s outer ring. She could see the white band around his shin whenever Tower Five passed through the gaps.
At his ribs, the inner ring waited. Jade spent the sight of it and descended toward Lower Eleven’s sleeping wall.
Three people remained tied across the wall. Hessa Dorn held a brass plate against her chest. Pavi Sorn had both arms beneath Mikel’s shoulders while a collapsed frame pinned Mikel’s left leg.
Jade’s deathward opened behind her damaged eye.
One white route pulled their rope now. It crossed Iri Tolland’s Lower Nine line and rolled four residents into a medicine cage. Another waited for Iri to clear. Lower Eleven’s address beam tore before Jade reached Mikel. A third cut the beam first and delivered three living people to an upper clerk who found no household claim attached to them.
That third route stayed white until the clerk turned them away. Beyond the desk it faded, hiding the next day’s food, floor, and medicine allotment.
The paths moved whenever Hessa shifted the brass plate.
None of them carried an answer.
Jade stopped beside the sleeping wall and caught its outer cord with her living hand.
"I need the address beam cut before its last bolt leaves."
Hessa pressed the brass harder against her chest. Seven ration notches crossed its lower edge. Two funeral offsets occupied one corner, and a repair credit had been stamped over an older family name.
"Cut that plate away and the upper ward calls us unplaced before our feet touch it."
"Then we move the address before we move your bodies."
"Council marks live on brass, and that rope belongs to nobody."
Lera Kott came down the third white lane with her council key clenched between her teeth. Her rope ended above Lower Eleven, so she pushed off a falling cupboard and caught Jade’s line with both boots.
"Today it belongs to every name I cut into it."
She looped one elbow through the rope and held out her hand for Hessa’s plate.
Hessa kept it.
That refusal made sense. The city had hidden Lenn Cor beneath quarry records and nearly voted without seeing whose breathing held the ward. A promise spoken over open sky could disappear faster than a house.
"Read the plate where all three of us can hear it."
Lera leaned close enough to see the allotment cuts.
"Hessa Dorn, Mikel Sorn, Pavi Sorn, Lower Eleven, three upper cots, household allotment intact."
She carved the same cuts into the thick council rope, then drove her key through the final knot. The key stayed there as a witness seal.
"The rope carries your claim before anybody severs the brass."
Hessa dragged one thumbnail through each fresh cut. Only then did she slide the plate beneath her belt.
At Tower Five, the ward worker who had defended Dimitri leaned over the upper pulley. Jade saw soap on her sleeves and blood through one trouser knee.
"My name is Tressa Bohn. I am staying beside the old woman, but I can send every empty bed strap we own."
"Keep her breathing hose loose and work the pulley from there."
Tressa tied six bed straps around the Lower Eleven rope. They slid down together and their buckles struck each knot.
Lera looked toward the upper rail.
"I have thirty two keep belts beside those beds. Put one pair of hands on each lower strap without leaving a patient."
Workers who had voted to keep Vask fed the straps through bed frames and floor cups. A man beside bed six held his daughter’s breathing cup against her chest and kept his other arm away from the strap.
"My daughter moves every time that lower rope changes weight."
Tressa threaded one bed strap through the cup frame and placed its free loop over his wrist.
"Keep one hand on her cup and put the other through Lower Eleven’s strap."
He tested the pull before trusting it. The bed stayed in its cups, his daughter kept breathing, and his free hand joined the lower rope.
The patients stayed attended while Lower Eleven gained thirty two hands that could feel its weight.
Iri’s voice traveled from the next white lane.
"Lower Nine has four residents on the line and a medicine cage under them. Do not pull across us."
Jade watched the deathward routes change. Pulling both lines together now wrapped them around Tower Five’s black anchor teeth. Lower Nine would rise beneath Lower Eleven until the medicine cage crushed Hessa’s wall.
"Hold one handspan below the black tooth. I need your line slack while we cut."
"You have one handspan until our rear housing reaches the cage."
Hessa looked from Mikel’s trapped leg to the brass plate beneath her belt.
"If we wait for Lower Nine, your beam breaks. If we pull now, their rope crosses ours. Give me what you can release."
Hessa took Pavi’s place beneath Mikel’s shoulders.
"Move the address first, then take the beam and everything nailed to it."
Pavi loosened his sleeping cord. His body dropped the length of his forearm before Jade caught his wrist. He swung beneath the wall, found the bundle of bed straps, and wrapped two around Mikel’s chest.
Jade drove her cold arm through the collapsed frame beside Mikel’s knee.
The arm arrived late. For two beats, its fingers remained open inside the wood while the frame kept pressing his leg. Jade braced her shoulder against the wall and lifted with her living hand.
The delayed fingers closed.
Wood split around her wrist. Mikel’s boot came free, but the frame kept his leg.
"Leave the boot and turn your knee toward Pavi’s shoulder."
Mikel pulled once. Leather held his heel inside the frame.
"That boot belonged to my father before this road had numbers."
"Your father can complain after your knee still belongs to you."
Mikel tore his foot free. The boot stayed beneath the wood.
Pavi took his weight through both bed straps. Hessa worked Mikel’s sleeping cord over its lower hook until it came free. Jade shifted her delayed arm deeper, letting the frame close around the cold wrist rather than his leg.
The last beam bolt backed out another turn.
Lera put her load knife against the marked address beam.
"Hessa, confirm the rope carries all three household cuts."
Hessa checked the knots again while Lower Eleven turned around them.
"The rope carries our names, cots, and allotment under Lera’s key."
Lera sawed through the beam.
The sleeping wall fell away with Mikel’s boot, two cooking shelves, and the brass hooks that had held the household cords. Hessa kept the address plate. Pavi and Mikel swung beneath the rescue rope while Jade’s cold arm remained trapped in the departing frame.
Pain reached her shoulder after the frame had already taken the wrist.
Jade twisted with it. The delayed hand opened inside the wood, and the frame slid away without her arm.
Tressa called the pull from above. Thirty two pairs of hands took the bed straps in staggered turns. Pavi rose first with Mikel against his back. Hessa followed, keeping one palm over Lera’s cuts and the other around Jade’s rope.
The white lane narrowed as the last beam dropped past it.
Jade climbed beneath Hessa and pushed her through Tower Five’s lower mouth.
The ward clerk reached for the brass plate. Hessa turned the rope so Lera’s key and all three names arrived first. The clerk read them before touching the plate.
Mikel, Pavi, and Hessa reached the upper floor with their household claim intact.
Iri rang Lower Nine’s line twice.
Her handspan of slack was gone.
Tressa’s final pull drew Lower Eleven across the first black anchor tooth. Iri’s loaded rope tightened across the second. The teeth faced opposite ways. Lower Eleven’s weight closed one around Lower Nine while the clinic line closed the other around Jade’s rope.
Both lines stopped with living people hanging below them.
At Tower Five, Nessa lowered her caged arm between the opposing teeth. Her suited fingers closed around Vask’s black plate before her elbow began to move.