CHAPTER 742: PRIME-STEP TO DAYLIGHT (END)

"Reed‑Choir Torsion," Mikhailis said, keeping his voice at sleeve level. "Let’s do homework."

Round One began without drama. The Hypnoveil pushed a Dull Curtain—not heavy, just enough to make edges forget they are interesting. The Archivist cleared the pillar with a soft brush, revealing the lattice. The Necrolord stepped in with crown‑light dim and laid Pin‑1 in one exact breath. The Crymber pair took turns: a quick heat‑kiss on the seam, then a careful frost‑kiss. Workers pressed calcium sap like smoothing a blanket.

Round Two. A first cone snapped from a bell crown—low and mean. The Reliquary Sentinel raised the coffin‑door and ate it. A warm hum ran under the lid. He turned his wrist and side‑vented into the dead pocket Rodion had stamped earlier. The Hound scrawled ugly S‑curves along the aisle, starving the Echo of anything tidy to love.

Rebound lanes empty. Vent successful. Mikhailis, I have logged that angle. Try not to improvise it worse later.

"Who, me?" he mouthed. He does not trust my jazz. He is not wrong.

Round Three. The Archivist posted a placard in clean bone letters: NO CHOIR • NO CLAP • PRIME‑STEP ONLY. With the sign up, the room decided to be a hall monitor instead of a punisher.

A soldier drifted toward a matching heel click. Thalatha’s hand cut low. The heel paused and became a scuff. "Thanks, ma’am," he breathed, not looking back. She answered with the smallest nod. Mikhailis watched her exactness and felt that small, stupid warmth again. She is a rule I like to live under.

They crossed with no applause from the room. The choir forgot to be proud.

The next chamber felt like a memory. The ribs had the same spacing as their first week down. Even the scuff on the third hook looked familiar—Thalatha’s old knife nick. On the wall, a small placard still hung by a neat knot: NO HEROICS. Dust made a thin halo around it.

Mikhailis lifted a hand to brush it clean, then stopped. He let the dust be. "You left yourself a letter," he said.

"We read it," Thalatha answered.

He bumped her shoulder with fake carelessness as they moved past. She bumped back, not fake at all. Later, in a shadowed nook between shelves, they took one long kiss, the kind that puts a person back together. When they returned, Rodion was busy pretending to calibrate the ribbon. The respect meter on the board ticked up a hair.

Administrative things happened because that is what winning looks like. Ration pouches were logged. Glowcap gills shaved into cloth cups. Juveniles got lighter carry. The queen‑to‑be adjusted watering lanes with quick marks; nurses nodded as one. Skeleton pairs moved to brood distance and turned their backs—law embodied with no words. The house felt real.

The exit hall looked friendly in the wrong way. Archive shelves, polished ironvine lip, and the kind of clean smell that belongs to hospitals and lies. Under a film of dust, coil runes showed tails like cautious snakes. The grammar read: KEEP / REMEMBER / RETURN. The last word felt smug.

Mikhailis exhaled through his teeth. "Reset Well," he said softly. "The kind that ’helps’ by making us new again."

Mechanics detected: Mirror Courtesy, Receipt Check, Slide Induction, Call for Chaperones. Suggested plan: placard first, starve cadence, misalign slide, dual attend pins, single counter-rot. Bind as Door Clerk if cooperative; otherwise neutralize and post.

"Let’s do it," Thalatha said.

Turn One: The Archivist carved a sign with clear strokes: NO TWIN SHADOWS / PASS IN ONES / ONE PEBBLE ONLY. The Hypnoveil dimmed the shine to a decent thing. Mikhailis weighed a pebble and threw it not at the obvious circle but at the one that was two finger‑widths left—Rodion’s highlight. The pebble clicked like a good answer. The slide charge misaligned and sulked.

Turn Two: The floor tried Receipt Check, whispering the cadence of the last sentence back at them to tempt a reply. Thalatha lifted her hand. "No call‑and‑response," she said. Nurses tapped 2‑3‑5 on shoulders. The Echo went hungry.

Turn Three: Two Choir Wights drifted up, hopeful for ritual. The Necrolord did not leash; she wrote a task on a side post—attend / keep door—the way you give a clerk a desk and a schedule. The Wights read the words, settled, and turned their hoods toward the risky lip like they felt useful. Add pressure dropped.

Turn Four: The Necrolord placed Pin‑1 and Pin‑2 at flanking seams. The Crymber pair kissed the bone hot, then cool. Workers pressed sap with palms, not fists. Scurabons cut short/long relief on small bell riblets. The punish window narrowed to a slit.

Turn Five: One cut only. The Necrolord moved her blade along the seam like she was closing a ledger. No flourish. Hypnoveil held a thin trance for the first breaths. Mikhailis sank a Permission Pulse down the bones: Stand. Heel. Gate. He kept it small, like a note under a door.

The hall changed its mind about being proud. It became a desk. If the binding held, it would be a Door Clerk with strict scope: watch for rhythms, warn, never reset. If not, the placards and vents would still keep it from being a thief.

They waited three breaths. The ironvine lip stayed shy. The grammar on the stone cooled by a degree.

Status: Bound—Door Clerk. Scope limited. Reset authority disabled. Congratulations, you hired a bureaucrat.

The pendulum rib at the entry made a lazy swing. It nudged Mikhailis into Thalatha again. She caught his chest with her palm; he steadied her shoulder. A half‑smile from him. No time to make it bigger. They finished the posting and checked each other’s straps. Hands lingered one second, then went back to work.

"Clear," Thalatha said.

They stood at the edge and the world rose to meet them. Wet loam. Pine. Cold light. The last gallery climbed into day‑smell and the line went quiet without being told. The air made a small shiver that felt like home and like a loss.

Thalatha paused at the threshold. The dungeon had become a house with rules she trusted. The surface would be louder, looser, full of speeches and pride. She lifted a gloved thumb and touched the memory of her old knot on that placard hours back. No tears. Just gravity.

Mikhailis saw it. "I already set the house to keep breathing without us," he said quietly. "Gate Warden vents tuned to lull traffic. Placards at the tempting mouths. Hypnoveil’s mantle folded over the brood routes to keep things dull and safe. Hound on Stand/Gate with the ring muffled. Choir Wights tasked. And Rodion masked the hive signatures. We left it boring in the best way."

No magic fix. Just the rules that kept us here. That is the point.

He rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly shy. "Also... I sent word up."

The stair brightened. Shapes stood at the top—elven subordinates, wind‑tossed cloaks, spears grounded, cheeks bright with cold. No trumpets. They had hung a kettle from a hook and there was steam. Clean towels waited on a crate. Someone had chalked a welcome rune in a corner where the Echo could not punish it.

Thalatha’s jaw worked once. She nodded. The nod carried command and thanks at the same time.

The queen‑to‑be stepped forward. The nurses around her made a small, formal bow to Thalatha, not deep, not shallow. The young royal drew three neat lines in dust with her foreleg. "We keep the lanes. We wait. We do not seek you; we keep house for you."

"Good house," Thalatha said.

On the last lip a strap snagged. Mikhailis leaned in to free it. They met in the middle and traded one brief kiss where the wind met the steam. It was quick and gentle, like a secret you place in a pocket. The team looked away to their packs. Rodion dimmed the board like a polite cough.

Note: topside presence detected. I am invisible. Try not to introduce me.

They climbed toward the light. As the first full breath of daylight hit their faces, the whole terrace lifted again—bigger than before—resetting to a new civic cadence. The floor made a polite hop and everyone splayed for balance. A nurse laughed once and covered her mouth, surprised by her own voice.

Mikhailis and Thalatha tangled in a harmless heap, armor clinking. He caught her shoulders and she caught his sleeve. They breathed together. They looked at each other like two people who had run out of reasons not to.

From the ridge, the elves laughed softly with relief, then straightened to attention. Below, the Gate Warden gave one calm vent that sounded almost like a sigh.

Thalatha kept her face straight because she had a reputation to keep, but the corner of her mouth betrayed her. "...That was surprising...."

"I’m learning to like surprises that follow the rules," Mikhailis said.

Lira will fix my collar and pretend she didn’t see that. Serelith will make three notes and one impossible joke. Cerys will grunt and say ’clean.’ And Elowen will give me the eyebrow and the mercy of trust. Do not waste any of it.

They stood. Packs settled. Spear butts kissed stone. The kettle clicked against the hook. Wind put cold hands on warm faces.

Down below, quiet placards did their work—NO HEROICS / FOOD BEFORE ORDERS / ONE PEBBLE ONLY—and the house kept breathing without them.