And the rest of Ash followed his hand.
Light sheared along the plane, trimming the room into clean pieces that still insisted on being a room. The cuff around his wrist settled with the satisfaction of a bolt seated true. Caliper-fingers tightened — not to hurt, to measure. Under the velvet, the box tested the moment with a small, eager twitch. The notched ring under his left thumb wanted clockwise.
He didn't let it.
The lamp's shade divided its light obediently on the seam. The television held a perfect rectangle of white like a student afraid to blink. Rain stitched equal intervals on the window, as if the city had been shifted onto graph paper and asked to mind its lines.
"Vector," the voice said — from the seam, from his bones. "Hold."
"I'm here."
Cold wrote a second geometry into his palm: a square inside the circle, diagonals across both, each point a permission. The Selector's warmth on his cheek compressed to a bright coin. Stay on me.
Behind him, the older man pinned Frank against the wall with the practiced kindness of history. The woman stood near Ash's shoulder, hands empty, curtains drawn, eyes on the line.
"Terms," the voice recited. "Vector only. Room spared. Noise contained."
"Held," Ash said. "Say it again if anything changes."
"Accepted."
He let the pull take one more inch — controlled, declared. His forearm crossed to the elbow. The seam brightened and thinned like a blade being honed between breaths. The air ahead smelled not of metal but of procedure: oil in brown glass, paper, clean cold.
"Purpose," the voice said.
"Interdict. Control the opening. Spare the room."
"Proceed."
He shifted stance — knee forward, hips square — and put his boot on the first plane of the corridor. It wasn't floor. It was angle pretending to be a surface for the courtesy of a visitor. It held exactly as much as belief asked it to.
If you fall, you fall by math.
The ring twitched again. He brought it back the width of a breath. The pawl accepted the correction with a neat, felt click. Under the velvet, the lid obeyed the new law and stopped trying to choose.
"Let me see," Frank said, raw.
"You've seen enough," the older man said. "You'll see more when you can afford it."
The Visitor inclined the planes where eyes would be by a degree toward the heat on Ash's cheek. "Selector: index aligned."
The warmth answered by existing harder. He imagined the lighthouse's lens across weather and cloud, a hand on his jaw that never trembled. You and me. We hold each other to the line.
"Designation," Ash said, wanting a handle he could spend in a sentence. "What do I call you?"
A measurement of silence, then: "Angle."
"Angle," he repeated. "You speak to Ash Mercer."
"Accept. Proceed."
The pull asked for two inches. He gave one. The withheld inch rang in his tendons like a debt he intended to pay on his own schedule. Cold scaled the ulna without cruelty and then stopped as if a rule had been met.
The corridor ahead arranged itself as algebra: verticals like plumb lines; horizontals that refused to sag; dark installed where dark belonged. It wasn't a tunnel. It was a decision extended.
"Status," Angle said.
"Maintained."
"Proceed."
The ring slid a fraction under his sweat. He dried his thumb on his coat and re-seated pressure. The box felt the governance and behaved, but the hinge beneath the cloth breathed once like a horse deciding whether to trust a new hand.
Not now. Later. He fed it timing in spoonfuls.
A second filament of cold line crept from the seam and tasted just above his elbow. He refused it with ring pressure and a twist of stance that turned that extra contact into the expensive option. The filament withdrew. Terms honored.
The woman's voice arrived carefully, as if a wrong syllable could shift the vector. "Ash?"
"Behind me."
"I am."
"Good."
Frank tried one more angle that wasn't geometry. "If you go, does it stop coming for me?"
"It never started," Ash said, eyes on the ring. "You called. You weren't understood."
Angle's voice applied the label again with administrative calm. "Noise."
The cuff pulsed — not pain, calibration — and tightened a clean millimeter. The mark in his palm cooled to a seal. The Selector warmed his cheekbone the thickness of a match head more. Two systems agreed on him with zero visible handshake.
"Vector," Angle said. "Cross."
He gave the next inch.
Weight shifted from floor to line. His shoulder eased forward as if through a door whose hinges had been greased just for him. The seam widened by tolerance, not generosity. Caliper-fingers kept his hand with care that made resistance look theatrical.
The ring tried again. Under him, the lid pressed a case for momentum. The pawl lifted a hair.
"No," he said, and put his weight into brake.
The pawl thought about it and sat back down.
The lamp hummed a frequency that told him the building wiring had accepted a new authority without asking the landlord. A draught traced a perfect square on the back of his neck and vanished when he noticed it.
"Why vector only?" Angle asked, as if logging the philosophy mattered.
"Because I have to live with it if I walk back," Ash said, and surprised himself with the honesty.
"Acceptable. Proceed."
The pull requested his shoulder and the left hand. He granted the shoulder and refused the hand — he needed the hand for the ring. You take one of me at a time.
Angle did not argue. The corridor added one more pane of obedience and waited.
"State pain," it said.
"Contained."
"Proceed."
He set his boot further onto the plane. It held. The city behind the curtains kept its appointment with rain, equal beats, no drama. The older man's grip on Frank didn't loosen but found a kinder place to live. The woman kept not touching Ash by an inch, the kind of discipline you only learn in hard rooms.
"Selector present," Angle noted.
"Present," Ash said. "Don't lose me."
The warmth didn't answer in words. It pressed patience into his skin.
The ring skated again — sweat, pull, the long angle of his arm. His thumb slipped a fraction. Under the velvet, the box felt the clearance and tried to claim it. The pawl lifted a bright, treacherous hair.
He caught it. Barely.
"Hold," he said — to the room, to Angle, to himself.
"Holding," Angle said. Whether that was courtesy or data, he didn't ask.
The seam sharpened. Light shaved itself thinner. The television's white rectangle discovered a new center and obeyed. The corridor asked for his torso, polite, inevitable.
"Proceed," Angle said.
He took a breath like a signature and gave the inch he could afford.
Caliper-fingers slid from hold to guidance; the cuff's tolerances closed with a quiet, satisfied sound. Cold moved across his chest like a ruler laying down a line he had already agreed to. Pain stacked itself in a narrow drawer and closed properly.
Behind him, Frank made the sound men make when a story leaves them out on purpose. The older man didn't gloat. The woman said nothing and prayed to accuracy.
The ring wriggled. His thumb — slick now — lost a millimeter more. The pawl rose into the breath between governed and gone.
"Ash," the woman said, voice small and exact. "Your hand."
"I see it."
Angle said, "Vector: maintain."
"I'm—" The ring slipped. The pawl clicked up one felt tooth. The lid flexed under the velvet like a creature catching scent.
He shoved the ring back with the heel of his hand. The thumb had lost leverage. The cloth tugged, hungry as a sail. The cuff bit down to keep him honest.
"Do not release brake," Angle said — the closest it had come to urgency.
"Working on it."
He tried to rehitch his thumb. The chain pulled; balance said choose now. He had three options and one breath: let the ring go and save the wrist; break the wrist to keep the ring; or change the geometry so the ring didn't need him for one impossible second.
Change the geometry.
"Selector," he said, aloud now. "Stay on me."
Warmth: yes.
He shifted his stance a half-inch into the line instead of away from it, giving Angle the cheapest angle it could want and buying himself a fraction of slack on the left. The corridor accepted the bribe without shame. The chain tugged, pleased.
His thumb found the ring.
The pawl hesitated, indecisive, a coin on its rim.
"Proceed," Angle said — and this time the word landed where the pawl lived.
The coin started to fall up.
Ash drove his thumb down. The pawl seated with a felt tak that put the room back on rails.
"Got you," he said, breath staggering once and then behaving.
"Status," Angle asked.
"Maintained."
"Proceed."
The pull asked for more than he could lie about. The corridor returned the favor by offering exactly the inch he'd pay for. The ring stayed under his thumb, but his hand had turned to stone around it. He could feel the decision he didn't want arriving: release the brake or let the joint go.
The lamp's light shaved the last generosity off itself. The television surrendered even its perfect rectangle. The curtain swayed from a draft that was math.
"Vector," Angle said. "Cross."
He braced to pay.
The ring shifted slick in sweat. The pawl began to lift again, this time with the certainty of a mechanism that had correctly read a human limit.
And under his thumb, with a bright, traitorous click, the pawl came up.
The lid answered under the velvet.
The box accelerated.