Morning was a word we borrowed from people who could see the sun. Down here, morning was just when the drip changed pitch, and your body stopped pretending it had slept.
Kado cursed before he even sat up. His leg had locked stiff in the night. Quiet had already crawled halfway into Throat, checking the wires, his body bent like he'd been poured instead of born. I opened my eyes last and saw the new spiral I'd drawn before sleep, the one with the dot. It was still there. Untouched. That counted as a victory
We ate patience again. Bread that had turned into chalk. Water that tasted like rust had been generous enough to share its house. Quiet passed me the smaller piece this time, daring me to argue. I didn't. I was tired of arguments that didn't end in rules.
Kado rubbed his knee with both hands. "We need to bleed the ledger," he said. "Too many marks in one place. Stone is listening wrong."
"Spread them?" I asked.
He nodded. "Spine first. Then Throat. Debts where we can't ignore them. Kills where they can't see daylight. Promises by the door."
Quiet signed fast. A square. Two lines. A circle cut by one. He pointed at the wall, then tapped his own chest. He wanted debt tallies marked on us too, not just stone. Living ledgers.
Kado grunted. "Hard to cheat if your skin tattles on you."
I dragged the knife across the whetstone, slow, sparks hopping like fleas. "How do we mark without cutting?"
Quiet mimed pressing paste against skin. Spirals. Temporary. They would fade, but the ledger wouldn't. A man who erased his skin mark too soon would betray himself to stone.
Kado thought about it too long. That meant yes.
We set to work. The ledger wall felt colder than before, like it didn't like being rearranged. I carved three new notches in Spine, deep enough that stone dust stuck to my skin. My fingers itched where the hum pressed through. Kado shifted the promise mark closer to the doorframe, his knife strokes deliberate, angry. Quiet pressed a shallow spiral onto his forearm with the last of the paste. It looked like a bruise drawn by a child. He held it out like an oath.
"Rule," Kado said. "Debt tallies live on us until paid. Ledger only holds the final."
"Don't promise what you can't carry," I added.
Quiet tapped twice. Agreement.
When we finished, the air in the tunnel felt thinner, like we'd stolen too much of it. The wall hummed quieter, though. Less angry.
That was when we heard the scrape.
Not the child-tap from before. A drag, like stone on stone. Then silence. Then another drag, closer.
We froze. Kado pressed his palm against the ground. His eyes narrowed. "Too heavy for rats."
Quiet's knife was already in his hand. He signed two sharp strokes. Not levy. Not human.
I held the mirror shard toward the bend. Light bent reluctantly, spilling into Spine. The glint caught something pale and wet. Movement. Low to the ground. Broad shoulders that shouldn't fit the crawl, but did.
It pulled itself along with arms like clubs. No eyes. Just sockets full of twitching flesh. Its jaw hung loose, crooked. The skin looked melted, patched with scales.
My stomach tried to climb up my throat. Chakra-burn. A body warped by leaking coils. Something Root had thrown away.
The thing paused. Sniffed, though it had no nose. The ledger wall gave a low hum in reply.
Quiet's eyes went wide. He tapped three times against his knife hilt, then made the sign for child. My blood ran cold. Whatever it was had once been one.
Kado's voice came gravel-soft. "Rule."
I didn't know which one. Survive? Don't pity? Don't starve widows? None of them fit.
The creature scraped closer. It dragged its ruined body forward, reaching. Its fingers left gouges in the stone.
I raised my knife. My hand shook. Not from fear. From rage.
The thing opened its mouth. A wheeze came out, broken, almost words.
Quiet moved first. His blade flashed, cutting air, not flesh. A warning strike. The thing recoiled. For a moment I thought it would retreat.
Then it screamed. A sound like stone collapsing. Too loud. Too wrong.
Chimes sang. Beads rattled. The whole tunnel woke.
Kado shoved me toward Throat. "Move. Now."
We ran. Not because we were prey. Because the tunnel wasn't ours anymore.
Behind us, the scrape turned into a crawl. Then into a chase.
The ledger hummed louder.
And I knew, as my chest burned and my mother's spiral itched on my skin, that rules weren't enough anymore. We needed laws.