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-# Chapter 3: The Dirty Circuit
+# Chapter 3
 
-Liora slumped against the primary drive-spindle, her left palm leaking obsidian ink that pulsed in sync with Thorne’s heartbeat, her vision sepia-mottled as the Indigo brand-glow crept toward her elbow. The Loom Floor was a cavern of dying echoes. The Great Loom, the heart of the Conclave’s power, was stuttering, emitting a low, rhythmic *thrum-thrum-thrum*—the dead-tone. It wasn’t a sound so much as a vibration that bypassed the ears to settle in the marrow, a frequency that spoke of structural rot and the impending snap of reality’s hem.
+Liora slumped against the primary drive-spindle, her left palm leaking obsidian ink as her sepia-mottled vision tunneled toward the dead-tone hum of the Loom. It was a heavy, rhythmic thrum—the sound of a heart forgetting how to beat. The spindle felt cold through her tunic, a jagged vibration that rattled her teeth and settled deep in her marrow. She didn’t move. She couldn't, not yet. The frayback was a physical weight, a series of microscopic tears in the fabric of her own existence, and for a moment, the terminal calm of the dying seemed an attractive alternative to the work ahead.
 
-Around her, the air tasted of ozone and old lanolin, but the indigo dye smell was sharper now, acidic. She could feel the Junior Binders huddled near the periphery, their panic a frantic, tangled weave of yellow and gray in her mind’s eye. They saw the black ink dripping from her hand, the way it defied gravity to crawl toward the restraint chair where Thorne sat. They saw a Stainer. To them, she was no longer the Senior Weaver who could mend a soul with a flick of a wrist; she was a contagion, a tear in the sacred fabric.
+"A minor snag," she whispered, the words tasting like copper and old parchment. It was a lie, and she knew it. The Loom wasn’t snagged; it was unraveling at the seams.
 
-Beyond the barrier of her own numbing dread, a sharp, predatory curiosity nipped at her senses. It wasn’t hers. It was his.
+With a trembling hand, Liora reached out, her fingers tracing invisible threads in the air. To a layman, she was grasping at shadows, but to a Binder, the world was a messy, interconnected snarl of gold, silver, and the occasional, terrifying streak of black. The primary threads of the Loom were graying, shedding light like sloughing skin. They felt brittle, ready to snap under the weight of the Concretized Will.
 
-Thorne Quill sat strapped into the lead-lined chair, his chest vibrating with the same dead-tone as the Loom. He looked less like a prisoner and more like a predator waiting for the cage to rust through. Through the unsanctified link—the Dirty Circuit she had dared to open—she felt his amusement. It was a cold, jagged sensation, like glass shards dragged through silk.
+"Bind or break," she breathed, the mantra a dry rasp.
 
-*Look at them, Weaver,* his voice didn't sound in her ears, but resonated in the hollows of her skull. *They’re waiting for you to catch fire. Or perhaps they’re just waiting for the order to put you out.*
+As she forced herself to stand, the indigo brand on her right arm flared. It had crept past her elbow now, a map of heresy etched in light and shadow. The moment her feet touched the stone floor, the Dirty Circuit roared to life. This wasn’t the clean, sanctified connection of the Conclave’s archives; this was a raw, jagged conduit. 
 
-Liora’s fingers twitched, tracing the invisible threads of the Loom’s failing resonance. "A minor snag," she whispered, the lie tasting like ash. "Just a minor snag in the drive-spindle."
+*You’re late to the dance, Little Weaver.*
 
-"She’s bleeding shadow," one of the Juniors hissed, his voice cracking. "Look at the Indigo—it’s reached her joint. She’s fraying! Call the Archival Guards!"
+The voice wasn't in her ears. It was a sensory bleed, a phantom itch behind her eyes that belonged to Thorne. Through the link, she tasted iron and the sharp, predatory scent of ozone. She felt his amusement—a dark, oily thing that coiled around her spine. 
 
-"Stay back!" Liora snapped, her voice a clipped command that echoed off the high, vaulted ceilings. "The Loom is temperamental. Any erratic movement will cause a ripple in the Binding Thread that none of you are equipped to dampen."
+In the center of the chamber, Thorne Quill sat strapped to the lead-lined restraint chair. He looked less like a prisoner and more like an apex predator waiting for the cage door to rot. His skin was mapped with the same obsidian ink that leaked from Liora’s palm, a mirror image of her own degradation. His eyes found hers across the vast, shadowed hall—not with the fear of a man serving as a grounding rod, but with the curiosity of a scientist watching a glass shatter.
 
-She forced herself to breathe, ignoring the way her vision blurred into sepia washes. She had to stabilize the core, or the Loom’s death-shriek would unbind every soul in the chamber. To do it, she needed a grounding rod. She needed Thorne.
+*The Loom is hungry today,* his thoughts intruded, sharp as a needle. *It wants to eat the room. And it starts with the weakest threads.*
 
-"Bind or break," she whispered under her breath.
+"Ground yourself, Thorne," Liora said, her voice clipped, a ritual command that fell flat against the oppressive dead-tone of the room. "Don't test the tension. Just... be the lead."
 
-She slammed her ink-stained palm onto the brass housing of the drive-spindle. The Dirty Circuit roared to life. This wasn’t the clean, sanctified channeling taught in the cloisters; this was a raw, jagged bypass. She felt her own life-force—her very thread—stretch and scream as she funneled the Loom's excess Frayback through her body and into the link.
+*And if I choose to pull back?*
 
-The connection to Thorne slammed shut like a physical blow.
+"Then we both unravel, and I’ll ensure your thread is the one that frays first," she bit back. She snapped an invisible thread between her thumb and forefinger—a sharp, impatient motion. "Stop playing. The Loom is at critical. The fourteenth spindle is lagging."
 
-Suddenly, she wasn't just Liora. She was the weight of the silver-steel restraints on his wrists. She was the phantom itch of the ink-blood staining his skin. But mostly, she was his hunger—a wild, un-categorizable desire to see the Loom unspool.
+She began to move, her steps measured despite the sepia haze. Around the periphery of the Loom Floor, the Junior Binders huddled in the shadows. They were little more than silhouettes against the flickering lamps, their faces pale with a terror that bordered on the religious. They had seen her jump to the black thread. They had seen the ink. To them, she wasn't a master Binder anymore; she was a contagion, a walking heresy that might rub off on their own pristine souls.
 
-*There it is,* Thorne’s mind pushed against hers, testing the boundaries of the mental cage. *The heresy tastes better than the prayer, doesn't it?*
+One of them, a girl no older than nineteen, let out a choked sob as Liora passed. Liora didn’t look at her. She never touched anyone casually, and she certainly wouldn’t touch them now. The "Stainer" status was a secret she was failing to keep; the evidence was literally dripping from her fingers, staining the pristine stone.
 
-"Shut up," she gasped, her fingers clawing at the air as if trying to grab a physical rope. "Help me... hold the frequency. Ground it."
+A heavy, rhythmic thud echoed from above. *Thump. Thump. Thump.*
 
-*And why should I catch your lightning, Liora?* He lounged in the chair, though his muscles were rigid with the strain of the energy she was dumping into him. *Give me a reason not to let it burn us both.*
+Liora groaned internally. The sound of a bone-white cane against the Gallery floor. Elder Maros was descending.
 
-"Because if I snap, you’re the first one who unbinds," she snarled internally. Her left arm was agonizing, the indigo brand burning like liquid fire. "Bind-bind-bind... hold the center. Bind-bind-bind..."
+"Master Voss," the Elder’s voice carried through the chamber, thin and reedy but underpinned by an iron pragmatism. "Progress Report. The Vaults are singing, and not the kind of song we want to hear."
 
-She saw it then, behind his eyes—the Thirteenth Strand. It wasn't like the others. Where the threads of the world were predictable, color-coded by intent and fate, his was a void-black variable, a strand that refused to be woven into the pattern. It bypassed the laws of the Conclave. It was the hole in the world she was trying to use as a cork.
+Maros reached the floor level, leaning heavily on his cane. His eyes, clouded by cataracts but sharp with greed, traced the indigo brand on Liora’s arm. He didn't flinch. Unlike the juniors, Maros saw the Stain not as a sin, but as a lubricant—a way to make the failing machinery of the Conclave work for just one more day.
 
-The Loom’s dead-tone intensified. A Junior Binder nearby fell to his knees, clutching his stomach as the Terminus Frequency began to warp his equilibrium. The Archival Guards leveled their pole-arms, their knuckles white. They were waiting for a reason to terminate the anomaly.
+"The primary drive is failing, Elder," Liora said, avoiding his gaze by focusing on the hair-thin strands of the Dirty Circuit. She began to braid her own hair, a nervous, habitual motion. "The threads are whispering betrayal. It’s not just the Loom; the very foundation is fraying."
 
-Liora looked up, her gaze flickering toward the High Observation Gallery. Shadows obscured the figures there, but she knew the silhouette of Elder Maros. He was leaning on his bone-white cane, a clinical observer of his own heresy.
+"Then bind it," Maros commanded, tapping his cane near her boot. "The Conclave Purists are already calling for a Terminal Cleansing. They smell the rot, Liora. If you don't stabilize the frequency, the Archival Guards will be here to do more than just watch."
 
-A whisper, projected via a focused resonance-shimmer, brushed against her ear. *The decay is inevitable, Liora. The old ways are rotting threads. Use the boy. Prove the bypass works, and the Purists will have no choice but to let you live as my instrument.*
+"I need more from the grounding rod," Liora said, her voice dropping. She looked toward Thorne. "The feed is too high. I need to shunt the feedback loop through the Circuit."
 
-Maros didn't care about the sanctity of the soul. He cared about the machine. Tactile and cold, Liora felt Thorne’s reaction to the whisper—a sharp spike of loathing.
+Maros smirked, a dry, corpse-like expression. "The heresy is your tool, Liora. Use it. I didn't save you from the pyre for your orthodoxy."
 
-*He sees you as a needle,* Thorne projected, his mental touch drifting over her thoughts like a knife’s edge. *A tool to be used until the eye snaps. Is that all you are, Weaver? A fix-it girl for a broken god?*
+Liora turned back to the Loom, her heart hammering against her ribs. The Terminus Frequency was rising—a low-frequency vibration that made the air feel thick and nauseating. She saw a Junior Binder drop to his knees, clutching his stomach. The non-Binders in the room were already succumbing to the spiritual pressure.
 
-"I am the one holding your soul together," Liora muttered, her teeth gritting so hard they ached. She began to braid a small section of her hair with her right hand, a frantic, rhythmic movement as she sought to maintain her focus. "You're a variable. A snag. I just need to... tuck you in."
+*Ready, grounding rod?* she sent through the link.
 
-*Tuck me in?* Thorne’s laughter was a jagged vibration in her chest. *I’m the loose end that’s going to unravel your whole tapestry. But for now... let’s dance.*
+*I’m always ready to be used, Little Weaver. Just don't blame me when the ink gets in your lungs.*
 
-Thorne shifted his weight in the chair. He stopped resisting the Frayback and began to pull. He wasn't just grounding the energy; he was drinking it, drawing the Loom’s instability through Liora’s body and into his own.
+Liora closed her eyes. "Bind-bind-bind," she whispered, her voice climbing in pitch. "Bind or break. Bind or break."
 
-The pressure in Liora’s head eased, the sepia clouds in her vision retreating just enough for her to see the drive-spindle glow with a dull, stabilized violet. The dead-tone shifted, rising in pitch until it was a manageable hum.
+She reached out and grabbed the main tension-wire of the Loom—not with her physical hands, but with her intent. The Dirty Circuit flared. It felt like hot lead being poured into her veins. The indigo brand on her arm surged toward her shoulder, pulsing in rhythmic synchronization with Thorne’s heartbeat. 
 
-"The resonance is holding," a Guard called out, his voice hesitant. "The Stainer... she’s dampened the surge."
+She could feel him now—truly feel him. He wasn't just a voice; he was a vast, cold presence, a void that was swallowing the excess energy she cast off. The feedback loop began to spin. It was an unsanctified bypass, a bridge of forbidden weaving that ignored every law she had been taught since she was a child. 
 
-"I am not a Stainer," Liora said, her voice trembling as she forced herself to stand upright. She tucked her ink-blackened hand into the folds of her indigo robe, hiding the rot from the terrified juniors. "It was a minor snag. A thermal expansion in the primary drive. Back to your stations."
+"The red thread whispers betrayal," she murmured, her mind fracturing. "Watch the weave, Thorne. Watch the weave or it’ll unravel us both."
 
-The Juniors scurried away, though they cast frequent, fearful glances over their shoulders. They didn't see the way the indigo brand now reached her bicep. They didn't see the way her pulse was no longer her own.
+The Loom shrieked. It was a sound of metal screaming against metal, of souls being stretched thin. The Indigo Contagion reacted to the surge, leaping from the drive-spindle toward the walls, manifesting as dark, branching vines of energy.
 
-**SCENE A**
+"Liora!" Maros barked, retreating toward the Gallery stairs. "Contain it!"
 
-Liora leaned her forehead against the cold brass of the spindle, her breath coming in shallow, ragged hitches. The immediate crisis had passed, but the cost was etched into the very marrow of her bones. The high-functioning dissociation that usually shielded her was fraying like an overtaxed warp-thread. Every time she closed her eyes, she didn't see the vaulted arches of the Weaving Chamber; she saw the internal geometry of the bond she had just forged—a "Dirty Circuit" that hummed with a resonance that shouldn't exist.
+"I am... bind-bind-bind it now!" Liora cried out. She was no longer just a Weaver; she was a part of the machine. Her fingers danced through the air, pulling at the jagged, blackened threads of the Dirty Circuit, forcing them to wrap around the failing silver strands of the Loom’s core. 
 
-Her left arm felt heavy, a dead weight that nevertheless throbbed with a phantom heat. She didn't need to look at it to know the indigo brand was no longer a mark of office; it was a hungry vine, feeding on her Frayback. Beneath the skin of her palm, the obsidian ink moved of its own accord, sluggish and dark, like the silt at the bottom of a stagnant river. It was a Stainer’s mark. If the Purists in the lower galleries saw the true extent of it, they wouldn't bother with a trial. They would simply unbind her—severing her thread from the Great Loom and leaving her a hollow, mindless husk.
+She felt Thorne’s resistance—the predatory probing of his mind. He was testing her, seeing how much of the Stain she could take before she shattered. He pushed back, sending a wave of his own jagged energy through the link. It wasn't an attack; it was a revelation. He was showing her the dark beauty of the decay.
 
-She reached out with her right hand, her fingers trembling as they traced the air where the invisible threads of the room’s resonance lingered. Usually, these threads felt crisp, like fine silk. Now, they felt greasy, coated in the residue of Thorne’s presence. The sensory bleed was still active. She could feel the rough texture of the lead-lined chair against *his* back, the sharp bite of the restraints on *his* wrists. It was a terrifying loss of self. Where did Liora end and the prisoner begin?
+The Terminus Frequency reached a crescendo, a nauseating whine that shattered the glass lamps in the Gallery. Then, with a sudden, violent jolt, the Loom’s dead-tone shifted. 
 
-She thought of her family, of the day their souls had been unbound. She remembered the sound—not a scream, but a soft *pop*, like a thread snapping under too much tension. She had spent ten years trying to ensure she was the one holding the shears, the one who decided the tension. And now, she had handed the other end of her thread to a man who wanted nothing more than to watch the world unravel. She wasn't fixing the snag. She was becoming it.
+The low, agonizing hum vanished, replaced by a rhythmic, predatory whine. It was smoother, darker, and perfectly synchronized with the pulse vibrating in Thorne’s chest. The Loom was stable, but it wasn't cured. It was possessed.
 
-**SCENE B**
+Liora fell to her knees, gasping for air that felt like ink. Her vision, once sepia, began to clear, but it wasn't her own sight returning. It was something else. She looked at her hands—they were covered in obsidian to the wrists. 
 
-"Step away from the subject, Weaver Voss."
+"It’s... held," she managed, her voice a ghost of itself. 
 
-The voice belonged to Elder Maros, who had descended from the High Observation Gallery with a speed that belied his age. His bone-white cane clattered rhythmically against the stone floor—*clack, clack, clack*—a countdown that Liora felt in her teeth.
+But the silence that followed was not one of relief. From the shadows of the arched entrances, the Archival Guards stepped forward. Their silver armor gleamed coldly, and their hand-crossbows were leveled at her chest. They didn’t care that the Loom was running. They saw the black ink. They saw the indigo vines on the walls.
 
-Liora straightened, forcing her expression into a mask of professional boredom. She kept her left hand buried deep in her sleeve. "The Loom is stabilized, Elder. As I said, a minor snag in the drive-spindle. The resonance is within acceptable margins."
+"The contagion has breached the perimeter," the lead guard announced, his voice muffled by a lead-lined visor. 
 
-Maros stopped inches from her. He smelled of old parchment and the bitter, medicinal herbs he used to stave off his own decay. He didn't look at the Loom. He looked at Liora’s shoulder, where the indigo glow was still visible through the fabric of her robe.
+Liora didn’t look at them. She couldn't. Her head turned slowly toward the center of the room, toward the restraint chair. 
 
-"A minor snag," Maros repeated, his voice a dry rasp. "Is that what we call heresy now? You’ve opened a Dirty Circuit, Liora. You’ve bypassed the dampeners and used a Thirteenth Strand variable as a grounding rod."
+As the Loom's dead-tone shifts to a predatory whine synchronized with Thorne's internal vibration, Liora's vision clears to reveal his eyes—now her eyes—gleaming with shared intent from the chair.
 
-"I did what was necessary to prevent a total collapse," Liora snapped, her voice regaining its clipped, weaving-metaphor edge. "You can't just pull at fate's hem like it's your favorite cloak—watch the weave, or it'll unravel us both. I chose to save the Loom."
+**[SCENE A: EXPANSION - INTERIORITY]**
 
-Maros leaned in, his eyes gleaming with a terrifying, clinical interest. "And in doing so, you’ve proven my theory. The Loom cannot be fixed with sanctified methods. It requires... a different kind of binding." He glanced over at Thorne, who was watching them with a predatory stillness. "The boy is reacting better than I anticipated. Tell me, do you feel him?"
+Liora’s chest burned with the phantom sensation of a thousand needles. It was the frayback. It was always the frayback, waiting like a hungry spider at the edge of her awareness. She looked at her palms, seeing the obsidian ink pulsing in time with the Loom’s new, dark heartbeat. It felt heavy, a liquid sin that refused to be wiped away. Each drop that hit the stone floor felt like a piece of her family's history being spat upon.
 
-Liora’s fingers snapped an invisible thread. "The resonance is... intense. But under control."
+She remembered the way her father’s hands had looked during the Great Unbinding. They had been silver then, glowing with a purity that the Conclave used as a benchmark for decades. Then the snap came—not a physical sound, but a spiritual severance that had echoed in her own young soul. She had seen the threads of his life unravel like cheap wool, fraying into nothing but panicked sparks. Her mother had tried to catch the ends, to bind him back together, but you can’t knit a soul once the core has been compromised. 
 
-"Liar," Thorne’s voice drifted from the chair, low and mocking. He didn't look at Maros; he looked directly at Liora. "She’s terrified, Elder. She feels the rot in her palm and the way my heart is beating inside her chest. She thinks she’s the Weaver, but she’s just another strand being pulled."
+*Don’t look back, Little Weaver. The past is just a collection of frayed knots.*
 
-"Silence the prisoner," Maros commanded the guards, though he didn't look away from Liora. "You are an asset now, Liora. Not just a Weaver, but a bridge. Do not let the Purists see the ink. If they find out you’re a Stainer, even I cannot protect the 'instrument' from the fire."
+Thorne’s internal voice was like a cold compress on a fever. It was unwelcome, yet necessary. Liora tightened her grip on the invisible threads, her fingers twitching in a reflexive braid. She hated that he could see those memories. The Dirty Circuit was a two-way mirror, and he was currently leaning his face against the glass.
 
-**SCENE C**
+"Get out of my head," she whispered, though the words were meant for the link, not the room.
 
-The next twenty-four hours were a blur of sepia-toned exhaustion and constant vigilance. Liora was confined to the Loom Floor, officially to "monitor the stabilization," but she knew it was a gilded imprisonment. The Archival Guards stood at every exit, their pole-arms humming with a low-level suppression frequency that kept her head aching.
+*I am your head, for the moment,* Thorne countered. *We are sharing the same loom now. Your father’s failure... it’s a beautiful ghost. But ghosts don't hold tension. I do.*
 
-She spent the night pacing the perimeter of the drive-spindle, her right hand obsessively braiding and unbraiding a lock of her hair. The habit was a mechanical comfort, a way to anchor her mind while her senses drifted. Every few hours, the Loom would groan—a deep, tectonic shift in the Binding Threads—and she would have to reach out, her fingers tracing the air to soothe the vibrations. Each time she did, she felt Thorne.
+Liora forced the memory down, burying it under the cold, clinical necessity of the present. The Loom was stabilizing, yes, but at what cost? The threads weren't gold or silver anymore. They were taking on the bruised, metallic sheen of the brand on her arm. She was fixing the world by staining it. Fate wasn't a cloak you could simply mend; sometimes you had to burn the hem to keep the rest from falling apart. She felt the terminal calm returning, a numbness that was the only thing standing between her and a total psychic collapse.
 
-He was being kept in the center of the chamber, the lead-lined chair acting as a permanent anchor. He didn't sleep. Every time Liora’s focus wavered, his presence would flare up in her mind like a sudden flame. He would send her images of sharp things—broken glass, needles, the frayed ends of a severed rope. He was testing the link, probing for weaknesses in her mental walls.
+**[SCENE B: EXPANSION - DIALOGUE]**
 
-By dawn, the indigo brand had settled into a dull, throbbing ache that pulsed in time with the Loom’s hum. The ink in her palm had stopped leaking, leaving a permanent, obsidian stain that looked like a map of a nightmare. She sat on the cold floor, the smell of lanolin and acidic dye heavy in her lungs, and realized she no longer feared the Loom’s collapse as much as she feared the stabilization. To keep the world from unravelling, she had bound herself to the very thing that could rip it apart.
+"You’ve done it, then," Maros said, his cane clicking on the stone as he circled her. He didn't offer a hand to help her up. Liora wouldn't have taken it if he had. "A bit messy. A bit... unconventional. But the frequency has leveled."
 
-She looked toward the chair. Thorne was watching her through the gloom, his eyes bright with a forbidden vitality. The bond was a living thing between them now, a dirty, unsanctified cord that vibrated with every breath they took.
+Liora pushed herself off the floor, her legs feeling like they were made of spun glass. "It’s a temporary patch, Elder. The Dirty Circuit is bypassing the regulators. If we keep this up, the grounding rod will burn out."
 
-As the ink-blood synchronizes their heartbeats into a single, defiant rhythm, Liora feels Thorne's whisper uncoil in her mind: "Now we're woven, Weaver. Pull if you dare."
+"I am right here," Thorne’s physical voice cut through the air, dry and mocking. He was still strapped to the chair, but his posture was relaxed, almost bored. "And I don't plan on burning out just yet. Though I must say, the 'Stain' has a certain... zest to it."
+
+"Be silent, prisoner," Maros snapped, his eyes never leaving Liora. "Liora, the Purists will be here within the hour. They will see the indigo on the walls. They will see your hands."
+
+"I can't hide it anymore," Liora said, her voice rising to a sharp, brittle edge. "This knot's tightening, Maros. You wanted a fix, and I gave you one. Don't talk to me about concealment while the Archival Guards are pointing bows at my heart."
+
+"I can buy you time," Maros whispered, leanind in close. He smelled of dust and old parchment. "But I need more than just stabilization. I need to know if the Fourteenth Strand can be accessed through this link. If we can bypass the Conclave laws entirely..."
+
+"That’s heresy upon heresy," Liora hissed. "I'm already standing in a pool of my own ink. You want me to jump into the Void?"
+
+*He wants the power, Liora,* Thorne’s mental voice teased. *He wants to see if we can weave a new world from the rot of the old. It’s a tempting offer, isn't it? To stop mending and start creating?*
+
+"Shut up," Liora said, and this time she said it out loud. 
+
+Maros blinked, squinting at her. "To whom are you speaking, Master Voss?"
+
+"The Loom," she lied, her fingers snapping an invisible thread. "The threads are whispering betrayal. They don't like being bound by a grounding rod that talks back."
+
+**[SCENE C: EXPANSION - TRANSITION]**
+
+The Archival Guards moved in then, their heavy boots echoing like funeral drums against the stone. They didn't touch her—no one touched a Stainer if they could help it—but they formed a tight, intimidating circle, their lead-lined shields creating a wall of gray.
+
+"Elder Maros," the lead guard said, his voice a metallic rasp. "The High Gallery has issued a quarantine. Both the Weaver and the Rod are to be moved to the Sub-Vaults until the Purists arrive for the Cleansing."
+
+Maros sighed, a theatrical sound of disappointment. "Of course. Safety first. Take them. But do not damage the Weaver. She is currently the only thing keeping the Loom from eating the city."
+
+Liora let them lead her away. She didn't struggle; there was no point. Her sepia vision was fading, replaced by a strange, hyper-clear clarity that allowed her to see the individual fibers of the guards' uniforms. She could see where their threads were thinning, where their lives were most vulnerable. It was a terrifying perspective.
+
+As they passed Thorne’s chair, the guards began the process of unhooking him, though they kept his hands bound in lead-lined silk. His eyes never left Liora’s. Even as they were dragged toward the iron doors of the Sub-Vaults, the link remained. The Dirty Circuit didn't care about stone walls or distance. It was a bridge built of their shared degradation.
+
+In the hallways of the Conclave, the air smelled of lanolin and fear. Junior Binders pressed themselves against the walls as the procession passed, their eyes wide and judgmental. Liora kept her head high, her fingers already working an invisible braid. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction of seeing her tremor. 
+
+They were thrown into adjacent cells in the dark, damp recesses of the Loom’s foundation. The iron bars were etched with suppression runes, but to Liora, they looked like clumsy, blunt instruments. Through the wall, she could hear the rhythmic whine of the Loom above—smooth, predatory, and perfectly in sync with the blood thumping in her ears.
+
+*Rest weaver,* Thorne’s voice echoed in the silence of her mind. *Tomorrow, we see if the thread holds.*
+
+Liora didn't answer. She sat in the corner of her cell, the indigo brand on her arm glowing like a dying coal, and waited for the dark to speak back.
+
+As the Loom's dead-tone shifts to a predatory whine synchronized with Thorne's internal vibration, Liora's vision clears to reveal his eyes—now her eyes—gleaming with shared intent from the chair.