The rear grate tore free before Samira opened the quarantine door.
Steel struck tile inside the empty habitat. Gredudande's dog pulled itself from the filtration trench, soaked to the ribs, with black shadow wrapped around Jiang's stolen feathers.
Copper-Band's alarm call answered from the secured holding room.
"Move away from the window," Aylin said.
Samira kept her body between Jiang and the door. "Start with your name. Then explain why a dog knows his."
The compass shone green through the narrow glass. Aylin pushed back her hood, freeing one black-tipped fox ear. Bruises ringed her throat where the feather trace had tightened through the Spirit Link.
"Aylin. I put him in that body. The thing under your birds is Gredudande, and it can reach me through the feathers in its mouth."
"You put him in that body."
"Yes. I chose it."
Samira looked down at Jiang. "Nod if she is telling the truth."
Jiang held Aylin's gaze while he nodded.
Samira unlocked the door, pulled Aylin inside, and locked it again. "The part where you explain yourself can wait until nothing is trying to crawl into my animals."
In the habitat, Gredudande tested the closed shift gate with one paw. It could hear the king penguins beyond the wall. The dog's ears followed every call.
Aylin raised the compass. Its needle pointed at Jiang, dragged toward the dog's jaw, then trembled between them.
"The trace is stretched through both of us," she said. "I can burn the stolen part if I touch it with Natural Essence."
Samira watched the dog chew black air around the feathers. "So go touch it."
"The shadow will enter me first."
"Then your plan needs work."
Samira pointed at the dog on the monitor. "Can that animal survive you removing the thing inside it?"
"If we force the core out before the vessel's heart fails," Aylin said. "I cannot promise we will."
"An honest limit. Keep that too."
Aylin's jaw tightened. Jiang almost enjoyed that. The woman who had rewritten his body in an alley had finally met someone who treated mysticism as an unacceptable first draft.
Gredudande's next strike bowed the shift gate toward the holding room.
Samira pointed to the security monitor. "I can move it through the service lane into the empty wash bay. Water hurts it. The bay has a keeper door and a pool chute too small for the dog."
"It will follow Jiang."
"Following Jiang gives us a route," Samira said. "Jiang decides whether we use it."
Samira faced Aylin fully. "No animal becomes bait. Not my colony, not a stray dog you intend to kill, and not him because you find his situation convenient. Say it."
Aylin looked at Jiang. "He is a person."
"He is also the injured bird at my feet. Say the useful part."
The shift gate groaned again.
"No animal becomes bait," Aylin said. "I will not force Jiang into the route."
Jiang walked to the laminated facility map beneath the monitor.
Samira closed her eyes briefly. "You count too."
He tapped the empty wash bay, traced the service lane with his beak, and struck the narrow pool chute. Gredudande wanted him enough to ignore easier prey. That fact belonged to Jiang whether anyone approved of it.
Samira added the controls with her finger. One switch sealed the gate behind the dog. The hose could drive it away from the holding-room wall, but its pressure would fade after the first burst. The pool chute offered Jiang water and denied the dog its shoulders.
He tapped his own chest.
"He is volunteering," Aylin said.
"I understood him before you arrived." Samira crouched beside Jiang. "Show me your exit."
He struck the pool chute again, then the keeper door.
"Two exits," Samira said. "If either closes, we end the attempt."
Jiang answered with one nod.
"If your flipper fails, we end it. If I say out, you go out. Heroic objections may be submitted after you have hands."
He gave her another nod.
Aylin knelt on his other side. Up close, the bruises around her throat were darker than they had looked through glass. One hand shook against the compass chain.
"Four people died before you," she said. "I knew the change might kill you. I chose your body without your consent, and I told myself the hunter left no time for anything kinder."
Jiang waited for an excuse. None came.
"I am sorry," Aylin said. "You owe me nothing for saying it."
The anger stayed. So did the need to keep her alive. Jiang turned from her apology and tapped the wash bay on the map.
Her shaking hand bothered him more than an excuse would have. He wanted a clean villain, not a frightened woman who had made a brutal choice and understood its name. Wanting simplicity changed nothing she had done.
He accepted the plan. Forgiveness could wait for a body capable of arguing properly.
Samira collected a bucket of fish rinse from the prep room and poured a trail through the service lane. The odor made Jiang's stomach tighten despite the herring. At the wash bay, she tested both exits and laid the hose where she could reach it without crossing Jiang's path.
Aylin drew a green line across the keeper doorway with two fingers. "The shadow cannot cross this while I hold it. The dog can."
"Useful distinction," Samira said. "Keep making those."
Jiang waited beside the wash-bay drain. Cold climbed through his feet. His Camouflage recovery ended with a quiet pulse from the System, leaving the ability ready and his body no warmer.
Through the Spirit Link, Gredudande pulled at Aylin's throat.
She bent but held the green line.
Samira opened the service gate.
The dog followed the fish rinse into the lane. Its borrowed body sniffed even while the red eyes stayed fixed on Jiang. Shadow kept the stolen feathers tucked against its lower jaw.
Water had matted the dog's fur against visible ribs. One paw left a faint smear of blood from the loading-door struggle. Jiang aimed his plan at Gredudande's grip, not the animal's throat.
"Come to your mother," Gredudande said.
Jiang barked once and ran.
His land stride remained ugly, but the wet lane rewarded every belly drop. He slid through the wash-bay entrance and carved the turn with his good flipper. The damaged left one stayed pinned against his side.
Gredudande charged after him.
Samira opened the hose. Water struck the dog's shoulder and peeled shadow from its jaw in smoking strips. The vessel staggered, yet the stolen feathers remained caught between its teeth.
Aylin reached with the compass. Green light hooked the feather trace and pulled.
Gredudande's borrowed jaws bit down.
Pain crossed Jiang's tail as though those missing feathers were being torn out again. He lost his slide, rolled onto the dressed shoulder, and stopped within reach of the dog's front paws.
Samira shifted the hose between them. "Pool chute, Jiang. Now."
He could leave. The chute waited behind him, narrow and full of clean water.
The green line at the keeper door flickered. Aylin had both hands on the compass chain, and the trace was crushing her throat harder with every pull.
Jiang chose a third direction.
He slid beneath the hose stream toward Gredudande.
The dog lunged. Jiang flattened his rigid torso against the wet floor and passed under its chest. His beak closed on the bare ends of his own tail feathers where water had stripped away the shadow.
Jiang pulled with both feet braced.
Gredudande's jaws snapped beside his head. Samira drove water into the open mouth, and the dog coughed against the pressure. Its teeth released.
Jiang skidded across the bay with the feathers clenched in his beak.
"Drop them!" Aylin shouted.
He spat the wet clump across the green line.
Aylin caught it against the compass face. Green fire ran through every black feather without spreading to her skin. The smell was burnt salt and winter air, nothing like ordinary hair or keratin.
The Spirit Link loosened.
For one breath, Jiang felt only himself inside his body. Aylin stood upright and drew air without bruised hands reaching for her throat.
Ash fell between her fingers, and the trace snapped shut again.
Aylin folded over the compass. Its needle swung away from the ash and pointed through Jiang toward the dog's chest.
Gredudande rose inside the failing hose stream. Beneath its wet ribs, something black answered the compass with a slow pulse.
"It copied the trace into its core," Aylin said.
The wash-bay doors stood open, and the dog was between Jiang and both exits.