# Crystal Drain Echo — Personality Residual Design Spec

**Date:** 2026-04-21
**Status:** Approved — awaiting implementation plan
**Scope:** Adds a pre-Compact magical phenomenon to Book 3 (and series canon going forward): victims of life-force draining via pre-Compact amplification crystals develop unique personality residuals ("echoes") governed by a single rule. Integrates with existing Book 3 threads (the ruin archive, the Compact corruption arc, the WellsMoon moss hybrid, Phelan's combat magic arc). Introduces one new combat-magic capability for Phelan (the fire spike) as a physical manifestation of his echo. Retrofits two Ch01 and Ch02 draft beats. Maps chapter-by-chapter beats across Book 3.

---

## 1. Why This Addition

Book 3's spine is *exposure and vulnerability* — *what happens when the thing you kept hidden gets found?* Cass, the ruin, Ledger, Devod, Kimbra, the Compact, Phelan's Flaw Sight — each major thread instantiates that theme.

The echo mechanic is a fourth instantiation at the magical-system level: **the draining strips a layer and what surfaces is what was underneath.** It does three structural jobs:

1. **Sharpens the Compact indictment.** If pre-Compact crystals rewrite people, and the Compact knew, the ghostveil chokehold stops being "pricing greed" and becomes "knowingly limiting treatment access." The Ch20 archive-leverage beat gains prosecution weight.
2. **Gives Mere agency and a clinical win.** The same ghostveil treating Kae's chronic pain treats echo-victims. WellsMoon at kitchen-scale cracks the Compact's supply control for everyone the crystal damaged, not just Kae.
3. **Makes Phelan's Ch19 Cass confrontation harder and more moral.** Phelan can refuse ghostveil before the fight because he wants the violent clarity for the man who hurt his family. The book's thesis — Phelan builds a lock instead of taking a weapon, chooses restraint over power — becomes sharper because the restraint is a live choice between two forms of violence, not a passive absence of capability.

---

## 2. The Mechanic (Rule A)

Life-force draining via a pre-Compact amplification crystal strips the victim's arcane **sheath** — the internal structure that normally keeps suppressed aspects of the psyche and dormant magical capacity regulated. The sheath does not fully regrow. What was being held down surfaces.

**The rule (one sentence):** *The drain amplifies what the victim most deeply suppressed.*

The content of each victim's echo is unique; the governing rule is universal.

### 2.1 Baseline and triggers

- **Baseline:** stable, low-grade, always present after the drain. Does not progress or worsen over time.
- **Triggers (amplify the echo temporarily):** psychological stress, active magic use, proximity to other echo-affected people, proximity to drain-trace residue (e.g., crystal artifacts, the ruin's ambient field, freshly drained matter).
- **Long-term:** the victim stabilizes into a new baseline. They do not return to pre-drain state; they learn to live with the new noise floor.

### 2.2 Treatment

**Ghostveil** (Compact-suppressed arcane-dampening moss, already canon as Kae's chronic-pain treatment) dampens the echo the same way it dampens Kae's arcane-pain reactivity. Same drug, same mechanism, applies to both sides of the crystal's damage (user and victims).

- Dose modulates the echo. A field dose quiets the flashes for several hours.
- The victim can choose *not* to dose — relevant for Phelan in Ch19 (see §7).
- **WellsMoon** (the ghostveil × Moonswell hybrid Mere is developing) makes ghostveil kitchen-scale producible, breaking the Compact's chokehold for echo-victims broadly, not just Kae.

---

## 3. Victim Map

| Victim | Drain source | Suppressed | Echo content | Severity |
|--------|--------------|------------|--------------|----------|
| **Phelan Varrant** | Bracelet half-absorb, Book 2 Ch09 | Dangerous/violent capacity (combat magic suppressed since Brannick bullying; cold-calculated "kill Kae" planning in B2 Ch13 was deliberate, not intrusive) | Intrusive violent thoughts (unbidden flashes) + the **fire spike** manifestation (see §6). The echo is milder than full-drain victims because the bracelet absorbed the worst of the current | Partial (bracelet-mitigated) |
| **Devod Fields** | Full drain, Book 2 Ch12 | The Wolf / Pathfinder identity, buried under wagon-vendor charm for decades | Protective hypervigilance; cart-and-terrain tracking; "volume turned up on Pathfinder, down on everything else." Already seeded in Book 3 Ch01 as *"different knobs, same instrument"* — which the echo mechanic now retroactively frames as the echo amplifying the Wolf. Devod is the **farthest along** in stabilization — his ~4 months post-drain have settled into the new baseline already | Full |
| **Calla Floundry** | Full drain, Book 2 Ch11 (canal market) | Anxiety under functional shopkeeper-wife normalcy | Panic attacks triggered by magical activity or crowded public spaces (particularly the canal market). Recovering physically, echo-stable | Full |
| **Ned Floundry** | Full drain, Book 2 Ch11 (reserves doubly depleted from prior curse recovery) | TBD during drafting | Worst dose of the named victims. Slower physical recovery, echo present but exact content deferred. Mere's protocol "hasn't fully reached yet" — seed for an Act 3 or Book 4+ clinical beat | Full (severe) |
| **Kaeran "Kae" Thrainn** | User of the crystal, not a victim of it. Partial — the amplification drew from his own reservoir to fuel his targets | Grief over Elara, chronic pain | Mild grief-echo / depression flashes; separate from his ongoing pain management. Already stable on ghostveil per Book 2 canon. One-line acknowledgment in Mere's clinical notes | Partial (user/vessel) |
| **Other Book 2 survivors** (unnamed dockworker, shopkeeper's wife, arcane-district student survivor, etc.) | Full drains across Book 2 Ch02–Ch11 | Various (unassigned; drafter discretion if any surface on-page) | Each has a unique echo per Rule A. Mere's ledger of probable cases grows across Book 3. Seeds for Book 4+ | Full |

**Vellen Thrace** is excluded (killed during the drain; no surviving victim to carry an echo).

---

## 4. Compact Knowledge (Option B — compartmentalized)

The Compact's knowledge of the echo phenomenon is compartmentalized, not institutional consensus:

- **Senior leadership** knows in fragments. The institution "knows" the way institutions know uncomfortable things — in pieces, never fully admitted to itself. Pre-Compact archive material referencing the echo is quietly held in restricted sections; officers who approach it are redirected.
- **Cass operationally knew.** This recontextualizes Ch12 of Book 2 as a second layer of cruelty — he chose Devod specifically because he knew the drain would *amplify the Wolf*, making Devod more dangerous long-term. Cass was trying to turn Phelan's people into versions of themselves Phelan would have to be afraid of. The Ch12 targeting was not just a personal message; it was a weaponization of the crystal's side-effect.
- **Rank-and-file Compact officers don't know.** Compact enforcement officers at the Ch18 standoff are doing their jobs without the full picture. This is deliberate — the confrontation is with the institution, not with individual officers as moral agents.
- **Ghostveil chokehold** is partly about limiting treatment access. Compact leadership knows this and maintains the policy regardless. Public justification remains pricing/supply control; the limited-treatment motive is compartmentalized alongside the echo knowledge.
- **Ch19 Cass needle:** *"How's the noise these days, Varrant? Any new frequencies?"* — Phelan doesn't realize Cass knows. Reader does. Phelan's fire spikes meaner than intended. Cass smiles — he was testing.
- **Ch20 archive leverage beat (concrete):** one of the inscription panels Phelan lays down at the gate is the echo documentation. The Compact commander recognizes it and his face changes on-page. That is the moment the reader confirms the Compact knew.

---

## 5. Terminology (Option D — layered)

Two terms coexist:

- **"The echo"** — the team's working shorthand. Coined by Mere in Drenwick before the archive exists for them (Ch05). Used in dialogue and clinical notes.
- **Pre-Compact technical term** — the archive text uses a specific term for the phenomenon. English gloss: *depletion residual* or *sheath-loss imprint*. The specific pre-Compact word is a drafter commitment during Ch13–Ch14 drafting (the archive scenes). Both terms coexist in prose after Ch14: team dialogue says *echo*, archive pages carry the technical term.

---

## 6. Phelan's Fire Spike

Physical manifestation of Phelan's echo. Rare (two uses in Book 3). Diagnostic of the echo in the way that the intrusive violent thoughts are introspective of it.

### 6.1 Mechanic

- **Derivation:** stress-mode of existing fire-and-ring combat capability. The ring (Book 2 canon) gives Phelan projection; the spike is the ring's projection held **rigid under loss-of-control** — same fire material, different structural lock. Not new magic; a mode of existing kit.
- **Trigger:** intrusive violent thought spikes sharply enough that Phelan's suppression of the buried combat capability breaks. The spike forms when he is losing control of the noise, not by voluntary shaping.
- **Form:** stiff fire projection (like a spear), roughly 15 feet effective reach. Glasses stone on impact at close range.
- **Flaw Sight reading (key craft beat):** when the spike forms, Phelan's Flaw Sight shows him its structure is *wrong*. Held by desperation, not by design. It works because it's violent, not because it's good magic. This is the knife-edge moment of the book — a physical mirror of the perfect lock he's building downstairs. The man who finds every flaw in other people's magic watches his own magic form around a crack.
- **Cost:** Phelan's voluntary form (whip) is available afterward. The spike is a stress-mode, not a physical exhaustion. The cost is psychological — he has to choose to revert.

### 6.2 Deployment

- **Ch14 silent seed** (during Leon's attack-the-lock testing): during a frustrated moment between iterations, Phelan's practice fire briefly stiffens in a half-second flicker. Leon sees. Phelan is too hyperfocused on the lock to notice. Leon says nothing on the road.
- **Ch17 primer** (mercenary ambush): one spike forms under combat stress. Half a second, drops. The mercenary dies uglier than intended. Leon clocks it a second time. Still unspoken.
- **Ch19 peak** (Cass confrontation): Phelan has refused the ghostveil dose deliberately (see §7). After Cass's "new frequencies" needle, the violent flash spikes. Full fire spear launches at Cass. Cass dodges. Spike hits stone and glasses it. Phelan sees what he did, pulls back to whip, wins with the whip. **The victory is the restraint**, not the kill.

### 6.3 Book 4+ seed

Can Phelan access the fire spike *without* the echo? Unanswered in Book 3. Either answer is rich:
- If yes, he's weaponized his trauma into a tool and it's a moral problem.
- If no, the echo is permanent leverage on his combat kit — the spike becomes diagnostic of the echo's presence.

Left open. Ledger's "folders you'll see now you couldn't before" room (Ch21) is a natural container for the question.

---

## 7. The Ch19 Ghostveil Refusal

The moral center of Book 3. Phelan chooses not to take a ghostveil dose before descending to face Cass, knowing the dose would quiet the echo.

- **Ch18 beat:** Mere hands Phelan ghostveil field doses before he descends. He pockets them. Doesn't take one.
- **Ch19 noise beat (canonical):** mid-fight, as the violent flashes fire, the noise calls him on the refusal. *(*I didn't take it. I could have. I wanted this sharper. Whose choice is that.*)* The reader sees him choose.
- **The fight resolves:** Phelan wins with restraint (reverts from spike to whip). The victory is that he can form the spike and chooses not to keep using it. The moral weight of the refusal is that he lived inside the violence long enough to win with it and then put it down.
- **Ch21 aftermath:** Phelan takes a dose after the fight. Noise quiets. Personal closure on the chapter's moral balance.

---

## 8. Discovery Arc

Mere leads. Kimbra is the catalyst beat. Archive confirms.

### 8.1 Arc structure

- **Ch01–02:** first on-page echo seeds — Phelan's intrusive violent-thought flashes (see §9 retrofits). Devod's walking-stick / cart-tracking already on page in Ch01, now retroactively frameable as echo-amplified Wolf behavior. Not named.
- **Ch03 (fusion cold open):** Phelan has a violent flash during Flaw Sight at the microscope. Mere catches his face. Doesn't ask.
- **Ch04 (Kimbra arrival — catalyst):** Kimbra observes Phelan with her life-coach / psychology toolkit. Delivers one sharp line privately to Mere or to Phelan himself: *"Your eyes have been somewhere else since I walked in. Not tired. Somewhere else. When did that start?"* The line doesn't solve anything — it gives Mere the last variable. Mere's pattern recognition clicks: Devod (at the Millford Street recovery), Calla (via herbal follow-up), Phelan (now named by Kimbra). Three cases. Same shape.
- **Ch05 (preparation):** Mere visits Calla Floundry (Floundry-family herbal follow-up, natural). Confirms Calla experiences panic attacks triggered by magical activity and crowded public spaces since the drain. Calla names her own experience. Mere's hypothesis crystallizes. Tells Phelan: *"I think the drain leaves something behind. I'm calling it an echo."* Phelan's noise catalogues but he does not admit his own at first — Mere reads his face and does not force it.
- **Ch06 (road to Thorngate — four carriage days):** close quarters. Mere trials a low ghostveil dose on Phelan. The noise quiets. First mechanical confirmation. She gives him a field supply. Devod's hypervigilance on the road reads clearly as echo-amplified Pathfinder now that Mere has the framework.
- **Ch09 (Living Archive):** Pip can sense drain-residue. Mere uses Pip to calibrate doses and to validate the echo-pattern hypothesis against the ruin's ambient field.
- **Ch11 (Thorngate surface day):** Pamira asks Mere quietly *"Is he well?"* about Devod. Mere: *"He's recovering. And he's also more of what he always was."* First off-family acknowledgment.
- **Ch13 (sealed door):** Phelan finds references to "depletion residual" (or the pre-Compact term) at the research workshop while working on the seal. Brief. He's there for the lock; the echo documentation catches his eye but he files it for later.
- **Ch14 (perfect lock, archive reading in between build iterations):** full archive confirmation of the mechanic, paired with the flawfinder's gift documentation. Phelan sends Mere a sending-stone relay or letter naming the pre-Compact term. Her clinical notes are now pre-Compact-validated. Silent fire-spike seed during Leon's testing (see §6.2).
- **Ch18:** Mere gives Phelan ghostveil field doses. He pockets them, doesn't take them.
- **Ch19:** see §7.
- **Ch20 (standoff):** archive leverage panel includes echo documentation. Compact commander's face changes at the gate.
- **Ch21 (elevation):** Ledger names echo documentation explicitly as part of the guild's leverage. *"Your senior people have a vocabulary for what your crystals leave behind. It's in the archive."* Phelan takes a ghostveil dose after. Personal closure.
- **Ch22–24 (aftermath / road home):** WellsMoon kitchen production begins supplying Calla, Devod, Ned, Kae, and a growing list of drain-echo victims. Calla's panic attacks become manageable. Devod stabilizes as himself-but-sharper. Phelan's new baseline includes a tool (the dose) and a choice (when to use it). Kimbra writes home to Wensley asking if any of her neighbors were ever drained — Book 4+ seed.

### 8.2 Why Mere leads

- **She has the data:** treated Kae, lives near Calla, knows Devod intimately.
- **Autistic pattern recognition** is her signature skill — this is a Mere-win arc at the mechanic level.
- **Clinical-win in Act 3:** the WellsMoon protocol goes from "Kae's chronic pain" to "general public-good anti-Compact leverage" because of her work.

### 8.3 Kimbra's role

Catalyst, not solver. She gives Mere the last variable — a single sharp observation that lets Mere's pattern complete. Kimbra does not name the echo; her line is about Phelan specifically, delivered from therapist instinct, not from magical-system knowledge. After Ch04, Kimbra's role in the echo arc recedes; she's the key that turns the lock Mere had already assembled.

---

## 9. Retrofits to Existing Ch01 and Ch02 Drafts

### 9.1 Ch01 retrofit

`chapters/book3/ch01-final.md` (currently final; requires one small retrofit to add the first echo seed).

**Insertion point:** near the end of the chapter, at the moment the bracelet warms "gently for the first time in four months" alongside Ledger's summons. A single noise parenthetical — a violent-thought flash — unbidden, jarring, filed by Phelan as *new*, not named.

**Proposed insertion (one parenthetical):**

> *(*Someone's hand should be on fire. Not mine. Something close. The thought arrives without my permission and leaves with a shape.*)*

Or a variant at the drafter's discretion. Target: one line of raw brain output that doesn't belong to Phelan's usual cold-calculation mode. The difference between this and the Book 2 Ch13 "kill Kae" planning is *the arrival without permission*. Cold Phelan arrived at violent conclusions deliberately; this flash arrives unbidden.

**Placement candidates (drafter's call):**
- Just before the summons arrives, when the bracelet first warms
- Just after the courier leaves, when Phelan is processing the summons
- In the final closing beat as Phelan sits with the card + thaumometer + warming bracelet

**Devod's beats stay as written.** The walking-stick / cart-tracking / "different knobs, same instrument" framing already on page is now retroactively the echo — no new text needed in the Devod scene. The echo discovery arc later in the book (Ch04–Ch14) reframes what Ch01 already established.

### 9.2 Ch02 retrofit

`chapters/book3/ch02-draft.md` (currently draft; small insertion).

**Insertion point:** during the grievance reveal (Phase 2), after Ledger delivers the formal grievance text. One violent-thought flash — Phelan imagines burning the file, or glassing the gate in Scout 1's forensics report, or something uglier than his usual cold-calculation. Filed, not named.

**Proposed insertion (one parenthetical), placed inside the grievance-response noise beat:**

> *(*I want the filing to burn. Literally. Not 'I want to fight this' — I want someone's hands on that file to be in the fire. That's not my usual shape. File it.*)*

Or drafter variant. Important voice notes:
- **Not** Phelan's cold-calculation mode (he already had the canonical cold beat in Book 2 Ch13 re: Kae).
- **Unbidden arrival** — the flash happens without intent, and Phelan notices it's not his usual shape.
- **Filed, not examined** — Phelan files the anomaly rather than processing it. That's the echo behavior — the noise catalogues its own new frequencies and files them for later.

**Placement candidates:**
- After Ledger's delivery of the twelve-days-ago line
- When Phelan reads the Scout 1 forensics report mention of the gate killing him
- In Phelan's response to the grievance-lives-past-the-man-who-wrote-it line

Drafter selects one placement. One flash in Ch02 total.

---

## 10. Chapter-by-Chapter Integration Map

Additive to existing outline beats. See `outline/book3-outline.md` for full context. These are the echo-arc insertions/reframings:

| Ch | Echo beat |
|----|-----------|
| 01 | One violent-thought flash at the bracelet-warming moment (retrofit). Devod's existing on-page behavior retroactively frames as echo-amplified Wolf |
| 02 | One violent-thought flash during the grievance reveal (retrofit). "Small careful knives" canon already anchors the Compact-ghostveil-chokehold framing |
| 03 | One violent flash during Flaw Sight at the microscope (fusion scene). Mere catches Phelan's face, doesn't ask |
| 04 | **Kimbra's catalyst line.** One sharp observation delivered privately to Mere or Phelan. Mere's pattern clicks after Kimbra leaves the room. "Three cases. Same shape." |
| 05 | Mere visits Calla Floundry (natural Floundry-family herbal follow-up). Confirms Calla has panic attacks triggered by magical activity. Mere names it: *"I think the drain leaves something behind. I'm calling it an echo."* Tells Phelan |
| 06 | Road to Thorngate carriage days. Mere trials a low ghostveil dose on Phelan; noise quiets. First mechanical confirmation. Devod's hypervigilance reads as echo-amplified Pathfinder |
| 09 | Pip reacts to drain-residue (including Phelan's and Devod's own). Mere uses Pip to calibrate doses |
| 11 | Pamira asks Mere *"Is he well?"* about Devod. Mere: *"He's recovering. And he's also more of what he always was."* |
| 13 | Phelan finds pre-Compact references to the echo at the research workshop. Brief, filed for later — he's there for the lock |
| 14 | **Full archive confirmation of the echo mechanic**, paired with flawfinder's gift documentation. Phelan relays the pre-Compact term to Mere. Silent fire-spike seed during Leon's lock-testing (see §6.2) |
| 17 | **Fire-spike primer** — mercenary ambush. One stiffening, half a second. Leon clocks it, says nothing on the road (see §6.2) |
| 18 | Mere hands Phelan ghostveil field doses. He pockets them. Doesn't take one |
| 19 | **Peak.** Cass's needle ("any new frequencies?"). Phelan's violent flash spikes. Fire spear forms, glasses stone. Phelan reverts to whip, wins with restraint. Noise confirms he chose not to dose (see §7) |
| 20 | **Archive leverage at the gate.** One of the inscription panels Phelan lays down is echo documentation. Compact commander's face changes on-page — the reader confirms the Compact knew |
| 21 | Ledger names echo documentation as leverage in the elevation-scene disclosure. *"Your senior people have a vocabulary for what your crystals leave behind."* Phelan takes a ghostveil dose after the fight. Noise quiets |
| 22–24 | WellsMoon kitchen production serves Calla, Devod, Ned, Kae, and a growing ledger of echo-victims. Calla's panic attacks become manageable. Devod stabilizes as himself-but-sharper. Phelan's new baseline includes a tool and a choice. Kimbra writes home asking if any Wensley neighbors were ever drained — Book 4+ seed |

---

## 11. Character File Updates (required for full closeout)

| Character | File | Update required |
|-----------|------|-----------------|
| Phelan Varrant | `characters/phelan-varrant.md` | Add to Ch01 Book 3 row: echo-seeds (violent-thought flash at bracelet-warming). Add echo-mechanic and fire-spike notes to a new subsection under "Phelan's Combat Magic." Reference this spec |
| Mere Fields | `characters/mere-fields.md` | Add to Ch01 Book 3 row: seed for discovery arc. Add new subsection noting her echo-discovery arc across Ch04–Ch14 and her clinical protocol for echo-treatment |
| Devod Fields | `characters/devod-fields.md` | Amend Ch01 Book 3 row to frame *"different knobs, same instrument"* and the cart-tracking as echo-amplified Wolf (per Rule A). Reference this spec |
| Calla Floundry | `characters/supporting-cast.md` | Expand the Calla Floundry entry: panic attacks + crowded-public-space triggers, Mere's herbal follow-up, becomes a living case-study in Mere's protocol. Move to dedicated `characters/calla-floundry.md` if she grows beyond minor status |
| Ned Floundry | `characters/supporting-cast.md` | Add echo-present-but-slower-recovery note. The protocol hasn't fully reached him yet — seed for later payoff |
| Kimbra | `characters/kimbra.md` (to be created) | Include the Ch04 catalyst beat — therapist-trained observation that unlocks Mere's pattern recognition. Kimbra does not solve; she gives the last variable |
| Kaeran "Kae" Thrainn | `characters/kaeran-thrainn.md` | One-line addition: mild grief-echo / depression flashes separate from his chronic-pain management. Already stable on ghostveil |

---

## 12. Magic System Documentation

Create `world/magic/crystal-drain-echo.md` as a dedicated worldbuilding reference. Contents:

- The mechanic (Rule A summary)
- Baseline/trigger/long-term trajectory
- Treatment (ghostveil / WellsMoon)
- Victim map (cross-reference Book 2 + Book 3 cases)
- Pre-Compact terminology note (specific pre-Compact word is a drafter commitment during Ch13–Ch14 drafting)
- Phelan's fire spike as a special case (stress-mode of existing combat capability, not new magic)
- Compact knowledge model (compartmentalized)
- Discovery arc pointers (Ch04 catalyst → Ch05 naming → Ch14 archive confirmation)

Keep the doc concise; it's a worldbuilding reference, not a re-statement of this spec.

**`world/magic/runic-flow-rules.md`** also gets a one-paragraph pointer to the new doc and a note under the magic system's "residue" section that pre-Compact life-force extraction leaves structural residue on the victim that modern Runic Flow theory does not fully account for (this is discovered in Ch13–Ch14).

**`world/magic/exploits-log.md`** does not get an entry for the echo itself (it's not an exploit). It will get an entry for the fire spike when the Ch17 or Ch19 chapter is drafted — the spike is a stress-mode Phelan discovers, and the log is the canonical cross-book exploit/capability record.

---

## 13. Story Summary Update

`world/story-summary-book3.md` needs:

- A new **Plot Threads** row for the echo mechanic (starting state: "Seeded in Ch01/Ch02 via violent-thought flashes; Mere's discovery arc begins Ch04 via Kimbra catalyst; archive confirmation Ch14")
- A short **Cast State** update for Calla Floundry (survives drain; will surface in Ch05 with Mere's visit) and Ned Floundry (deferred — echo present but slower recovery)
- A new **World / Plot Facts** bullet: *"Crystal drain echo (personality residual) is canonical from Book 3 Ch01 onward — seeded in Ch01/Ch02, named by Mere in Ch05, archive-confirmed in Ch14. Treatment: ghostveil / WellsMoon. Compact compartmentalized knowledge (Option B). See `docs/superpowers/specs/2026-04-21-crystal-drain-echo-design.md`."*

---

## 14. Book 4+ Seeds

- **Can Phelan access the fire spike without the echo?** Unanswered in Book 3. Ledger's elevation-scene folders are a natural Book 4 container
- **Compact paper trail.** At what level did senior leadership authorize the ghostveil chokehold knowing about echo-treatment access? Book 4+ institutional-war material
- **Drain-echo victims beyond Drenwick.** Kimbra writes home to Wensley asking if any neighbors were ever drained — Book 4+ seed for expanding the mechanic's scope and the guild's supply network
- **Ned Floundry's case.** Protocol hasn't reached him yet at Book 3's close. Clinical-beat or subplot material
- **Institutional corruption angle.** The Compact's regulatory apparatus has created a class of chronically affected people the institution knowingly neglected. That's a new kind of legal/political angle on the Compact war — not just "they file grievances," but "they created the victims they refuse to treat"
- **Phelan's violent-thought baseline.** Stabilizes but does not disappear. Ongoing noise texture across later books. Whether he chooses ghostveil routinely or only situationally is a character question for Book 4+

---

## 15. Related Files

- `outline/book3-outline.md` — requires update with echo beats per §10
- `chapters/book3/ch01-final.md` — requires retrofit per §9.1
- `chapters/book3/ch02-draft.md` — requires retrofit per §9.2
- `characters/` — multiple file updates per §11
- `world/magic/crystal-drain-echo.md` — to be created per §12
- `world/magic/runic-flow-rules.md` — to be updated with pointer per §12
- `world/story-summary-book3.md` — to be updated per §13
- `chapters/book2/` — locked canon, not touched. The echo retroactively reframes Book 2 events (Ch09 bracelet half-absorb, Ch11 Floundry drainings, Ch12 Devod draining) but the Book 2 text stays as-is

---

## 16. Open Questions

- **Pre-Compact term for the echo:** drafter commitment during Ch13–Ch14 drafting. Candidates: *veshel* (residue/shadow), *drain-shade*, *velhost*, or another pre-Compact-style coinage. Not locked in this spec
- **Specific placement of the Ch01 and Ch02 retrofit parentheticals:** drafter selects one placement each, per §9 candidates
- **Whether Calla Floundry gets promoted to her own character file** (`characters/calla-floundry.md`) or stays as a supporting-cast entry: decide during Ch05 drafting
- **The Ch04 Kimbra catalyst line exact wording:** drafter commitment. Spec gives candidate *"Your eyes have been somewhere else since I walked in. Not tired. Somewhere else. When did that start?"* — finalize during Ch04 drafting
- **Ned Floundry's specific echo content:** deferred. Drafter commits when/if he surfaces on-page in Book 3; otherwise held as Book 4+ material
