book3: finalize Ch02 "The File" + Ch01 and continuity sweep

Ch02 drafted, reviewed, and finalized — ruin case brief, Compact
grievance reveal, grooming hint. Stage 5 continuity across story
summary, timeline, and character files (Phelan, Mere, Ledger, Devod,
Sabre, Holven). Bundles prior-session work: Ch01 final, crystal-drain-
echo series canon, WellsMoon moss hybrid artifacts, and spec cleanup.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

world/magic/crystal-drain-echo.md

@@ -0,0 +1,100 @@
+# Crystal Drain Echo — Worldbuilding Reference
+
+*Pre-Compact magical phenomenon. Canon from Book 3 Ch01 onward. Full design:* `docs/superpowers/specs/2026-04-21-crystal-drain-echo-design.md`.
+
+---
+
+## The Mechanic
+
+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:** *The drain amplifies what the victim most deeply suppressed.*
+
+The content of each victim's echo is unique; the governing rule is universal.
+
+---
+
+## Baseline and Triggers
+
+- **Baseline:** stable, low-grade, always present after the drain. Does not progress or worsen over time.
+- **Triggers (temporary amplification):** psychological stress, active magic use, proximity to other echo-affected people, proximity to drain-trace residue (crystal artifacts, the Athel Repository'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.
+
+---
+
+## Treatment
+
+**Ghostveil** (Compact-suppressed arcane-dampening moss — existing canon as Kae's chronic-pain treatment) dampens the echo. Same drug, same mechanism, applies to both sides of the crystal's damage.
+
+- Field dose modulates the echo for several hours.
+- Refusing the dose is a valid character choice (see the Book 3 Ch19 beat).
+- **WellsMoon** (Mere's ghostveil × Moonswell kitchen-scale hybrid) makes treatment producible without Compact supply. Broad anti-Compact leverage — the ghostveil chokehold breaks for echo-victims generally, not just for Kae.
+
+---
+
+## Victim Map (Book 1–3 known cases)
+
+| Victim | Drain source | Suppressed | Echo |
+|--------|--------------|------------|------|
+| **Phelan Varrant** | Bracelet half-absorb, Book 2 Ch09 | Dangerous/violent capacity (combat magic suppressed since Brannick bullying) | Intrusive violent-thought flashes + the fire spike manifestation (see below). Milder than full-drain victims because the bracelet absorbed the worst of the current |
+| **Devod Fields** | Full drain, Book 2 Ch12 | The Wolf / Pathfinder identity (buried under wagon-vendor charm for decades) | Amplified Pathfinder — hypervigilance, cart-and-terrain tracking, "volume turned up on Pathfinder, down on everything else." Stabilized at Book 3 Ch01 (~4 months post-drain, farthest along) |
+| **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 (notably the canal market) |
+| **Ned Floundry** | Full drain, Book 2 Ch11 (reserves doubly depleted from prior curse recovery) | TBD | Worst dose; slower physical recovery; echo present but Mere's protocol hasn't reached him yet. Deferred content — Book 4+ material |
+| **Kae Thrainn** | User/vessel, not victim. Partial — amplification drew from his own reservoir | Grief over Elara (ongoing, separate from pain) | Mild grief-flashes / depression episodes under the pain-management baseline. Stable on ghostveil |
+| **Other Book 2 drain survivors** (unnamed dockworker, shopkeeper's wife, arcane-district student survivor, etc.) | Full drains Book 2 Ch02–Ch11 | Various | Each unique per Rule A. Mere's clinical ledger grows across Book 3; seeds for Book 4+ |
+
+**Vellen Thrace** is excluded (killed during the drain).
+
+---
+
+## Phelan's Fire Spike (Special Case)
+
+Physical manifestation of Phelan's echo. Not new magic — **stress-mode of existing ring/whip combat capability.** The ring gives projection; under loss-of-control from a violent-thought flash, the projection locks rigid instead of shaping as a whip. Same fire material, different structural form.
+
+- **Form:** stiff fire projection, ~15-foot effective reach. Glasses stone on impact.
+- **Trigger:** an intrusive violent-thought flash spikes sharply enough that Phelan's suppression of the buried combat capability breaks.
+- **Flaw Sight reading:** when the spike forms, Phelan's own Flaw Sight shows him its structure is *wrong* — held by desperation, not by design. The central book-level thesis landed in a single beat: the man who finds every flaw in other people's magic watches his own magic form around a crack.
+- **Cost:** psychological, not physical. The voluntary whip is available afterward. The spike is a stress-mode to revert from.
+
+Two on-page uses in Book 3: Ch17 primer (mercenary ambush, half-second flicker) and Ch19 peak (Cass confrontation, Phelan reverts to whip and wins with restraint).
+
+---
+
+## Compact Knowledge (Compartmentalized)
+
+- **Senior leadership** knows the echo mechanic in fragments. Pre-Compact archive material referencing it is held in restricted sections; officers who approach it are redirected.
+- **Cass operationally knew.** This retroactively reframes Book 2 Ch12 — Cass chose Devod specifically because he knew the drain would amplify the Wolf.
+- **Rank-and-file Compact officers don't know.** Enforcement personnel at Book 3 Ch18 standoff are doing their jobs without the full picture.
+- **Ghostveil chokehold** is partly about limiting echo-treatment access — Compact leadership knows this; public justification is pricing/supply control.
+- **Book 3 archive-leverage beat (Ch20):** one of the inscription panels Phelan lays down at the gate is echo documentation; the Compact commander recognizes it on-page. That is the reader's confirmation the Compact knew.
+
+---
+
+## Terminology
+
+- **Team shorthand:** "the echo" — coined by Mere in Book 3 Ch05 before the archive exists for them.
+- **Pre-Compact technical term:** gloss as *depletion residual* or *sheath-loss imprint*. Specific pre-Compact word is a drafter commitment during Book 3 Ch13–Ch14 drafting (the archive scenes). Both terms coexist in prose after Ch14: team dialogue says *echo*, archive pages carry the technical term.
+
+---
+
+## Discovery Arc Pointers (Book 3)
+
+- **Seeded** Ch01 (Phelan violent-thought flash at bracelet-warming), Ch02 (grievance reveal flash), Ch03 (fusion scene flash at the microscope). Devod's on-page Ch01 behavior retroactively reads as the echo.
+- **Catalyzed** Ch04 — Kimbra's therapist-trained observation gives Mere the last variable.
+- **Named** Ch05 — Mere visits Calla, crystallizes the hypothesis, tells Phelan *"I think the drain leaves something behind. I'm calling it an echo."*
+- **Mechanically confirmed** Ch06 — Mere trials a low ghostveil dose on Phelan in the carriage; noise quiets.
+- **Archive-confirmed** Ch13–Ch14 — Phelan finds pre-Compact documentation of the phenomenon alongside the flawfinder's gift.
+- **Peak** Ch19 — Phelan's ghostveil refusal + fire spike + restraint-win.
+- **Institutional payoff** Ch20–Ch21 — archive leverage panel at the gate + Ledger naming echo documentation in the elevation scene.
+- **Coda** Ch22–Ch24 — WellsMoon kitchen production serves victims broadly; Kimbra writes home to Wensley asking if any neighbors were ever drained (Book 4+ seed).
+
+---
+
+## Related Files
+
+- `docs/superpowers/specs/2026-04-21-crystal-drain-echo-design.md` — full design spec (Book 3 integration map, retrofits, character updates)
+- `world/magic/runic-flow-rules.md` — magic system overview (pointer added)
+- `world/magic/exploits-log.md` — will receive a fire-spike entry when Book 3 Ch17 or Ch19 is drafted
+- `outline/book3-outline.md` — The Echo Thread section + Subplot Thread Map row
+- `world/story-summary-book3.md` — plot-thread row for the echo
+- `characters/phelan-varrant.md` · `characters/mere-fields.md` · `characters/devod-fields.md` · `characters/kimbra.md` · `characters/supporting-cast.md` (Calla, Ned) · `characters/kaeran-thrainn.md`

world/magic/runic-flow-rules.md

@@ -38,3 +38,16 @@ Full magic system documentation for Corvel.
    - This application was Devod Fields' conceptual breakthrough ("if you can't unlock the lock, move what it's locked to"), executed technically by Phelan
 
 **Sniff parallel:** The binding salts Mere used intuitively on the cursed dog (Ch03) operate on the same principle as ghostveil moss — dampening magical energy to weaken a working. The dog cure was the small-scale proof of concept; the Floundry cure is the industrial-strength application. Phelan recognizes this connection explicitly.
+
+**Ghostveil and the crystal-drain echo (Book 3 canon):** Ghostveil also dampens the personality residuals that pre-Compact amplification crystals leave in their drain victims. Same drug, same mechanism, extended application. The Compact's ghostveil chokehold is partly maintained to limit treatment access for this class of victim — senior leadership knows, rank-and-file does not. See `/world/magic/crystal-drain-echo.md` for the mechanic, victim map, and discovery arc.
+
+---
+
+## Pre-Compact Residue — Sheath-Loss Imprint
+
+Pre-Compact amplification crystals (Kae's Mallory crystal is the canonical example) draw life-force from their targets. The drain strips the victim's arcane **sheath** — the internal structure that regulates suppressed aspects of the psyche and dormant magical capacity. The sheath does not fully regrow. Each victim develops a unique personality residual governed by a universal rule: *the drain amplifies what the victim most deeply suppressed.*
+
+Modern Runic Flow theory does not fully account for this. Pre-Compact archives document the phenomenon (referenced in the Book 3 Athel Repository archive). The Compact's public magical-system doctrine omits it.
+
+Full worldbuilding reference: `/world/magic/crystal-drain-echo.md`
+Full design spec: `docs/superpowers/specs/2026-04-21-crystal-drain-echo-design.md`

world/story-summary-book3.md

@@ -0,0 +1,174 @@
+# Story Summary — Book 3: The Sealed Chamber
+
+**Purpose:** Quick-reference continuity document for Claude Code. Consult this file at the start of any drafting or revision session to establish context without re-reading all chapter drafts. For detailed revisions or line-level continuity checks, consult the full chapter drafts directly.
+
+**Last updated:** Ch02 final (2026-04-21)
+
+---
+
+## 1. Story Timeline Overview
+
+| Chapter | Title | Days Covered | Elapsed (from Book 3 Day 1) |
+|---------|-------|-------------|---------------------|
+| Ch01 | The New Arithmetic | Day 1 | Day 1 |
+| Ch02 | The File | Day 2 | Day 2 |
+
+**Time gap from Book 2:** ~4 months after Book 2 Epilogue (Day 29, "late winter — edge of the first thaw"). Book 3 opens in very late winter, approaching early spring.
+
+*For detailed bell/time references, see `/world/timeline-book3.md`.*
+
+---
+
+## 2. Chapter Summaries
+
+### Ch01: The New Arithmetic
+
+**Timeline:** Day 1. Morning through evening.
+
+**Opening state:** Four months since Ledger's "take three or four days… then come see me" at the Book 2 Epilogue wedding party. Phelan went to Ledger's office four days later; Ledger didn't have the case ready yet and sent him away — *"When it's ready, I'll send for you. Keep your tools warm."* The intervening four months have been a holding pattern. Phelan fills the time with:
+
+- **Helping Mere on the WellsMoon moss project** — a ghostveil × Moonswell hybrid aimed at kitchen-scale production of arcane-dampening material for Kae's herbal treatment (and a second front against the Compact's ghostveil chokehold). Four months of failures stacked on a shelf, one promising lead not yet broken. Brass microscope on the kitchen table for eleven weeks. Magic-ground lens, 40x — borrowed from a supplier who refused payment three separate ways.
+- **Taking the thaumometer apart without taking it apart.** Ledger's wedding gift, pre-Compact. Paper range 50 yards; Phelan has it at 70 on a still day. Lens softens at the edge of its map like glass holding focus a heartbeat too long. Prefers earth-keyed workings to fire by a factor not yet pinned. Tested with Leon on an unused dockside lot — Leon threwing fire at chalk marks, Phelan watching the lens draw flares in real time at distances the manual didn't mention.
+- **Three-thread noise at any hour** — the moss, the thaumometer, whatever Ledger isn't saying. Occasionally synthesises something useful, more often synthesises a migraine. Within tolerances.
+
+**Status changes canonical in this chapter:**
+
+- **Marriage filed.** Phelan and Mere filed at the Drenwick court house during the "filing week" (gap-between-books). Civil registry, crown contract. Canonical in-text via a passing Ch01 reference ("my private Rev 12 from the week we'd filed at the court house"). Devod, Leon, Carter, Carson, and Ledger remain uninformed per Book 2 Ch21 lock — reveals deferred across Book 3.
+- **Pregnancy.** Mere is approximately 11 weeks along. Morning sickness presents around the third bell — she comes down to the kitchen slightly later than the prior month and significantly later than the month before that, carrying a pattern Phelan notices and does not mention. Pregnancy still private to Phelan and Mere. Devod clocks the shape but will not name it without being told.
+- **Fire training plateau cracked.** Book 2's 15-second integration ceiling gave way "in deep winter." Phelan and Leon now hold 18 seconds on a good day, 20 on a day with weather. By mutual unspoken agreement, they do not congratulate themselves about it.
+- **Bracelet behaviour.** Cool and quiet for most of the four months. Pulsed faintly once, weeks before Ch01, at a dockside squall that drained a bargeman's preserved-weather charm crate two streets over. Filed by Phelan as a reminder the bracelet is still paying attention. Warms gently for the first time in four months at chapter close, against the inside of Phelan's wrist, as Ledger's summons arrives.
+
+**Morning scene (Chandler's Row):** Kitchen faces the wrong way for good dawn light. Phelan puts water on. Mere down slowly, moves with shoulders square and stomach not surprised. Ginger by weight (two drams — the consistency argument, both of them pretending consistency is the point). *"How's the stairs." / "Stairs are fine. The hour before the stairs is the problem."* House plans on the sideboard — Rev 13. Mere's redraw six days after Phelan showed her Rev 12: nursery adjacent to east-facing kitchen (Mere's morning-light argument for a child's face), upstairs room over the drainage pilings redrafted from nursery to office. In one reading Phelan files but does not examine, the office is a room that could accommodate a second child without being explicitly designed to. Microscope moved three inches left so morning light wouldn't warm the glass.
+
+**Devod visit (second bell):** Walking stick taps twice on the step before he enters — a courtesy, Phelan has concluded, not an aging tell. A sound for Mere, wherever she is in the house, to know her father is at the door without getting up. Started some weeks after Brennan Toor's Book 2 Ch15 visit. Devod brings Reseda (Carson told him Mere was out), a wax-sealed jar he sealed himself, and a Moonswell cutting from his own trays — bred a week and a half past the last one, leaves denser. Kept the seventh-bell cycle, shaved three minutes off the sixteenth-night lantern exposure. *"Four killed a tray."* Mere laughs — short, not performance. Devod sits. Left leg takes a heartbeat longer than the right on sitting down — knee, not hip. Post-draining Devod folder now replaces the much thinner *DEVOD: WAGON DRIVER* folder. Discusses Rev 13: approves east kitchen, recommends a slatted tilt-able shade panel instead of curtains. Does not ask the question that would turn it into a conversation Mere hasn't agreed to yet. Fourth bell, looks through the doorway at Mere's ghostveil jars: *"If this works, the guild has enough supply for Kae's herbal treatment to stop buying through the Compact when we run out."* Second front in the fight. Mere acknowledges. Devod leaves. Phelan watches him clear the gate: walking stick functional, eye not — tracks a cart across the lane for a half second longer than a man who had no reason to.
+
+**Training (sixth bell):** Phelan with Leon in a shaded courtyard off the dockside. Eighteen seconds on the hold. Leon's sleeve warms and cools in the throwing-for-effect rhythm. Shoulder behaves.
+
+**Evening (workshop corner):** Mere has moved to the workshop corner — western light bad for the microscope, good for reading. Third mix on a slide. Seam held. Seam failed. Seam held. Seam failed. Forty-seven seconds is the number again, for another *47* on the card stack. Mere proposes stitching the seam from the intact side out — threading, not patching. Would need 100x; microscope gives 40. The lens is what it is. *"Lines patch. Seams thread."* Tomorrow they try.
+
+**Summons (seventh bell):** Courier at the door — young woman, grey jacket, guild pin. One firm rap. Folded card, Ledger's seal. *"For you, Locksmith."* Two lines inside: a bell time, a street. Not the office — the file room. *"The file room is where he goes when he's going to hand me something heavy."* Tomorrow, second bell.
+
+**Closing beat:** Phelan at the table. Card. Thaumometer. Bracelet warming gently for the first time in four months. Mere closes the microscope cover — small clean click. *"Get the shoulder warm in the morning." / "Get the noise warm too."* Mere upstairs with Sniff at her heels. *Ledger, it turned out, was ready.*
+
+---
+
+### Ch02: The File
+
+**Timeline:** Day 2. Second bell through late afternoon.
+
+**Opening (before second bell):** Phelan walks from Chandler's Row to the guild hall via his usual route — across the canal bridge, through the northern warrens, into the guild quarter. Bracelet warm on his wrist, unchanged since last night. Arrives five minutes early. Receptionist does not look up (eight months of not looking up, long since stopped reading as strategy). Second floor, corridor, third door. Not the office — the file room. *"The file room is where he goes when he's going to hand me something heavy."*
+
+**The briefing (second bell — file room):** Three files on the table in a ruler-straight column. Ledger seated across; chair Phelan is meant to take faces the window (face lit, Ledger's shadowed). Opens with *"Varrant"* not *"Locksmith"* — informal for openers.
+
+*Phase 1 — The Job (the three files):*
+
+1. **Leather file — Kade Reach Survey, 20 years old.** Pathfinder contract requisitioned by House Varnesse (Thorngate) under Duchess Pamira's late husband. Walled pre-Compact research compound on her eastern coast, three cliff-face mines, a sealed perimeter gate. Pre-Compact read confirmed three ways (palisade preservation working Compact has not replicated; inscription notation predating Runic Flow standardisation by a century; gate ward outside current technique). Three hands in the margins. The third hand bracketed, restless, drew the gate from side, below, and inside-out. Margin note: *The gate is a ward, not a door. —DF.* Phelan recognises the *thinking* before the initials. Ledger confirms: Devod on the team at 35, his last contract before delivery work became his life. **Pamira has held Devod's handwriting in her drawer for 20 years and has never met him.** Contract closed — *pre-Compact adaptive ward, outside current capability, defer.* She waited. Her husband died. She kept waiting. Four months ago she stopped.
+2. **Cloth file — Scout 1's field journal.** Tier-Two Cairns operative deployed the week of Phelan's wedding. Six weeks of patient perimeter work cross-referencing Devod's 20-year-old sketches (*terrain holds. Mine 1 entrance unchanged. Gate intact, ward appears active.*). Last entry: a confident hypothesis about the gate's ward architecture, then nothing. Forced the gate week six; the ward adapted and killed him. The journal ran out mid-book.
+3. **Paper file — Forensics report.** Unknown operative's hand. Kill pattern, defensive posture, arcane burn radius. Conclusion: *pre-Compact adaptive ward, still active, unchanged from survey-era assessment, lethal to force.* **Sabre** (Ledger's field operative) deployed with a forensics partner week 14 when silence passed tolerance. Recovered body, journal, report. Partner returned week 16. Sabre stayed on-site light rotation, sending-stone updates. **Phelan briefed week 17. Today.** Ledger does not apologise for operational time.
+
+**Why now — two reasons (Ledger):**
+
+1. **Duke Garrett Holven (Aldermere)** has been acquiring distressed noble debt across the north for a decade. One of Pamira's husband's unresolved obligations landed in Holven's ledger recently. He has not moved. He could. She knows.
+2. Through the **old network** (the Cairns) Pamira heard about *an operative called the Locksmith.* Wrote to them. The Cairns brought the letter to Ledger via his standing Wolf-intercept order (Book 2 precaution after Devod's draining). First time the standing order has been needed.
+
+**The payment (sweetener):** 25% guild split + operational expenses standard. **On top of that, named-operative share of the artifact sale** per Phelan's tier. Ledger worked the number with Carter on Leon's pricing model — floor and ceiling, both conservative. Ledger produces a single slip of paper from under the third file (he had been sitting on it literally the whole conversation) and slides it across. The number is house-in-range. (*The nursery. The east-facing kitchen. That number changes everything and he knows it.*) Phelan accepts.
+
+*Phase 2 — The Pressure (the fourth file — slimmer, darker):* The Compact filed a formal grievance 12 days ago reopening the Book 1 qualifications inquiry (the one Ledger got withdrawn at end of the Kae case), with the Book 2 crystal alteration attached as new evidence. Charge: Phelan is not qualified to handle magical items. **Relief sought: strip of certification and expulsion from the guild.** Cass is witness of record — reassigned out of Drenwick (different city, different office) but the filing does not move with the filer. Ledger's framing: *"I bought you a year. They spent four months of it writing the grievance. They were always coming back."* Ruin job is dual-purpose — pays AND procedural escape. Noble-estate jurisdiction favours the host; Compact cannot depose a guild operative on guild business without guild counsel present. **Does the Compact's jurisdiction reach higher than contractor?** Ledger deflects: *"That is a question I would like you to leave with me for now."* Phelan files the deflection as the next conversation, not today's. Phelan registers an unbidden violent-thought flash — *I want the hands that wrote the filing to be in the fire* — with a shape he did not put there. Filed. (Echo Ch02 seed — grievance reveal is the trigger, consistent with the outline's Ch01–03 echo-seed thread.)
+
+*Phase 3 — The grooming hint:* Ledger, flat and rehearsed: *"You've been carrying more than the paperwork says. That's about to matter."* Phelan does not ask what he means; the noise catalogues it. *He has been holding that file since before the wedding.* First on-page leak of Ledger's private knowledge of Flaw Sight.
+
+**Micro-hook at the door:** Ledger drops *"Locksmith"* on Phelan's way out, then: *"Good to have you working again."* Varrant in, Locksmith out — elevation acknowledged without being explained.
+
+**Walk home (via the canal district, not the guild quarter):** Five threads in the noise — moss, thaumometer, gate, scout, Holven. One more than Phelan's three-stream working limit; he sends moss to the front because tonight is moss.
+
+**Chandler's Row (edge of fourth bell):** Door unlocked (Mere). She's at the workshop corner, microscope, slide in hand, preparing not working. Sniff in his corner, confirms Phelan, resumes. Without turning: *"It's on isn't it?" / "It's on." / "When." / "Four days. Carriage. I leave Fifthday morning."* She turns. Hand to abdomen — the sentence it has become over the last several weeks, neither performed nor hidden. Phelan tells her about the grievance. *"The Compact reopened the first-year inquiry. Attached the crystal as new evidence. Relief sought, expulsion."* Mere takes it the way Mere takes things in — sits, thinks, makes one adjustment to her evening plan that is a sentence she will not say for twelve hours. Then: *"Then let's finish the cell fix tonight."* Sets up Ch03's cold-open fusion scene. Phelan sets the satchel down on the far side of the table, away from Mere's instruments. *"Start the mix." / "Starting."* Outside, the afternoon was going.
+
+**Status changes canonical in this chapter:**
+
+- **The ruin case is accepted.** Phelan has said yes on an artifact-share sweetener that puts the house in range. Fifthday-morning carriage departure; ~4 days out, ~10 on-site if lucky, ~4 back (three weeks minimum away from Mere).
+- **Compact grievance fully known to Phelan and Mere.** Filing date: 12 days before Ch02 (Day 2). Witness of record: Cass. Relief sought: expulsion. Ledger's counter-strategy is procedural — get Phelan onto guild business outside Compact jurisdictional reach while the filing runs. Phelan does not yet understand that the grievance cannot be fought on its merits.
+- **Grooming hint planted.** *"You've been carrying more than the paperwork says."* First on-page acknowledgement from Ledger that he knows something about Flaw Sight beyond what was filed after Ch18/Ch20.
+- **Twenty-year Pathfinder history named on-page.** Devod was on the original Kade Reach survey at ~35. The file has been in Pamira's drawer for 20 years. Devod does not yet know. The team-assembly logic (Phelan for the gate, Leon for the artifacts, Devod because his name is in the survey) is the file's argument, not Ledger's invention.
+- **Sabre introduced.** Ledger's field operative. Has been on-site at Kade Reach for ~8 weeks on light rotation with sending-stone relay. Phelan will meet her at the Duchess's gates. Ledger chose her because she can sit on a site for eight weeks without filing a report that gets longer than it needs to.
+- **Bracelet mid-warmth sustained.** Warmed last night alongside the summons; has not cooled back. A reminder the thing on his wrist has moods of its own.
+- **Echo seed #2.** A violent-thought flash during the grievance reveal with a shape Phelan did not put there. Filed, not examined. Consistent with the Ch01–03 echo-seed seeding arc.
+
+---
+
+## 3. Cast State After Ch02
+
+| Character | State entering Book 3 / as of Ch02 end |
+|-----------|----------------------------------------|
+| **Phelan Varrant** | Tier Two. Ruin case accepted. Carriage leaves Fifthday morning (~3 days from Ch02 Day 2). Knows about the grievance — relief sought: expulsion. Knows Ledger knows more than the paperwork says. Married (filed gap-between-books). Fire integration at 18–20s. Bracelet mid-warmth sustained since Ch01 close. Home: Chandler's Row. |
+| **Mere Fields** | ~11 weeks pregnant. Married. Lead on the WellsMoon moss hybrid — the cell-fix seam run happens Ch02 evening into Ch03 cold open. Knows about the grievance and the trip. One adjustment to her evening plan appended, a sentence she will not say for twelve hours. Pregnancy still private to her and Phelan. |
+| **Devod Fields** | Post-draining state stable and known to Phelan. Wolf no longer hidden from Phelan's model. **Unknown to Devod (will surface in Ch03 brief):** his 20-year-old Kade Reach margin note has routed the ruin case to Phelan; Pamira has held his handwriting for two decades. Running his own Moonswell trays. Uninformed about marriage or pregnancy. |
+| **Ledger** | On-page Ch02 briefing. Delivered the ruin file, the grievance file, and the grooming hint. Handling Phelan's artifact-share sweetener off Carter and Leon's pricing model. Holding an answer about whether the Compact's jurisdiction reaches higher than contractor — *"a question I would like you to leave with me for now."* |
+| **Sabre** (NEW on-page, off-stage) | Ledger's field operative. Has been at Kade Reach on light rotation for ~8 weeks since recovering Scout 1's body at week 14. Sending-stone relay to Ledger. Phelan will meet her at the Duchess's gates on arrival. Chosen because she can sit on a site for 8 weeks without filing a report that gets longer than it needs to. |
+| **Leon D'Nardis** | Off-page in Ch02 (briefed later). Carter's ward-disruption array and his own notes will be delivered to Chandler's Row by end of day. Uninformed about marriage or pregnancy. |
+| **Carter / Jenet Carterson** | Off-page. Carter is quartermaster — worked Leon's pricing model with Ledger to produce the Ch02 artifact-share numbers. Uninformed about marriage or pregnancy. |
+| **Carson Johnsby** | Off-page. Uninformed about marriage or pregnancy. |
+| **Kaeran "Kae" Thrainn** | Off-page. In guild safehouse under Ledger's operational custody. Herbal protocol at ~80% pain relief. |
+| **Cassius Rykhard** | Off-page. Reassigned out of Drenwick (different city, different office). Witness of record on the grievance; filing does not move with him. Still institutionally backed at Ch02 — Ch12 "burns" beat has NOT happened. |
+| **Duchess Pamira Varnesse** (NEW, off-page) | Duchy of Thorngate (north). Has held Devod's 20-year-old margin note in her drawer for two decades. Letter to the Cairns four months ago opened the case. Duke Garrett Holven of Aldermere holds one of her late husband's unresolved obligations in his ledger; he has not moved on it. She is aware of that too. |
+| **Duke Garrett Holven** (NEW, off-page) | Aldermere (north, peer to Thorngate). Has been acquiring distressed noble debt across the north for a decade. One of Pamira's husband's obligations landed in his ledger recently. Off-page pressure on Pamira. |
+| **Kimbra** | Off-page. Arrives Ch04. |
+
+---
+
+## 4. World / Plot Facts Set in Ch01–Ch02
+
+- **Gap between Book 2 Epilogue (Day 29) and Book 3 Day 1:** ~4 months. Late winter → very late winter / approach of early spring.
+- **Phelan's post-wedding visit to Ledger's office** occurred four days after the Epilogue wedding party. Ledger didn't have the case ready. Sent Phelan off with *"When it's ready, I'll send for you. Keep your tools warm."*
+- **WellsMoon hybrid project** is at iteration-past-failure stage, one promising lead. Current block: the seam fails at 47 seconds. Mere's hypothesis: stitch the seam from the intact side out, which would need 100x magnification (microscope gives 40x).
+- **Devod's Moonswell cultivation** (separate from the hybrid work) — his tray runs a seventh-bell cycle and a sixteenth-night lantern exposure shaved by three minutes; produces denser leaves, not prettier.
+- **Thaumometer (Ledger's Book 2 Epilogue wedding gift):** Pre-Compact. Paper range 50 yards, extended to 70 on a still day. Lens softens at the edge of its map. Prefers earth-keyed workings to fire by a factor not yet pinned. Carried against Phelan's chest inside his coat.
+- **Fire training plateau:** Broken in deep winter between Books 2 and 3. 18 seconds typical, 20 in weather. No forced-progress beat per outline — status only.
+- **House plans at Rev 13** (up from Book 2 Ch21 Rev 11, with Rev 12 as Phelan's private filing-week draft): nursery adjacent to east-facing kitchen, upstairs room redrafted from nursery to office with a tree-line-facing window.
+- **Compact ghostveil chokehold:** Every herbalist running a chronic-pain protocol buys through the Compact. Guild's supply for Kae's treatment is finite; when it runs out, the guild switches to Compact supply unless WellsMoon works. Devod names this "a second front in the fight."
+- **Marriage filed:** Drenwick court house, crown civil registry. Gap-between-books. Phelan and Mere legally registered as spouses. Reveal threads deferred to Book 3.
+- **Jenet Carterson canonical on-page reference** as Carter's wife with a key to Chandler's Row (established Book 2 Epilogue; first-mentioned-in-narrative in Book 3 via Sniff's feeding routine).
+- **Crystal drain echo** is canonical series worldbuilding from Book 3 Ch01 onward. The drain amplifies what the victim most deeply suppressed; stable baseline, ghostveil-treatable, Compact-knowledge compartmentalized. Ch01 contributes the first on-page seed — one unbidden violent-thought flash in Phelan's noise at the chapter's closing beat. Ch02 contributes the second seed — a violent-thought flash during the grievance reveal (*"I want the hands that wrote it to be in the fire"*) with a shape Phelan did not put there. Full mechanic: `docs/superpowers/specs/2026-04-21-crystal-drain-echo-design.md` and `/world/magic/crystal-drain-echo.md`.
+- **Scout Deployment Sequence canonical on-page (Ch02):** Scout 1 deployed wedding week, killed at gate week 6, silence 6–14, Sabre + forensics partner deployed week 14, body/journal/report recovered weeks 14–16, partner returned week 16, Sabre stayed on-site rotation, Phelan briefed week 17 (Ch02 Day 2). Ledger pre-Book-3 timeline in `characters/ledger.md` § "The Scout Deployment Sequence" is confirmed by Ch02 prose.
+- **Pre-Compact adaptive ward at Kade Reach gate:** pre-Compact architecture confirmed three ways (palisade preservation, inscription notation, gate ward outside current technique). Adapts to force. Killed Scout 1. Forensics: *still active, unchanged from survey-era assessment, lethal to force.*
+- **Cairns named on-page as the old network (first Ch02 usage).** Pamira wrote to them; they routed the letter to Ledger via his standing Wolf-intercept order. The Cairns are institutional memory — the only people who know where the 20-year file lives. Full Pathfinder reveal still deferred to Ch14.
+- **Guild split on a ruin-class artifact case:** 25% + operational expenses standard. Named-operative artifact-share on top of that per tier. Leon's pricing model used for the floor/ceiling calculation; Carter worked the numbers with Ledger. Specific Ch02 number is on a slip of paper Phelan takes home in the leather file — "house in range" is the reader's takeaway without the number being quoted on-page.
+- **Compact grievance filed 12 days before Ch02 Day 2.** Reopens the Book 1 qualifications inquiry. New evidence: the Book 2 crystal alteration, witnessed by Cass. Relief sought: strip of certification, expulsion from the guild. Cass reassigned out of Drenwick but filing does not move with the filer. Ledger's frame: *"I bought you a year. They spent four months of it writing the grievance."* Cannot be fought on its merits — Ledger knows this, has not volunteered it.
+
+---
+
+## 5. Plot Threads Status (after Ch02)
+
+| Thread | State at Ch01 close |
+|--------|---------------------|
+| **Four-month wait for the case** | Resolved — summons delivered Ch01 seventh bell. File-room briefing Ch02 second bell. |
+| **Ruin case brief** | Delivered Ch02. Phelan accepted. Carriage Fifthday morning. |
+| **Compact grievance (against Phelan's certification)** | Filed 12 days before Ch02. Revealed to Phelan and Mere Ch02. Phelan does not yet know it cannot be fought on its merits; Ledger knows and has not volunteered it. |
+| **Does Compact jurisdiction reach higher than contractor?** | NEW open thread, Ch02. Phelan asked; Ledger deflected: *"That is a question I would like you to leave with me for now."* Phelan files as the next conversation. Pays off Ch21 elevation. |
+| **Ledger's private Flaw Sight knowledge** | First on-page leak Ch02: *"You've been carrying more than the paperwork says. That's about to matter."* Full reveal Ch21. |
+| **Marriage reveal to others** | Still private. Devod, Leon, Carter, Carson, Ledger uninformed per Book 2 lock. |
+| **Pregnancy reveal** | Still private to Phelan and Mere. First reveal planned Ch03 (to Devod). |
+| **WellsMoon fusion** | Pre-breakthrough. 47-second seam block. Ch02 close sets up the Ch03 cold open — *"Then let's finish the cell fix tonight."* |
+| **Fire training plateau** | Broken in deep winter. Status only. |
+| **Bracelet behaviour** | Mid-warmth sustained since Ch01 close. No cooling back as of Ch02 close. |
+| **Devod "second front" position** | Established Ch01. Active. |
+| **Devod's Pathfinder history routing the case** | Ch02: his 20-year-old Kade Reach margin note is why the file lives and why he's on the team. Devod does not yet know he is on the team — Ch03 brief to the team at Chandler's Row is next. |
+| **Pamira holding Devod's handwriting 20 years / never met** | Canonical on-page Ch02. The reunion is scheduled for Ch07 arrival. |
+| **Holven distressed-debt pressure on Pamira** | Introduced Ch02. Off-page. One of her late husband's obligations is in his ledger. He has not moved. |
+| **Crystal drain echo** | Seed #1: Ch01 (violent-thought flash at bracelet-warming close). Seed #2: Ch02 (violent-thought flash during grievance reveal — *"hands that wrote it to be in the fire"*). Consistent with the Ch01–03 echo-seed seeding arc per outline. |
+
+---
+
+## 6. Financial Ledger (approximate, entering Book 3)
+
+*Tracks roughly; not strict canon. Update against `/world/economy.md` before writing any specific silver amount.*
+
+- **Running tally at Book 2 Ch21 close:** 438 silvers saved toward the house.
+- **Monthly recurring income:** 22s Tier Two retainer + 12s ore income through Leon + 12s ghostveil standing order (in Mere's name). = 46 silvers/month recurring.
+- **Four-month gap-between-books addition (no case fees during the hold):** ~184 silvers recurring, minus gap-period expenses (modest given the quiet pattern). Approximate running tally entering Ch01: ~600 silvers, half of the 1,300-silver house target.
+- **House target:** 1,300 silvers per Book 2 Ch21 assessment.
+- **Ch01 financial events:** None on-page beyond the incidental "two small dinners" cost of the brass microscope arrangement.
+- **Ch02 financial events:** No silver changed hands on-page. Ledger produced the artifact-share number on a slip of paper; Phelan folded it once and tucked it inside the leather survey. The reader's takeaway is "house in range." Per Ch15 outline canonical numbers (Leon's projection: 15,000–25,000 silvers total artifact sale, 25% guild cut + Phelan's share), the house is expected to be not just in range but funded by case close. Actual silver-in-hand pending Ch15 (extraction) and Ch22 (sale).
+
+---
+
+*For per-chapter timelines with bells/days, see `/world/timeline-book3.md`.*

world/timeline-book3.md

@@ -0,0 +1,80 @@
+# Book 3 Timeline — The Sealed Chamber
+
+**Purpose:** Track elapsed time between chapters to prevent continuity errors. Update this file whenever a chapter is drafted or revised.
+
+**Season:** Very late winter, approaching early spring. ~4 months after Book 2 Epilogue (Day 29, which was "late winter — edge of the first thaw").
+
+**Bell System:** Bells count 1–12. Bell number ≈ hour of day. Context (morning/afternoon/evening) determines AM/PM equivalent.
+
+---
+
+## Timeline Summary
+
+| Day | Chapter | Day of Week | Key Events |
+|-----|---------|-------------|------------|
+| 1 | Ch01 | Day 1 | Domestic morning at Chandler's Row. Devod visit at second bell (Reseda + Moonswell cutting; "second front" observation at fourth bell). Training with Leon at sixth bell (18s hold). Evening work with Mere on WellsMoon — 47s seam failure persistent. Guild courier delivers Ledger's summons at seventh bell. |
+| 2 | Ch02 | Day 2 | File-room briefing with Ledger at second bell: three-file brief on the Kade Reach ruin (20-year survey + Scout 1's journal + forensics), artifact-share sweetener, case accepted. Grievance disclosed as fourth slimmer/darker file. Grooming hint (*"more than the paperwork says"*). Walk home via canal district. Edge of fourth bell back at Chandler's Row. Evening: cell-fix seam run with Mere sets up Ch03 cold open. Carriage departs Fifthday morning (~3 days from Day 2). |
+
+**Time gap from Book 2 Epilogue:** ~4 months from Book 2 Day 29 to Book 3 Day 1. Per Phelan's Ch01 narration — *"That was four months ago"* — referencing Ledger's Epilogue handoff line. Deep winter → very late winter / approach of early spring.
+
+---
+
+## Ch01: The New Arithmetic — Detailed Timeline
+
+| Time | Bell | Event |
+|------|------|-------|
+| Before first bell | — | Jenet Carterson drops a bread crust wrapped in cloth on the counter for Sniff on her way to the dockside market. She has a key; uses it most mornings since the winter when she took over Sniff's feeding routine. |
+| Early morning | — | Phelan down first, puts water on. Kitchen faces the wrong way for good dawn light — sun reaches far wall before the table. Bracelet cool on the side table. Brass microscope on the table (eleven weeks there). Ghostveil jars in the workshop corner. Moonswell tray in the window behind Mere's lattice panel. |
+| ~Third bell | Third bell | Mere comes down — morning-sickness window. Shoulders square, stomach not surprised. Ginger by weight (two drams). *"How's the stairs." / "Stairs are fine. The hour before the stairs is the problem."* House plans (Rev 13) discussed. Leon training confirmed. Shoulder status: *"Fine"* — the unspoken 18s/20s plateau-broken state. |
+| Second bell | Second bell | Devod's walking-stick knock at the step (two-pause-one). Brings Reseda, a wax-sealed jar, and a Moonswell cutting. Sits at the table. Discusses Rev 13 — approves east kitchen, recommends slatted tilt-able shade panel over curtains. |
+| ~Fourth bell | Fourth bell | Devod looks at the ghostveil jars through the doorway. *"If this works, the guild has enough supply for Kae's herbal treatment to stop buying through the Compact when we run out."* Mere acknowledges. Devod departs shortly after. Phelan watches him clear the gate — tracks a cart half a second longer than a man who had no reason to. |
+| ~Sixth bell | Sixth bell | Phelan trains with Leon in a shaded courtyard off the dockside. Eighteen seconds on the hold. Leon's sleeve warms-and-cools in throwing-for-effect rhythm. |
+| Late afternoon | — | Phelan walks home. Kitchen in west-angled light now. Mere has moved to the workshop corner with third mix on a slide. Thaumometer set on far end of table. Bracelet back on its strap on Phelan's wrist. |
+| Evening | — | Seam work. Seam held / seam failed pattern. 47 seconds repeats twice in a row. Mere proposes stitching from the intact side out — threading, not patching. Would need 100x; microscope gives 40. *"Lines patch. Seams thread."* |
+| ~Seventh bell | Seventh bell | Guild courier — young woman in grey jacket with guild pin — knocks once firmly. Delivers folded card with Ledger's seal. *"For you, Locksmith."* Inside: two lines, a bell time, a street. Not the office — the file room. Tomorrow, second bell. |
+| Evening into night | — | Phelan at the table with the card, the thaumometer, and the bracelet warming gently for the first time in four months. Mere closes the microscope cover (small clean click). *"Get the shoulder warm in the morning." / "Get the noise warm too."* Mere and Sniff upstairs. |
+
+**Tomorrow (Day 2):**
+- Second bell: File-room meeting with Ledger at the guild hall. (Ch02 — *The File*.)
+
+---
+
+## Ch02: The File — Detailed Timeline
+
+| Time | Bell | Event |
+|------|------|-------|
+| Before second bell | — | Phelan leaves Chandler's Row. Walk to guild hall via dockside → canal bridge (one of its two working mornings a week) → northern warrens → guild quarter. Bracelet still warm, unchanged since last night. Arrives guild hall five minutes before second bell. Receptionist does not look up (unchanged for eight months). Second floor, corridor, third door — the file room, not the office. |
+| Second bell | Second bell | Door opens as the bell begins. Briefing starts. Three files in a ruler-straight column on the table. Ledger already seated; Phelan's chair faces the window. Opens with *"Varrant."* |
+| Second → third bell | Second into third | Phase 1 — the job. Leather file (20-year Kade Reach survey with Devod's margin note), cloth file (Scout 1's field journal — confident hypothesis then silence at week 6), paper file (forensics on Scout 1's death, ward still active and lethal). Ledger reads out the why: Holven debt pressure + Cairns letter from Pamira. The sweetener slip is produced from under the third file and slid across. Phelan accepts. |
+| Most of the way into the third bell | Third bell | Phase 2 — the grievance. A fourth slimmer, darker file. Filed 12 days ago, reopens the Book 1 qualifications inquiry with the Book 2 crystal alteration as new evidence. Cass witness of record. Relief sought: expulsion. Ledger: *"I bought you a year. They spent four months of it writing the grievance."* Phase 3 — the grooming hint: *"You've been carrying more than the paperwork says. That's about to matter."* Deflection on whether Compact jurisdiction reaches higher than contractor. |
+| Late third bell | Third bell | At the door Ledger drops *"Locksmith."* *"Good to have you working again."* Phelan leaves with the three files in his satchel, forensics report on top by design. |
+| Walking back | — | Canal district route instead of guild quarter (not looking like a man who had just been told he is being sued out of the guild). Five-thread noise: moss, thaumometer, gate, scout, Holven. Moss to the front. |
+| Edge of fourth bell | Fourth bell | Arrives Chandler's Row. Door unlocked (Mere). Mere at workshop corner, microscope, slide in hand, preparing. Sniff in his corner. Without turning: *"It's on isn't it?"* Exchange confirms the trip (four days, carriage, Fifthday morning). Mere turns; hand to abdomen in the sentence it has become over the last several weeks. Phelan tells her about the grievance. Mere takes it in, sits, thinks, appends one item to her evening plan she will not say for twelve hours. *"Then let's finish the cell fix tonight."* Sets up Ch03 cold open. Satchel placed on the far side of the table, away from her instruments. *"Start the mix." / "Starting."* Afternoon going. |
+
+**Tomorrow (Day 3):**
+- Ch03 — team brief at Chandler's Row (Leon, Devod, Mere, Phelan). Per outline. Cold open is the WellsMoon fusion breakthrough via Flaw Sight at 100x.
+
+**Four days from Day 2:**
+- Fifthday morning: carriage departs for Thorngate. Expected ~4 days out + ~10 on-site + ~4 back (three weeks away from Mere, minimum). Sabre will meet Phelan at the Duchess's gates.
+
+---
+
+## Gap-Between-Books Timeline
+
+Ordered events in the four months between Book 2 Epilogue (Day 29) and Book 3 Day 1:
+
+- **Day ~32 (four days after the Book 2 Epilogue wedding party):** Phelan to Ledger's office. Ledger doesn't have the case ready. *"When it's ready, I'll send for you. Keep your tools warm."*
+- **Deep winter (mid-gap):** Fire training plateau cracks. Daily work with Leon pushes from the 15s Book 2 floor to 18s typical, 20s in weather. Mutual unspoken agreement not to congratulate themselves.
+- **"The filing week" (mid-gap, specific week left to drafter discretion):** Phelan and Mere file at the Drenwick court house — crown civil registry, second floor, counter two, 6 silvers, 10-day waiting period per Book 2 canon. Phelan prepares Rev 12 of the house plans that week. Mere's Rev 13 redraw follows six days later (nursery to east-facing kitchen; upstairs room to office).
+- **Late gap (conception window, ~11 weeks before Ch01 Day 1):** Pregnancy begins. Morning sickness around the third bell develops as the trimester progresses.
+- **Weeks before Ch01:** Brass microscope loaned onto Chandler's Row kitchen table — magic-ground lens, 40x. Moonswell trays in the window behind a lattice panel Mere built from scrap strip. WellsMoon iteration continues — failures stacked on a shelf, one promising lead.
+- **Some weeks before Ch01 (specific day not set):** Bracelet pulses faintly at a dockside squall that drains a bargeman's preserved-weather charm crate two streets over. Filed by Phelan as a reminder the bracelet is still paying attention, not as a drafted event.
+- **Day 1 (Ch01):** Summons arrives at seventh bell. Bracelet warms gently.
+
+---
+
+## Status Flags (for future chapters)
+
+- **Pregnancy week count** drifts with time — Mere is ~11 weeks at Ch01. Track progression when drafting later Book 3 chapters.
+- **Book 3 season** starts very late winter. Natural progression into early spring through Act 1.
+- **Marriage filing anniversary math:** The "filing week" occurred in the gap; drafters writing scenes that reference time-since-filing should check this file (+ any updates) before committing to a specific number of weeks/months.