polishing, getting ready for export

chapters/book1/ch14-final.md

@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ I sat in the back with the supply crates and Carter's rope coiled under my knees
 
 (*He adjusts his word choice every time she responds. "My daughter" in the planning meeting yesterday, "Mere" on the cart, pronouns when he's not sure which register she'll accept. Twelve years of calibration with no data. He's guessing. Every word is a guess, and her monosyllables tell him nothing because monosyllables are how she talks to everyone — including me, including customers, including the dog. She's not punishing him. He doesn't know that. The gulf between what Devod hears and what Mere means is exactly the width of Charlette's lies.*)
 
-Mere finished her fourth inventory of the collection kit and moved on to checking the ceramic light rods. She held each one up, examined the inscription channels, set it aside or returned it to the case with the efficiency of someone who'd already decided which three to use and was confirming, not choosing.
+Mere finished her fourth inventory of the collection kit and moved on to checking the ceramic light rods. She held each one up, examined the inscription channels, set it aside or returned it to the case with confirming, not choosing — the three she'd use were already decided.
 
 "Those are enchanted, right?" Devod asked, glancing back. "Not the chemical ones?"
 
@@ -110,7 +110,7 @@ A canary strip confirmed the air was breathable. We descended.
 
 The sound came from ahead. Low, arrhythmic, wrong — not the patient drip of water or the structural complaint of settling timber. Something moving. Something with claws on stone.
 
-Devod stopped. His walking stick came up, not in a fighting grip but in the ready position of a man who'd handled animals in tight spaces for thirty years. His head tilted, listening.
+Devod stopped. His walking stick came up — not a fighting grip, but the ready position. Weight forward, leading foot planted, the stick angled to redirect rather than strike. His head tilted, listening.
 
 "That's not rats," he said quietly. And stepped in front of Mere.
 
@@ -148,7 +148,7 @@ I engaged the closer one. Had to. It was between me and Mere, and if I let it pa
 
 But the fourth dog had reached Mere's position. I heard it before I could turn — the scrabble of claws on stone, the low growl of something that had identified the easiest target in the group.
 
-Devod didn't think. I know he didn't think because thinking takes time and there was no time between the dog's charge and the walking stick connecting with the side of its skull. A hard, practiced strike — the full-armed swing of a man who'd spent thirty years defending cargo from animals that wanted what was on the cart. The blow caught the mine dog across the jaw and sent it staggering sideways, off its line, into the open space of the corridor.
+Devod didn't think. I know he didn't think because thinking takes time and there was no time between the dog's charge and the walking stick connecting with the side of its skull. A hard, practiced strike — the full-armed swing of muscle memory built on loading docks and cargo runs, every ounce of thirty years behind it. The blow caught the mine dog across the jaw and sent it staggering sideways, off its line, into the open space of the corridor.
 
 Into my line of sight.
 
@@ -202,7 +202,7 @@ Ghostveil moss. Pale, fibrous, growing in dense mats across the stone faces wher
 
 "How long?"
 
-"An hour, maybe less. If nobody bumps me and the light stays controlled." She was already mapping the chamber with her eyes — growth density, water depth, access angles. "I'll need one rod angled low, one stowed. Direct light degrades the dampening compounds during cutting."
+"An hour, maybe less. If nobody bumps me and the light stays controlled." Her eyes were mapping the chamber — growth density, water depth, access angles. "I'll need one rod angled low, one stowed. Direct light degrades the dampening compounds during cutting."
 
 We'd left at fifth bell for exactly this reason. Ned didn't have days to spare while we made multiple trips.
 
@@ -218,7 +218,7 @@ Human voices, carrying up through the flooded passages, distorted by water and s
 
 The mine wasn't empty.
 
-Mere looked at me. Devod looked at me. The walking stick came up again, instinctive, and this time his eyes weren't scattered at all.
+Mere's eyes found mine. Then Devod's. The walking stick came up again, instinctive, and this time his eyes weren't scattered at all.
 
 "That's not rats either," he said quietly.