clean up edits and chapter 15 done, 16 in draft

chapters/book2/ch10-final.md

@@ -8,15 +8,15 @@ Not today.
 
 I lay still and felt for it. The reservoir was there — diminished, roughly half of what it had held before last night's fight. The amber glow when I lifted my wrist was dim, tired, the colour of old honey left too long in the jar. But the draw — the automatic cycle that pulled a thin thread of energy from my reserves and fed the reservoir in a patient, continuous loop — was gone. Not weak. Not fluctuating. Gone. Like a mill wheel that had stopped turning because the river underneath it had dried up.
 
-(*The recharge mechanism. Not the reservoir — the reservoir's still there, half full, sitting on whatever it saved after the crystal hit. The mechanism that kept it full. The intake cycle. The thing that made it self-sustaining. That's what broke.*)
+(*The recharge cycle. Not the reservoir — the reservoir's still there, half full, sitting on whatever it saved after the crystal hit. The process that kept it full. The intake. The thing that made it self-sustaining. That's what broke.*)
 
-I sat up. Mere was already in the kitchen — I could hear the kettle, the particular rhythm of her morning that I'd learned to read like weather. Leon was out there too, his voice a low murmur. They'd stayed up after I'd gone to bed. Working the problem. Filing observations.
+I sat up. Mere was already in the kitchen — I could hear the kettle, the familiar rhythm of her morning that I'd learned to read like weather. Leon was out there too, his voice a low murmur. They'd stayed up after I'd gone to bed. Working the problem. Filing observations.
 
-(*Half power. No recharge. What's left is what's left. When it's spent—*)
+(*Half power. No recharge. When it's spent—*)
 
 The noise spiralled. I let it, for a moment, because the implications deserved the spiral.
 
-The bracelet amplified Flaw Sight. It managed my reserves in combat — the wellspring that had saved me in the mine, pushing stored energy back when my reserves dropped past threshold. It had absorbed the worst of Kae's crystal drain last night. Three seconds, maybe four, of having my life force pulled through a pre-Compact weapon, and the bracelet had thrown itself between the pull and its source. Half its reservoir, burned in the space between one heartbeat and the next.
+The bracelet amplified Flaw Sight. It managed my reserves in combat — the wellspring that had saved me in the mine, pushing stored energy back when my reserves dropped past threshold. It had absorbed the worst of Kae's crystal drain last night. Three seconds, maybe four, of having my life force pulled through a pre-Compact weapon, and the bracelet had thrown itself between the pull and its source.
 
 (*Flaw Sight amplification — reduced. Reserve management — reduced. Drain absorption — if Kae hits me again and the bracelet's at quarter power instead of half—*)
 
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ I didn't know how many uses I had left. The reservoir was a finite pool with no
 
 (*Pre-Compact engineering. Built by people whose names I don't know, using methods I can't replicate, running on logic I didn't write. And the one part that made it sustainable just — stopped.*)
 
-The panic was quiet. Private. The kind that doesn't show on your face because showing it would require explaining it, and explaining it would require admitting how much you'd come to depend on something you hadn't asked for and couldn't replace.
+The panic was quiet. Private. Panic that doesn't show on your face because showing it would require explaining it, and explaining it would require admitting how much you'd come to depend on something you hadn't asked for and couldn't replace.
 
 I pulled my sleeve down over the bracelet and went to the kitchen.
 
@@ -46,9 +46,9 @@ I sat. Sniff emerged from under the table, investigated my ankle, and returned t
 
 "Noted," I said.
 
-"His combat pattern has no training component. No telegraphing, no mechanical sequence. Pain decides, crystal-enhanced muscle executes. This makes him unpredictable — you can't read someone who doesn't know their own next move."
+"His combat pattern has no training component. No telegraphing, no mechanical sequence. Pain decides, augmented muscle executes. This makes him unpredictable — you can't read someone who doesn't know their own next move."
 
-(*She got that from Leon's account. He described the fight. She extracted a tactical doctrine.*)
+(*She got that from Leon's account. He described the fight. She extracted a tactical framework.*)
 
 "The dependency escalation curve." Mere turned the page. "Each drain gives less relief. The crystal's feedback loop requires more input to produce the same output — diminishing returns on a biological system that wasn't designed for sustained magical throughput. His cognitive function is deteriorating on a measurable timeline. Decision-making, impulse control, spatial awareness — all degrading."
 
@@ -86,9 +86,9 @@ I opened the door. Ledger stood on the step in his usual coat — dark, function
 
 "Varrant," he said. "May I come in?"
 
-I stepped aside. He entered the way he entered his own office — economically, without unnecessary movement. Mere didn't look up from her work. Leon straightened slightly in his chair, the instinctive wariness of a man who'd built his life on avoiding institutional entanglements.
+I stepped aside. He entered the way he entered his own office — economically, without unnecessary movement. Mere didn't look up from her work. Leon straightened slightly in his chair, the instinctive wariness of a man who'd built his life on avoiding formal entanglements.
 
-Ledger stood in the middle of my kitchen and didn't sit down. That was the first signal. Ledger sat. Ledger was a man who processed from behind desks. Standing meant this wasn't a debrief.
+Ledger stood in the middle of my kitchen and didn't sit down. That was the signal — Ledger was a man who processed from behind desks. Standing meant this wasn't a debrief.
 
 "Two items," he said. "The first is administrative. As of this morning, you're Tier Two."
 
@@ -96,7 +96,7 @@ The words landed in the kitchen like coins on a counter — precise, measured, e
 
 "Higher retainer — twenty-two silvers monthly, effective immediately. Archive access for case research. Intelligence priority on active operations. And your alias is formalised." He paused, the slightest beat. "The Locksmith is in the guild's records. Officially."
 
-(*Twenty-two silvers. Seven more than the current retainer. That's — the house timeline drops by months. Archive access means I can research the bracelet, the crystal, pre-Compact artifacts without going through Leon's grey-market channels every time. Intelligence priority means Ledger's network feeds me first, not after the information has been filtered through three layers of institutional caution.*)
+(*Twenty-two silvers. Seven more than the current retainer. That's — the house timeline drops by months. Archive access means I can research the bracelet, the crystal, pre-Compact artifacts without going through Leon's grey-market channels every time. Intelligence priority means Ledger's network feeds me first, not after the information has been filtered through three layers of bureaucratic caution.*)
 
 (*And the alias. In the records. The thing I've been keeping quiet, kept unofficial, maintained through reputation and deliberate obscurity — now written down in a file somewhere in the guild hall. Filed. Documented. Traceable.*)
 
@@ -136,13 +136,13 @@ The noise didn't spiral. It went flat. Cold. The analytical machinery that usual
 
 "Yes."
 
-I looked at Leon. His jaw had tightened, the muscle working beneath the skin. The crystal that had passed through his hands was now being pointed at the people I'd saved. Mere's face had gone still — not blank, not shut down. Processing. The particular quality of stillness that meant her pattern recognition was running at full capacity and she'd get back to the room when she was done.
+I looked at Leon. His jaw had tightened, the muscle working beneath the skin. The crystal that had passed through his hands was now being pointed at the people I'd saved. Mere's face had gone still — not blank, not shut down. Processing. The stillness that meant her pattern recognition was running at full capacity and she'd get back to the room when she was done.
 
 (*Cass's voice in the storage facility. "I have a plan to take care of this — something more direct." He wasn't talking about reining Kae in. He was talking about redirecting him. Feeding Kae information — names, addresses, schedules. Weaponising the addiction against specific targets.*)
 
 "My entire Floundry network is at risk," I said. "Carter. Leon. Anyone who testified or provided evidence. Anyone connected to the case."
 
-Ledger nodded. Once. "The case has changed shape. This is no longer a random addict spiralling. It's directed retaliation with institutional resources behind it. That's why you're Tier Two. The guild needs this resolved, and you need the tools to resolve it."
+Ledger nodded. Once. "The case has changed shape. This is no longer a random addict spiralling. It's directed retaliation with Compact resources behind it. That's why you're Tier Two. The guild needs this resolved, and you need the tools to resolve it."
 
 (*A pay raise and a tighter leash. Both delivered in the same sentence, because that's how Ledger operates — the resource and the obligation are the same object.*)
 
@@ -192,7 +192,7 @@ Devod arrived with the evening.
 
 Not quite dark yet — that blue-grey interval between afternoon and night when the winter light gave up pretending and the lamps hadn't quite taken over. He knocked the way he always knocked: too many times, slightly too fast, as if his hand couldn't decide whether one knock was enough and resolved the question by adding four more.
 
-"Phelan!" His voice through the door carried the particular energy of a man who'd been thinking about something for several hours and couldn't wait to share it. "I have ideas."
+"Phelan!" His voice through the door carried the restless energy of a man who'd been thinking about something for several hours and couldn't wait to share it. "I have ideas."
 
 Leon, still at the kitchen table, raised an eyebrow. Mere emerged from the sitting room with her notes.
 
@@ -202,7 +202,7 @@ I opened the door. Devod stood on the step with a canvas bag — apples, probabl
 
 "Come in," I said.
 
-He came in. Put the bag on the counter — apples, confirmed. Henwick's orchard, slightly bruised, the kind of windfall that tasted better than the ones that stayed on the tree. Mere took one without comment and bit into it. Devod noticed this the way he always noticed — carefully, without looking directly at it, as if acknowledging the gesture might frighten it away.
+He came in. Put the bag on the counter — apples, confirmed. Henwick's orchard, slightly bruised, windfalls that tasted better than the ones that stayed on the tree. Mere took one without comment and bit into it. Devod noticed this the way he always noticed — carefully, without looking directly at it, as if acknowledging the gesture might frighten it away.
 
 "Right," Devod said, sitting down at the table and arranging himself with the restless energy of a man whose body couldn't quite keep up with his brain. "I heard about the Floundrys. Carson mentioned it — word travels in the warrens." He looked at me, then Leon, then me again. "Bad business. So I've been thinking."
 
@@ -224,7 +224,7 @@ He came in. Put the bag on the counter — apples, confirmed. Henwick's orchard,
 
 "Devod." Mere's voice, flat and precise. "Magical signatures are not scent-based. Dogs cannot track arcane residue. Move on."
 
-Leon was watching Devod with an expression I'd seen before — the particular mixture of bewilderment and reluctant interest that Devod generated in people who spent time around him. Nine ideas out of ten were wrong. But the rhythm of his thinking — the sheer volume of it, the way his brain threw concepts at the wall without the filter that most people's minds provided — meant the tenth idea sometimes came from an angle nobody else had considered.
+Leon was watching Devod with an expression I'd seen before — that mixture of bewilderment and reluctant interest that Devod generated in people who spent time around him. Nine ideas out of ten were wrong. But the rhythm of his thinking — the sheer volume of it, the way his brain threw concepts at the wall without the filter that most people's minds provided — meant the tenth idea sometimes came from an angle nobody else had considered.
 
 "Fourth idea," Devod said. "What if you—"
 
@@ -240,7 +240,7 @@ I almost laughed. The weight of the day — the bracelet's silence, Mere's analy
 
 I was turning the bracelet absently on my wrist. The dim amber caught the lamplight, tired and reduced. I'd been doing it all day — touching it, checking, the way you keep probing a sore tooth with your tongue to see if it still hurts.
 
-"The bracelet's auto-recharge is broken," I said. Half to Devod, half to the room. "It spent half its power saving my life last night. Whatever mechanism kept it charged — the trickle-draw, the automatic cycle — it's gone. What's left is what's left. When it's spent, it's gone."
+"The bracelet's auto-recharge is broken," I said. Half to Devod, half to the room. "It spent half its power saving my life last night. Whatever kept it charged — the trickle-draw, the automatic cycle — it's broken. No refills. When it runs out, it's gone."
 
 Devod looked at the bracelet. Then at me. His expression shifted — not to the scattered enthusiasm of his ideas, but to something quieter. Focused.
 
@@ -248,7 +248,7 @@ Devod looked at the bracelet. Then at me. His expression shifted — not to the
 
 "The intake stopped working."
 
-Devod tilted his head. His eyes went slightly distant — the particular look I'd seen exactly twice before, both times right before he said something that mattered.
+Devod tilted his head. His eyes went slightly distant — a look I'd seen exactly twice before, both times right before he said something that mattered.
 
 "Well," he said, already half-turning to his next thought, "if it won't pull, maybe you can push. Like when you get a wagon stuck — the horse won't pull, so you get behind it and push. Same wagon. Same road. Different direction of effort."
 
@@ -256,17 +256,17 @@ The kitchen went quiet.
 
 I looked at the bracelet.
 
-(*The auto-recharge pulled energy from my reserves passively. The mechanism that did the pulling is broken. But the reservoir — the storage space, the container — is still there. Half full. Intact. The intake channel didn't seal itself. The automatic draw stopped, but the channel the energy flowed through—*)
+(*The auto-recharge pulled energy from my reserves passively. The draw mechanism is broken. But the storage — the container — is still there. Half full. Intact. The intake channel didn't seal itself. The automatic pull stopped, but the channel the energy flowed through—*)
 
-(*Like charging the ring. I push fire-weave through the focusing channels manually. The ring doesn't pull from me. I push into it. If the bracelet's intake channel is still open, if the reservoir can still accept energy that's been directed into it rather than drawn—*)
+(*Like charging the ring. I push fire-weave through the focusing channels manually. The ring doesn't pull from me. I push into it. If the bracelet's intake channel is still open, if it can still accept energy that's been directed in rather than drawn—*)
 
 (*If it won't pull, maybe you can push.*)
 
 "Phelan?" Devod was looking at me. He'd already moved on to his next thought, but he'd stopped because I'd gone still. Devod could read that particular kind of stillness — he'd seen it before, in other people, in other rooms. He knew something had landed.
 
-"The reservoir is still there," I said slowly. "The automatic draw broke. But the intake—"
+"The storage is still there," I said slowly. "The automatic draw broke. But the intake—"
 
-"—might still accept a manual charge," Leon finished. He was sitting forward, his cup forgotten. "The channel didn't seal. The mechanism stopped pulling, but if you push energy into it the way you push fire into the ring—"
+"—might still accept a manual charge," Leon finished. He was sitting forward, his cup forgotten. "The channel didn't seal. The automatic pull stopped, but if you push energy into it the way you push fire into the ring—"
 
 Devod took an apple from the bag and bit into it, completely satisfied that his seventh sentence in the last five minutes had potentially saved a pre-Compact artifact from a slow death.
 
@@ -274,15 +274,13 @@ I didn't test it. Not tonight. The bracelet's reservoir was at half power and my
 
 But the idea sat there, warm and solid, like Mere's hot stone in the bed. Simple. Mechanical. The kind of solution that an analytical brain spiralling on architectural complexity would never reach because it was too busy being impressed by the problem to consider the obvious.
 
-(*If it won't pull, you push. Like a wagon stuck in mud. Same wagon. Same road.*)
-
 (*Three out of ten, Devod. Maybe four. But the ones that hit — God, the ones that hit are genius.*)
 
 "Eighth idea," Devod said. "And this one is actually good."
 
 It wasn't. But we sat there — Mere with her apple, Leon with his cold cup, Devod with his inexhaustible supply of ideas and the warmth that came with them — and listened to every one.
 
-The bracelet sat dim on my wrist. Half power, no auto-recharge, functionally finite.
+The bracelet sat dim on my wrist. Functionally finite.
 
 Or maybe not.