work on book 2, also redo of the book title, and code name for Phelan

chapters/book1/CLAUDE.md

@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-# CLAUDE.md — Book 1: "The Unbreakable Curse"
+# CLAUDE.md — Book 1: "The Floundry Affair"
 
 > **STATUS: FINALIZED.** Book 1 is complete. All chapters, outlines, and content are locked canon. Do not edit. Reference only for continuity when working on Book 2+.
 

chapters/book1/ch11-final.md

@@ -74,9 +74,9 @@ He led me through a hallway where a younger girl — seven or eight — sat on t
 
 Calla Floundry met me at the front room door. She had the organized posture of someone who'd processed grief and moved to action — spine straight, hands steady, eyes that had done their crying weeks ago and decided crying wasn't solving anything. Mid-forties. Dark hair pulled back efficiently. She wore practical clothes, not mourning dress — function over signal. But the skin under her eyes was dark with exhaustion, and her fingers, when she extended her hand, had the faint tremor of someone running on will rather than rest.
 
-(*The alias. You were supposed to have an alias for client interactions. Ledger told you to pick one. That was — five days ago? You've been staring at house plans and analyzing bracelets and you forgot to pick a name. She's looking at you. She's extending her hand. You need a name. Now. Something. Anything. The Barrows. Verdenshade. Shade — dark, low-growing, thrives where nobody else looks. One word. Ledger is one word. Shade. Fine. It'll do.*)
+(*The alias. You were supposed to have an alias for client interactions. Ledger told you to pick one. That was — five days ago? You've been staring at house plans and analyzing bracelets and you forgot to pick a name. She's looking at you. She's extending her hand. You need a name. Now. Something. Anything. Locks. Curses are locks. You pick locks — find the flaw, work the mechanism, open what shouldn't open. Locksmith. One word. Ledger is one word. Locksmith. Fine. It'll do.*)
 
-"Shade," I said, taking her hand. "Guild of Necessary Services."
+"Locksmith," I said, taking her hand. "Guild of Necessary Services."
 
 The name felt odd in my mouth — new, untested, like a coat I'd grabbed off the wrong hook on my way out the door. But it fit well enough. I'd picked worse things under pressure.
 

chapters/book1/ch19-final.md

@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ Ledger was at the front door.
 
 He'd positioned himself the way he positioned everything — with a precision that looked like casual presence. Leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching the street without appearing to look at anyone on it, which meant he was cataloguing all of them.
 
-"Shade," he said.
+"Locksmith," he said.
 
 "Ledger."
 

chapters/book1/ch20-final.md

@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ The siege was over. The house was just a house again.
 
 Calla opened the door before I knocked. She'd been watching from the window — old habits, the ones that formed during weeks of waiting for news that was never good.
 
-"Shade." She stepped aside. "Come in."
+"Locksmith." She stepped aside. "Come in."
 
 She looked different too. Not relaxed — I doubted Calla Floundry had been relaxed in the conventional sense since the curse hit. But the white-knuckle quality was gone. The controlled composure that had impressed me on the first visit — the organized documents, the meticulous timeline, the way she'd managed her own terror with filing systems and clean sheets — had softened into something less rigid. She was still standing at attention. She'd just stopped bracing for impact.
 
@@ -108,13 +108,13 @@ I stood, nodded to Calla at the door, and walked back into the morning.
 
 Fourteen Greystone Lane hadn't changed. The building's deliberate unremarkability — the quality that had made me walk past it six times before my first visit — was exactly as effective as it had always been. The ward-work on the exterior registered through my sluggish Flaw Sight as a blurred suggestion of competence rather than the crisp three-layer architecture I'd mapped weeks ago.
 
-The receptionist was exactly as polite as always. "Ledger is expecting you, Shade. Planning room."
+The receptionist was exactly as polite as always. "Ledger is expecting you, Locksmith. Planning room."
 
 The planning room still had Leon's colour-coded diagrams pinned to the wall. Someone had cleaned the floor — the spot where I'd crashed days ago showed no evidence of fourteen unconscious hours. The guild was tidy about its messes.
 
 Ledger was seated at the table with a thin folder. He'd been waiting — not impatiently, because Ledger didn't do impatience. Waiting was just another form of observation.
 
-"Shade." He gestured to the chair across from him. "You look better than you should, given the reports."
+"Locksmith." He gestured to the chair across from him. "You look better than you should, given the reports."
 
 "Low bar."
 
@@ -168,7 +168,7 @@ I waited.
 
 "What you did. The Floundry case. Breaking a Compact-classified 'unbreakable' curse with a three-phase coordinated intervention using a team of unlicensed operators and a botanical preparation the Compact has spent five years acquiring the supply of." He paused, and the pause was the closest Ledger came to emphasis. "The guild has noticed."
 
-He didn't elaborate. Didn't explain what *noticing* meant in guild terms — whether it was a reclassification, a shift in case assignment, a recalibration of what the name "Shade" meant in the network's internal shorthand. Just the statement. The guild has noticed. Left hanging, because Ledger understood that implications were more powerful than explanations, and because Ledger never gave you a syllable more than he intended.
+He didn't elaborate. Didn't explain what *noticing* meant in guild terms — whether it was a reclassification, a shift in case assignment, a recalibration of what the name "Locksmith" meant in the network's internal shorthand. Just the statement. The guild has noticed. Left hanging, because Ledger understood that implications were more powerful than explanations, and because Ledger never gave you a syllable more than he intended.
 
 "Anything else?" he asked.
 

chapters/book1/epilogue-final.md

@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@ We did another fifteen minutes. The fire improved. The stamina held.
 
 The case brief was on the table when I got home.
 
-Not the table at the guild — the table at Chandler's Row, the one with the house plans and Mere's annotations and the overlap of two lives' worth of paperwork. Ledger had started delivering briefs to the home address three weeks ago, which was either a professional courtesy or an acknowledgment that the Shade's operating base had shifted, or both.
+Not the table at the guild — the table at Chandler's Row, the one with the house plans and Mere's annotations and the overlap of two lives' worth of paperwork. Ledger had started delivering briefs to the home address three weeks ago, which was either a professional courtesy or an acknowledgment that the Locksmith's operating base had shifted, or both.
 
 This one was different.
 

chapters/book2/CLAUDE.md

@@ -212,7 +212,7 @@ Immediate aftermath of the crystal break. Phelan is in hard crash -- exhausted,
 The case wraps. Kae's fate -- where does he go, what does he become? His testimony (or evidence from the crystal) implicates Cass, but Cass is insulated in Thorngate, operating through intermediaries. The Compact faces pressure but doesn't crack. Leon's guilt thread resolves -- not absolved, but he's changed his philosophy. "Don't ask who's buying" becomes something harder. Carter's role acknowledged -- his jacket kept Phelan alive, his network is rebuilt stronger. **Charlette/Thresholds resolution:** Legal claim succeeds or reaches significant progress — Devod's share was never legally transferred. Mere and Devod now co-own Thresholds or have forced Charlette to negotiate. Devod fully recovered. The personal subplots land.
 
 **Chapter 24: The New Quiet**
-The new status quo. Phelan and Mere on Chandler's Row, but the quiet is different now -- earned, not assumed. House plans continue (what revision are we on now?). Phelan's ability is closer to being exposed -- the crystal break was witnessed or left arcane evidence that someone with knowledge could trace. The Compact's direct pressure is building toward Book 3. Phelan reflects on Kae as a mirror -- what happens when no one helps, and the uncomfortable fact that someone helped *him* (Mere, Leon, Carter, Devod) whether he asked for it or not. End with forward momentum: the Compact knows more about The Shade than before, Cass is not finished, and the quiet won't last.
+The new status quo. Phelan and Mere on Chandler's Row, but the quiet is different now -- earned, not assumed. House plans continue (what revision are we on now?). Phelan's ability is closer to being exposed -- the crystal break was witnessed or left arcane evidence that someone with knowledge could trace. The Compact's direct pressure is building toward Book 3. Phelan reflects on Kae as a mirror -- what happens when no one helps, and the uncomfortable fact that someone helped *him* (Mere, Leon, Carter, Devod) whether he asked for it or not. End with forward momentum: the Compact knows more about The Locksmith than before, Cass is not finished, and the quiet won't last.
 
 **Epilogue: The View from Thorngate**
 Time skip -- weeks or a month after the case closes. Seeds for Book 3. Cass receives reports about the crystal break -- details that tell him more about Phelan's ability than Phelan would want anyone to know. The Compact's internal politics shift -- Phelan is no longer an annoyance, he's a variable that needs managing. Kae's current state (wherever he ended up). A final detail that signals Book 3's threat: the Compact deciding to look more closely at what Phelan can actually do. Mirrors Book 1's epilogue structure -- the case is over, the consequences are just beginning.
@@ -237,7 +237,7 @@ The domestic arc is the emotional spine that makes the Kae case land, because Ka
 |---|---|---|
 | The Budget Math | Ch 1 | Mere's budget method is alien to Phelan. His noise kicks in, he redoes it his way. Hours later, same number. Mere: "I told you." First lesson: *different method, same answer* is the pattern of this relationship. |
 | The Misread | Ch 5-6 | Mere says something blunt. Phelan reads hidden criticism that isn't there, adjusts behavior. Mere notices a day later, asks why. Baffled: "I said [exact words]. That's what I meant." Brief desync, recalibration. Phelan files away: *Mere is the one person whose words are the whole message.* |
-| The Reclassification | Ch 12 | Ledger formalizes the de facto elevation from the epilogue — Tier Two promotion. Higher pay, Archive access, alias formalized. Phelan's reaction is complicated — the money helps the house, the access helps the case, but the scrutiny is exactly what he's been avoiding. The guild knows more about The Shade than Phelan is comfortable with. |
+| The Reclassification | Ch 12 | Ledger formalizes the de facto elevation from the epilogue — Tier Two promotion. Higher pay, Archive access, alias formalized. Phelan's reaction is complicated — the money helps the house, the access helps the case, but the scrutiny is exactly what he's been avoiding. The guild knows more about The Locksmith than Phelan is comfortable with. |
 | The Reversal | Ch 13-14 | For once, Mere misreads *Phelan*. Interprets his cold-reader silence as agreement when he's processing something important. Her bluntness about what she thinks he's thinking is wrong. Proves communication isn't one-directional -- they're both learning. |
 | The Crack | Ch 15 | After Devod's attack, domestic equilibrium breaks. Mere processes through action (bedside research). Phelan processes through cold efficiency (hunt Kae). Incompatible grief responses. Not a misunderstanding -- a genuine conflict of approach. Unresolved this chapter. |
 | The New Math | Ch 22-24 | Domestic life resumes differently. Budget method is now a blend: Mere's structure, Phelan's edge-case paranoia. They've stopped translating each other and started building a shared language. Phelan won't name this. The reader will. |
@@ -365,7 +365,7 @@ Ledger ended Book 1 playing a longer game — "the guild has noticed," Greenvale
 | The Assignment | Ch 2 | Ledger brings the draining case to Phelan. Not a standard brief — he delivers it in person, which tells Phelan this one matters to the guild. Brief mention of Phelan's rising profile. "You've been busy. We've noticed." The adversarial-beneath-politeness dynamic continues. |
 | The Intelligence | Ch 6 | Ledger provides guild intelligence identifying Kae's street name. But the real beat: he asks specific questions about Phelan's investigative methods — how he traced the crystal's pre-Compact signature. Questions that are a little too precise. Phelan notices, deflects. Ledger files the deflection. |
 | The Escalation | Ch 9 | A victim has died. Ledger visits — not just to relay intelligence, but to have a conversation about what the guild expects now. "This is a murder case. The guild's name is attached to the outcome." Subtext: the guild is watching Phelan closely because they're exposed if he fails publicly. |
-| The Reclassification | Ch 12 | Witnesses are being targeted. The guild formalizes what's been happening de facto since the epilogue — Phelan was already receiving above-Tier-One cases informally. Now it's official: Tier Two reclassification. Ledger delivers it: higher retainer, Archive access, intelligence priority, and the alias expectation. "The Shade. You've been using it. The guild is formalizing it." Double-edged: more resources, more scrutiny, more visibility. Ledger's version of "we believe in you" is a pay raise and a tighter leash. |
+| The Reclassification | Ch 12 | Witnesses are being targeted. The guild formalizes what's been happening de facto since the epilogue — Phelan was already receiving above-Tier-One cases informally. Now it's official: Tier Two reclassification. Ledger delivers it: higher retainer, Archive access, intelligence priority, and the alias expectation. "The Locksmith. You've been using it. The guild is formalizing it." Double-edged: more resources, more scrutiny, more visibility. Ledger's version of "we believe in you" is a pay raise and a tighter leash. |
 | The Resources | Ch 19 | Phelan uses Tier Two access (Archives, intelligence priority) to plan the approach to Kae. Ledger provides the approach vector — not just information, but tactical support. He's committed now. The file on Phelan's methods is secondary to getting this case closed. |
 | The Debrief | Ch 23 | Post-case debrief. The crystal break left arcane evidence. Ledger's questions are sharper than ever — he knows more about Phelan's ability than before. "The report describes a sustained interaction with the crystal's internal structure. That's not standard curse-breaking." Phelan deflects. Ledger accepts the deflection. But the file is thicker. "The guild noticed" has become "the guild is paying very close attention." Seeds Book 3 directly. |