Arc II — Stand The Wall
01The Second BindPD 606 · Day 3 · 05:31 → 06:45 — the morning Cole's lens found the row he had not asked for, and the boy on the far end said pleaseThe thread brightened past where it should have brightened at 05:36. The lens fired unbidden at 05:48. By 05:57 Cole had identified the anchor as the patient Renata saved yesterday, by 06:08 he had keyed the lens at a 22-year-old kid on the enemy side, and the kid had mouthed *please* across a line that was not supposed to be possible. The war just got smaller and bigger at once.▶ listen02Sweep To FixPD 606 · Day 5 · 06:15 → 17:30 — the day Cole sat in the east-facing window, held the lens at the lowest draw a load-master can hold, and watched another summoner of another school work toward the room next doorThe morning was clean — four sweeps, no Vasko, four external releases verified. At 11:28 the fourth sweep found the signature Cole had been waiting nine weeks to find. Younger lineage. Sharper rite-grammar. Compulsion-binding instead of service-binding. Not honest. By 14:32 the working changed mode from sweep to fix. By 15:00 the wards cracked. By 16:04 Cole watched Mnehmos catch Ardin's collapse through the lens and let the lens die. By 17:30 he watched the architect bow at the chalk line and walk east with a twenty-two-year-old apprentice. He went to sleep listening to a thread.▶ listen03The Thread Goes StillPD 606 · Day 6 06:15 → Day 7 11:00 — the denouement; one minimum-cost lens sweep per release, then watching the cavalry close, then the moment the architect's signature went absent at ten forty-eightCole spent the denouement at the lowest sustainable draw a load-master can hold. One sweep at six-fifteen Day Six. One at midday for Brunna. One at evening for Hana. One at four-thirty Day Seven when Vasko fixed on Ardin. One at six forty-eight, eight fourteen, nine forty-eight as each of the last three released. Then he sat at the window with a child's primer of Sebastinum letters open on his lap and listened for the moment the thread went still. It came at ten forty-eight. He walked across the courtyard and told them plain.