Iris decided to trust Nate’s care. She gathered tools from skeptics and believers. She knit a makeshift charge to stabilize the unit’s resonance, using conductive ore from the cavern and a lattice pattern she improvised from Drayden’s notes. She sat on the cold stone and talked while she worked, talking to Arcaeni as if conversation could grease tired gears. She told it stories about bright markets and a place where a child used to run past her house with a kite. She whispered the code again. When she closed the circuit, light did not roar so much as unscroll slowly like a curtain.