Tessa moved her examination sheet out of the spray before she wrote the stop.
Eli watched the small practical movement. One corner of the paper had already darkened. She pressed the other beneath her kit, asked him to look at her again, and checked his responses while someone behind her called for a dry dressing. The water route had become their only passage forward. There was no quiet room waiting for him inside the gate, and the absence he had discovered did not entitle him to make one out of the receiving ledge.
“Complete inherited no-use,” she said. “All three. No movement burst for the next crossing, no Sight to check a footing, no Anchor if somebody asks you to steady a load. This permission has ended. Independent reassessment before any return.”
“I understand.”
“Tell me what you understand.”
“That stopping the hold didn’t complete the medical response. That the earlier permission doesn’t cover another task.”
“And the new loss?”
“Hasn’t been assessed.”
