The gauge reader brought the strip herself.
Kessa saw the last mark before the woman said anything.
“Checked the instrument?”
“And the independent staff. Both rising.”
The hour was wrong.
The water was not.
Kessa laid the strip beside the closure notice and the upstream return report. The scheduled central movement had occurred inside the time its order permitted. The lowland response had reached the warning threshold sooner than the projection allowed.
Waiting for a correction to the projection would not move the water back down the staff.
