The coordinated shift went live late on day twenty-one, at the hour the terraces lit their lamps.
Not a trial. The full step. Every active lamp at once, at the agreed window, on Pell’s call.
Mara stood at the shared gauge in the lowest chamber. The lattice’s line on the screen, climbing since the valve closed. The third rib upstairs on its rack, at its zero point now, waiting to be read. The governor’s frame at the main valve with its rule on its housing.
On the public band, Pell.
“Step,” he said.
The answers came. One after another. In the window.
“Hearth stepped.”
“Lorn stepped.”
