The second socket opened on the same sequence.
Three calls. Tal holding: Bren’s five lines. Lorn holding: Anwen on the link. Hearth taking the section’s relief: Doss’s four words. Each answer written in its own line. Then Lisan’s check on the probe mount, the coolant line drained, a finger’s width clear. Then Sen at the cold-side wrench, the old leather handle, the scale flaking black under the jaws.
The second old rib came out in black flakes. Tavin cut its end. Hollow.
It went on the rack beside the first.
Then Sen put the lamp and mirror down the second socket to look at its seat before the second composite went in, and stopped.
“There’s a crack,” she said.
Mara slid the feeler blocks into it.
She went into the passage’s mouth, one step, as far as she let herself, and Sen held the lamp for her and she put her right hand down the socket with the thinnest leaf from Tavin’s block and found the crack by feel.
