Morning set the brass to listening.
On the west wall of the Dawn Court, a wide plate of glass-and-lattice warmed and woke—dots and bars blinking to life in three neat columns: A1, A2, A3. The plate had a new name spelled small in its corner: Edge Figures Board.
Soluva laid two fingers on its lower frame. The touch came back as a steady hum—not loud, not proud—like the patience of a tool waiting to be useful.
"Numbers let calm arrive first," she said.
Beside the Board she pinned a slim plaque, short words carved deep enough that even a tired eye would read them right:
Figure Grammar v10 — Weather (notice; do nothing)1 — Skip (jitter second → Debounce)2 — Fold-wish (wants crease → Pre-Stitch only)3 — Shear-try (slip risk → Stitch small + Even Share)Rule:Seal only at 3 or if drift > 1.Always:Measure early; seal late.
The dots at A1–A3 glowed a small, honest 0. Their drift bars slept flat.
Along the Garden Wall's far rib, three new leaf-fins unfurled and caught the light. They weren't ornament; they were Antenna Leaves, tuned to feel shiver without making theater of it. On a low pedestal in the Court, a slender rod of black stone and gold—Pulse Gnomon—slid its breath-length shadow in time with Ward II's steady four-beat. You could see rhythm now. You could see when two rhythms chose to agree too much.
Over the city, a thin mesh traced itself faintly in the air like thread on water: Rift Net Weave Density. Soluva spoke three numbers, and the mesh obeyed.
"Heart thirty. Mid fifty. Edge seventy."
The overlay thickened at the rim, softened at the center. A small pin at the Board's bottom corner turned from gray to gold—Comfort Floor Pin locked. Shade would not dim because math got excited; hush would not sink below care because a dial loved numbers.
Soluva tapped the Board with her knuckle, once. "Seal late, measure early," she repeated, mostly for the children in the Play Yard whose ears were always working.
A Keeper in blue, a Listener with quiet eyes, an Archivist with a pencil that never felt accused—they took their places around the Court. Out at the outposts, the Edge Choir stood under pale sun, hands on posts, breath matching Gnomon. The city thought with them.
"Bring up the Net," Soluva said. "Let's hear two when it is two—and only when it is two."
The first "two"
An hour into being reasonable, A1 blinked. The dot climbed from 0 to 2—not fast, not loud, just sure of itself. Along its right edge, the drift bar rose from 0 to 1 like a cat lifting a paw to show it has one.
"Fold-wish," the Listener said, already moving. She didn't turn it into a performance.
At Outpost A1, the Edge Choir drew an Inhale ring—no bigger than two steps—around the seam's thought. "Hold compare," the lead voice said, and they waited through two breaths to make sure the rhythm wasn't borrowing itself. Under the minute, the Minute-Ring Microstep turned once, aligning the pulse stones like teeth deciding to be a zipper.
No bell. No siren. No speech. The drift bar eased back to 0 as if it had been embarrassed about standing up in class without a hand raised. The dot at A1 cooled to 0 again.
"Pre-Stitch path settled," the Archivist noted at the Drill—no, Edge—Ledger, words so light they wouldn't bruise. "Tap silent."
The Edge Figures Board breathed once and returned to watching. Soluva glanced at the mesh overlay and lifted a brow at the Edge ring.
"Seventy to seventy-five," she said. The mesh thickened at the rim by a polite amount.
"Comfort floor holds," a Keeper called from under the Garden Wall. Benches stayed one-hand cool. Shade did not flicker; Hush did not act like pride. The pin stayed gold.
A false "two"
South along the Reading Way, letters breathed with morning feet. The Gnomon's shadow swept steady. On the Board, a small dot halfway between A1 and A2 tried a 2 on for size—bashful, then more sure. Drift stayed 0.
Soluva tilted her head. The Listener had already raised her palm. "Mask reading—two breaths," she murmured, and the Board put a soft fog over the south run. She set the Pulse Gnomon to cast its shadow onto a small chalked circle on the pavement. The circle held the ward beat; the Gnomon's shadow lay on it like twins.
"In phase," the Listener said. "We're sampling when the page and the edge are singing the same note."
Soluva wrote one new word on the Board's side rail where mechanics live:
Phase Shim +1.
The sampler stepped one breath later: the dot on the Board lost its courage and went back to 0. The Reading Way kept writing itself under feet; nothing had needed a law.
"Add the mask table," Soluva told the Archivist, "for parade hours and market hum."
The pencil made a list without making a fuss:
False two (Reading Way cadence) → Phase Shim +1; apply mask during high-stride windows (parade, noon market). Scale 1 (Tidy).
The Gnomon shadow slid, then slid again, now slightly apart from Ward II's beat. The Comprehension Glow along its base warmed as if the tool itself had understood.
"If comfort dims, we tuned the wrong thing," Soluva said, not to anyone in particular and exactly to everyone.
Cards in hands, not pockets
The Script-House felt the Board's grammar settle through the lattice and fed the Handbook Press a new pattern. Thin stacks slid out with edges that wouldn't hurt a thumb: Edge Figure Card (v1).
On one side: four glyphs—0, 1, 2, 3—drawn as small dot-and-bar knots; beside each, one short action:
0 — Note.
1 — Debounce.
2 — Pre-Stitch.
3 — Stitch small + Even Share.
At the bottom, in stern friendly script:
Seal only at 3 or drift>1.
Guide Tag sat on the corner like good manners. Count Ignore glinted once for the Throughput Board's benefit. A Keeper read the lines; the card warmed and cooled. "Pocket," she said, and meant it as equipment, not souvenir.
Children at the Play Yard squinted through their fence at the glyphs. One traced them in the air with a forefinger and whispered to his friend, "Zero is weather. One is skip. Two is fold-wish. Three is shear-try." The Comprehension Glow along the fence nodded, of course it did.
The real "two"
By mid-afternoon, A2 wanted to talk. The dot climbed to 2 and held like a polite guest raising a hand and then keeping it up without being insistent. Drift settled at 1 and refused to be ashamed.
The Antenna Leaves along the far rib lifted one finger each. Not alarm. Attention.
"Pre-Stitch," the Listener said at the Court, not moving faster than was beautiful.
At the outpost, the circle formed—Inhale. Hold compare—the Gnomon shadow synced for a breath and then slid, by design; the Phase Shim kept honesty in the sample. The Minute-Ring Microstep aligned the pulse stones with a tick you felt in the teeth, not the ear. The Rift Net tightened a shade at the edge to 75 and then—because humans are always tempted—one Keeper suggested eighty with her eyes.
"Not yet," Soluva said without looking up. "Tight isn't the same as safe."
A thin agreement bell touched the air from the far rib, the small sound the seam gives when it admits your respect. The Board's dot dropped to 0. Drift relaxed, pleased as a calf settling in straw.
Count stayed weather. No City-wide Tap went out. The Silent Lock slept. The city continued to be itself—only now you could prove why.
The mesh breathes (and flickers, once)
Late, the temptation won a corner anyway. A junior Keeper, proud of carefulness, tapped the dial at the rim and nudged Edge to 80 without a word.
The Garden Wall's rib caught it instantly: shade flicker, the kind that tells benches somebody is practicing safety on their back. The rib did not sulk; it reported. A Leafling child put a hand out through the Play Yard fence and frowned.
Soluva's answer was a sentence, not a scold. "Weave Breath: every eighteen breaths, release two. Return to seventy-five." The mesh sighed—2% relaxing on a quiet rhythm—and the rib went from schoolboy haircut to hair that remembered it was a tree.
The Archivist lifted her pencil again:
Over-tight weave (Edge 80) → relax to 75 + Weave Breath cadence (−2% every 18 breaths). Scale 1 (Tidy); why: tight ≠ safe; Comfort Floor Pin confirmed no comfort loss.
The Keeper who'd tapped the dial nodded once and added a pebble to the What I Learned bowl: ask the wall first.
Kid add-on (because the future is short)
Beside the Play Yard gate, Soluva pinned a small notebook with thick paper and a string: Seam Notebook (child). On its first page:
0 weather / 1 skip / 2 fold-wish / 3 shear-try.One small act beats one big fear.
Children traced the glyphs with charcoal and didn't write any names. The notebook warmed compared to the air—Comprehension Glow through cardboard—and cooled again. A Hushling whispered the sentence into the fence just to hear how it felt. It felt like permission.
Read-back, not grand—useful
At evening, the Edge Figures Board calmed to the color of tools at rest. The Gnomon shadow lay across empty, honest stone. The Antenna Leaves lowered without complaint. The mesh overlay stayed at 30 / 55 / 75, breathing its small Weave Breath every eighteen without being told.
In the Court, an Archivist stood where the Ledger lived and read the day with four strokes you could teach to anyone:
Edge Figures Board online; Figure Grammar v1 posted. Weave Density calibrated Heart/Mid/Edge = 30/55/75 with Comfort Floor Pin.Field check A1: 2 → Pre-Stitch (Inhale/Hold; Minute-Ring Microstep); drift 1→0; Tap silent.Anomalies: false two (Reading Way cadence) → Phase Shim +1 + mask table (Scale 1); over-tight weave (shade flicker) → relax + Weave Breath (Scale 1).Field check A2: steady 2 with drift 1 → Pre-Stitch + Microstep; agreement bell; Count = weather.
From the Script-House, the Handbook Press slid three narrow strips onto the Board's shelf—Edge Figures v1.1 deltas:
Phase Shim rule (apply +1 breath when Ward II and sample in phase).
Weave Breath cadence (Edge ring auto-relaxes 2% every 18 breaths; never lowers Comfort Floor).
Reading Way mask table (parade/noon windows).
They tucked themselves under the Edge Figure Card stacks and stamped Guide Tag and Count Ignore without waking the room.
Soluva placed her palm under A2's dot and felt nothing needed. The sensation is rare and worth memorizing.
She wrote one more line under the Board's frame, where hands would find it often for no reason but habit:
Tight Net, Soft City.
The letters warmed and cooled—agreement. The Life Symphony did not chime; it did not need to. Agreement isn't always a bell. Sometimes it's a tool staying exactly where you left it because it wants to be there when you return.
Across the Court, a child read the line out loud and then touched the Seam Notebook to leave a drawing of mesh that looked like a blanket. "Tight Net, Soft City," she said again, and the room tone kept its temperature.
Soluva looked toward the open east where the Minute-Ring corridor ends in sunlight. Borders were just lines earlier today. Tomorrow, they'd be promises.
"Tomorrow we write the Boundary Charter—borders as promises you can touch," she said.
The Board rested. The Net breathed. The Garden Wall's rib did not flicker. A1 and A2 counted themselves 0 without boasting. A3 yawned.
The pen did not vanish. It waited, patient as a promise.