Stabilization is not equilibrium.
It is containment.
The brake held.
But the system was not calm.
It was fragile.
In New York City, liquidity returned selectively—not broadly.
In London, spreads narrowed, then widened, then narrowed again.
In Tokyo, participants traded smaller size despite improved funding terms.
Damping had increased.
Confidence had not.
Maya adjusted the framework once more.
"Post-intervention dynamics are nonlinear," she said.
"When amplification is suppressed quickly, stored stress redistributes."
She wrote the transient response equation.
"No forcing term now," she continued.
"Just residual displacement."
Keith understood.
"So oscillations decay."
"Yes."
"But the decay rate matters."
Jasmine calculated the damping ratio.
"Still underdamped," she said.
"Which means we get aftershocks."
Not cascades.
Not phase transitions.
Oscillatory re-pricing.
Mid-session, price bounced sharply.
Short covering.
Liquidity vacuum on the upside.
In Chicago, dealer gamma briefly flipped positive.
In Frankfurt, credit retraced part of its widening.
In Singapore, macro funds cautiously re-entered risk.
Then—
The bounce faded.
Not because of new information.
Because capital remained cautious.
Maya plotted decay envelope.
"Amplitude shrinks," she explained.
"But frequency remains."
Keith looked at the chart.
That's exactly what it resembled.
Smaller swings.
Persistent rhythm.
In Hong Kong, overnight futures oscillated within narrowing bands.
In Zurich, defensive positioning remained elevated.
In Washington, D.C., officials emphasized stability—not growth.
The message was containment.
Not expansion.
Aftershocks reveal structural damage.
Leverage lower.
Risk appetite reduced.
Correlation memory embedded in models.
The system is no longer at the original equilibrium.
It has found a lower-energy basin.
Shallower.
More cautious.
Keith finally asked the question that lingered.
"Is this over?"
Maya answered precisely.
"The cascade phase is over."
"And the regime?"
"That depends on how quickly participants forget."
Chapter 194 does not restore.
It recalibrates.
The brake worked.
The cascade slowed.
Oscillations decay.
But structural memory persists.
And systems that have crossed inflection points
Do not return unchanged.
They stabilize—
Different.