The first touch did nothing useful.
I pressed the exposed part of my palm to the low seam. Cold ran through the burn, sharp enough to make my fingers curl. The pale line dimmed under my skin and brightened again beyond it. Twelve meters away, the lever remained exactly where it was.
"No change," I said.
Nyx watched from the post behind me. She repeated the report so the others could hear it without taking their eyes off the Warden. I began withdrawing through the small return. Then the construct struck the floor.
The seam surged before the pressure in my arm had settled. I tried to take my hand away. For a fraction of a breath, the movement did not match what I saw. My wrist moved. The hand seemed to remain against a line that had bent toward it.
I remembered the table in the Healing Hall. There had been no displacement then. The water hadn't moved. The bed frame had stayed beneath my hand. I had gone on living in the same room afterward.
