You are running the pre-David pass on three newly drafted scenes of a…

I'll start by reading the brief and all the required context.

Part 1 — sense, counts, facts, viewpoint

Scene 25

redacted sentence: unpublished prose The stated reason is false. redacted sentence: unpublished prose
redacted sentence: unpublished prose → cut everything after "unsettled sky."
redacted sentence: unpublished prose Three arches: halfway over is the middle of the second. → "Halfway over, on the second arch,".
redacted sentence: unpublished prose → give the dogs to a farm gate they are approaching, or cut the boy from the traffic list and put him ahead.
redacted sentence: unpublished prose → "would be there before he was."
redacted sentence: unpublished prose The self-interruption is unearned. → cut the sentence, or "He stopped, because the next three sentences were for a class."
redacted sentence: unpublished prose Edwin has no way to hold that count. → "the carter, who knew her."
redacted sentence: unpublished prose downhill. → "and the road went down the last of the vale toward the Ashway."

Scene 26

• "Every college teaches that and every trained mage knows it ... because here's the other half: the ceiling is raised by spending ... Nobody hid it from anybody." — Part 1, an explanation stopped halfway and then reversed. "The other half" says the growth rule is not taught; four sentences later he says nobody hid it. Canon (system.md, 2026-08-28) is that both halves are in the books. redacted sentence: unpublished prose
• "Nobody hid it from anybody. Nobody had a reason to do it." — Part 1, pronoun with no clear antecedent ("it" reads as hid it). → "Nobody hid it. redacted sentence: unpublished prose
  redacted sentence: unpublished prose At fifteen they have arrived, and the scene then has them navigating to it. → "at thirteen from the tower".
  redacted sentence: unpublished prose → "That isn't in the books."
• "podding badly on the fen side" — Part 1, ambiguous referent: everything past the bridge is the fen side. → "podding badly at the low end."
  redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose
  redacted sentence: unpublished prose → cut.

Scene 27

redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose

• "He picked the tray back up" — Part 1, continuity: no tray has been mentioned; he brought two mugs. → put the tray in when he brings the mugs.
  redacted sentence: unpublished prose → make the shadow his own, or cut the shadow beat.
  redacted sentence: unpublished prose → "a hand's width high".
  redacted sentence: unpublished prose → have him ask it at the tanks earlier ("Where do you top these?").
  redacted sentence: unpublished prose → "and you'll pay it".
  redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose
• "a foul thing on his trowel" — Part 1, weak/vague noun for a known substance. → "drain-water muck on his trowel".
  redacted sentence: unpublished prose → "the way the last two had."
  redacted sentence: unpublished prose Apparently.'" — Part 1, does not parse as a reply and the Ashway is not his. redacted sentence: unpublished prose Apparently I am.'"

Part 2 — gesture at meaning

redacted sentence: unpublished prose Cut from "and he watched"; also cut the "without blinking / blinked once" pun, which footnotes itself.

• 26: "Nobody had done anything wrong; the hill had." — negative parallelism with a hill given agency; the claim underneath ("it is the ground, not the farming") is already made by the spring line. → cut.
• 27: "It was loud. That was the first fact" — announces a series that has no second fact. redacted sentence: unpublished prose
  redacted sentence: unpublished prose There's a drain."** — the scene's portable closer, and it pre-empts Peri's "It's a drain," which is the line that should carry it. → cut both sentences; end on "until then. That's all of it."

Part 3 — would this exist

• 25: **"It was out of an engraving." — a scene that has Edwin say "Printing is new" cannot then rest a recognition on a circulated engraving of a swordsman's stance. → "It was out of a book."
  redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose
  redacted sentence: unpublished prose → "a brother down the fen with views of his own".

Part 4 — why would this character

• 26: "you've had the whole of my military record." — the "one spell, one shed" callback in other words; SCENES.md act-two binding says the callback is spent. → "you've had all of it already."
  redacted sentence: unpublished prose unpublished's beat in advance. redacted sentence: unpublished prose
  redacted sentence: unpublished prose Redundant with her real question two lines later. → "'On a schedule?'", and keep Edwin's chimney answer.
• 26: "'It's waterlogged. redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose
  redacted sentence: unpublished prose → cut "and the wall at his back".
• 26: Peri's speech beginning "Those were noticing things" carries four "and"s (peri.md 1 caps her at two) and the scene gives her only one false start where the rule wants two under pressure. redacted sentence: unpublished prose

Part 5 — device, not sentence

redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose
redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose

• 27: the taint assay is cast after the verdict has been delivered in full, so the instrument does nothing. redacted sentence: unpublished prose

Part 6 — weak where it should be strong

• 27: "The front room was secured." → "They got the front room."
  redacted sentence: unpublished prose and had told the landlord ... and had managed nearly an hour" — three pluperfects where the simple past is the event. redacted sentence: unpublished prose
  redacted sentence: unpublished prose → quote marks or plain.
  redacted sentence: unpublished prose → "'Then navigate,' said Edwin."
  redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose You'll want that before Fenholt."
  redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose

Aphorism budget

redacted sentence: unpublished prose The budget is one. redacted sentence: unpublished prose

2026-08-30 rulings check

No "six counties", no "pending", no lifespan guarantee, no shed at any age. The one hit is the "one spell, one shed" callback in paraphrase ("you've had the whole of my military record", scene 26), listed above.

Device a second round would be about: the withheld interiority pair — Edwin listening longer than the work needs and declining to look at it, and Peri filing under a heading he is not shown — run twice each across scenes 26 and 27, so the reader is told twice in two scenes that both characters have a private file and is shown neither.

What it would take: spend one of the four. redacted sentence: unpublished prose redacted sentence: unpublished prose