Personal dynamics frayed under the strain. Valentine's discipline, once focused on a single, oppressive system, now spun in a dozen directions. She snapped at Sage over a misplaced calibration tool.
"You can't just imagine where you left it! Systems require order!"
"And order requires flexibility right now!" he shot back, exhausted. "The system is alive, Val! It's not a spreadsheet!"
It was their first real fight. It ended in a stalemate of silence.
Lysander found Sage later, staring at a schematic for a resonance-resistant pipe sealant that wasn't working. "The old Aquifers had a saying," Lysander said, not looking at him. "'You cannot direct the river if you stand rigid on the bank. You must enter the current, and feel its will.' You and Valentine—one of you is trying to rebuild the bank. The other is trying to map the current. You need both. But first, you need to remember you're in the same river."
He left. Sage knew he was right. He found Valentine running diagnostics on a shuddering water main. He didn't apologize. Instead, he pointed to the tremor pattern on her screen. "Look. It's not a random seizure. It's a frustrated harmonic. It's trying to find a resonance it can't because the pipe is the wrong shape. It's not breaking. It's… asking for a different instrument."
Valentine studied the pattern, her anger dissolving into professional curiosity. "You think if we coat the interior with a spiral groove…"
"Like the fountain," Sage finished.
She gave a short, tired nod. "We'll try it."
The alliance was repaired, not through affection, but through a renewed commitment to the puzzle itself.