You tap where Rowan points. The stone breathes a little into place. Ugly, if it stays, will be a recut from a scaffold after songs—still work, still honest. True, if it comes, will make Ned grunt, which is hymn enough.

Taps. Breath held. The keystone walks.

Sometimes it arrives at true: plumb agrees, neighbors agree, Maud’s eyes agree, which is the strictest instrument.

Sometimes it holds enough—a hair of ugly, a rib that will be recut after the Translation, a story the chapter will not see from the floor. Ugly that stands is not the same as true, and both are not the same as fallen.

Ned’s hand on the centering: not striking. Waiting. Always waiting.

You are eleven. You have lime in your hair. Saint Brice, whatever he thought about arches, is not available for comment. The building is.