The chip splits with a sound like a small insult.

The keystone sits worse, not better. Mortar smears. Rowan has you off the centering before the second idea can hatch. Work halts. The Translation will use the nave. The choir will wait on a recut and a child who tried to fake a width.

You are not beaten. You are sent down. The courtyard is very interested in being solid under your feet.

Maud: “Shortcuts in stone are just cracks with a head start.”

You mix lime until your arms understand. The building refused you, which is, in a way, its job.

The split chip is on the centering like a bad tooth. You are on the courtyard, counting your feet. Two. Still two. The building did not take more. Maud puts you on the hawk until mixing is the only thought left. That is not cruelty. That is curriculum.

THE END

What you learned: you cannot fake a fit in a vault with a chip. Adjusting means easing the stone, not jamming a lie; the arch will tell.