All inputs read. The three Round 1 blockers were repaired at lines 57, 87–97, and 123 of the current chapter text; I verified each against the Round 1 orders and pressed the chapter-specific risks. The full Round 2 audit follows.

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# Fresh-Reader Clarity Pass — Chapter 09, Round 2 (post-repair)

PLAIN-EVENT SUMMARY:
June and Asha, freelance installers, spend a workday (the Thursday after Week 3 — "Tuesday was five days off," line 45) repairing and repainting the project-room wall of a small grant-funded art space run by Marisol, after the deinstall of Marta Oduya's ceramic-shelf show. The schedule is stated up front: crate pickup at 2:00, walk-through with the incoming artist at 4:00, "Patch, prime, paint. One line on the invoice" (line 13). June patches twenty-two toggle holes, screw holes, a peel, and a dolly scuff with five-minute setting compound. Raking light from the east window shows her the wall has aged warm past its labeled "gallery white"; her test swatch reads "a whole step cooler, blue against the field" (line 21), so she argues Asha into forty extra minutes: spot-prime the patches with shellac and repaint the whole wall face corner to corner so the seam lives where "light folded and no eye would ever go" (line 107). While the shellac dries, June rolls three legitimate color-test squares on a foamcore scrap — can white, an umber-nudged square, and a halfway mix — then makes a fourth, functionless mark: she pulls the loaded stroke long down the scrap into a value run with an edge she admires, her first unprompted act of making outside class, which she attributes to "three Tuesdays of being handed charcoal and told to look" (line 43). She thinks of her portrait of Theo public on the rack at Marchetti Rooms while his of her is "in a folder somewhere being nothing to nobody, location unasked" (line 45). Asha sees the scrap, hears June's cover ("The middle square's the match"), looks at the run beneath the squares, and goes to pad the elevator; the narration states plainly that "The cover had not worked. Asha had seen the run and chosen the elevator anyway" (line 57), and June sets the scrap face-down. At 12:40 June reads two texts from Nia Torres, an art-school peer silent since March: a six-month funded programs-and-fabrication role at the printshop on Tasker in Philadelphia, probably opening January 1, start flexible after mid-December — keys, W-2 paycheck, after-hours studio access — call this week before it posts. Over a bucket lunch June tells Asha; Asha says call before Friday, then supplies the New York side in one speech: Dana is giving up her studio spot in Ridgewood at the end of January — "Shared floor, six painters" (line 89), high hundreds, studio rent on the first, twenty-four-hour access — and "Kessler's got an armory build-out in January if you can show up with a level. Six weeks. Pays late. Pays real" (line 97). June registers that staying and leaving both now have concrete forms — "two shapes on the table, a corner in a Ridgewood studio and six weeks of armory wages on one side, a set of keys on Tasker Street on the other" (line 99) — and that she preferred wanting to paint when it had no address. Her stated deadline is "My lease is up in December either way" (line 87). The truck arrives twelve minutes late; the crates ship; the second coat goes on; the wall June matched by eye dries toward "one thing" (line 107). At the 4:05 walk-through the incoming artist crosses the repainted wall without noticing it and instead complains the untouched north wall "reads cold"; Marisol says it's the same paint; June, who knows the north wall is "lit secondhand all day" (line 119), keeps the explanation to herself. Packing out, June rescues the foamcore scrap — "three white squares and the long pulled run with its good edge, dry now" (line 123) — from the trash and puts it in her tote with the rolled drawings and Mara's scarf. At the loading door Asha texts Dana's contact and Kessler's and tells June to call Nia either way. June clocks out at 4:47, opens Nia's thread, types nothing, backs out, and saves both contacts under "Dana - Ridgewood (Asha)" and "Kessler - armory Jan" — "two cities, alphabetized together as if that settled anything" (line 131). She decides nothing — checked deliberately against the chapter card's outcome rule: "You'd actually go?" / "I don't know" (lines 85–87), the typed-nothing beat (line 131), and the symmetric "neither one was a fantasy and neither one was nothing" (line 99) keep leaving and staying open. She walks to the train with the scrap's corner sticking out of the tote and does not push it down. No `[UNCLEAR]` markers were required this round; every literal event resolved on first read. The nearest call was the wall's final color — the chapter never shows June tinting the roller batch — but the decision is on the page at line 53 ("The middle square's the match") after "Standard practice was to roll test squares before committing a color decision" (line 41), and line 119 confirms it ("the wall June had just matched by eye"), so the summary states it without guessing.

INVENTORY:
- "toggle holes / toggle bolts" — introduced: line 13 — first plot weight: lines 17–31 (patch count drives the schedule and the flash argument) — orientation: SUFFICIENT ("every bracket on toggle bolts because the walls here were hollow as a drum")
- "setting compound, the five-minute kind" — introduced: line 17 — first plot weight: same paragraph — orientation: SUFFICIENT ("lightweight spackle would shrink into holes this size and show a dimple by spring")
- "raking light" — introduced: line 19 — first plot weight: line 19 (triggers the color-drift discovery) — orientation: SUFFICIENT ("It was how you found the flaws; it was the whole reason you checked a wall at an angle instead of straight on")
- "spot-prime / feather / flash" — introduced: lines 29–31 — first plot weight: the schedule negotiation, lines 31–37 — orientation: SUFFICIENT ("It'll flash. Twenty-two patches, it'll look like the wall has a rash" glosses flash by consequence; the seam logic arrives in "New white meets old white at the corner. Anywhere else, people see the seam")
- "wet edge / W-pattern" — introduced: line 59 — first plot weight: none beyond texture — orientation: SUFFICIENT ("keep the wet edge moving so the wall dries as one thing instead of a map of where you stopped")
- "crate pickup / walk-through / invoice halves / clock-out" — introduced: line 13 — first plot weight: line 13 (the day's deadline structure) — orientation: SUFFICIENT ("Crate pickup at two. Walk-through at four, the incoming artist plus Marisol, who ran the space on a budget that paid small invoices in halves when the grant check cleared")
- "Tasker printshop (Philadelphia)" — introduced: line 65 — first plot weight: lines 71 and 99 (the leaving option) — orientation: SUFFICIENT (Nia's text states kind and terms plainly — "Programs + fabrication role… Keys, real paycheck, W-2, studio access after hours" — and the city is fixed by June's own "a job in Philadelphia," line 75, before "a set of keys on Tasker Street" recurs at line 99)
- "Ridgewood studio spot (Dana's)" — introduced: line 89 — first plot weight: line 99 (half the staying option) — orientation: SUFFICIENT — Round 1 finding REPAIRED and VERIFIED: "studio spot" and "Shared floor, six painters" (line 89) name the kind of thing in Asha's own pitch, "Studio rent on the first" (line 97) re-marks it, and the housing misprime is gone because June's deadline line now reads "My lease is up in December either way" (line 87) — lease and studio are separate facts in separate sentences, and "a photo of whatever you keep in a corner" (line 97) reads as studio-share vetting, not a roommate interview
- "armory build-out (Kessler's)" — introduced: line 97 — first plot weight: line 99 ("six weeks of armory wages on one side") — orientation: SUFFICIENT — Round 1 finding REPAIRED and VERIFIED: the introduction now precedes the weight by two lines and in the same conversation ("Kessler's got an armory build-out in January if you can show up with a level. Six weeks. Pays late. Pays real"), "show up with a level" marks it as install labor of the kind June already does; the loading-door beat (line 125) is now pure contact handoff ("tell Kessler I sent you before Friday") with no re-explanation playing as news
- "foamcore scrap / value run" — introduced: lines 41–43 — first plot weight: lines 57, 123, 133 (June's kept private object) — orientation: SUFFICIENT ("let the white thin out over the gray of the board until it went from solid to veil to nothing, a value run, paint doing the one trick paint does that drywall never asks of it") — Round 1 inventory contradiction REPAIRED and VERIFIED: the object is now three squares plus one run at every mention — made that way at lines 41–43, "the run beneath it" (line 55), "Asha had seen the run" (line 57), "three white squares and the long pulled run with its good edge" (line 123); "veil" survives only inside the line-43 making description as the gradient itself, never as a competing handle
- "timekeeping app" — introduced: line 131 — first plot weight: line 131 — orientation: SUFFICIENT ("4:47, seven billable hours, one line item, patch/prime/paint, project room, walls to neutral")
- Checked and passed without finding: "Parallel on Banker Street / the photo lab in Bushwick / the framer" (line 15 — oriented as June's client list by "She had built a modest freelance life on liking it"); the unnamed venue itself (never asked to carry its name; the kind of institution is concrete throughout); "the cardboard tube she had not bothered to take out since Tuesday" (line 17 — definite article on first appearance, resolved at line 123, "the cardboard tube with the rolled drawings," and backed by the rolled drawings the reader has carried since Week 1); "Mara's scarf" (line 17 — standing loan object since Week 1)

CONFUSION MAP:
- "his of her in a folder somewhere being nothing to nobody, location unasked" (line 45) — reader loses: where Theo's study is and what it shows — opacity: ASSIGNED (later payoff — this is the faced-to-wall portrait thread; Chapter 08 fixed June's knowledge at exactly "off the rack, in a folder," and "location unasked" marks the not-knowing as June's own act; reading guide and continuity both reserve this for the Ch23/Ch27 consent payoff).
- "two cities, alphabetized together as if that settled anything" (line 131) — reader loses: nothing about events; June's decision is withheld — opacity: ASSIGNED (suspense — the chapter card's outcome rule is "no decision yet," and the prose flags its own non-settlement: "neither one was a fantasy and neither one was nothing," line 99).
- Round 1 ACCIDENTAL entries re-checked and now CLOSED: (1) "six weeks of armory wages" (line 99) no longer precedes its referent — Asha's line-97 speech supplies the armory, Kessler, January, and the pay character before the weight lands; (2) the Ridgewood spot reads as workspace from its first noun ("studio spot… six painters," line 89) and the old housing misprime is gone (line 87 now names the lease and December, not a sublet and January); (3) the foamcore object holds one inventory across all four mentions (lines 41–43, 55, 57, 123).
- Checked and not logged as findings: "a valve she had spent two years assuming was hand-tight" (line 43) — a reader carrying Chapter 01's "has not painted in six years" may hiccup on "two years"; the line is reconcilable (two years is the age of the assumption, not of the quit) and costs no scene action, so it is not a clarity finding — but it should be referred to the continuity audit for a deliberate ruling rather than left to luck. "Spot-prime first or Marisol's paying us both to come back Thursday" (line 37) — the chapter's own implied weekday is Thursday, so "come back Thursday" technically means a week out; no weekday is ever stated on the page, so no first-time reader computes the collision. Canon check ordered for this round: the lease clock is December and only December — "My lease is up in December either way" (line 87); January attaches exclusively to options (Ridgewood "end of January," line 89; "armory build-out in January," line 97; Nia's "probably opening Jan 1… Start date can flex after mid-December," line 65), never to the lease. VERIFIED.

CHARACTER CLARITY:
- Asha (first appearance in the book): PLACEABLE ("Asha was at the far end of the project room with the last of the ceramic shelves, sheeting them in poly, bubble side out" — coworker from her first beat; a working painter by line 103, "I've said yes to stable things that ate my painting time")
- Nia Torres (first appearance, text-only): PLACEABLE ("She had not seen the name on her screen since March, a thread that ended with Nia's good luck w the install" plus June's own gloss, "Someone I went to school with says there's a job in Philadelphia")
- Marta Oduya (first appearance, absent): PLACEABLE ("The outgoing show had been Marta Oduya's shelf pieces: glazed stoneware on steel brackets")
- Marisol (first appearance): PLACEABLE ("Marisol, who ran the space on a budget that paid small invoices in halves when the grant check cleared")
- Dana (first appearance, mentioned only): PLACEABLE ("Dana's giving up her studio spot in Ridgewood end of January" — a person in Asha's network whose workspace June could inherit; the spot's kind, the Round 1 problem, is now carried by Asha's own nouns)
- Kessler (first appearance, mentioned only): PLACEABLE ("Kessler's got an armory build-out in January if you can show up with a level" — a hiring contact for January install work, saved as "Kessler - armory Jan")
- The incoming artist (unnamed): PLACEABLE ("the incoming artist plus Marisol" at line 13 sets her role three hours before she appears; "younger than June had expected, wore the good kind of terrible jacket," line 111)
- Theo (reappearing by reference): PLACEABLE ("her portrait of Theo riding it in public with his name on the back" — the Week 3 rack callback)
- Mara (reappearing by reference): PLACEABLE ("Mara's scarf" — the standing loan since Week 1)
- Pair Mara / Marta Oduya / Marisol (three active M-names): UN-CONFUSABLE (Marta never appears without surname or show context — "Marta Oduya's shelf pieces," "Oduya's shelves," line 105; Marisol is bound to the budget and the 4:05 walk-through; Mara exists in this chapter only as the scarf's owner; no two of them share a scene or a role)
- Pair Dana / Kessler (two new leads in Asha's network, both January): UN-CONFUSABLE (introduced in one speech with disjoint terms — studio rent versus wages — and locked apart by June's contact labels, "Dana - Ridgewood (Asha)" and "Kessler - armory Jan," line 131)
- Pair Nia / Asha (two practical artist-peers advising June the same day): UN-CONFUSABLE (different cities, different channels — texts versus on-site — and Asha keeps Nia distinct in her own mouth: "call your printshop friend either way," line 129)
- Pair June's foamcore scrap / Theo's hidden study (two private hidden artworks now live in the book — pressed per this round's risk list): UN-CONFUSABLE (the scrap is made on the page from Marisol's paint and foamcore and travels home in June's tote, lines 41–43 and 123; Theo's study is invoked in the same chapter only as "his of her in a folder somewhere," line 45, fixed at Marchetti Rooms by Chapter 08; the face-down move at line 57 rhymes with Theo's faced-to-wall hiding deliberately — same gesture, two clearly distinct objects in two named locations — and the line-45 paragraph itself holds them apart by contrasting whose portrait is public and whose is hidden)

COMPLEXITY CHECKS:
1. Scene action / physical orientation / focalizer perception / plot-bearing consequence on first read: HOLDS — the deadline structure is stated outright at line 13, every wall procedure is glossed by its purpose, and the focalizer is unbrokenly June. Strongest counter-candidate checked: the chapter never shows June tinting the roller batch between the line-53 decision and the line-59 rolling; the chain holds because the test is framed as the committal step ("Standard practice was to roll test squares before committing a color decision," line 41) and line 119 confirms the outcome ("the wall June had just matched by eye"). Second candidate: "two years" at line 43 against the reader's known six-year lapse — reconcilable, referred to continuity above.
2. New terms plain before carrying plot weight: HOLDS — Round 1's two failures are repaired in place: the armory is introduced at line 97, two lines and zero scene-breaks before its weight at line 99; the Ridgewood spot is named a studio in its first sentence (line 89) before it must carry half the staying option. Strongest remaining counter-candidate: "armory" itself is never glossed as a venue type, but "build-out… if you can show up with a level. Six weeks. Pays late. Pays real" tells the reader exactly what kind of thing it is for June — paid install labor on a date — which is all line 99 asks it to mean.
3. Mysteries deliberately genre-apt rather than accidental underexplanation: HOLDS — both withheld things are governed: the hidden study's location is the established consent thread, marked as June's own not-asking ("location unasked," line 45), and the undecided ending is the chapter's designed suspense, flagged in the prose ("as if that settled anything," line 131). Pressed specifically per this round's order that the chapter plant both options without deciding: "You'd actually go?" / "I don't know" (lines 85–87), the cursor-blink/typed-nothing beat (line 131), the symmetric "neither one was a fantasy and neither one was nothing" (line 99), and Asha's pointedly withheld verdict ("That's not advice," line 103) keep the scales level; saving both contacts is the chapter acting out non-decision, not decision.
4. Plain footholds at high-load moments: HOLDS — the procedural peak gets "New white meets old white at the corner. Anywhere else, people see the seam" (line 31); the emotional peak gets "three Tuesdays of being handed charcoal and told to look had apparently reopened a valve" (line 43); the options peak gets Asha's all-nouns speech at lines 89–97 before the abstraction of line 99; the walk-through irony is carried by "lit secondhand all day" (line 119).
5. Aliases / near-synonyms making one concept look like several: HOLDS — the Round 1 failure is repaired: the fourth mark now wears one name, "the run" (lines 55, 57, 123), and the object's count is stable at three squares plus one run. Strongest counter-candidate checked: "The middle square's the match" (line 53) versus the painting order at line 41, where the halfway mix is painted third — positionally the umber-nudged square is the row's middle, and a reader mapping "middle" to the halfway color gets a flicker; ruled holding because the chapter uses "the middle square" as one consistent handle in both June's mouth and the narration, and no later beat depends on which recipe won — line 119's "matched by eye" is square-agnostic. The two material paths, checked for the same alias failure, also hold: Tasker/printshop/Nia/Philadelphia and Ridgewood/armory/Asha/New York each keep one handle set, locked by the contact labels at line 131.

REVISION ORDERS:
None. All three Round 1 orders are executed in the current text and verified above (armory introduced at line 97 before line 99; Ridgewood marked as studio at lines 89 and 97 with the lease line corrected to December at line 87; foamcore inventory reconciled at lines 57 and 123), and no new UNCLEAR / INSUFFICIENT / ACCIDENTAL / UNPLACED / CONFUSABLE / FAILS finding was generated by the repairs or found in the pressed risk areas. One non-blocking referral, not an order: route "a valve she had spent two years assuming was hand-tight" (line 43) to the continuity audit to reconcile or deliberately retain against Chapter 01's six-year lapse.

OVERALL: CLEAR-UNDER-COMPLEXITY — heaviest-load passage: the two-shapes sentence at line 99 ("the city growing a handle… a corner in a Ridgewood studio and six weeks of armory wages on one side, a set of keys on Tasker Street on the other"), which asks one sentence to hold four new proper nouns and both plot paths; it is carried by the foothold of Asha's bucket-lunch speech two lines earlier (lines 89–97), which has already converted every term in it into a concrete thing with a price, a month, and a contact — and re-secured at line 131, where the contact labels "Dana - Ridgewood (Asha)" and "Kessler - armory Jan" replay the whole structure in six words.
