The error was not in the mathematics.
This was established early and repeated often, mostly for reassurance.
Edrin Vale stood over the table, hands folded, eyes moving across the final page with the calm confidence of someone who had done everything correctly and was therefore unprepared for what followed.
The structure was sound. He did not say it aloud. Saying things aloud often tempted fate.
Tomas Renn leaned closer, admiring the work. It was elegant. Possibly beautiful. Beauty, however, had never been known to help in situations like this.
Mireya Quill ignored the main text and studied the margins instead. Margins tended to reveal intention more honestly.
Human error, she said eventually, was always underestimated.
Minimal, Edrin replied, with confidence that was not yet justified.
From the far wall, Iseult Crowe closed her notebook. That assumption, she noted, was optimistic.
The chamber was quiet in a deliberate way — stone walls, high ceiling, mechanisms humming softly despite no one remembering installing them. Symbols traced the floor with careful precision. Nothing glowed. Nothing shook. By all reasonable measures, everything was proceeding well.
They had accounted for instability: temporal drift, symbolic ambiguity, residual variance. Tomas found comfort in the list. Lists were reliable.
Then the air shifted, as if something had quietly changed its mind.
There was no sound. No warning. The room simply felt different.
Unusual, Tomas thought.
Statistically improbable, Edrin corrected. Comforting.
The symbols did not move. They adjusted.
Mireya smiled. That, she said, was unfortunate.
They had achieved the correct outcome using the wrong invitation.
Silence followed. Heavy, but orderly.
Tomas wondered what arrived in such cases.
Someone Mireya replied, who would insist they had been very clear.
The circle completed itself.
Somewhere nearby, something prepared to answer.