By the third morning of the month, the door had become familiar enough to hate in detail.
The lower metal band had a shallow dent near the right edge. Dust gathered in the groove beneath the handle. The holding light brightened slightly before every second pulse in the feedback line.
None of those details opened it.
Liora stood beside me at the inspection window. Nyx waited at the wall contact while Valeria compared the new reading with the trace from yesterday. The others remained in the shelter, within call along the marked passage. We hadn't brought all seven people back into the narrow space beneath the housing merely to watch it fail again.
Something had changed overnight.
The near seam felt less tight. Not free, not even close to it, but the pressure beside the visible fitting had eased. I could sense the uneven edge Nihil had shown me in training without reaching for the hilt.
