She stopped and glanced down at her hands for a moment before looking back up.
"How did..."
She stopped again.
"The candle," I said.
I leaned against the doorframe.
"The fourth one's trailing edges had been pulling it off its mark since earlier, when I checked the room after Arveth arrived."
I glanced at the corridor lamp. Still consistent.
"It should have been addressed before the working ran as long as it did. That's the honest part. The gap was downstream of a maintenance item that sat open too long. Closing the item was closing something I should have closed when I first noticed it."
Brenne looked down at the floor.
She stood there for a moment with that answer.
The expression on her face looked like someone turning an object in their hands and checking every side of it before deciding what it was.
Then she looked back up.
"But what was coming through," she said.
She spoke carefully, like she was watching to see if I'd stop her.
