This is Lane. I’ve gone through Chapter 25. You’ve captured the "citrus noir" atmosphere effectively here. The tension is thick, and the sensory details—the smell of kerosene, the sound of the ice—are palpable.

However, we need to tighten the "connective tissue" between these moments. Some of the prose is leaning a bit heavily on tropes, and the rhythm trips up in places where the action should be lean.

### 1. STRENGTHS
*   **The stakes:** You’ve done a great job explaining the "why" behind the panic. The description of fruit turning into "bitter, fermented mush" makes the financial disaster visceral.
*   **The Ending:** The irony of the "salvaging" ice becoming the weight that breaks the trees is a strong, tragic pivot.
*   **Atmospheric Verbs:** "The mercury didn’t just drop; it fell like a stone..." sets a precise, heavy tone immediately.

### 2. CONCERNS
*   **Dialogue Tags & Modifiers:** You’re leaning on adverbs and "telling" verbs inside tags. Let the dialogue do the work.
*   **Cliché Phrasing:** Phrases like "soul-sucking humidity" or "screaming sensors" are a bit worn out for a literary-leaning "Future" genre. We can find fresher ways to describe the tech and the weather.
*   **Word Economy:** There are several places where two sentences are doing the job of one, slowing down the pacing of what should be a frantic night.

### 3. LINE-LEVEL SUGGESTIONS

**A. THE OPENING**
*   **ORIGINAL:** "...he could feel it in the way the moisture in his own breath seemed to crystalline before it even left his lips."
*   **SUGGESTED:** "...he could feel it in the way his breath crystallized before it left his lips."
*   **RATIONALE:** "Seemed to" is a filter that weakens the image. "Crystalline" is an adjective; you need the verb "crystallize." Economy of movement makes the cold feel sharper.

**B. REDUNDANT DIALOGUE TAGS**
*   **ORIGINAL:** "“If we don't, there won't be a debt to worry about tomorrow morning,” he snapped, then immediately softened..."
*   **SUGGESTED:** "“If we don’t, there won’t be a debt to worry about tomorrow.” His voice lost its edge. He placed a gloved hand on her shoulder."
*   **RATIONALE:** "Snapped" is an unnecessary adverbial tag when the dialogue already conveys the tension. Deleting "then immediately softened" and replacing it with a physical action creates a better beat.

**C. CHARACTER VOICE (JULIAN)**
*   **ORIGINAL:** "Julian hopped out before the engine had fully died. He looked older in the harsh glare of the cabin light—deep lines etched around a mouth that was pulled into a tight, grim lime."
*   **SUGGESTED:** "Julian hopped out before the engine died. In the cabin light, the lines around his mouth looked like deep-cut trenches."
*   **RATIONALE:** You have a typo ("grim lime" presumably for "grim line"). Also, "harsh glare" and "deep lines etched" are very common descriptors. Let's make the imagery more specific to the landscape.

**D. ADVERB AUDIT**
*   **ORIGINAL:** "“We’re short-handed,” Julian noted, grabbing a canister of kerosene."
*   **SUGGESTED:** "“We’re short-handed.” Julian grabbed a canister of kerosene."
*   **RATIONALE:** "Noted" is a weak dialogue tag. The action of grabbing the kerosene tells us he's noting the deficiency while preparing to fight it.

**E. RHYTHM & REPETITION**
*   **ORIGINAL:** "For the next three hours, the grove was transformed into a subterranean version of hell. Elias moved from tree to tree, his movements mechanical and fueled by a desperate kind of adrenaline."
*   **SUGGESTED:** "For three hours, the grove was a subterranean hell. Elias moved from tree to tree with a mechanical, desperate adrenaline."
*   **RATIONALE:** "The next" and "version of" are filler. Removing "his movements" and the "and fueled by" creates a harder, faster sentence that mimics his fatigue.

**F. THE CLIMAX (THE ENGINE)**
*   **ORIGINAL:** "The metal was slick with a fine glaze of frost. He braced his feet against the railing and threw his weight into the turn. Nothing. The engine was a dead hunk of iron."
*   **SUGGESTED:** "Frost glazed the metal. He braced against the railing and threw his weight into the crank. Nothing. A dead hunk of iron."
*   **RATIONALE:** Eliminate the "was" verbs where possible. "Frost glazed" is an active image. Ending on "iron" is a punchier rhythmic stop.

### VERDICT

**POLISH NEEDED.**

The bones of the chapter are excellent. The tension is high, and the technical details of the freeze feel researched and real. However, the prose is currently "noisy." By cutting the filter words (*seemed to, felt like, watched as*) and auditing the dialogue tags, you will make the cold feel much more dangerous to the reader.

Return to the middle section (the fire lighting) and see if you can cut 10% of the word count just by removing "was/were" constructions. It will make the action move twice as fast.