Hello, I’m Lane. I’ve spent the last hour reading this aloud to the rhythm of my own pulse. The tension here is excellent, but we have some flabby phrasing and "thesaurus-heavy" descriptions that are muting the emotional impact.

Here is my line edit for Chapter 23.

### 1. STRENGTHS
*   **The Concept of "The Nullifier":** The sensory details of magic being "unmade"—the loss of oxygen, the "liquid silk" flames—are visceral and effectively communicate the stakes.
*   **The Climax:** The "heat sink" moment where Dorian uses himself as a conduit is a perfect subversion of the ice/fire tropes. It feels earned.
*   **Rhythmic Pacing:** You have a good sense of when to use short, punchy sentences to escalate the action.

### 2. CONCERNS & LINE SUGGESTIONS

**A. Adverbial Overload and Dialogue Tags**
You’re leaning on adverbs to do the emotional heavy lifting. Let the dialogue or the action carry the weight.

*   **ORIGINAL:** "Dorian’s voice sounded thin, as if he were speaking from the bottom of a frozen lake."
*   **SUGGESTED:** "Dorian’s voice was a thinned rasp, like sound traveling through a frozen lake."
*   **RATIONALE:** "Sounded thin" is weak; "was a thinned rasp" gives the voice a textured quality that matches the "frozen lake" imagery.

*   **ORIGINAL:** "Mira!’ Dorian’s voice sounded thin..." and later "...terrifyingly certain."
*   **SUGGESTED:** Cut "terrifyingly." His eyes being "piercing" and "certain" is enough. We know it’s terrifying because he’s walking into a death trap.

**B. "Purple" Prose and Abstract Adjectives**
Some metaphors are getting tangled in their own complexity. We want the reader in the moment, not deciphering the physics of the metaphor.

*   **ORIGINAL:** "...releasing a sound like a lung collapsing in a vacuum."
*   **SUGGESTED:** "...releasing a sound like a gasp swallowed by a vacuum."
*   **RATIONALE:** "Lung collapsing" is a bit too clinical/gorier than the tone of a YA romantic fantasy. "Gasp swallowed" keeps it focused on the air being stolen.

*   **ORIGINAL:** "He was a creature of ice and starlight... His movements were lethargic, heavy, as if he were wading through mercury."
*   **SUGGESTED:** "He was a creature of ice and starlight, yet he moved as if wading through mercury."
*   **RATIONALE:** "Lethargic, heavy" are redundant adjectives. "Wading through mercury" tells the reader exactly how heavy it is.

**C. Redundant Descriptions**
Don't explain the magic to us twice in the same paragraph.

*   **ORIGINAL:** "The fire in the braziers around the courtyard didn't flicker out; the flames were physically sucked toward the black aperture of the box, elongated like liquid silk before vanishing into the void."
*   **SUGGESTED:** "The brazier flames didn't flicker out; they stretched toward the box like liquid silk, vanishing into the black aperture."
*   **RATIONALE:** "Physically sucked" is clunky. "Stretched" is more evocative and preserves the "liquid silk" image.

**D. Dialogue Check (The "Villain" Problem)**
General Kael borders on a caricature here. His dialogue is a bit "monologue-y."

*   **ORIGINAL:** "A merged school is a weakness, Chancellor," he said, his voice a vibration in the floorboards rather than a sound in the ear. "If you cannot defend your magic against the Void, you do not deserve to hoard it."
*   **SUGGESTED:** "A merged school is a weakness," Kael’s voice vibrated through the stone. "If you cannot defend your magic, you do not deserve to keep it."
*   **RATIONALE:** "Hoard it" feels like a strange word choice for a General. Also, cutting "rather than a sound in the ear" tightens the flow.

### 3. THE "LANE" MOMENT (Line-by-Line Micro-Edits)

*   **QUOTED:** "The world went gray. Not the gray of twilight or stone, but a predatory, hungry neutral that stripped the color from the very air."
*   **FIX:** "The world went gray—not of twilight or stone, but a predatory, hungry neutral that stripped color from the air." (Economy of words: "the very" adds nothing).

*   **QUOTED:** "Mira’s fingers clawed at the stone. She felt the cold. For the first time in her life, the absence of heat wasn't just a physical state—it was an existential threat."
*   **FIX:** "Mira clawed at the stone. She felt the cold. Not as a temperature, but as an existential threat." (Stronger rhythm).

*   **QUOTED:** "Dorian’s sleeves were smoldering. The veins in his neck were traced in glowing orange."
*   **FIX:** "Dorian’s sleeves smoldered. Glowing orange traced the veins in his neck." (Active verbs over passive "were").

***

### VERDICT: POLISH NEEDED
The bones of this chapter are rock solid. The stakes are clear, and the "He-takes-her-fire" moment is peak Romance. However, the prose is currently "over-decorated." Strip back the adverbs and the double-adjectives to let the raw emotion of the scene breathe. 

**Focus on: Active verbs and cutting the "filter" words (like "saw," "felt," "sounded").**