diff --git a/platform/internal/pgstore/price_test.go b/platform/internal/pgstore/price_test.go
index 42516d29..e22a167c 100644
--- a/platform/internal/pgstore/price_test.go
+++ b/platform/internal/pgstore/price_test.go
@@ -12,9 +12,10 @@ import (
 func priced() Structure {
 	in := twoChapters("k1")
 	in.Structure = ingest.StructureDetected
-	in.Price = &ingest.BookPrice{
-		ExpectedUSD: 2_090_000, BookOnceUSD: 2_000_000, StepMaxUSD: 69_828, SourceChars: 3000,
-	}
+	in.Price = &Projection{Expected: 2_090_000, BookOnce: 2_000_000, StepMax: 69_828}
+	// ⚠ ON THE CUT, NOT ON THE PRICE — the store keeps the two apart on purpose, and the type makes
+	// that the only way to say it (see Projection).
+	in.SourceChars = 3000
 	// ⚠ The price lives on the UNIT and only there: a chapter's cost is the sum of the units still to
 	// deliver, so a chapter-level copy would be a second carrier free to drift from it.
 	in.Chapters[0].Units[0].Expected, in.Chapters[0].Units[0].SourceChars = 40_000, 1200
@@ -201,13 +202,18 @@ func TestTheEnginesCharacterCountReachesTheLibraryRowBesideItsAccuracy(t *testin
 // count too, and «Знаков» fell back to the intake's approximation, which for an EPUB counts the runes
 // of a ZIP archive. The two facts are independent: one is about the text, the other about money.
 //
-// Mutation caught: writing `source_chars` off `in.Price` again.
+// ⚠ Since Projection was cut down to money alone, writing the count off the price is no longer
+// EXPRESSIBLE — the field it would be read from does not exist. What this pin still catches is the
+// other half of the same mistake: gating the write on the price's arrival.
+//
+// Mutation caught: writing a null `source_chars` whenever `in.Price` is nil.
 func TestTheCharacterCountSurvivesAPriceThisBuildCouldNotRead(t *testing.T) {
 	s, ctx := testDB(t)
 	book := readingBook(t, s, ctx, "u1")
 	in := priced()
 	in.Price = nil        // the money did not arrive…
-	in.SourceChars = 3000 // …and the engine's count of the text did
+	in.SourceChars = 3000 // …and the engine's count of the text did (priced() sets it; said again here
+	// because this test is ABOUT that figure and a reader should not have to go look)
 	if err := s.SaveStructure(ctx, book, in); err != nil {
 		t.Fatal(err)
 	}
diff --git a/platform/internal/pgstore/readmodel.go b/platform/internal/pgstore/readmodel.go
index a54c323a..cc6ca24b 100644
--- a/platform/internal/pgstore/readmodel.go
+++ b/platform/internal/pgstore/readmodel.go
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ type Structure struct {
 	// whole one. A book with no projection is one the platform REFUSES to sell rather than one it
 	// prices with a constant (pricing's own package comment), so nil is written through: a projection
 	// that goes stale is worse than one that is honestly absent.
-	Price *ingest.BookPrice
+	Price *Projection
 	// Structure is where the chapter boundaries came from, verbatim from the engine. Empty when the
 	// engine did not say — a manifest older than the landing — and stored as such: the decision it
 	// feeds (ingest.ChapterOrdersOffered) treats what it does not know as untrusted.
@@ -92,6 +92,30 @@ type Structure struct {
 	SourceChars int64
 }
 
+// Projection is the MONEY half of the engine's a-priori figure, as the store holds it.
+//
+// ⛔ IT CARRIES NO CHARACTER COUNT, and the absence is the whole reason this type exists rather than
+// the wire's own `ingest.BookPrice`. The engine publishes `source_chars` INSIDE its price object,
+// because for the engine both are outputs of one projection; the store keeps them apart
+// (Structure.SourceChars) because for the store they answer to different witnesses — a manifest can
+// name the text honestly and fail on a MONEY key, and a book that lost its bill has no business
+// losing its character count too.
+//
+// ⚠ Reusing the wire struct here put the same figure in TWO fields of one value, and a caller then
+// filled one and not the other — which is not a hypothetical: it is how
+// TestTheEnginesCharacterCountReachesTheLibraryRowBesideItsAccuracy went red. One fact, one carrier.
+type Projection struct {
+	// Expected is the whole book's expected bill, book-level passes INCLUDED.
+	Expected money.MicroUSD
+	// BookOnce is the part of Expected that belongs to the BOOK and not to any chapter — a flat bond
+	// on the shipped arm, which is why an ORDER is priced from the chapters' own bills instead (see
+	// pricing.Hold and ingest.BookPrice.BookOnceUSD for the measurement behind it).
+	BookOnce money.MicroUSD
+	// StepMax is the largest single reservation any one call of this book can ask for: the floor of
+	// every hold, because a ceiling below it admits nothing.
+	StepMax money.MicroUSD
+}
+
 // StructureChapter is one chapter and its pairs, in reading order.
 type StructureChapter struct {
 	// EngineID is the engine's content-derived chapter identity; Number its dense display ordinal.
@@ -171,7 +195,7 @@ func (s *Store) SaveStructure(ctx context.Context, bookID string, in Structure)
 		// tree would sell yesterday's book; an absent one refuses the sale, which is the honest half.
 		var expected, bookOnce, stepMax *int64
 		if in.Price != nil {
-			e, b, sm := int64(in.Price.ExpectedUSD), int64(in.Price.BookOnceUSD), int64(in.Price.StepMaxUSD)
+			e, b, sm := int64(in.Price.Expected), int64(in.Price.BookOnce), int64(in.Price.StepMax)
 			expected, bookOnce, stepMax = &e, &b, &sm
 		}
 		// ⚠ INDEPENDENT OF THE PRICE — see Structure.SourceChars. A book the engine could not price is
diff --git a/platform/internal/readmodel/readmodel.go b/platform/internal/readmodel/readmodel.go
index 448495f6..aedd46ce 100644
--- a/platform/internal/readmodel/readmodel.go
+++ b/platform/internal/readmodel/readmodel.go
@@ -327,7 +327,11 @@ func (s *Service) refreshStructure(ctx context.Context, bookID, workdir string,
 	// moved nothing. So `priced` gates the per-chapter numbers too, and a book the engine could not
 	// price is stored as not priced rather than as free.
 	if p, ok := manifest.Priced(); ok {
-		in.Price = &p
+		// ⚠ MAPPED FIELD BY FIELD RATHER THAN CARRIED WHOLE, and `source_chars` is deliberately not
+		// among them: the store holds it on the CUT (in.SourceChars, set above), so that a book whose
+		// money did not arrive keeps the honest count of its text. pgstore.Projection carries no such
+		// field, which is what makes the omission impossible to make by accident.
+		in.Price = &pgstore.Projection{Expected: p.ExpectedUSD, BookOnce: p.BookOnceUSD, StepMax: p.StepMaxUSD}
 	} else if why := manifest.PriceRefusal(); why != "" {
 		// ⛔ SAID OUT LOUD, because the consequence is a book that materializes perfectly and can never
 		// be SOLD. Everything else about it lands — the tree, the text, the reading surface — and only