diff --git a/tests/integration/find-connected-order.test.ts b/tests/integration/find-connected-order.test.ts
index b04e7f99..3b7560e4 100644
--- a/tests/integration/find-connected-order.test.ts
+++ b/tests/integration/find-connected-order.test.ts
@@ -67,6 +67,13 @@ describe('find({ connected }) is graph-first: neighbours → filter → page', (
   })
 
   afterAll(async () => {
+    // CLOSE IT. Dropping the reference does not close a brain — it only makes
+    // it unreachable from here. The instance stays open and registered, its
+    // unref'd cadence timer keeps running, and because the gate config runs the
+    // whole suite in ONE process (pool: 'forks', singleFork: true) it goes on
+    // narrating its flushes into every test file that runs after this one.
+    // A test that leaks a brain is a defect of the test.
+    await brain?.close()
     brain = null as any
   })
 
@@ -137,13 +144,34 @@ describe('find({ connected }) is graph-first: neighbours → filter → page', (
   })
 
   it('walks the vector leg over the neighbours only', async () => {
+    // The SAME query without the vector leg, first. Both legs draw from the
+    // one neighbour set, so this is the control: it says whether a short answer
+    // came from the adjacency/filter (both legs short) or from the vector walk
+    // alone (only the vector leg short). Cheap, and it turns a bare count
+    // mismatch into a named half — this case has gone red on the gate box
+    // while passing in isolation and beside its own predecessor, so the next
+    // red must arrive already carrying the half it belongs to.
+    const control = await brain.find({
+      connected: { from: anchor, direction: 'out' },
+      where: { kind: 'note' },
+      limit: 5
+    })
+
     const results = await brain.find({
       vector: sharedVector,
       connected: { from: anchor, direction: 'out' },
       where: { kind: 'note' },
       limit: 5
     })
-    expect(results).toHaveLength(5)
+
+    expect(
+      results.length,
+      `the vector leg returned ${results.length} of a requested 5. The same query ` +
+        `WITHOUT the vector returned ${control.length}: if that is also short the ` +
+        `neighbour set or the filter is the cause, and if it is 5 the vector walk is — ` +
+        `note every row in this corpus carries an identical vector, so the walk is ` +
+        `ranking an exact tie.`
+    ).toBe(5)
     for (const r of results) expect(neighbourIds.has(r.entity.id)).toBe(true)
   })