diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index a8752fb..75fe84a 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ A scroll-scrubbed site plays through a sequence of frames as the reader scrolls,
 background moves with them instead of sitting still behind the text. ScrollCraft builds
 those sites without WebGL, an animation library, or a render farm.
 
-1. **Start from a template.** 24 finished sites, each with its own palette,
+1. **Start from a template.** 23 finished sites, each with its own palette,
    typography, pacing and copy. Or upload a video and use your own footage.
 2. **Get frames.** The engine draws the frame sequence on a canvas in your browser and
    maps it to scroll position.
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ one exception is the copy assistant below, which is off unless you configure a k
   palette. Frames are drawn on canvas locally, with no API key and nothing to install.
 - **Scroll engine.** Smooth canvas scrubbing with separate desktop and portrait frame sets,
   so a phone gets a background shaped for it rather than a letterboxed one.
-- **Template library** — 24 finished scroll sites across 17 categories, each with its own
+- **Template library** — 23 finished scroll sites across 17 categories, each with its own
   Google Fonts pairing and palette.
 - **Plain HTML export.** No dependencies and no lock-in. The exported page scores 100 on
   Lighthouse for performance, accessibility, best practices and SEO.
diff --git a/public/template-previews/pare.jpg b/public/template-previews/pare.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 9339052..0000000
Binary files a/public/template-previews/pare.jpg and /dev/null differ
diff --git a/src/__tests__/exportPages.test.ts b/src/__tests__/exportPages.test.ts
index 0147199..a81371f 100644
--- a/src/__tests__/exportPages.test.ts
+++ b/src/__tests__/exportPages.test.ts
@@ -274,8 +274,14 @@ describe("the exported page is legible on a light palette too", () => {
     expect(footer).not.toMatch(/opacity:\s*0\.\d+/);
   });
 
-  it("exports the light template without falling back to a dark page", async () => {
-    const { body } = await exportSite({ template: "pare" });
+  it("paints a light palette's own ground, whenever one ships", async () => {
+    // No light template is in the catalogue today, so this exercises the path directly.
+    const { body } = await exportSite({
+      sections: [{ heading: "On a pale page", scrollHeight: 1000 }],
+      siteName: "Pale",
+      styleJson: JSON.stringify({ style: "geometric", colors: ["#1b3a8f", "#8a5a2b", "#eff2f6"] }),
+      themeJson: JSON.stringify({ ink: "#111823", ground: "#eff2f6" }),
+    });
     expect(body.html).toContain("#eff2f6");
   });
 });
diff --git a/src/__tests__/lightPalette.test.ts b/src/__tests__/lightPalette.test.ts
index 205e5e5..439bb24 100644
--- a/src/__tests__/lightPalette.test.ts
+++ b/src/__tests__/lightPalette.test.ts
@@ -26,19 +26,20 @@ describe("a light palette gets a light page", () => {
     expect(baseFill(optsFor(["#28407e", "#6b2f2a", "#0a0d18"]), "#030308")).toBe("#030308");
   });
 
-  it("changes nothing for any template that already existed", () => {
-    // The whole catalogue, minus the one light template this was built for: every one of
-    // them must still start from the exact fill it started from before.
+  it("changes nothing for any template in the catalogue", () => {
+    // Every template ships dark today, so none of them may move.
     for (const template of TEMPLATES) {
-      if (template.slug === "pare") continue;
       for (const dark of DARK_BASES) {
         expect(baseFill(optsFor(template.colors), dark), `${template.slug} moved`).toBe(dark);
       }
     }
   });
 
-  it("the catalogue has a light template at all, which it did not before", () => {
+  it("leaves the catalogue dark until a light template is designed to look it", () => {
+    // Pare was reverted: a light palette with this geometry paints a page whose mean
+    // brightness is 237 and whose background barely moves, which reads as an unstyled
+    // page rather than a quiet one. The engine can do light; the design has to earn it.
     const light = TEMPLATES.filter((t) => baseFill(optsFor(t.colors), "#030308") !== "#030308");
-    expect(light.map((t) => t.slug)).toContain("pare");
+    expect(light.map((t) => t.slug)).toEqual([]);
   });
 });
diff --git a/src/lib/templates.ts b/src/lib/templates.ts
index d266b0f..0f8e56d 100644
--- a/src/lib/templates.ts
+++ b/src/lib/templates.ts
@@ -1566,62 +1566,4 @@ export const TEMPLATES: Template[] = [
       },
     ],
   },
-  {
-    slug: "pare",
-    name: "Pare",
-    tagline: "An engineer who makes slow databases fast, on a page that is not dark",
-    category: "Portfolio",
-    tags: ["Light", "Technical", "Consulting"],
-    style: "geometric",
-    colors: ["#1b3a8f", "#8a5a2b", "#eff2f6"],
-    gradient: "from-slate-300 via-stone-300 to-slate-100",
-    theme: { fontDisplay: "JetBrains Mono", fontBody: "Public Sans", scale: "compact", displayWeight: 700, displayTracking: -0.03, ink: "#111823", muted: "rgba(17,24,35,0.72)", accent: "#1d4ed8", accentText: "#17347f", ground: "#eff2f6", radius: 4 },
-    sections: [
-      {
-        kind: "statement", layout: "center", reveal: "mask",
-        eyebrow: "Independent, booked by the fortnight",
-        heading: "Your database is not slow. One query is.",
-        ctaLabel: "See what that looks like", ctaHref: "#section-2",
-        scrollHeight: 1300,
-      },
-      {
-        layout: "left", reveal: "stagger",
-        eyebrow: "The usual shape of it",
-        heading: "A report that took forty seconds now takes three hundred milliseconds",
-        body: "Nine times out of ten it is one query, one missing index and one ORM call in a loop. I read the explain plans, fix the three that matter, and leave the rest alone.",
-        scrollHeight: 1400,
-      },
-      {
-        layout: "right", reveal: "fade",
-        eyebrow: "How I work",
-        heading: "Two weeks, on your branch, with your team watching",
-        body: "No access to production without someone from your side in the room. Every change arrives as a pull request with the before and after timings in the description, so your engineers can argue with it.",
-        scrollHeight: 1400,
-      },
-      { kind: "spacer", scrollHeight: 600 },
-      {
-        layout: "left", reveal: "stagger",
-        eyebrow: "What you keep",
-        heading: "The explain plans, not just the fix",
-        body: "You get a short document per query: what it was doing, why it was slow, what changed, and how to spot the same pattern again. The point is that you do not need me the second time.",
-        scrollHeight: 1400,
-      },
-      {
-        layout: "right", reveal: "fade",
-        eyebrow: "What I turn down",
-        heading: "Greenfield, migrations and rewrites",
-        body: "Starting from nothing is somebody else's work, and a rewrite is rarely the cheapest way out of a slow query. If that is what you need I will say so in the first call rather than the fourth week.",
-        scrollHeight: 1300,
-      },
-      { kind: "spacer", scrollHeight: 500 },
-      {
-        layout: "center", reveal: "fade",
-        eyebrow: "Next opening",
-        heading: "Send me the slow query.",
-        body: "Paste the statement and its explain plan. I will tell you whether it is worth two weeks of my time or twenty minutes of yours, for free, within a day.",
-        ctaLabel: "Send a query", ctaHref: "#contact",
-        scrollHeight: 1200,
-      },
-    ],
-  },
 ];