Inside the Needle, light forgets how to be cruel.
Even-tide hush rides the water. Iron ribs arc overhead like the inside of a great bell. Script glows along them, soft as breath:
WALK IN PAIRS. LEAVE DOORS OPEN. RETURN FOR THREE.
Farther down: NO NAMES TO PAPER OR STONE. NO BLOOD ON BARGAINS.
Day's tax slackens across my skin. The lantern between our hands goes deep-heavy—not the tired kind, the fed kind. Kirella's thumb finds my pulse out of habit. One—two—three—four. The count sits me back inside my bones.
"Rules are on our side," he murmurs.
"Rules are only rules if somebody keeps them," I answer, and step to the bow.
A shadow runs in the glass slit to our right—the side-lock. The tall mask's launch slides inside it, reflection leading like a fish chasing itself. He lifts two fingers in polite mockery. The sluice hums. We are racing a mirror.
Pair Weigh
The canal narrows and throws down a test: a floating balance bridge—two bronze plates, twin and sulky, bobbing on thick posts. A small sign on the arch above them reads: PAIRS ONLY.
"Step for two," Kirella says. He keeps the tiller aligned and the barge kisses the first plate.
I lay fast step-coins—thin warm circles the size of saucers—one for each of our feet, spaced like stitches. We lift the lantern together, palms matched on the handle, and step across in rhythm.
One—two—three—four. His breath sets the pulse; mine lays the weight.
The plate tests us with a slow see-saw. Solo steps would lock it stiff and useless. Paired steps coax it to behave. We pass to the second plate and do it again, shade cloth over my shoulder where Third Moon holds it proud and steady.
In the side-lock, the mask dips his paddle to send a teasing wake through his slit, hoping to jostle our balance. The Needle's dampers sigh. His ripple flattens like a lie told to a patient aunt.
"Be bored," I tell the plates. They oblige. The second plate floats us off without a squeak.
Third Moon exhales like he'd been holding his breath for a day and a half. I squeeze his elbow. "You kept the shade; the shade kept us."
He pretends not to glow and glows anyway.
Echo Alcove
A low opening bites the wall—an echo alcove, its inside crowded with narrow paper slits like teeth too shy to bite. A whisper drifts out: "State your names for record."
"Bowl-name chorus," I say.
"Red Ladle," I start.
"Steady Hand," Kirella follows.
"Ash-Fletch," Third Moon says by accident and then corrects at once, mortified and brave: "Third Moon."
A few more from memory for good measure, the way markets learn to sing: Brown Apron, Spindle Hand, Salt Rope. The alcove chews the syllables, reaches for true, finds our bowls instead, and goes sulky with the taste.
I tap its hinge with the WORD plate. WAIT bleeds into bronze like warmth through a cup. The swallowed stamp it tried to spit onto us comes out blank and drops back into its own mouth.
In the side-lock the mask slides a gloved hand through a slot and offers a little ledger strip with tidy printed lies: Dock Record, Noon. The alcove sniffs, sneezes ink like a cat, and spits his paper into the canal.
"Good girl," Syth would say to the machine. I say nothing and keep moving.
Kept Scale
Stone steps rise out of the water on the left: a wide scale arm with a shallow plate. A hush hangs over it. A carved line reads: WEIGH WHAT YOU KEEP.
"What counts?" Third Moon whispers.
"Kept, not paid," I answer.
I set the lantern in the crook of my elbow and draw a thin ring on the plate with my palm—the kind that says door stays open in a language stone understands. Kirella ties a kept-knot to the rail with the patient neatness he uses on bad days: loop, tuck, gift. Under his breath he speaks the two vows the Needle likes best.
"We won't pay."
"We won't sell."
The scale settles with a soft, satisfied note. The lantern's glass takes a faint new swirl of mid-light beside Nim's tiny curl—no brighter, but more sure. A bell the size of a teacup rings once and is proud enough not to ring again.
In the side-lock, the mask drops a silver token on his plate. The scale refuses without drama. Coin does not count here. He tries a paper seal next; the plate does not speak paper. His launch hesitates; ours slides.
Kirella smiles the smallest private smile. "Kitchen one, market none."
"We're not keeping score," I say.
"We are absolutely keeping score," he says, and his hands don't leave the tiller.
Merge
The canal shoulders in, a squeeze with rib shadows tight enough to make a boat forget it has choices. The side-lock curves to meet us, the glass slit angling like a mirror teeth at our beam. Inside it the tall mask cranks a polished pawl that ratchets his sluice faster. His reflection gains.
"Low port drift," Kirella calls. "Hold on four."
I palm two quick ring coins—one at the bow, one near stern—and let them warm the deck through Myor's old tar. The barge levels; the squeeze looks less like a jaw and more like a fair test.
A tongue of iron starts to drop between channels, neat as a drawbridge for fish. "Gate," Third Moon warns, pointing.
I hate this, but want counts more than likes. I give the scythe one handspan more edge and lever the tongue up—metal only, no flesh—just enough to buy us a finger of passage. My palm stings with the wrong kind of joy. Third Moon jams the brine needle into a crusted hinge and Kirella caps the spot with his kept-knot. Grease of promise. The tongue hesitates out of confusion or courtesy; we slide that finger more and breathe again.
In the glass slit, the mask's launch glances off its own tongue, cants, rights. He lifts his hand like a man offering a toast with the drink he didn't pay for. The side-lock hum rises. He will be on us at the merge.
Warden's Jetty
The squeeze opens into an inner basin shaped like a shallow bowl, water quiet as sleep. On the inside edge a short jetty juts out. A figure stands at its end—a Warden in a hooded coat, lamplike thing in one hand, face a suggestion. Their lamp burns the same twilight as the canal.
A slate hangs from a nail beside them: MARK FOR WALK • LEAVE DOORS OPEN.
"Do we stop?" Third Moon asks, already reaching for a line.
"Kiss the plate," Kirella says. "Don't linger."
We edge in. The Warden does not speak. They extend a little auditor's plate no bigger than a book's cover. Kirella and I lift the lantern together, both palms on the handle, both breaths on the glass. Warmth passes from it to the plate and back. A faint mid-light swirl blooms beside our earlier marks. The teacup bell on the jetty rings one neat note, pleased to have a reason to exist.
The Warden's hood tips irrelevantly, as if they were listening to water write. The slate ink brightens for a blink, a check mark born and gone. We slide away.
The side-lock sluice spits the tall mask's launch level with our beam as we clear the jetty. He tries a neat paper lariat—no blood, Needle rules—whip-cracks it for our rail.
I meet it close because laws are still laws.
Shaft bind the rope against our cleat, hip turn to take his pull into my stance, knee tap to break the rhythm in his arms. In the same breath I jam the rope under our cleat with the boat hook. When he yanks, his own force yaws him off line. He laughs like tip money and lets the rope go before it chooses to teach him something about wrists.
"Basin's fork ahead," Kirella says, eyes cutting left and right. "See it?"
I do.
The water splits: the Main Run, wide, polite, slower, marked PAIRS ONLY in careful script; and a narrow Service Vein, tight as a throat, its arch stenciled: ONE STEERS • ONE ANCHORS • HANDS NEVER LEAVE THE KEPT.
The Warden's lamp on the jetty tilts toward the Main Run like a suggestion, not an order.
"This is where we—" Third Moon starts.
"—keep each other," I finish.
In the slit the mask angles for the Service Vein, grin unchanging, reflection brightening against the glass. He means to be first by being worst.
Kirella's hand closes over mine on the lantern handle. His thumb finds my pulse and says the only word he ever needs with numbers.
One—two—three—four.
The lantern answers him with a weight that wants to be a promise. The ring marks on the glass glow so faintly I might be inventing it. They aren't bright. They're certain.
"Main's clean," he says. "Service is quick."
"Service demands touch," I say. "We don't break touch."
He nods. His eyes in this light are river wood; mine are something that used to be red and learned to behave. Third Moon plants his feet and sets the shade cloth low across my shoulders, solemn as a ceremony.
"Pick," the canal doesn't say but makes us hear anyway.
I set my heel toward the Service Vein because the tall mask will go there; because speed is a kind of mercy when a door is closing; because rules that reward kept are our rules. The prow swings; the tight arch rushes at us with the eagerness of a hungry test.
The mask's launch knifes for the same mouth, reflection spilling golden and false in the glass.
Our fingers tighten together on the lantern handle—two hands, one kept.
And the chapter ends there, our bow pointed at the tight vein, the Main Run yawning safe to the left, the side-lock flooding bright with the joker's reflection to the right, Kirella's count steady at my pulse, and the twilight canal listening to hear whether we remembered what we promised at the door.