Water takes us the way a careful hand takes a hot pan—slow, sure, ready to drop us if we flinch.
Kirella tucks the lantern low in the bilge, wrapped in my cloak so its warmth climbs into the ribs and not the sky. I lay a thin ring seam along both gunwales with my palm, quiet as breath. The boat listens and decides to be discreet. At the bow, the rope-ring prow hums keep—a small, stubborn yes.
"Feather," Kirella says.
Our oars kiss and leave, kiss and leave. No splash, only a sound like rope whispering to wood. He sets the stroke with his throat more than his arms. One—two—three—four. The count lives under my skin now, a second pulse.
Dawn is a rumor rubbing its teeth. My shoulders prickle. I pull the cloak over head and collar so the white stays out. Under my feet I set two ring coins, step-stones of warmth my bones can obey.
Beyond the cove mouth, three skiffs arc across the channel like a smile that hopes to be law. Each mast wears a bell; each stern keeps a mirror net folded like a bad plan; each warden's hands shine faint in prism gauntlets that want approval more than blood.
The wolves lie flat in the bow, ears back, eyes forward. Lupa crouches low behind them, shoulders set to no kill.
"Left horn," Stone-Reed murmurs, reading tide and wake the way some men read ledgers. "Two-oar burst on four."
"Two," Kirella answers. "Three. Four."
We give the boat a quiet shove between strokes; the prow kisses a dark seam of water that pretends to be nothing. We ride it.
The first skiff noses toward us and the warden tips his gauntlet, mean little pulse building under glass.
"Sight," I warn.
The pulse snaps. I'm already up—shade cloth in a flick over the gauntlet's line of sight. The circle of light slaps the cloth and dies like a moth in a fist. At the same breath, Kirella leans out and stamps the WORD plate to a buoy cleat; WAIT finds wood. We slide by.
The mast bell thinks about tattling.
I dip the boat hook into a vial and flick brine across the striker. The striker slips into the small floor ring I laid near my toes; it sits in the warm like a stubborn child told to breathe. The bell gives one disappointed ping, then goes polite.
Palm sting buzzes my wrist. One—two—three—four, Kirella counts, and the sting focuses into work.
We ghost past. The warden reaches for a rope, finds a knot he didn't plan, frowns at a world that forgot to admire him.
The second skiff doesn't ask questions. A mirror net blooms off its stern, throwing a glittering wall across our lane; the leadline rings wink with wet.
"Take the lead, not the web," Kirella says.
I let the tırpan grow one handspan of extension—no more. The hinge hums in my blood. I hook the leadline ring, pry, twist. Metal only. The ring pops with a tiny honest cry; the net collapses, slack and sulking, sliding aside the way a curtain does when a cat gets its paw in the hem.
Lupa shoulder-checks the slack back into its owner—nonlethal dunk that convinces the skiff to admire its own reflection up close. Stone-Reed flicks a tar scrap into the water outboard; it hisses and skates away, making a fake wake that looks like we turned left too early.
Palm sting climbs my forearm. I breathe and keep the blade short. The count is there. One—two—three—four.
At my knee, I snug the voice stone into a little ring on the thwart. It loops our two lines soft as a kitchen hum:
We won't pay.We won't sell.
The plates hidden in bell housings and gauntlet vents taste and go bored. You can't invoice bowl-names.
From the third skiff, a warden commits to a story: he plants a boarding hook in our rail and leaps.
I meet him close. Shaft bind, small hip turn, knee gentle to triceps—pin him against his own gunwale with his momentum doing most of the work. "Breathe," I tell him, and he obeys because air has better arguments than pride.
The hook chewing our rail? I use the short scythe like a pry bar—wood and metal only—and lift it free. Kirella leans in and ties a fast release-knot in their line—three tries to unpick if you're honest, a lifetime if you're not. He gives the skiff a shove with one boot, and they spin softly in their own wake, surprised without being harmed.
Dawn slides a fingernail over the rim of the world.
My knees go thoughtful. The coins under my feet push back—warm anchor points for a body that would prefer to be a rumor. Kirella's hand finds my elbow. One—two—three—four.
"Small," I say, and flick a single blood drip over the side to the down-current lane. It breaks into tiny red commas that write the wake I want them to chase. The cost bites quick; the world tilts for half a breath. His count keeps the floor where I left it.
The patrol buys the decoy. Two skiffs lean left to hunt red. The spinner struggles with dignity and decides to practice later.
"Lane," Stone-Reed says, and points his chin at a band of darker dark. Kelp. Our rope-ring prow finds it and kisses in—friction turns to hush. The boat slides in a green-stitched tunnel where water holds its breath to help you lie.
We pass the last bell by a hair and then hairless.
Far out, on the seam between sea and sky, something thin stands—a needle of shadow no storm can cheat. The Mid-Light Needle is only a silhouette, a thorn on the horizon, but my chest tightens like it's a word I've been trying not to say.
"Not tonight," Lupa says from the bow without looking back. She can smell wanting the way I smell paper.
"Not tonight," I agree.
The channel widens—and changes its mind about being kind.
Ahead, a Lamphouse totters on stilts: a cage tower in the water, glass panels hinged like lids, a crank bell on a little balcony, ladders wet as fish. As we angle toward the deep lane, the Lamphouse ignites.
Holy-glass panels flare. Low daylight pours across the channel in a slow sweep, a white fan that wants to explain me to myself. The coins under my feet thin; the seam on the gunwale trembles. The wolves flatten harder, ears a mistake they can't fix. The buzz in the glass is a hymn that means to be helpful and isn't.
"Left of the loud," Stone-Reed says, squinting at the pilings. A maintenance chain droops from the Lamphouse belly into the water, barnacled and useful.
"Chain," Kirella says. "We break the song at its throat."
"Nonlethal," Lupa reminds, already uncoiling to climb. "Tender first if he's foolish."
The first sweep of white walks toward our bow—not heat, not burn, just an insistence that makes my knees want to negotiate. I sink lower under the cloak. The lantern is good-heavy between my hands. One—two—three—four. The ring seam on the gunwale answers, thin but here.
We edge toward the chain, water hushing, rope-ring prow humming, the Lamphouse's white hand reaching to touch my face and tell me what I am.
The wolves brace. Lupa's fingers find ladder rungs in the chain's shadow. Stone-Reed palms a peg and a hook. Kirella's jaw sets into the shape of a door that won't close against a friend.
The white sweep brightens.
And the chapter ends there—with the Lamphouse pouring a measured day across the channel, a maintenance chain trailing like a promise we mean to keep, our bow sliding for that shadow seam as my coins glow at my boots, Lupa coiling to pin a tender rather than break a man, Stone-Reed ready to teach iron manners, and Kirella's count holding my pulse steady while the water decides whether to be our floor or our judge.