The horn drinks a lungful of air like it owns the weather.
"Name and donation—" it starts.
"Hush," I tell the boat.
I draw a whisper ring seam along our gunwale with two fingers. The wood warms and forgets how to clatter. The rope-ring prow hums keep. One—two—three—four, Kirella counts into my ribs; the lantern sits good-heavy between our hands.
I thumb the voice stone; it answers with steam-soft bowls:
We won't pay.
We won't sell.
"Top vs. under," Lupa says, already moving. "I take the horn."
A wolf goes with her, shade cloth in its teeth. They spring. Lupa lands on the Ambulance deck like a decision. The horn man turns, hand on pull-cord, finding knee on triceps and wrist off rope before his hat can remember dignity.
"Breathe," she tells him.
He does.
We handle the belly.
Up close, the Mirror Ambulance is a stitched confidence: low rails under the hull, a sliding trolley that rides them, ray-hook jaws latched into the leviathan's throat collar. The boat's belly glitters with mirror flecks where men convinced physics to be a clerk.
"Jaw detent there," Stone-Reed says, tapping the trolley with a peg. "King-roller pin there. Pry the first; peg the second. Audit-quiet first."
I lay a thin ring seam along the metal carriage. The sea around the rails goes polite.
The leviathan heaves under the Ambulance's pull, dragged by the throat. Our bow lifts to meet a mistake we didn't make.
"Count," I say.
"One—two—three—four."
I give the scythe one handspan of extension—no more. The hook slides under the jaw detent. I lift. Only metal. Palm sting bites; four steadies it down into useful hurt. The detent pops half-open, the jaws losing their perfect shape.
"Peg," Stone-Reed says.
He rams a peg up into the carriage with two quick knocks. The trolley sticks—half-open, half-closed, unable to snatch or spit. A good kind of indecision.
Topside, the horn tries to cry and gives a polite cough instead. Kirella has reached the platform; he presses the WORD plate to the striker—WAIT sinks into iron—and ties a kept-loop in the pull chain: three honest tugs to speak, not one. A fingertip of brine on the horn's name-wick and the instrument decides silence is smarter than zeal.
The rail tender lunges for a lever. Lupa rotates him into a harmless coil of rope and sets him there like a jar on a shelf—upright, unbroken, chastened by geometry.
"Breathe," she tells him, as if she's teaching a class.
"Hook," Stone-Reed reminds me.
The ray-hook still grips the leviathan's collar ring. I slide the boat hook under the hook's safety pawl, smear brine into its hinge, then kiss the split pin that locks it with the scythe's short curve. Lift. The pin slides free, metal telling truth against its will.
"Back-set," Kirella calls.
On four, he pulls the release-knot he'd sunk into our bowline when the day was still brave. Not a jerk—just honest weight. The loosened ray-hook falls free of the collar and bangs the rail, de-fanged by its own etiquette.
The leviathan surges out of habit. I touch the wet rim of its throat collar with the WORD plate via the boat hook's tip—one WAIT pressed into metal—then swipe a fast moon-balm line across the nearest paper scale.
The monster halts a breath. Not tamed—remembering. Suction softens the way a shout becomes a sentence.
Topside, a deckhand raises a mirror scope; a wolf leaps and drapes the shade cloth over the eyepiece as politely as if it were putting a napkin on a lap. The scope goes blind without shame.
"Mark the gate," Lupa says.
Kirella chalks WE KEEP EACH OTHER → low under the Ambulance rail where grease finds it later. He ties a three-visit release knot on the king-roller pin so they can reset after three honest tries if they insist on learning the slow way.
"Slide," Stone-Reed says.
He angles our hull left of loud. I pull a new ring seam along the Ambulance flank—hush for the scrape that doesn't happen. The rope-ring prow carries us through the gap the stalled trolley made, our boat slipping like a polite secret.
Below, the leviathan—now unhooked, WAIT warming its collar—dives, long and relieved, turning neutral water into a shadow we can use. The sea thumps deep as it goes under.
"Four," I breathe.
"Four," Kirella echoes, and he cups my wrapped hand with his palm, forehead to temple for one breath. The world's edge stops tilting.
The Ambulance does not enjoy being taught.
The pilot yanks a mast lever. A folded mirror net blossoms from the spar like a cold flower, facets glittering, seams stitched with name-wicks and tiny bells. It unfurls with a whirr, a grid of glass and intent, timing itself to drop on us and the curve of the beast as it circles back.
"Track there," Stone-Reed says, already reading the mast like a map. "Catch pin at the car. Split ring on the bell line."
"Breathe," Lupa tells the sky and plants her feet.
We're still within reach. The net opens, teeth of light aiming to fit our boat's shape and the leviathan's revival into one sentence.
"Count," I say.
"One—two—three—four."
On one, I set the scythe's short hook under the mast catch pin—only metal—feeling the scuffed heat of work done wrong too many times. On two, Stone-Reed slides a peg into the mast track, a wedge that promises to be dignified if the mast agrees to stop. On three, Kirella plants WAIT on the net bell's striker with the heel of his hand and ties a quick kept-loop into the bell rope so a panic pull becomes a quiet lesson. On four, Lupa redirects the first dropping spar with a neat push at the pivot, setting it an inch off the story it wanted.
The catch pin resists like stubborn pride. Palm sting flares—hot, bright, manageable. One—two—three—four holds my hand steady long enough to lift. The pin rises a finger-width—enough to make the car think about being tired.
The Ambulance crew tries to scramble, but every tool they reach has learned polite. The horn coughs and remembers it's on WAIT. The scope sees cloth. The trolley sulks open. The bell begs for permission and doesn't get it.
The mirror net keeps falling anyway because gravity is not a negotiator.
"Under or through?" Lupa asks.
"Through," Stone-Reed says. "Under is a story they wrote. Through is ours."
He twists our bow a hair. The rope-ring prow hums approval. I sketch a thin seam along the net's nearest line where glass meets knot—no bright—just audit-quiet so the world forgets to applaud if we live.
Beneath us, the leviathan turns. I feel it in the water's voice. WAIT still glows in the collar; the dive was honest; the angle now is curiosity plus irritation.
"Friendly shoulder?" Kirella asks.
"Nonviolent nudge," I say.
We don't ask beasts to be better than men. We ask us to be better than the day.
The net's lowest line kisses our hood edge. Lupa lifts with two fingers—redirect, not defy—and the mesh hovers a heartbeat. The wolf braces, front paws on the thwart, eyes on me like I have an idea worth feeding.
I do not spill blood. I do not swing wide. I slide the scythe's hook under the split ring that keeps the forward corner of the net honest and lift a breath. The ring gives just enough to misalign the square. One corner sags the way a hat does when it remembers humility. We slip our bow through the sudden rhombus where the square meant to be.
"Now," Stone-Reed says, and the oars feather one stroke—quiet, hard.
The net drags behind us like a sentence that lost its verb. The mast complains into the peg. The bell sulks. The horn goes on being mannered.
Under the water, the leviathan lifts its shoulder of paper scales and bumps the net's far edge without teeth. The mesh tilts, surprised by courtesy. Facets catch a shadow that isn't ours and decide to be confused.
We are past the first fall—but the flower isn't done opening. Half the net still hangs above like a storm that learned geometry. The mast carriage rattles against the wedge, angry to be told it can't.
The pilot finds a second lever no one taught manners to. The mirror net's back line jerks, slips a new loop, aims to sack us from behind and pull the beast with us like a ribbon on a cruel gift.
"Again," Lupa says.
"Again," I agree—and my hand shakes once, the way a fire shakes when you tell it a secret.
One—two—three—four.
On one, I push the scythe hook deeper under the catch pin. On two, the peg on the mast track bites farther in. On three, Kirella takes the bell rope in both hands and ties the kind of knot a liar can't untie in a hurry. On four, Lupa plants her palm on the spar and gives it a kind push that leaves it doubting its own profession.
The catch pin climbs another finger-width. The carriage hiccups and stops pretending. The back line of the net loses its confident angle and sags into a clumsy shrug.
"Gate," Stone-Reed says. "We made another gate."
"Through," Lupa answers.
We slide. The ring seam I left on the net's cord makes the glass forget to shout when our hood brushes it. The wolves duck at the last instant and grin when they remember they did it on purpose.
The leviathan, free of hook and almost free of embarrassment, shears by our starboard like a sentence changing speakers. It doesn't love us. It loves that we left its collar a little wiser. It dips and passes under the net. Facets try to catch it again and catch WAIT instead.
"Four," I say.
"Four," Kirella says, and the boat agrees with us.
For the space of a breath, water is water. Gray noon is gray noon. The Ambulance is behind us, mast sulking, net half-open like a shop sign forgetting which side to show.
Then the horn—polite but persistent—finds a voice that fits its manners.
"Consider a contract," it calls, almost friendly. "Names protect. Names insure."
My palm warms on the lantern until good-heavy becomes stay. I do not answer with stone lines. I answer with a kitchen.
"We won't pay," I say, soft.
"We won't sell," Kirella adds, same softness, like grace before a meal.
The horn tries something else, sweet as rot. "Little red—one true syllable and we'll log you as 'kept.'"
Lupa laughs once without showing teeth. Stone-Reed spits into the sea like a blessing. The wolves decide the sound isn't worth a growl.
The Ambulance pilot, stung by dignity, slams the mast car the other way. The peg holds—but the mirror net has one more petal. A secondary spreader unfolds from the spar cap with a sound like paper snapping, and a new wing of glass throws itself wide, angling to roof the lane we just chose.
The sea under us changes its mind again. A long shadow rolls—not the leviathan this time. Something wider, flatter, a paper-sail skiff riding the inner current appears in the corner of my eye, tithers crouched low, their nail-bells barely contained by the kept-loop on the horn's line.
We are halfway through the wrong person's idea of a doorway, with a mirror roof coming down and a floor trying to form under us.
"Count," I say, because that is the rope I trust when choices multiply.
"One—two—three—four," Kirella says, steady as the small cathedral of our prow.
I set the scythe's hook under the new mast catch pin—only metal—feel the sting and welcome it. Stone-Reed lifts another peg. Lupa coils for a redirect. The wolves brace. The rope-ring prow hums keep like a hand on a shoulder.
And the chapter ends there—with the mirror net's second wing unlatching above us, the skiff ghosting under glass, the Ambulance still convinced manners are optional, the leviathan a long shadow choosing not to be our problem for a breath, Kirella's count beating time, and my short scythe tucked under one more catch pin that has not learned the word I plan to teach it: stop.