The lane opens like a quiet seam, faint KEEP on gray water. The lantern sits good-heavy on the threshold stone behind us, not ours to hold, ours to be held by.
"Escort first," Stone-Reed says. "Then the lesson."
Three little boats nose the mouth of the corridor—patched skiffs with kitchen hearts: a dye woman with a child under a tarp, a rope man with hands that never stop tying, a cart-fisher with a pan lid for a shield. Their faces look at the fog like it owes them a reason.
"Rules," Stone-Reed barks, dry as hemp. "Bowl-names only. No horn orders. Stay in the warm."
I run a thin KEEP seam along the lane's lip with two fingers; the warmth sits on the water like a barely-there yes. I swipe name-salt—salt, mint, pepper—along each rail as they pass my hand. It smells like clean stubbornness. Mirrors don't like clean.
"Brown Apron," the dye woman says, trying the name on like a borrowed coat.
"Left Palm," the rope man answers, proud and shy in one mouth.
"Tin Lid," the cart-fisher mutters, and his kid grins like he just got to choose his own shoes.
"Count," I ask.
"One—two—three—four," Kirella sets, tapping oar to thwart so the boats can feel it through wood.
We peel off as Stone-Reed takes the first three down the seam by tap-count, a shepherd with pegs instead of a crook. The wolves hop light from bow to bow and back again, checking shade cloth corners, stripping a small ink-leech here, a jealous mirror moth there, each dropped into SORRY like a lesson learned with brine.
"Token," I say.
Kirella ties the measure token—the gray knot-pin—onto our bow stanchion with a quiet knot that knows how to come home. The air around us changes by a breath. The horns and bells in a fifty-pace hush remember manners. They could shout; they decide to cough polite.
"Use one," he says. "Two left."
We slide toward the Mirror Barge—broad, low, professional. Its pilot pretends not to stare. The net wing on our side is half-raised, the mast car eager, the catch pin warm with the kind of faith men use to hit metal when they ran out of ideas.
"Left of loud," Stone-Reed called it. We aim exactly there.
The barge's bell striker waits like a throat that expects to sing. Kirella plants the WORD plate against it with the heel of his hand. WAIT soaks into iron. The bell tries to be a law and ends up polite.
A wolf bounds up the gunwale and drapes shade cloth over the scope boy's mirror like tucking a napkin into a smug shirt. He yelps, peels it off, and finds a second cloth already there because the second wolf thinks magic is just speed with a grin.
The scent chimney tucked under a fresh banner—SPEAK TO PASS in a new proud font—sniffs for voices. I pull the cap, pack a thumb of brine with two fingers, and twist the lid. The duct breathes inward now, so the next wrong perfume it drinks will be its own problem.
"Grid," Lupa says.
The mast car clacks—down, down—toward the catch pin. I set the scythe in my hand. Short. Only the curve.
"Count."
"One—two—three—four."
On two I wedge the hook under the catch pin—metal only. Palm sting bites like a sharp joke. On four I lift a single handspan—no more. The car judders. Pride meets physics. Kirella taps a wedge into the mast track—two neat knocks—and the carriage decides to stall with dignity instead of argue.
The grid still wants down because gravity doesn't read minutes; it eats them. I slide the boat hook under the corner split-ring, breathe, and lift. The square turns rhombus. Not a door yet—an eye taking sides.
"Seam," Kirella says.
I draw a thread-thin KEEP seam through the skewed gap, audit-quiet. The water remembers. Anyone with a boat and a heartbeat could pass where we just taught the world to be kind.
A woman at the windlass steps into my shade with a tidy face and tidy anger. Lupa meets her hands with wrist-hip redirect, steers her into a coil of line, and sets her seated, unhurt, the way you help someone sit in their own story.
"Three honest pulls," Kirella murmurs, tying kept-loops in two haul lines so no one loses their wage later. The loops will release on the third real try, not the first dishonest one.
Two slick ink-leeches cling under the caprail. The wolves remove them with the contempt of experts and drop them into SORRY with a slap. The pilot reaches for the horn and finds it has learned polite. He adjusts his hat instead.
"Tag it," Lupa says.
I chalk WE KEEP EACH OTHER → low on the caprail where bored hands will read it later without admitting it. Kirella lays a three-visit release on the safety pin—reset after three honest steals, not one. The barge can right its pride later. Now it will misbehave in a way that helps other people live.
We shove off. The net hangs crooked. A small KEEP opening glows where we worked, faint as a seam in good cloth.
"Back," I say.
We slip along the barge's flank and rejoin our lane. The token field keeps stray bells polite as Stone-Reed brings the first escort through, oar taps counting them steady. The Warden of Measure doesn't smile; their chin inclines one degree, which is how math says well done.
"Token," Kirella says.
He unties the knot-pin and drops it into his pocket. "Two uses left."
The dye woman—Brown Apron—passes us with her mouth tight and her shoulders shaking, which is how certain people cry. The child under the tarp peeks out and salutes the wolves. The wolves pretend not to notice because they are professionals.
My hands remember the catch pin weight and shake once, small. The palm sting throbs and then obeys the count that is not mine alone.
Kirella's cloak makes a moving room. He leans in, forehead to temple, one breath where worry becomes a thing the world can carry instead of me. "Four," he says.
"Four," I answer.
Our bow kisses the warm line of the corridor as the last of the three boats clears and the fourth takes its place. The sea pretends not to be proud of us and fails a little.
"Up," Stone-Reed says without raising his eyes.
Something hisses above us—a high thread, a spindle of air told to be clever. The Mirror Barge has launched a ledger kite, a sliver of mirror stretched on a star frame, climbing fast on a name-thread that shines like spider silk sworn in by a clerk. Its tail carries a tiny bell and a paper wick the size of a fingernail, both designed to learn what they touch.
"Track the seam," Lupa says. She's already crouching to redirect, eyes on the sky like she always had a second set.
The kite glints, hungry. Its tether ring flashes as it angles to bite the warm line we laid across the gray. The bell under its breastpegs tries to ring in advance—polite cough jammed by our token field, then a hiss of ambition as it rises beyond the field's reach.
"Count," I say, and the words feel lighter for being ours.
"One—two—three—four," Kirella answers, voice low, steady, the sound a roof makes when it has decided to hold.
The wolves go still. Stone-Reed's peg waits between two fingers, sure of gravity. Lupa's hands open into the shape of a wall that never learned to step back. The Warden of Measure does not move and does not blink; neutrality stands like a door that doesn't care who walks through, only whether the hinges squeal.
I set the short scythe under the kite's tether ring—metal only—feel the fine bite of palm sting ready to argue and already losing to count. The kite drops its shadow across our bow like a coin buying a rumor.
The thread hisses toward our seam.
And the chapter ends there—with the ledger kite glinting high, the name-thread whistling down to hook the warm line we made, the Mirror Barge sulking in its own politeness, the KEEP corridor holding for a chain of bowl-named boats, the Warden impassive, Stone-Reed's peg poised, Lupa set to turn a blow into a seat, the wolves bristling without bark, Kirella's count in my mouth, and my short scythe already under the tether ring—one breath before the thread bites.