Water wants to be a fist.
I put my face to it anyway.
"Count," I say, palms flat on stone, shoulder deep in a mouth that learned to yank.
"One—two—three—four," Kirella answers, the number putting ribs on my breath.
On two, I fold and slide. Cold closes like a metal hand. My fingers find the grate lip, then the little ring that hides like a secret—governor pin. On four, the short scythe slips under the split-ring—metal only—and I lift a handspan of manners.
TING.
The backwash forgets to be proud. The river exhales. Our pocket lets go the bad habit and remembers house breath—a simple in, a simple out. Above me the Half-Tide Locker feels wider. The seam under my boots turns from brave thread to honest ribbon.
A hand presses once into the small of my back—Lupa, not pushing, just being gravity the way wolves know how. The wolf holds the shade cloth like a curtain over a window that used to gossip. I surface with a mouth full of iron and a grin that surprises both of us.
"Good manners," Lupa says, almost smiling.
"Two more," I answer, and mean coins, not breaths.
We work like a kitchen finishing late soup. Kirella lays the WORD plate on the locker's tiny bell—"WAIT"—and the metal takes dignity the way bread takes butter. Lupa and I slide MYOR fully inside, wheels settling on our ring seam, kept-loops loosened to slack that ignores panic and obeys patience. Brine sighs on axle pins. I rub name-salt across my wrists and his band—just a fingertip of WAIT to the ink so it doesn't try to be a law again.
The mirror scull bumps the pocket mouth, net around its ankles like a lover who learned to say no. One rower tests the horn with the meekness of a man who craves loudness. Kirella lifts the plate without hurry.
"WAIT."
The horn remembers libraries. It sulks.
The other rower thinks about standing, then meets Lupa's gaze and decides to sit all by himself. It's a rare good choice. The paper lantern on their prow, half-drowned and ashamed, gives a last clean wheeze and then behaves like a napkin that lost an argument.
We seed the room for tomorrow. I tuck Ring-coin D under the locker's back threshold and Ring-coin E in the corner stone where a porter's shoulder would lean. A small, high KEEP chalk mark goes up where pride won't wipe it. Three thumb seam-stones line the inner wall like little steps a child might follow. At shin height I write a discreet → Pantry and, across from it, → Wharf, because maps belong to kitchens too.
The river tries a new trick.
The surface goes pinch-black and then silver like a mirror turned to fish. Two paper eels unroll themselves from the seam along the quay—wet ribbons with a scatter of mirror dust in their backs, mouths ringed with patience.
"Salt," Lupa says.
I mist the plank edge with brine and pull a name-salt line across the rail. The first eel glides into the salt, goes rigid with insult, and chits back into the drink. The second gets clever, arcs for the seam instead, meets warmth, and becomes a lesson. I hook its spine lightly with the scythe tip and drop it into the SORRY pouch. It thrums once and then learns to be quiet with the pins and other small bad ideas.
"Mini-choir," Kirella breathes.
We keep our voices low, the way people talk when the baby is sleeping and the storm is deciding what it wants to be.
"We won't pay."
"We won't sell."
"No names to paper or stone."
The locker drinks the lines and gives back a soft echo that sounds like steam on a good night.
A view slit above clicks, interested. Wolf first—cloth up, light eaten. Lupa next—shoulder set, shadow thick. The slit blinks and learns boredom.
"Routes?" she asks.
Kirella lifts two fingers. "A—we take the scow back out, hug the seam, and follow the side channel to Quiet Wharf. B—we leave the boat wedged, go inland through the locker's back service line, and come up under Blue Pantry. Risk: mirror patrols in either, but different flavors."
"Flavor A is net and horn," I say. "Flavor B is moth and math."
Water overhead changes its mind again.
It darkens without getting darker—mirror shroud—that thin, glittering dust spread like flour by men who want to bake consent. Sound thickens. The ring under my soles thins a hair. Coins go from warm to hot.
"Shroud," Lupa says, distaste like a salt edge.
Up-corridor, something with wheels whispers—mirror shuttle—the polite predator. The shroud's first lace slips through the mouth of our pocket and drifts, looking for names to collect.
"Bowl-name coupons," I say, and Lupa's mouth quirks the way it did in the Market.
We flick slips into the slow air we just salted, like throwing crumbs at tame ducks that learned words instead of quacks.
"Brown Apron."
"Wheel Thumb."
"Blue Rag."
The shroud tests each slip, finds bowls instead of true names, and gets bored enough to behave like weather again. The mirror shuttle edges into view beyond the pocket—a low craft with a prow like a ledger. Its bell wears a little ribbon. Its crew wears faces that never met kitchens.
"Manifest?" asks the air, not a man. The word floats down like a receipt that thinks it's a law.
"Laundry," Kirella answers simply, and the word fits our lies like a glove.
The bell considers ringing. He strokes it once with the plate.
"WAIT."
Dignity returns.
My palm still stings from the governor. I let the sting drop into the count so it belongs to us. The wedge pegs creak, honest. MYOR breathes. The scull, properly sat, has decided to practice patience in silence because patience feels like winning if you're tired enough.
"Which?" Lupa asks. Not impatient—she's measuring her strength against the next door.
I look at Route A in my head: out, past the shroud, teaching the air to mind its manners with cloth and WAIT, ring to seam to ring, a moving shadow that refuses to stick names to itself. We would be seen as a shape. We would leave no names. The shuttle would circle like a cat that knows there's stew and cannot find the bowl.
Then Route B: in, through the service line, under the building's ribs, through rooms that pretend to be empty but are full of small ears and eager squares. Mirror moths will be waiting—thin paper bugs with dust in their wings; echo posts will sit in corners hoping to be pillars. The rewards: maps, the Core from behind, a straight shot home to Blue Pantry, a secret ready for tomorrow's people.
A soft tick—timing drum upstairs, the kind that thinks it can speak for days. D-0 tightened recently. The Auction will get its show unless rope learns to sing wrong. We need our hands free by morning and our people warm.
"A gets us fast, loud-adjacent, and obvious-but-anonymous," I murmur. "B gets us slow, quiet, teeth in the dark, and a new map."
"Pick," Lupa says.
"Two breaths," Kirella reminds me, and it is a kindness not a warning.
The shroud curls a long finger into the mouth, thin glitter trying to settle on cloth, on wood, on ink. The wolf steps forward to meet it and lets the cloth eat light in mouthfuls. A wash of chill pushes at my knuckles; the coins under the stone flare hot in answer. The locker seam stays honest. The KEEP above my head looks small and correct.
On the mirror shuttle, a key-man voice floats thin and dry: "Bless your routine," it says. The words smell like starch and old guilt. He is on his boat or his boat is in his mouth; both are true often enough.
"Pins," Lupa breathes in my ear, an old reminder now, a comfort.
I look at the shuttle. A tiny proud catch pin gleams on the bell arm, no larger than the ones we've been arguing with all evening, smug as a buckle.
"Manifest," the air says again, greedy this time.
"Laundry," Kirella repeats, and taps the plate lightly against the bell's breath. "WAIT."
The scow is wedged. The MYOR we do not call by his name lies safe as kindness can make him. The shroud wants. The tunnel behind promises teeth we haven't counted yet.
I put my palm to the seam, feel the warmth climb through my bones, and set my short scythe low along the rail where pins think they're safe.
"Count," I say, because choosing is just breathing with numbers in it.
"One—two—three—four," Kirella answers, and the wolf's tail writes a small sentence the stone pretends not to read, and Lupa opens her stance to be wall and floor, and the shroud pushes a glittering edge against our KEEP like a rude guest at a polite door—
—and the chapter ends there, with two roads under our soles, a bell that has learned pride, a catch pin on a shuttle begging to be taught manners, a locker full of house breath, coins hot, pegs brave, MYOR kept, and count steady as a rope between teeth.