We choose the road that wants to be seen.
"Bowl-names," I whisper at the locker mouth.
"Red Ladle," I say.
"Steady Hand," Kirella answers.
"First Fang," Lupa adds, weight already in her hips, a wall looking for where to be a wall.
The wolf lifts the shade cloth and lets night live on its teeth. The mirror shroud curls into the pocket like flour shaken through silk—thin, glittering, hungry for true names. The river tries to hold its breath and cannot.
"Manifest?" a polite voice asks the air. The mirror shuttle noses into view beyond the pocket—low, ledger-faced, bell arm cocked. On the bell's hinge a catch pin gleams like a boast.
"Laundry," Kirella says, the word fitting our lie like a clean apron.
I set the short scythe along our rail, low and patient. "Count."
"One—two—three—four," Kirella answers, and the numbers put ribs on everything.
On two, I lean, the scythe's edge under the bell arm. On four, I lift a handspan of manners.
Ting.
The catch pin learns humility. The bell sits on its own brake like a child in church. The shuttle crew glances at each other, hearing the world get quieter without their permission.
"WAIT," Kirella tells the bell with the plate, gentle as a thumb smoothing a wrinkle. The bell approves of its own silence.
"Go," Lupa says.
We slide the scow out of the Half-Tide Locker on our ring seam, pegs easing, kept-loops giving three honest pulls and no more. The wolf spreads cloth until we are a moving patch of night with a warm floor. I draw a thin seam ahead, palm to plank, a handrail for our keel.
The shroud stretches its glitter to touch us. We feed it lies it can love.
"Bowl-name coupons," I say, and flick slips into the slow air like crumbs that teach ducks to read.
Brown Apron. Wheel Thumb. Blue Rag.
The shroud tastes each and finds kitchen instead of paper. It sulks and becomes weather again.
The shuttle edges close, prow gaff rising like a question it already decided to answer.
"Manifest?" the air asks again, greedy now.
"Laundry," Kirella repeats, and strokes the bell. "WAIT."
The gaff dips for our rail. Lupa meets it at the wrist. Wrist → hip → seat. The man at the gaff learns to sit on his own deck with new respect for benches. I slide the scythe under the gaff's kama pimi—ting—and wood remembers it prefers to be useless. The gaff drops into the drink with a sound like a bad idea becoming history.
"Hands," Lupa says to the second boarder. He shows her hands and then chooses his heels. Good choice.
We pass under the first arch. A rope name-forfeit net hangs there like a polite insult, banner above it whispering SPEAK TO PASS in a font that wants to be a prayer.
"Bowl-name chorus," I say.
Voices close, ordinary, market-small:
"Brown Apron." "Wheel Thumb." "Blue Rag."
The net paws for true and finds ours. It sags to boredom. I mist brine into the little knots along its pleats; they remember rain and go tame. Kirella taps the lintel WAIT with the plate; the arch decides to be a door.
A ring-coin goes under the arch stone with a little KEEP chalk high where pride cannot reach. We drift on.
The shroud thickens, lazy flakes of mirror dust turning the light into soup. My seam holds warm underfoot. Kirella's count lives in the planks, one—two—three—four, the river learning how to walk in a kitchen.
The mirror shuttle tries a smile. One of the crew lifts a horn like a boy lifting a chair at a party.
"WAIT," Kirella says again, and the horn remembers libraries twice in one night. Ambition fades.
A mirror moth tests our cloth—a paper bug with dust on its wings and an opinion about honesty. It reaches for MYOR's band under the linen. I draw a name-salt strip across the sheet and a kiss of brine into the air. The moth hits salt, thinks about choices, and folds into the SORRY pouch with two of its siblings. The rest learn the river quickly.
"Corner," Lupa says. I touch the boat with the hook, let the seam carry us through a patient turn that feels like the last step of a dance.
Ahead, another arch. This one hides its net better. The line is thinner, mirrors nested like fish eggs along the rope. The banner is modest. DISCOUNT leans sideways as if embarrassed to be seen.
"Bowl-names," I say, barely above breath. We hand the arch Bowls Only and Brown Apron and Blue Rag, and something like a door decides it is not a cage.
The shuttle plays its last card for now. A side net arm twitches, wanting to grab our cloth and teach us about markets. I put the scythe under its catch-strap pin—ting—and the arm wraps itself the way nets will when asked in their own grammar.
The shroud sighs and slides backwards like a tide that never learned stubborn well. Water smells like iron and a promise we can keep.
We nose into a side pocket off Quiet Wharf—a little hollow where ropes remember stories. Ring-coin in the mouth. Little KEEP near the shoulder. Brine for the axles. Cloth rests on the wolf's jaw for a breath.
"Mini-choir," Kirella says, and the pocket becomes a room we trust long enough to breathe:
"We won't pay."
"We won't sell."
"No names to paper or stone."
MYOR does not stir. His band looks like a bad idea that forgot to be loud.
"Move," Lupa says. Not hurried. The word a hinge makes when it knows what a door should do.
We slide out of the pocket and meet the river's next trial.
Across the channel, a chain-boom settles—heavy links draped from a winch on the far quay to a raft of ugly logs midstream. The water thickens. The seam under my toes thins to brave pencil. On the winch frame a tiny lever shows a pin with the arrogant shine of a button on a proud coat.
"Pin," I say.
"Two breaths," Kirella reminds me, and I taste a grin in it.
We have choices again, two doors wearing different coats:
A—Run us alongside the near quay, jump to the winch, ting the lever pin in one breath, and lift the boom before the chain finishes its lesson.
B—Veer left, let the scow's nose find the storm-drain slit—a dark seam in the wall barely a boat wide—slide into the narrow throat, wedge and KEEP while the boom spends its mood overhead.
The water tugs, suggesting we make up our minds faster and prettier.
"Shroud?" Lupa asks, eyes on the shuttle shadow turning in the wider water like a cat considering a fence.
"Thin," I say, and drag a new seam under us with the heel of my hand. It warms. It is enough if we help it.
The wolf shifts the cloth. Night is the right size again.
I stand, knees against the rail, scythe in hand. The winch is four arm-lengths away when the chain drops another half-link and the raft of logs grumbles in its sleep.
"Count."
"One—two—three—four," Kirella says, and the numbers become a path laid in the air between me and a pin that thinks it owns the word stop.
On two, the scow kisses the quay's face with a politeness the stone appreciates. On three, I step.
Cold stone. Wet grit. The winch frame is human high and unkind. The little lever wears its pin like a medal.
"Manifest," the air tries from behind me, because it hates admitting it is late.
"Laundry," Kirella says, and the bell doesn't ring because he has given it something better to do, which is nothing.
The shroud curls a silver tongue toward my back. Wolf stretches the cloth to meet it; Lupa slides her shoulder into the gap where my body used to be and becomes a wall between MYOR and a habit.
I slide the scythe under the lever pin. Metal only. The hinge resists out of pride, not physics.
"One—two—"
My palm sings with old sting and new promise. Brine breathes out of the wind like a friend. A moth that forgot to die on salt floats, remembers, and corrects itself.
"—three—four."
Ting.
The lever learns humility. The chain shivers up a link. The raft of logs loses interest in the idea of us.
"Back," Lupa calls, which means come home.
I push off the quay with one palm, catch the boat hook Kirella holds out like an argument he's sure I'll win, and drop into the scow's breath. The seam underfoot takes me like a chair taking a tired person. The wolf eats a last ribbon of shroud and decides to be pleased with itself about it later.
The boom lifts higher, grumbling its disappointment. The channel opens a mouth that looks like a yes.
The mirror shuttle is not happy to be wrong. It slides in behind us, trying to make our wake a signature. Its bell wants to find its pride again.
"WAIT," Kirella tells it, and the bell remembers its better self.
We push, seam to seam, small KEEPs tucked at the joints where men forget to look. The water goes honest. The shroud frays, bored with a market that won't sell. Our boat is a moving kitchen with a floor that hums the rhythm of a spoon on a pot.
"Quiet Wharf," Lupa says, chin at the mouth of the next lane—low arches, rope shadow, a kind of old silence that knows it owes someone a debt and intends to pay.
We angle for the lane.
That is when a second boom drops across the mouth, this one lower, faster, teeth of barbed chain showing like a smile with opinions. No winch in reach. No convenient pin gleaming invitation. The water piles at the links like men at a free door. Our seam goes thin as a thought held too long.
"Storm-drain," Lupa says in one breath.
"Or their pin," I say, though I don't see it yet.
The mirror shuttle purrs behind us, not close enough to touch, close enough to claim story.
The storm-drain mouth is a slit in the wall a boat should not fit, a throat for rain not people. Beyond it the dark tastes like stone that wants to learn KEEP if we teach it with the right hand.
The new boom's kicker groans. I spot it: a small governor on the under-rail, a split-ring bright with oil and confidence. Tiny, rude, sure of itself.
I could step to the chain and teach that pin manners. I could slide into the slit and teach stone a vow.
"Count," I say, because the number decides how brave a body needs to be.
"One—two—three—four," Kirella answers, and the wolf gathers the cloth, and Lupa leans her weight where a wall should be, and the river writes a line we can read if we remember why we learned letters—
—and the chapter ends there, the chain-boom low and hungry, the storm-drain narrow and honest, a governor pin grinning under the rail, the shuttle prowling, our seam warm under bare feet, MYOR kept under clean cloth, and the count steady as a rope between teeth.