17. Rafe
RAFE
Dex found Rafe at the Ashvane just past three with the kind of walk that meant the information was worth the interruption.
"Malrick's not on a charter," Dex said. "He's renting. A room at a farmstead about a mile past the northern ridge, off the main road. Woman named Hargrove runs it, takes seasonal boarders, doesn't ask questions if the money's good. He arrived two days before we did."
Rafe set down the caulking iron he'd been working with.
The hold partition was nearly finished, the new planks fitted clean, Orick sanding the seams below while Pell ran checks on the cargo mounts.
Good progress. Three more days and the Ashvane would be river-ready was the hope.
But three more days was a long time when the man taking his livelihood apart was sleeping a mile from the town square.
"Who told you?"
"Petch." Dex leaned against the dock rail.
"His brother-in-law delivers firewood to the Hargrove place.
Said there's been a man there the last week who tips well, drinks better whiskey than anyone on that road should have, and asks a lot of questions about town business.
Specifically about the lake, the weather, and the fae woman on the western shore. "
"He's been asking about Isla by name?"
"Not by name. By description. Silver-blonde hair, lives alone near the water, something unusual about the storms when she's upset." Dex paused. "He's careful. Always has been."
Rafe looked at the sky. Clear, bright, no weather building. A good afternoon. The kind of afternoon where a man should be walking a birch path to a cottage on the lake to sit at a small table with a woman he'd told he wanted to get to know.
"I need you to do something," he said.
"Name it."
"Go to Isla's cottage. Tell her I can't make it tonight." He kept his voice level. His wolf was already protesting, a low pressure behind his sternum that he ignored. "Tell her I found Sloane. I'm going to get answers. I'll be in touch."
Dex studied him. "You want me to walk to the stormcaller's house and deliver a cancellation."
"I want you to deliver a message."
"She's going to have questions."
"Then don't stay long enough for her to ask them." He picked the caulking iron back up. "Go now. I want to be at the dock tavern by five."
Dex pushed off the rail without further comment.
Rafe watched him go, the short frame disappearing up the bank road toward the western path, and the wolf pressed harder against his ribs.
Every instinct in him wanted to be the one walking that path.
Wanted to be at her table, in her kitchen, close enough to catch her scent and hear the low careful way she spoke when she was deciding whether to trust him with something.
He wanted that more than he wanted answers from a man who'd been poisoning his trade routes for a decade.
But wanting didn't fix ships. And it didn't stop Malrick.
He finished the caulking join, cleaned the iron, stowed it, and went to change his shirt. If he was going to face Malrick Sloane across a table, he was going to do it looking like a man who still had everything under control.
The dockside tavern was half full at five.
Freight crews finishing their day, a few locals who preferred the rougher atmosphere to the Silver Fang's polish, Petch behind the bar wiping glasses.
The light came in low through the west-facing windows, catching the dust in the air, turning the room amber.
The light and Rafe’s eyes stopped when they hit the corner table. Malric.
Rafe had expected to have to look for him.
Instead, the man was sitting in plain sight with a glass of something dark and a posture that said he'd been waiting.
He looked exactly the way Rafe remembered and nothing like it.
The same lean frame, the same sharp features, the same dark hair swept back from a face that managed to look refined even in a river tavern.
But there was more gray at the temples now.
More lines around the mouth. The eyes were the same, though.
Pale brown, warm on the surface and calculating underneath.
He was wearing a coat that cost more than most captains made in a month. He had a bottle on the table, not the tavern's house stock. Something imported, dark glass, no label Rafe recognized from this stretch of river.
Malrick saw him come in. Smiled. The smile of a man welcoming an old friend to dinner.
"Lupeus." He gestured to the empty chair across from him. "I was wondering when you'd get around to finding me."
Rafe pulled the chair out and sat. The table was small. The distance between them was less than three feet. Close enough to read the threadwork on Malrick's coat. Close enough to smell the whiskey.
"You've been busy," Rafe said.
"I've been visiting. Hollow Oak is charming. The kind of town that rewards patience." Malrick poured a second glass from the bottle and slid it across. "Drink?"
"No."
"Suit yourself." He picked up his own glass. "How's the ship?"
"You know how the ship is. You've had someone watching the dock since before I arrived."
"I keep informed. It's a professional habit." He sipped. "The bow rail looks particularly unfortunate. Storm damage?"
Rafe said nothing, just looked unimpressed. “Say what you need to say and get on with it.”
Malrik’s eyes narrowed slightly. "I know what the weather did to your ship. I also know that weather on this stretch of river has been notably unpredictable for the last year." He set the glass down. "Interesting place to run regular trade, given the conditions."
Rafe leaned back in the chair and noticed Petch was at the far end of the bar, not looking their direction, which meant he was listening carefully.
"Let's skip the part where you pretend this is a coincidence," Rafe said. "You're renting a room at the Hargrove place. You've been here six days. You arrived before I did, which means you knew my route schedule before I docked."
"Your route schedule isn't classified information, Rafe. You file with every harbourmaster on the channel."
"And you read every filing. The way you read my Kellert bid six years ago."
Something moved behind Malrick's eyes. A flicker of amusement at the memory, maybe. Or satisfaction that it still stung.
"The Kellert account was business," Malrick said. "You lost a contract. It happens."
"I lost a contract because you stole my bid numbers. My cargo specs. My rate negotiations. Information you had no legitimate way of accessing."
"And yet no one ever proved that."
"I didn't need proof. I knew the shape of it. I still do."
Malrick turned his glass on the table, the amber liquid catching light. "You always were stubborn about the Kellert thing. As if one account defined a career."
"It defined yours. You built three routes off the back of that contract.
Every client you took from me in the two years after traced back to the credibility you bought with stolen information.
" Rafe kept his voice even. The tavern noise covered them well enough, but he wasn't interested in giving Petch or anyone else a performance.
"So when I hear your name asking after the Ashvane, when I find a courier running sealed letters out of an unregistered charter, when a forged manifest shows up on the supply board matching my route dates to storm losses, I don't need proof for that either. I know the shape."
Malrick's smile hadn't moved. "You give me too much credit."
"I give you exactly the right amount."
"If I were doing what you're describing, which I'm not conceding, what would be the purpose? You're already stranded. Your ship is damaged. Your cargo is lost. Why would I need to do anything more than wait?"
"Because waiting isn't your style. You don't wait for opportunities. You build them." Rafe leaned forward. "The manifests. The rumors. Tying my name to the storms on this stretch of river. You're not trying to beat me to a contract this time. You're trying to make me unemployable."
"That's a dramatic reading."
"Tell me I'm wrong."
Malrick studied him. The amusement was still there but underneath it something harder had surfaced, the calculation that lived behind every warm expression. He took the bottle and refilled his glass with the unhurried movements of a man who controlled the tempo of every conversation he entered.
"You've always had a weakness, Rafe. You're honest. You run clean routes, file accurate manifests, honor your contracts to the letter.
It's admirable. It's also predictable." He drank.
"Predictable men are easy to frame because no one believes they'd fight dirty.
All I'd have to do, hypothetically, is create the appearance of an advantage you'd never actually take. The river does the rest."
"And the stormcaller?"
Malrick's eyes sharpened. Just slightly. A tightening at the corners that his smile couldn't quite cover. "Ah."
"Don't play coy. You've been asking about her since you got here. Description, location, the weather patterns around the lake. Your courier confirmed it before I sent him packing."
"You roughed up my courier?"
"I gave him career advice."
Malrick laughed. Short, genuine, the kind of laugh that reminded Rafe of the man he'd known years ago, before the Kellert account, before the stolen bids, before the split that turned professional rivalry into something personal.
There had been a time when that laugh had meant camaraderie. Now it meant Malrick was recalibrating.
"The stormcaller is remarkable," Malrick said. "You must know that. A living weather system with enough power to wreck a cargo vessel from half a mile away. Do you have any idea how rare that is? How valuable?"
"She's not a commodity."
"Everything is a commodity, Rafe. The question is who benefits from the exchange.
" He leaned forward, mirroring Rafe's posture across the narrow table.
"You're stranded in a town with a woman who can control storms, and you're using your time fixing rigging.
Think about that. Any captain on this river would kill for what you're sitting next to. "
"I'm not any captain."
"No. You're the honest one." Malrick's voice dropped.
Not threatening, worse. Sympathetic. "You've been running clean routes for fifteen years and what has it gotten you?
A damaged ship, a lost contract, and a week in a town you didn't choose.
Meanwhile, every captain who cuts corners, who uses every advantage available, who understands that the river doesn't reward morality, they're running your routes.
Billing your clients. Sleeping in better ports. "
"And you're one of them."
"I'm the best of them. Because I understand something you never will." He set his glass down. "Power isn't moral or immoral. It's a resource. The fae woman here has more of it than anyone on this river has seen in a generation. You can either use that or you can watch someone else do it."
"Someone like you."
"I'm offering perspective. Not a partnership."
Rafe stood. The chair scraped back on the wood floor, causing two freight runners near the door had stopped talking.
"Stay away from her," Rafe said. The words came out quieter than he'd intended, which made them land harder. "Stay away from her cottage, her practice ground, her town. If I find out you've gone near her, the courier conversation will feel like a friendly chat."
Malrick looked up at him from the chair, still smiling. Still calculating. "You're very protective of something you claim isn't yours."
"She isn't mine. That's the point."
He walked out of the tavern into the evening air. The lake was turning copper in the last light. His hands weren't shaking but they wanted to be.
Malrick had come to Hollow Oak for Isla. Not just to take Rafe's routes. Not just to undermine his reputation. He'd come because he'd found a stormcaller and he saw what every man like him saw when he saw power: a tool waiting to be picked up.
The moment his thought went back to her, especially in the clearing chill of the evening air, Rafe’s mind wandered over to the western shore to a woman who was waiting for someone who hadn't come.