Rafe
Silas's bracket had fit perfectly. Rowan bolted it into place just after ten, the new iron sitting flush against the bow rail mount, the wood around it still smelling of fresh sealant.
He stepped back, checked the alignment, pressed the rail with both hands.
It didn't move. The bow was solid again, the rail straight, the hardware tight.
"That's your last structural repair," Rowan said. He wiped his hands on a rag and tossed it over his shoulder. "Rigging mount goes in tomorrow morning. After that, you're looking at a day of final checks and you're river-ready."
Two days. Maybe less. The ship that had been his excuse to stay was almost done giving him one.
"You'd have done most of it yourself if I'd let you." Rowan leaned against the rail he'd just finished and looked out at the lake. "What's your plan after?"
"Run the backlog north. I've got three contracts sitting on hold and a renegotiated Vanewright delivery that's already two weeks late."
"And the other thing?"
Rafe reflexively tightened his jaw.
"I live in this town," Rowan said. "I fixed your ship.
I'm not blind." He crossed his arms. Not confrontational.
Patient. "Malrick Sloane is renting a room at the Hargrove place.
He's been buying drinks for freight runners at the dock tavern.
He approached Isla at the river yesterday.
And you spent last night at her cottage. "
"Word travels."
"It's a small town. Things move." Rowan straightened off the rail. "If you've got something that needs handling beyond your ship, you should talk to Emmett."
"Emmett Hollowell?"
"He sits the Council now. Took Varric's seat when the old man couldn't hold it anymore." Rowan picked up his tool belt from the deck. "Emmett doesn't move fast. He doesn't make noise. But when he decides something needs dealing with, it gets dealt with."
"I don't know him."
"I'll introduce you. But Rafe." Rowan paused at the gangway. "Bring something concrete. Emmett doesn't work on suspicion."
Rafe had something concrete. He'd had it since yesterday afternoon.
Dex had done what Dex did best. He'd walked into rooms, bought drinks, asked questions that sounded like small talk, and come back with two pieces of information that turned Malrick's campaign from suspicion into evidence.
The first was a freight runner named Caul who operated a small barge on the eastern channel.
Dex had found him at the Maeve’s tavern nursing a beer and a guilty conscience.
Over the course of forty minutes and three drinks with promises of more once they got to the dock tavern, Caul had admitted that a man matching Malrick's description had paid him two hundred in silver to tell anyone who asked that his last cargo loss was weather-related and that the storms had started getting worse around the time the Ashvane began its regular stops.
His last cargo loss had been a loading error at the Ardenmere docks. Nothing to do with weather. Nothing to do with Rafe.
The second piece was cleaner. A supply manifest from a trader named Vorst, showing a cargo loss attributed to storm damage on a date that Rafe had been docked three hundred miles south.
Vorst's manifest had been filed with the trading consortium's records office.
The original, which Dex had obtained through means he declined to specify, showed the loss as mechanical failure.
Someone had altered the filed copy to read weather-related.
"Vorst didn't file the altered version," Dex had told him. "Someone accessed the consortium records after the fact and changed the cause of loss. The handwriting in the margin matches the handwriting on the forged manifest that was posted here."
"Same hand."
"Same hand. Same ink. Whoever Malrick has doing his paperwork is consistent."
Rafe had both documents in his jacket pocket when Rowan walked him to the council building that afternoon.
Emmett Hollowell's office was on the second floor of a stone building near the Council Glade path, a room that looked like it had been designed for function rather than impression.
A heavy desk, two chairs for visitors, a window overlooking the square, shelves lined with ledgers and bound records.
No decoration. No personal effects beyond a worn jacket hanging on a hook by the door.
Emmett was standing at the window when they came in. Tall, broad through the shoulders, dark brown hair with a few strands falling forward over stormy gray-blue eyes. He turned when Rowan knocked on the open door. His gaze moved from Rowan to Rafe.
"Emmett," Rowan said. "This is Rafe Lupeus. Ashvane's captain. He's got something you should hear."
Emmett nodded and gestured to the chairs. Rowan stayed by the door while Rafe sat.
"I know who you are," Emmett said. "You've been docking here the better part of a week. Storm damage." He sat behind the desk. His movements were deliberate, unhurried. "What do you have?"
Rafe pulled both documents from his jacket and set them on the desk.
"A merchant captain named Malrick Sloane has been operating in Hollow Oak for the last better part of the week," Rafe said.
"He's renting at the Hargrove farmstead north of town.
In that time, he's bribed at least one freight runner to misattribute a cargo loss to weather.
He's altered a filed supply manifest in the trading consortium's records to do the same.
He's posted a forged version of my own manifest on the supply board at the dock tavern, matching my route dates to storm losses.
And he's approached Isla Green directly, at her home and at the river, using details from her past to pressure her. "
Emmett picked up the first document, read it, set it down. Picked up the second and read that too. His face didn't change during any of it.
"The freight runner who took the bribe," Emmett said. "He'll confirm this?"
"His name is Caul. Eastern channel. My first mate got the admission over drinks."
"That's not a sworn statement."
"No. But the altered manifest is documentary evidence. The original shows mechanical failure. The filed copy shows weather damage. The handwriting in the alteration matches the handwriting on the forged manifest posted here."
Emmett looked at both documents side by side. "You're saying this Sloane is building a case that you're using weather magic to sabotage competing trade routes."
"He's building a case that ties me to the stormcaller living on the western shore. The implication is that I'm directing her, or at least benefiting from her. If the river traders believe that, I lose every contract I hold."
"And what's his interest in Isla Green beyond the narrative?"
"He sees her as an asset. He told me to my face that her power is a resource. A commodity." Rafe leaned forward. "He approached her yesterday. Used her father's death as leverage. Tried to frame himself as the only person who understands what she is."
Emmett looked at Rowan, who was leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed.
"You've met this Sloane?" Emmett asked Rowan.
"No. But I've seen the charter his courier was running out of the eastern dock. No registry, no mooring record. Rafe sent the courier packing three days ago."
Emmett turned back to Rafe. "What are you asking for?"
"I'm not asking for a mob or a public confrontation.
Sloane doesn't respond to noise. He responds to pressure applied in the right places.
" Rafe held his gaze. "I'm telling you what's happening in your town so you can position your people where they'll do the most good.
The dock tavern, the Hargrove farmstead, the western path near Isla's cottage.
If Sloane knows the Council is watching, it changes his calculus. "
"You've thought about this."
"I've been dealing with this man for nine years. I know how he moves."
Emmett leaned back in his chair. The leather creaked. He picked up the altered manifest again, held it at an angle to the window light, studying the handwriting.
"I can’t run a man out of town on the word of a visiting captain and some altered paperwork," he said. "That's not how this works."
"I'm not asking you to."
"I know you're not. You're asking me to watch.
" Emmett set the document down. "I can do that.
I'll put someone at the dock tavern. Quiet.
Observational. If Sloane's people are moving through there, I want to know who they're talking to.
I'll have someone check the Hargrove farmstead.
Find out what name he's using, how long the rental agreement runs, whether he's had visitors. "
"And Isla?"
"The western path is already on a patrol rotation. Has been since she arrived." He paused. "We don't watch her because we're afraid of her. We watch the approach because she asked us to."
Rafe hadn’t been expecting that. She'd asked for it. A woman who lived alone on the edge of a magical town had asked the Council to watch her path. Not for protection but warning, so she'd know when someone was coming and could prepare herself.
"I'll increase the rotation," Emmett said. "Two passes instead of one. Evening and early morning." He stood. The meeting was over when he decided it was over, no ambiguity about that. "Leave the documents. I'll have Moira verify the handwriting comparison against anything else we have on file."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. I haven't done anything." Emmett walked them to the door. "Lupeus. How long before your ship is ready?"
"Two days."
"And after that?" Emmett looked back with those steady gray-blue eyes that had probably been reading people since before he took the Council seat.
"I haven't decided," Rafe said.
"Decide soon. Because if what you're telling me is accurate, leaving this town puts Isla Green in a worse position than you found her in. And I'd rather not clean up that mess after the fact."
Rowan walked him back to the dock. The afternoon had gone cool, clouds building over the northern ridge, the lake picking up a light chop from the breeze.
"He'll move on it," Rowan said. "Quiet. His way. But he'll move."
"I know."
"The other question he asked you. About after."
"I heard him."
Rowan nodded. Picked up his tool belt from where he'd left it on the dock rail. "Two days is two days. But I've built enough things to know that some of them are worth staying to finish." He walked up the bank road without looking back.
Rafe stood on the dock. The Ashvane’s bow rail was straight, hull sealed, rigging mount braced for tomorrow's hardware.
She was almost ready to go. She was almost his again.
The water was right there, the river beyond the lake mouth, the channels north that led to contracts, obligations, the life he'd built on the principle that moving was safer than staying.
Two days. Emmett's question sat in his chest beside the wolf that had been pulling towards her since the first night. He gazed toward where she’d be one last time with a heavy sigh before he went below to finish the cargo mounts.