Garran put one hand on the bow rail and felt the cord pull through the timber.
It was not rope. Rope yielded where it was tied. This held the boat as if the boat had grown an opinion and meant to keep it.
"Can you read the rest?" Lark asked.
"Not from here."
"Then get closer."
He looked at her. She had already removed her boots and rolled her trousers above the knee. The dock beneath her sloped toward the exposed iron teeth, each one furred with weed and old shell. She tested the first plank with her bare foot, then stepped down.
"That is not an instruction to drown yourself," Garran said.
"It is an instruction to inspect the seal before the claimant reaches us. If you have a safer method, state it."
He had three safer methods. None involved the tide, and all required equipment they no longer owned.
Hollis drew his sword.
"By the casualties of the Fourth Sounding," he said, "I will sever the cord at its point of attachment. Sergeant Pell Arven. Corporal Jessa Marr. Gunner Thale Oren. Boatswain Kett—"
"No," Lark said.
Hollis stopped with the blade half clear.
"You have not heard the rest of the names," he said.
"I have heard enough to know that cutting an active claim without identifying its law is poor procedure."
"It is a cord."
"It is a cord stamped with a jurisdictional seal."
"It is wrapped around our boat."
"That does not make it less jurisdictional."
Hollis's mouth tightened. He returned the sword to its sheath with the care of a man putting away an argument he expected to use later.
Garran climbed over the rail.
The boat shifted under him. The cord went taut, and pain ran from his right wrist to his shoulder. Not sharp. Pressure. Like a bench vise closing one turn at a time.
Lark caught his belt.
Her grip was hard enough to bruise through his coat. She did not pull him back. She held him steady while he found the next foothold.
"Your left knee is compensating," she said.
"It has been doing that since the war."
"That was not an answer."
"It was the available one."
She released him only after his weight settled. Then she climbed after him, moving with the irritating certainty of someone who had measured the distance before committing her body to it.
The bow dipped as they reached it. Spray came over the scarred paint. Garran crouched and wiped saltwater from the stamped wood with his sleeve.
The seal was a circle cut by nine straight lines. At its center sat a square pierced by a nail. Beneath it, the name emerged one wet letter at a time.
THE NINTH DOCK OF VESPER QUAY.
Below that, in smaller script:
CLAIM FOR UNFINISHED WORK.
Garran read it twice.
Lark leaned over his shoulder. Her hair came loose from its tie and brushed the back of his hand. She did not notice. Or she noticed and had more important things to do.
"What unfinished work?" she asked.
"Mine, presumably."
"The wording is specific."
"Most bills are. The bad ones leave room."
The seal gave a wet click.
A line opened across its center. Blackness showed beneath the wood, though the boat had no hollow there. Something began to write itself in pale strokes.
Garran put his palm over it.
The pressure in his bones answered.
Six separate points woke under his ribs, then a seventh under the old scar below his collarbone. The marks did not flare. They argued. One tugged toward the storm road, another down through the boat, another toward the dock where Hollis stood. The sensation resembled having seven men pull on a net from different boats.
Lark's fingers closed around his wrist.
"Remove your hand."
"I am preventing it from writing."
"You are supplying it with a body to write through."
He removed his hand.
The words completed themselves.
BY ORDER OF VESPER QUAY, THE BEARER OF UNFINISHED WORK SHALL PRESENT HIS HANDS, TOOLS, AND NECESSARY PERSONNEL FOR ASSESSMENT BEFORE THE NEXT LOW WATER.
The last line appeared beneath the others.
FAILURE TO PRESENT WILL CONVERT SERVICE INTO SEIZURE.
Tamsin shouted from the dock. "That is a remarkably rude way to introduce yourself."
Garran turned. She stood beside the engine crate with a spanner in one hand and a shirt sleeve tied around her other palm. He had not seen her cut herself. The sleeve was already dark.
"Put that down," he called.
"The spanner?"
"The bleeding."
"It is attached. I checked."
She came along the dock, stepping over broken planks without looking down. Mara watched from the foundry doorway, one hand pressed to the restraint harness across her chest. Hollis moved to block the way to the boat, but Tamsin stopped two paces from him.
"Necessary personnel," she said. "That means me."
"It may mean the boatwright, the engine mechanic, and any person whose labor is required to complete the work," Lark said.
"You have a talent for making bad news more exact."
"It is already exact."
Tamsin lifted her bleeding hand. "Can it take a mechanic who has not agreed?"
Hollis answered. "A lawful claimant may compel an identified necessary person to attend an assessment."
"And if the person refuses?"
"The claimant may place a restraint."
Tamsin's gaze went to Garran. She did not ask him to object. She knew he would.
Garran jumped down from the bow. The cord pulled him forward hard enough to wrench his shoulder. Lark caught his coat at the back and held him against the rail.
"Do not fight the line," she said.
"It is attached to my boat."
"It is attached to your claim. The boat is collateral."
"That distinction will be a comfort when it sinks."
"It will be a comfort when I contest the seizure."
She drew a narrow book from inside her coat. The cover was plain gray, swollen from weather. She opened it on her forearm, turned three pages, and took a pen from behind her ear.
"What are you doing?" Garran asked.
"Making the contest."
"With what authority?"
"My examiner's bond."
He looked at the book, then at her.
"You used that to certify Tamsin."
"The bond remains active until the certification is discharged."
"You said it was nearly gone."
"Nearly is not gone."
She wrote. The pen scratched steadily while the dock groaned beneath them. On the far side of the harbor, a bell rang once. No one answered it. The sound went out over the mudflats and came back thin.
"I contest compulsory seizure of necessary personnel on the grounds that the claimant has not established the scope, ownership, or completion condition of the unfinished work," Lark said as she wrote. "I offer my bond as temporary surety for the named person, Tamsin Reed, until those conditions are examined."
"Lark."
"Do not interrupt a filing."
"The claimant could accept your bond."
"That is the purpose of surety."
"It could collect it."
"Yes."
She blew on the ink. The motion was small and familiar. She had done it over invoices, repair orders, and the debt notice that had nearly taken his shop. Garran remembered her putting a heel of bread beside his elbow that morning without looking at him. He had eaten it because she had placed it there, and because refusing would have required more strength than he had.
He disliked that he remembered the exact shape of her hand.
The harbor mouth filled with a low black boat.
It came without sail or oar. A pressure engine pushed it forward in short, disciplined bursts, each exhaust cloud white against the gray water. Its hull had been built from mismatched sections, but the joins were clean. Whoever had repaired it understood boats.
A woman stood at the bow in a dark oilskin coat. She carried no weapon that Garran could see. Three dock clerks sat behind her, each holding a slate against the rain. At the stern, a boy worked the pressure valves with both hands.
The woman raised her voice.
"Bearer of unfinished work. Identify yourself and your necessary personnel."
"Garran Vale," he called. "Owner of this vessel. The mechanic is Tamsin Reed. The examiner is Lark Fen. The preservation officer is Hollis Mere. Mara Vale is under medical restraint and is not personnel."
The woman glanced at her clerks.
"You have not been asked to classify the injured."
"You will if you try to take her."
"That is not how claims work."
"It is how bodies work."
The boat reached the dock. Its bow touched the iron teeth with a hard knock. The boy at the stern spun a valve. The engine coughed and stopped.
The woman stepped across the gap. She landed on Garran's deck without looking at the black cord.
"I am Sella Dorn, licensed assessor of Vesper Quay. The Ninth Dock has recorded an unfinished work under the name of Garran Vale for fourteen years. The work was never presented, discharged, or transferred. Your notice has activated the record."
Garran's throat tightened.
"What work?"
Sella took a brass cylinder from her coat and held it out. The cylinder was sealed with red wax. On the wax sat the same square pierced by a nail.
"A repair order."
"For what vessel?"
"A military transport."
The harbor seemed to lose its depth.
Sella continued, because licensed assessors did not stop for a man's breathing.
"The vessel was delivered to Vesper Quay during the last year of the armistice. Its keel was split. Its rootstone chamber was leaking. The order bears your hand, your service number, and your acceptance mark. The work was not completed. The vessel was lost with its crew before the account closed."
Garran stared at the red wax.
He had repaired hundreds of boats. Patrol skiffs. Grain lighters. A gun cutter with a cracked propeller housing and a captain who kept calling the crack cosmetic. He remembered the workbench, the smell of hot pitch, the rain coming through the roof.
He did not remember Vesper Quay.
That was the part he could not permit himself to say.
Sella turned to Lark. "Your filing is received. The bond is accepted for Tamsin Reed only. The claimant will not seize her before assessment."
Tamsin flexed her bandaged hand. "And the others?"
"The others are not named necessary personnel."
Hollis stepped forward. "The bearer travels under preservation authority."
"Vesper Quay recognizes no battlefield preservation authority over an unfinished work."
"You recognize the dead when it suits your ledgers."
"I recognize registered obligations."
Hollis's hand moved toward his sword. The clerks lowered their slates. The boy at the pressure valves ducked his head, ready for the engine.
Lark closed her book.
"No weapons on an active claim dock," she said. "That restriction applies to everyone."
Hollis looked at her. After a moment, his hand fell away.
Garran heard the engine begin behind him. The black boat's pressure chamber filled with a deep metal thrum. The cord around his vessel tightened until the bow rose an inch from the water.
Sella held out the brass cylinder.
"Present your hands and tools for assessment, Garran Vale. If you cannot complete the work, the claim will determine who must."
Garran did not take the cylinder.
The red wax seal had begun to soften in the rain. Beneath it, another impression showed through, pressed into the brass before the wax had been laid.
A military number.
His number.
And below it, written in a hand he knew but could not place, were three words:
BRING HIM HOME ALIVE.
The cord pulled again.
This time, the boat answered with a crack.