The tooth turned another quarter before Garran caught it.
He used a folded strip of sailcloth. Even through the cloth, the gear bit him. Its brass edge had been filed to a child's notion of sharpness, which meant it was sharp in all the places a proper tool would not be. He pinched the tooth free and set it on the bench.
The rest of the engine stopped.
Tamsin had both hands flat on the wood. Her knuckles were pale. Lark stood between her and the door, one hand resting near the butt of her spear without touching it.
“Do not remove anything else,” Lark said.
“I removed a loose tooth.”
“You removed the only moving part.”
“It was not the only moving part.”
“It is now.”
Garran looked from the gear to the Reed mark on the door. The green boundary had thinned around the nail and spread in a line along the threshold. It made a clean angle at the wall, then climbed the timber frame. Where it crossed a shelf, every tool on the shelf gave a small metallic click.
The shop had accepted another jurisdiction.
He picked up the tooth. “The engine is not functioning.”
“Neither is the door,” Tamsin said. “That has not stopped anyone from making claims about it.”
Lark crouched beside the threshold. She took a bent nail from the floor, straightened it against the heel of her hand, and held it a finger's width from the green line. The nail trembled toward the boundary.
“Reed Anchorage has established a temporary inspection claim,” she said. “The mark is not a seizure.”
“Good.”
“It becomes a seizure if the respondent fails to appear.”
“How long?” Garran asked.
“Seven days.”
“We heard that part.”
“You heard the duration. You did not hear the condition.” She turned the nail between her fingers. “The seven days begin when the registered worker receives the summons, unless the worker is absent. In that case, they begin when the responsible harbor accepts it.”
Tamsin's head came up. “I received it.”
“No.” Lark pointed with the nail. “The summons is stamped to Vale Keelworks.”
The brass strip hanging from the door had been blank when Bram drove the nail. It was not blank now. A second line had surfaced beneath the first, dark letters pressed into the metal.
RESPONDENT: VALE KEELWORKS.
Garran read it twice. The letters were narrow and squared, like marks made on cargo before a storm.
“Tamsin is the respondent,” he said.
“Your shop is the respondent.”
“She works here.”
“She owns one fifth of the shop.”
Tamsin made a sound through her teeth. “That is a very bad arrangement to become proud of.”
Garran looked at the contract on the bench. His signature still shone faintly where the private-harbor seal had answered it. The paper had been folded, opened, folded again. Lark had marked the corners in pencil so it would not be mistaken for scrap.
“The claim is against the engine,” he said.
“The claim is against the registered work and the harbor that accepted it.” Lark rose. “Reed law does not distinguish between an item and the place that gives the item shelter. The workshop is accountable for what its hands take in.”
“Tamsin's hands.”
“Your roof. Your tools. Your delivery ledger. Your signature on her share.”
The green line reached the ledger shelf. The books shifted toward it by the width of a fingernail.
Garran put the tooth in his pocket. “We can move the engine.”
“No.”
“We can move the engine after dark.”
“No.”
“We can move it in pieces.”
Lark held out her hand.
He gave her the tooth because arguing with that hand took more effort than the argument deserved. She wrapped the gear in a square of clean cloth and placed it beside the engine, not in the pocket where he had put it.
“The engine was accepted for safekeeping,” she said. “Until the claim is answered, the shop cannot release it. Moving it would be delivery without authority.”
“Bram did not have authority to leave it broken on our step.”
“He had a summons authority.”
“He had a hammer.”
“Those are related instruments.”
Tamsin went to the engine and began gathering the loose pieces into rows. She sorted by diameter, then by the number of teeth. Her left hand paused over a small iron collar before setting it with the others.
Garran knew that pause. He had seen it over cracked pistons, missing bolts, and the last three coins in the till. It meant the thing under consideration had a use she had not yet admitted.
“Do not test it,” he said.
“I am not testing it.”
“You are arranging it to be tested.”
“That is different.”
“Not in a shop.”
She shoved the collar into its row. “You want me to leave it here for Reed to take.”
“I want you alive and the shop open.”
“Those are not the same problem.”
“No,” Garran said. “They are the same bill.”
Lark took the sailcloth from his hand. Blood had soaked through the fold across his palm. He had not noticed the cut because the engine had been moving and the door had been speaking and the shop had acquired another creditor.
“Give me your hand.”
“It is superficial.”
“That was not my question.”
He put his hand in hers.
She cleaned the cut with water from the kettle, then threaded a strip of linen around his palm. Her fingers were narrow and competent. She did not pull the bandage tight enough to numb the hand, nor leave it loose enough to catch on a tool. At the final turn she tucked the end under the crossing instead of tying a knot.
Garran watched her work.
She had sharpened the bent nail before examining the claim. She had returned his awl three mornings ago with a new point and the handle rubbed smooth where his thumb rested. He had noticed. He had not asked why.
“You are looking at the bandage,” Lark said.
“I am checking the pressure.”
“It is correct.”
“Then I am checking that.”
Her thumb pressed once against the linen to test the pulse beneath it. The touch lasted less than a second. She released him and picked up the nail.
Tamsin watched from the engine. “If you two are finished measuring each other, the wall has reached the axle rack.”
Garran pulled his hand back. “What happens at the end of seven days?”
Lark stood. “Reed Anchorage may enter the shop, take the registered worker into custody for return service, and inventory every object marked by her hand.”
Tamsin's sorting stopped.
“Return service,” she said.
“Until the family claim is satisfied.”
“And if the claim is false?”
“Then the respondent must prove it under Reed law.”
“Where?”
“Reed Anchorage.”
Tamsin laughed once. It had no amusement in it. “Of course.”
Garran crossed to the window. Outside, Bram Reed was gone. His footprints cut through the salt dust toward the outer road. The loading step still held the square imprint of his boot. Beyond it, Practical Mercy sat at the quay with her bow pointed toward the tide gate. She had been patched so often that the hull looked like a collection of decisions made under pressure.
The green boundary had reached the axle rack. A line of light slid beneath the door and crossed the packed earth toward the water.
“Does the mark stop at the building?” Garran asked.
Lark followed his gaze. “Not if the harbor accepted the work.”
“It did not.”
“The shop did.”
“Practical Mercy is a courier boat.”
“It carries your shop's deliveries.”
“It carries Tamsin's repairs.”
“It carries both.”
The line reached the quay.
Tamsin swore at the exact name of a component, then climbed over the window ledge. Garran went after her. Lark came last, closing the shutters behind them. The boundary passed through the wall without breaking it. On the outside, it ran in a green thread along the stones, crossed the loading step, and continued toward the water.
Practical Mercy rocked once against her mooring.
The hooked-river mark appeared on her near-side plank.
It was smaller than the nail on the door, but it bit deeper. The wood around it darkened as though wet from within. A brass strip pushed out below the mark, curling from the plank like a tongue.
Tamsin reached for it.
Garran caught her wrist.
“Do not.”
She stared at his hand around her. “It is my boat.”
“It is the shop's boat.”
“It is my boat.”
He let go. The place where his fingers had been reddened beneath the grease.
Lark stepped onto the quay and read the strip. “The respondent's transport is included.”
“Can Reed take the boat?” Garran asked.
“Not under the summons.”
“Can they stop it leaving?”
“Yes.”
“Can they board it?”
“If they claim it is carrying registered work.”
“It is carrying registered work,” Tamsin said. “The whole bloody engine is in the shop.”
“Then you should be pleased,” Lark said. “Their position is clear.”
Tamsin turned on her. “You say that as if clarity is a repair.”
“No. It is a condition for one.”
Garran looked at the mark in the boat's plank. Practical Mercy's old name had been scraped away years ago, leaving a pale rectangle above the waterline. He had meant to repaint it before winter. He had meant to replace the starboard cleat, too. He had meant to do many things that became less urgent whenever a customer arrived with a leak.
The boat's bell rang.
No one had touched it.
A black pennant lifted beyond the tide gate. Reed's hooked river was stitched in copper thread. Behind it came a narrow work skiff with two men aboard and a woman standing at the bow. She wore a plain brown coat, no visible weapon, and a metal case chained to her wrist.
Tamsin stepped backward.
The woman raised a hand toward the marked boat.
“Vale Keelworks,” she called. “By temporary inspection authority, present the registered worker and the accepted work for entry.”
Lark's spear slid free of its sheath with a dry whisper.
Garran moved in front of Tamsin. His injured hand flexed once beneath the bandage. The knot held.
The woman on the skiff looked past him to the green line and smiled without warmth.
“Seven days,” she called. “The first has already been used.”
On the brass strip beneath Practical Mercy's mark, a fresh line began to write itself.