The line on the brass strip finished its sentence.
INSPECTION OF ACCEPTED WORK AND REGISTERED HANDS.
The letters sank into the metal until they were no deeper than scratches. The green mark on Practical Mercy tightened around the bowpost. Wood complained. The boat shifted against its moorings, pulling the chain through the ring with three hard clicks.
Garran counted the inspectors.
The woman in the brown coat stood at the front of the skiff. Two men crouched behind her, one with a hooked pole and one carrying a canvas case under both arms. Neither wore a Reed badge. Their coats were gray, their collars fastened with square brass buttons. Government men, or men who wanted to be mistaken for them.
The woman looked at Garran's bandaged hand, then at Lark's spear.
“Temporary authority remains valid while the mark is active,” she said. “Resistance will be recorded.”
“Your name,” Lark said.
“Inspector Ossa Pell, Reed Anchorage Workshop Registry.”
“Authority number.”
Pell lifted the metal case chained to her wrist. The lid opened on a black plate covered in stamped lines. She held it high enough for Lark to see and not high enough for Garran to read.
Lark did not reach for it. “State the issuing body.”
“The Registry of Registered Making.”
“That is not an issuing body.”
“It is the name printed on the authority.”
“Names are not bodies.”
Pell's mouth thinned. “Tideglass Hall has no jurisdiction over Reed Anchorage.”
“Neither do you over this harbor,” Lark said. “You have requested entry under an active summons. A request is not a warrant.”
Garran kept his eyes on the skiff. Its hull had been tarred recently, but the tar stopped short of the stern, where old river rot showed in a pale seam. The boat would take water if the tide rose above the second harbor step. He could see where the owner had wedged cloth into it. Bad repair. Temporary thinking.
Pell tapped the black plate with one finger. “The accepted work is registered to a Reed maker. The registered maker is present on these premises. The named carrier has failed to present both.”
“Named carrier?” Garran asked.
“Vale Keelworks.”
“That is a shop.”
“Your shop signed acceptance.”
“Shops do not sign.”
“Your hand did.”
The green line on the boat brightened. It crept over the gunwale in a thin hooked branch and touched the first plank of the landing. The plank darkened as if soaked from within.
Tamsin's breath made a small metal sound behind him. She had backed against the workshop door. Her left hand was closed around the ring of keys at her belt. The right hovered near the pocket where she kept the narrow wrench she used for injector screws.
Pell saw her.
“There,” she said. “Registered worker identified.”
Garran stepped sideways until Tamsin disappeared behind his shoulder. “You can identify the postman from a window. It does not give you his parcel.”
“The worker will return with us.”
“No.”
“That refusal will be recorded.”
“Use a larger page.”
One of the gray-coated men laughed under his breath. Pell did not turn toward him. “The Reed summons is not a conversation.”
“Neither is a bilge pump,” Garran said. “It still needs a handle.”
Lark's spear point lowered until it rested on the landing between Garran's boots and the water. She had moved without his hearing the boards take her weight.
“Inspector Pell,” she said, “you have named three separate acts. Inspection. Removal of accepted work. Return of a registered worker. Which one does your authority permit?”
“All three, where necessary to establish the claim.”
“Necessary according to whom?”
“The Registry.”
“Which person at the Registry?”
Pell's gaze shifted to the spear. “You are obstructing a lawful process.”
“I am narrowing it.”
The man with the canvas case climbed from the skiff onto the landing. Garran saw the soles of his boots were wrapped in woven reed. Workshop custom. He stopped at the green mark and waited.
Tamsin whispered, “Don't let them touch the crate.”
Garran did not look back. “We will present it.”
Her keys clicked once in her fist.
“We will present it,” he repeated, louder. “The accepted work is in the west shed. You may inspect it at the waterline. No one enters the shop without the harbor owner's consent.”
Pell's expression changed by less than a nail's width. “Who owns this harbor?”
“Today? The people standing in it.”
“Then ask them.”
Garran turned.
The harbor seal lay under his ribs, a pressure like a submerged wheel. The green mark had taken the landing, but the old shared-harbor law still held the workshop door shut. It would not admit a person merely because another island had written a demand. It required the harbor's consent. Last time, Tamsin had given it because every unaccounted thing inside had to be named. This time, her face had gone pale enough to show the small brown scar beside her ear.
“Tamsin,” he said. “Do you consent to inspection at the waterline?”
She stared at Pell. “Not inside.”
“That was not the question,” Lark said.
Tamsin's eyes snapped toward her.
Lark had drawn a strip of clean cloth from the pocket of her coat. She caught Garran's injured hand by the wrist, not gently, and examined the knot in his bandage.
“The wrap has slipped,” she said.
“It is holding.”
“It is holding the wrong part.”
She untied it before he could object. Her fingers were quick and dry. She put the folded cloth between his palm and the torn skin, then wound the bandage across the heel of his hand, over the wrist, and back again. The pressure was exact. Not kind. Exact enough that the throbbing receded.
“You can count boats,” she said without looking up. “Count the tendons as well.”
Garran watched the top of her head while she worked. A loose black hair had caught on the brass clasp at her collar. He wanted to remove it. He did not.
Tamsin swallowed. “I consent to inspection on the landing. The crate stays outside. They do not touch the shop, the boat, or the engine's tools.”
Pell lifted the black plate. “The worker consents to inspection.”
“Not return,” Lark said.
“Return follows proof.”
“Then make your proof.”
The gray-coated man set down the canvas case. Its buckles were sealed with red wax. He opened it and arranged instruments on the landing: a blackglass measuring rod, a brass listening cup, three squares of oiled paper, and a pair of iron clamps. He placed each item parallel to the boards. Garran noticed the clamps had been sharpened recently. Someone had filed the teeth until they would bite without slipping.
“Bring the work,” Pell said.
Garran went to the west shed. Tamsin followed, close enough that her shoulder touched the back of his coat twice. He did not ask whether she wanted him to stop. There were questions that made a person choose an answer before she had found it.
The crate sat beneath the loft stairs. Its lid had been pried open and nailed shut again. Tamsin had left the nails in a neat row on the floor, sorted by length. Garran picked up the shortest ones and put them into his pocket.
“Those are mine,” she said.
“They are on my floor.”
“You throw away nails that still have a head.”
“These have been bent twice.”
“They can be straightened.”
“Then they can be yours after straightening.”
She crouched beside the crate. Her fingers hovered over the lid without touching it.
“Bram did not come for the engine,” she said.
Garran looked at her.
She was watching the gap between two boards, where sawdust had collected in a thin gray crescent. “He came for the part that says I made it.”
“That is still in there.”
“No.”
The word sat between them. Tamsin reached under the crate and pulled free a narrow wooden drawer. Garran had not known it was there. She opened it with the tip of her wrench.
Inside lay the engine's copper nameplate, blackened and scored across the center. The maker's mark had been struck through three times. Reed Anchorage. Tamsin Reed. Workshop child, ninth year.
The plate was not in the crate.
Garran's hand closed around the edge of the drawer. “Why was this separate?”
“Because it was mine.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only one you are getting while they can hear the floor.”
Outside, Pell called, “The inspection authority permits separation of identifying components.”
Tamsin went still.
Garran understood then that the woman had been listening through the shed wall, or that the green mark carried sound. Neither option improved the repair estimate.
He lifted the crate by one end. The engine pieces shifted inside with a dense, expensive clatter. “We are presenting the accepted work.”
Tamsin stood. “Without the plate?”
“Without anything they can use to take your hands.”
Her face hardened. “You don't know what they can use.”
“I know what clamps are for.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No. It is the part I can fix.”
He carried the crate out. Tamsin took the other end. The weight sagged toward her side because the crate's bottom had warped. Garran adjusted his grip without telling her. She noticed anyway and shifted her hands two inches inward.
At the landing, the inspector with the canvas case raised the blackglass rod. It hummed when he brought it near the crate. The green line on Practical Mercy answered with a pulse.
Pell read from the plate. “Accepted work: masterwork engine, Reed Anchorage pattern, maker Tamsin Reed. Condition: dismantled. Carrier: Vale Keelworks. Destination: return to registered workshop.”
“Destination is not acceptance,” Garran said.
“Your receipt says otherwise.”
“Show me.”
Pell opened the case and removed a folded sheet. It was not paper but thin hammered bark, the kind Reed workshops used for heat records. Garran recognized his own signature at the bottom. The letters leaned uphill because he had signed it while standing on the boat's ramp.
Above the signature, another line had been added in fresh black ink.
CARRIER ACCEPTS CUSTODY OF MAKER UNTIL REPAIR IS COMPLETE.
Garran read it twice.
The harbor went quiet around the reeds, the mooring ropes, the dripping hulls. Even Tamsin stopped breathing for a count.
Pell folded the sheet. “The wording is clear.”
“Who added that line?” Lark asked.
“It is part of the standard Reed return form.”
“Not when he signed it.”
“You were not present.”
“I was present when the mark recognized the acceptance.”
Pell's eyes moved to the green line. “Then you witnessed the claim's validity.”
Lark's thumb settled along the spear shaft. “I witnessed a claim. I have not witnessed its scope.”
Garran held out his hand. “Give me the receipt.”
Pell did not move.
“Your authority lets you inspect,” Lark said. “It does not let you conceal the document being relied upon.”
The inspector with the rod looked to Pell. She gave a small nod. He placed the bark sheet on the landing between them.
Garran picked it up. The added line had been written over an older burn mark. He could see the ghost of a different sentence beneath it. A custody clause had been scraped away and replaced. The new ink was still glossy.
“How long?” he asked.
“Until repair is complete.”
“By whose assessment?”
“The registered workshop.”
“That is Reed Anchorage.”
“Yes.”
“So you can declare the repair incomplete forever.”
Pell closed the metal case. “If the maker refuses return, the carrier becomes liable for obstruction.”
Tamsin's wrench slipped from her pocket and struck the boards.
Garran bent to pick it up. He felt her hand catch his sleeve before he could straighten.
“Don't,” she said.
He looked down at her fingers. Grease had settled into the lines of her knuckles. She had washed the rest of herself for the inspection, but not that. The skin around her thumb was split from turning a seized bolt.
Pell said, “Registered worker, prepare your tools.”
Tamsin released Garran's sleeve.
Lark moved first. Her spear hooked the canvas case and dragged it across the landing, away from the inspector's boots. The iron clamps inside struck the wood.
“That is an act of obstruction,” Pell said.
“No,” Lark replied. “It is preservation of evidence.”
The green mark flared.
The workshop door slammed shut behind Tamsin. The west shed door slammed with it. Across the harbor, the shutters of Vale Keelworks dropped one after another, though no one stood near them. A line of green fire ran from the landing to the shop's foundation and split beneath Garran's feet.
The brass strip on Practical Mercy began writing again.
Garran saw the first word form.
CARRIER.
Then the second.
CUSTODIAN.
Pell smiled for the first time. “There is your scope.”
The final word appeared beneath the others, bright enough to reflect in the black water.
LIABLE.
Garran looked at Tamsin, at Lark's spear, and at the boat pulling hard against its chain. The chain link at the bow had begun to open.
“Who,” he asked, “is the carrier supposed to return?”