The winch at Lock 7 judders like a coughing ox, each clank punching a shiver through the catwalk under my boots. River mist slicks the rails. Wet hemp stings my hands. Nobody pays me enough for dawn shifts, and nobody pays the river at all; it just shows up and makes demands. Far below, the Aris shoulders through the stone throat of the lock and drags at the sluice gates; the mills downstream live or die on that pull. The west drum skips, metal shriek, and the brake pawl skitters off its track.
"Hold," I mutter.
No time to fetch a crew. No time to explain. Just the angle of a loose bearing cap, the glitter of scraped brass, and the coil of emergency hoops at my side. I throw my weight into the handspike and jam a knee under the lever to keep the pawl from flipping back. The drum's mass tries to eat me alive. Heat burns up my forearms. I hug the lever and breathe through my teeth.
"Jessa!" I yell toward the masonry mouth below. "Throw me a snipe pin!"
My sister's head pops up from the ladder hatch, brown hair pasted with mist, eyes too wide. "You're supposed to call for a stop!"
"And lose the mill?" The lever twitches. "Pin."
She flings the iron pin; it clanks off the rail. I catch it barehanded, swear, and slam it into the brace hole. The pawl takes a bite. The drum's teeth seize, half an inch from tearing free. The whole lock sings, high and brittle. The smell of yeast and hot tar from the dockside fuses with gear oil and river slip.
The lever's vibration eases from savage buzz to tremble. The lock holds. The mills downstream breathe.
I let the breath out, slowly, and only then hear the other sound: a chime, soft and crystalline. A pale overlay flickers across my vision, lines and sigils stitched in tidy segments.
A second line writes itself with the calmness of a bookkeeper.
My hand trembles on the lever, not from strain this time. "Now? You pick now?" The fog doesn't answer. The Lattice has always been there, woven through city life: work orders on Charter Boards, fines paid, licenses earned, reputations tallied. But it has never spoken to me. Not once.
Fine. I can use the help.
"Mar, your hands…" Jessa pulls herself onto the platform, breath fogging, words cutting off as she looks past me at the overlay. "Is that…?"
"Later." Though we both know "later" means "we will talk about this until dawn." There, on the drum's exposed end: a smear that is not wear, not honest labor's polish. The metal has been abraded, then coated with a powder that beads when mist kisses it. The counterfeit seal lies half-incised beside it, a poorly cut stamp of the Millwrights' mark. The center rosette is wrong by one petal.
I let my left hand hover, and the overlay pulses, as if expecting the gesture.
"System Scan." The words feel ridiculous said aloud, but the world answers.
A clean ring; a pane unfolds.
My mouth goes dry. Something hot and personal climbs my ribs, not fear, but the specific anger of a craftsman looking at a lie dressed in her trade's clothing. Counterfeit. The city runs on marks: maker's stamps, true guild seals, quality grades etched where only craftsmen look. Somebody has cut this false rosette and gambled we wouldn't Appraise it.
The overlay adds, as if recalling a note in a tidy margin:
"Of course," I murmur. "We're absolutely discussing this later."
I free the snipe pin, ease the pawl home, and let the drum down two teeth to lessen the stress. The whole lock eases. Somewhere downstream, the mill bells strike restart.
"You shouldn't have gone up alone," Jessa says.
"You shouldn't have followed," I say, and give her the half-smile that means I am grateful. "We do what we do."
"You're bleeding." She pulls a rag from her belt. Blood smears my palm where the pin has bitten. The Lattice notices, and translucent numerals waver at the edge of my vision. HP dips by four, then recovers. I will the overlay quiet. It dims but stays present, polite as a clerk awaiting instruction.
We secure the brace with a proper fastener and flag the drum for inspection per charter. I take another look at that wrong rosette, the seven-petaled insult.
"I don't like this."
"You don't like a lot of things." Jessa's voice softens. "Let's tell Master Brindle. He'll know which clerk to scare."
"There's not a clerk in the Annex who scares," I reply, though she's picked the right person. Olan Brindle's shop could school the Annex on proper bookkeeping.
"Tomorrow. Tonight we tally and I'll see if the Board has anything immediate." My new overlay pulses, faintly, as if hearing its name.
"Marin has a Lattice pane," Jessa sing-songs as we descend the iron stair. I glare. She ignores it. Docking lamps kindle along the wharf. At the resthouse backing the lock, someone swipes the chalkboard clean before supper rush.
The Resthouse of Tally & Tea: named like a joke, run like a temple. Benches that don't wobble. Tea strong enough to scare hangovers off longshoremen. Tally-slates for itinerant hands. The corner by the stove holds the Board's postings: honest work with clear ledgers and pay listed in neat script.
Master Brindle haunts the place after work, worrying his mug like it is a problem with thread pitch. One look at my hands and he shoots to his feet, mug clattering. "You are not paid for bleeding on public infrastructure."
"Put it on my account." Usually that earns a snort. Not tonight.
"What happened?"
I tell him. The winch. The counterfeit rosette. The Lattice pane. Across the room, a murmur goes through a table of Dockers at the word "counterfeit." One of them, Elin from Pier Three, leans back in her seat like she could eavesdrop further without falling off her bench.
"Let me see it." Brindle was a Miller's machinist before retiring to teach stubborn apprentices about truth and tolerances. His fingers know marks better than most clerks know numbers.
I think Appraise without speaking. The overlay responds, soft glow limning the false mark in my memory. I slide the rubbing I've taken across the table. He runs a thumb over it, stops, grunts. "Seven petals."
"I counted." Flat. Final.
"Some newcomer miscutting a stolen stamp." Too quick. He shakes his head, caught in the lie. "No. This is neat work put to poor purpose. The petal symmetry's too clean, a deliberate miscut. Easy to spot if you're looking, hard to prove forgery without direct comparison."
"Who benefits from being discovered?"
"Or from raising hell at the Annex while they work elsewhere." Brindle glares at the Board corner like it owes him money. "Jessa, mind my cup. Marin, ledgers."
My shoulders tense. "Master."
"Not to slow you down." His tone gentles. "To see if this pattern holds up under scrutiny. The Annex may not scare, but math does."
He is right. He is also about to tell me to bring someone when I go to inspect the rest of Lock 7. I preempt him. "I'll go down tonight."
"With who?"
"With my headlamp."
"Marin."
"You taught me to make proper brackets. Let me do the job proper."
He rubs his brow. "I did not teach you to be foolish."
"No," I say. "You taught me not to be cheap where it mattered." I look at the Board. It glows faintly in my overlay. The Lattice paints it in neat categories: Craft, Guard, Clean, Lift, Fix. Someone has posted a fresh one at the top row; the ink hasn't fully dried.
EMERGENCY HOOPS — Dock 5 — Coopers' Guild Adjunct Contract. 12 hoops by dawn. Payment: standard + rush.
Jessa's chin comes up when she catches me reading it. "We could…"
"We will. We need the coin, and if this rush is because of a mill backlog…" I don't finish. We both know. If the rush is because of sabotage, and the hoops we make keep a barrel from bursting under pressure, we do not have the luxury of sleep. "I can brace Lock 7's undercatwalk on the way to the shop. You fetch the seasoned staves."
"Master?" Jessa asks, because a person ought to ask.
Brindle's jaw works like he is chewing an obstinate bolt. "Do the work. Then come back and we'll corner a clerk with numbers they can't dodge."
I take the Board's chalk and put my name by the hoops. The chalk leaves a ghost on my fingers, powdering the bloodstain there. The Lattice chimes.
"Apprentice?" Jessa grins. "I want it in writing."
"It's in writing," I say, nodding at the overlay only I can see. "So behave like one."
We drink our tea fast, heat and tannins settling something steady in my chest. The Dockers' table spins gossip. "Charter Annex sat on our petition again," Elin announces. "Two weeks without a hearing while timber prices double. Morn's wagons slip through every gate like blessed cargo." Riva Morn's name hangs in the air, sharp and pretty as a knife.
I don't care if she smiles. I care that her family's seals show up on shipping manifests right when the docks clog.
"Later," I tell myself. "Make the hoops. Brace the lock. Look at ledgers."
We pay for the bench and step into night. Lamps paint gold rivers across the water. The lock's stone shoulders glisten with mist. The undercatwalk has developed a skip, the kind that means someone has been carefully removing weight from places weight belongs.
Jessa heads for the staves. I sling my tool roll over one shoulder, drop to the undercatwalk, duck into the maintenance tunnel. The Lattice adjusts, overlays retreating to a corner annotation. FOC 306/312. Apparently I have more of that now. And a dormant pinprick labeled Heat, waiting.
"Appraise & Salvage." Foolish to speak it aloud, but the world shifts: profiler-gray, edges limned in color. Old repairs glow cool blue, fresh gouges burn yellow-orange. The false seal's pattern repeats on a bracket no clerk would ever inspect. Whoever did this loves symmetry, even in sabotage.
I set the lamp down, examine the southern anchor plate fasteners. System Scan has flagged them for stress. I have a fresh bracket to redistribute the load. Leaning into the work, no room for talk down here, sweat stings my eyes, breath fogging the lamplight.
A wet, sliding sound. I douse the lamp, listen. Gelatinous movement. Light back on: three rust-slimes ooze from beneath the bracket housing. Waste-eaters, the river's way of recycling our iron droppings. They quiver toward the lamplight, curious rather than hostile.
"Hello, kids. This isn't your snack. Public infrastructure." I keep hands clear while they investigate my boot. A gentle nudge with scrap metal steers them toward the runoff channel. Harmless unless you slip. Then very much not.
One slime quivers, withdraws. Something else moves beneath the housing, too angular for biology. Wire-glint. I fish it out with the scrap. A seal chip thin as a thumbnail, stamped with seven petals.
"Bastard." I turn the chip with the scrap's edge. Tiny slit, a wire-slot. Which meant only one thing. I sweep lamplight across the housing's underside. No visible mechanism. The Lattice hums, mildly curious. I trigger Scan again.
Of course. I set the bracket aside, probe with a pick until I feel the seam. The fastener resists, then yields to impatient force. The seam whispers open. Part of the housing slides back, greased-smooth, revealing a second panel beneath. Thin enough to hide from casual inspection, substantial enough to deter curious apprentices.
Simple logic latch. Complex mark I don't recognize. Seven petals again, but the center shifts when viewed obliquely, stamped in cooling metal, set wrong in the grain. Keyed not to a locksmith's code, but to the counterfeit itself.
I sit back on my heels. Someone has hidden a door where only solid metal should be, keyed it to a seven-petaled lie. Faint scent rising from the seam, not river-smell. Oil, sweet-edged. Guild craft, or someone desperate to fake it.
Footsteps. Jessa knows how to walk a catwalk quiet. "What in the Maker's…"
"Shh." Already hearing Brindle's scolding about going alone. Except I haven't; she is here. The rust-slimes retreat, offended, while lamplight stretches our shadows long across riveted walls.
"We're not going down there," Jessa says instantly, because she is not an idiot.
"I wasn't going to," I say, even though a piece of me absolutely has been. "We're going to brace this, make the hoops, and then go to Master and shove numbers through the Annex's ears until they squeal."
She nods. We fit the bracket, redistributing load properly. Solid work you can trust in darkness. The Lattice tallies silently. Craft Charges: −1. Craft XP accumulates, steady as rain.
We make the hoops. The workshop: too small, too warm, thick with shavings-scent and steamed oak. Twelve seasoned staves soak in the scalding tub by the time water boils. Jessa bends hoops with a cooper's instinct for perfect circles. I set grain, check iron for burrs, ensure rivet heads dome properly instead of standing proud. We work mostly silent. The river provides enough conversation.
When the last hoop cools and holds, my overlay chimes, the sort of polite bell you get when a ledger number rolls over on its own.
What follows isn't tea-warmth. It kindles beneath my sternum, flares outward to the edges of perception. Overlays brighten, reorganize themselves with invoice-precision.
Jessa reads my face without needing a pane. "Well?"
"Level." Flat delivery. Part of me feels wrong grinning after a day like this. Part of me wants to anyway. "Points go to Ingenuity and Presence."
"Presence," she repeats, like a question.
"If we're going to make the Annex move," I say, and if my voice has a little grit in it, well, it is my voice.
We clean the shop to ritual standards: every tool slotted, every pile swept true. Tag the hoops for Dock 5, lock up. Dawn bruises the horizon. We trade off carrying the bundle. The dock accepts delivery like a starving man takes bread. No questions, just a nod and coin-clink. Rolling sore shoulders, heading back upstreet, the city feels like it has regained its bite.
Brindle waits at the Resthouse. Same tea, same benches, fresh-chalked pie list. Two paper stacks before him: his notes and a battered set of cargo tallies.
"I leaned on a clerk," he says without apology. "Names of wagons through the gates last week. Timber and oil. Who paid the taxes. Who didn't."
"Riva Morn's trucks slip," I say.
"You're not wrong," he says, and taps the right-hand stack. "Her family's seal shows up, clean as the river. That's not what bothers me."
"The shell company. Something with a name like an old mill that doesn't exist."
"Bridge & Sons." Teeth show, briefly. "No sons. No bridge. Paid in full, seals perfect, none aged enough to match that company name." He slides my rubbing closer. Voice dropping: "They want us to notice. Raise hell. Keep our eyes here."
"While they do something elsewhere," I finish, the hatch under Lock 7 like a splinter in my thumb.
"We will give them both," he says. "Noise and numbers."
"And a lever," I say, because this is the job.
We sleep in shifts, heads on folded arms, while traffic turns from night-carters to morning sweepers. The Board updates. New Watch posting: "Milling Sluice—underworks access restricted to certified personnel. Sabotage suspected—report signs."
"Certified," Jessa says, and makes a face. "You're certified, Ms. Pane."
"Don't call me that," I say. It is almost amusing.
"Brindle says we can get temporary certification from Dorr. Dorr owes Olan favors. Always understaffed when trouble brews." She sips tea like she is planning a campaign.
"Then we go," I say. "With a Watch clearance, we document, we don't open doors keyed to lies without a witness."
"You mean we wait for you to tell the witness to go away while you open the door keyed to lies," she says.
"I mean we do the work," I say. It is a terrible thing when your apprentice grows up and learns to translate your pieties.
We split up: staves to turn, delivery receipts for the co-op, and I need quiet time to explore my overlay without risk of falling off anything. I eat a bun dense enough to cement my teeth and examine the pane labeled "Character."
A slot for "Title" shows only a dash. "Signature Ability" grayed out until L5. And one that makes me frown: Heat. Thin bar, zeroed, waiting.
"Overclock exists for a reason." Saying it to the empty shop like an oath sworn to no one. "But not today."
We return to Lock 7 with Brindle. The Watch greets us with an expression that would get you fired in customer service. Ser Calen Dorr, eyes holding a week's worth of exhaustion, examines my temporary certification. Signed and stamped by Brindle's authority, possibly extracted from a weeping clerk.
"Gearwright and cooper." He assesses us like bridge weight limits. "Nobody goes down without rope and witness. Last thing I need is filing reports about lost apprentices."
"Then you're the witness." No time for diplomacy. "We have rope. Give me ten minutes and chalk to mark what needs work."
He glances at Brindle, who gives the universal shrug of long-suffering mentors everywhere. Dorr's mouth twitches. "Fine." Waves for rope. Doesn't ask about panes; has one himself, obvious from how his focus briefly scatters then sharpens.
The hatch waits below like a secret tired of hiding. I build my case first: show him the abrasion, counterfeit mark, new bracket, improperly torqued fasteners. I learned long ago to stack evidence until the conclusion becomes inevitable.
"And when I touch here," I say, pressing the pick into the seam, "this opens."
"You haven't opened it," Dorr says.
"I'm not an idiot." Another mouth-twitch from him. "It's keyed to the counterfeit. Force it and whatever's below gets alerted. I'd rather have official eyes present than something angry at my back. But you needed to see this exists."
He goes very still, too many puzzle pieces snapping into place. "Keys to lies." Soft as a curse. "We post a guard. You don't enter without me."
"You'll need a lantern that doesn't mind a sulk," I say.
"I had a mother. I can handle sulking."
"We're wasting time." From Brindle, that means he has already built the plan. "Annex. Ledgers and rubbing. Get a docket number for when gossip starts. Request audited inventory of every bearing kit shipped here this month. Meanwhile, Marin preps salvage gear. If there's a tunnel down there, it's not leading to a closet."
Jessa's eyes are on the seam. "Keys to lies," she says, the words like they taste bad and she'll say them anyway.
"We do not go in tonight," I say, because everyone in the room needs to hear it with their ears. "We do this by the book."
"Whose book?" Jessa asks.
"Mine," I say. "And then the one with the Charter on the front."
By day's end, Dockers are gossiping that someone has stamped counterfeit seals on Lock 7 and the Watch is guarding it like real trouble. The Annex clerk who takes my rubbing touches it with the special loathing reserved for well-executed fakes, then issues a docket number.
The Resthouse serves pie that tastes like an apology for morning tea. We linger until lamp wicks sputter. Brindle dozes, hand protecting his notes. Jessa makes That Face, the one meaning she has something to say and knows I won't like it.
"Say it."
"You don't have to do this alone." Before I can protest, she raises a hand. "You're better solo going in first, I know. Your mind works geometrically. You see leverage points. But people will follow if you let them, because we all need those mills running. So let them. Let me."
A dozen clever deflections queue up, about tools versus hands, solo work versus collaboration. None would be honest. I swallow them. "Tomorrow. You're second-in when the Watch starts huffing."
She smiles. It hits like sunlight on a shop window you forgot to wash.
We lock the shop. The Quarter's night air turns from yeast and tar to stillness. Lock 7's guard nods as we pass. The false hatch's seam makes almost-sound beneath the river's trickle. Work with machines long enough, you learn silence can scream.
"Tomorrow," I tell it. "By the book."
It does not answer. It does, however, catch the light in a way that makes the seven petals wink where there should have been eight.
We turn away.
Behind us, the hatch clicks, barely audible. The counterfeit mark's center rotates, rosette trying to remember how to be genuine and failing. Deeper click. The seam releases something too sweet for river air.
In my overlay, the Lattice drops a map pin where no maintenance tunnel belongs, labeled in tidy, indifferent script: Underworks Access—Unregistered.
We have our lever.