The fog rising from the river at the Lower Wharf smelled of dead eel grass, coal tar, and wet hemlock timber. It clung to the stone walls of Depository Number Four in greasy drops that trickled down the lime mortar like cold sweat. It pooled in the cracks between the granite wharf blocks where river mud settled with the outgoing tide.
Tomas Reed reached the wharf fifteen minutes after the midnight watch bell sounded. He didn’t run. Running drew the attention of the mounted river patrols. His boots were heavy with iron heel-plates that rang loud on the wet granite. Instead, he kept to the shadow of the dry-docks, his pack frame empty on his back. His lead-lined ledger case was tucked firmly beneath his right arm.
At the entrance to Depository Number Four, a lantern hung from an iron bracket. He cast a sickly yellow circle across the threshold. Standing squarely in that light was Sile Rook.
The former watch captain looked like an ancient oak post that had survived three seasonal floods. His gray hair was clipped down to the scalp. His broad, blunt face was split on the left side by the thick, corded keloid scars left by potion-made fire during the Flood March. He wore a heavy, boiled-leather brigandine studded with iron rivets. His left hand rested atop an oak tall body-shield four feet tall and two inches thick, iron-shod at the base and planted deep in the wharf gravel. In his right hand, angled across…
