In Lyr, even the sea required receipts. The harbor tollhouses sat like barnacles on the piers, their windows rimmed with salt where clerks breathed all day over wet stamps. Merrow Quill walked between them with the soft, practiced gait of a man who did not wish to be remembered, his coat collar up against spray and scrutiny. Beneath the planks the water muttered, not words—never that simple—but a pressure of recollection that made his teeth ache when he lied. He had lied for a living since he'd stopped believing for free. The seminary had taught him penmanship fine enough to flatter angels and a theology rigid enough to snap; he kept the first and sold the rest in alleyways and low-lit chapels where state candles burned with metered wicks. A blessing, if you filed it properly, could be a commodity. A blessing, if you forged it well, could be dinner. His client waited under a shrine-arch dedicated to Saint Sable-of-the-Ropes, patron of dockhands and minor drownings. The man's hands were raw as peeled kelp, knuckles split and oozing brine. He held out a ration chit and wouldn't quite meet Merrow's eyes. "I don't need it to be true," the dockhand said. "I just need the foreman to think it's true." "Foremen," Merrow murmured, taking the chit between two fingers like something contagious, "are the purest form of faith. They believe in paperwork." He slipped a folded vellum square from his inner pocket. The ink shimmered with a sanctified sheen—cheap resin and powdered shell, convincing at ten paces and under lamplight. "You'll press this to your tongue before shift. When the bell rings, you'll swear you taste iron. He'll see you're 'marked' and won't put you on net-duty." The dockhand's throat bobbed. Merrow watched the man's thumb hover over the forged seal, the little crown-and-wave that meant licensed rite, and felt the familiar tightness in his ribs: not guilt, exactly. Appraisal. The sea beneath them made a low, patient sound, like a page being turned with a wet finger. A shadow crossed the shrine-arch—longer than it should have been at this hour. Merrow's gaze flicked up and caught the glint of a brass badge shaped like a tide-table, pinned at a woman's breast. Ministry of Tides. Her hair was pinned severe; her mouth was not. She looked at Merrow the way a clerk looks at an unsigned line: not angry yet, merely unamused by omission.
The dockhand's throat bobbed. Merrow watched the man's thumb hover over the forged seal, the little crown-and-wave that meant licensed rite, and felt the familiar tightness in his ribs: not guilt, exactly. Appraisal. The sea beneath them made a low, patient sound, like a page being turned with a wet finger. A shadow crossed the shrine-arch—longer than it should have been at this hour. Merrow's gaze flicked up and caught the glint of a brass badge shaped like a tide-table, pinned at a woman's breast. Ministry of Tides. Her hair was pinned severe; her mouth was not. She looked at Merrow the way a clerk looks at an unsigned line: not angry yet, merely unamused by omission. Her voice, when it came, was like the rasp of a dry rope against a wet mast. "A blessing, Master Quill? Or merely a forgery?" Merrow's smile was a practiced thing, thin as old parchment. "A service, Captain Rian. The man merely seeks reassurance. A little faith, if you will." He gestured vaguely at the dockhand, who had frozen, the vellum still clutched in his hand. The dockhand whimpered, a low, guttural sound. "A-a-a-a-a-" he stammered, his eyes wide as barnacles. Rian's gaze, sharp and unwavering, cut from Merrow to the quivering dockhand. "Reassurance for the foreman, perhaps. But for the Ministry, it's fraud. A counterfeit oath to the Sea, stamped with brine and deceit." She took a step closer, the brass tide-table badge glinting. "I believe you were expelled from the seminary for similar... creative interpretations of dogma." Merrow chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. "Hah! A long time ago, Captain. My talents have merely matured." He tried to project an air of nonchalance, but the familiar ache in his teeth was back, sharper now. "What's the harm? It keeps the man working, and the foreman happy. A little 'iron taste' in the morning, a healthy day's labor." "Hmph." Rian's lips pressed into a thin line. "The harm, Master Quill, is in undermining the very fabric of Lyr's order. Every tide-mark, every oath, every blessing is a promise to the Sea. You trade in false promises." Her eyes flicked to the vellum in the dockhand's hand. "Give it to me." The dockhand, terrified, looked from Rian to Merrow. "N-no! It's for my net-duty! I can't…" he trailed off, a soft moan escaping him as Rian's hand, surprisingly quick, plucked the vellum from his grasp. She held it up, inspecting the shimmering ink. "Aargh!" Merrow exclaimed, a sharp, frustrated sound. "Captain, this is hardly worth your time. There are smugglers, black marketeers, real threats to the city's 'order' out there." She tore the vellum in half with a crisp *rip*, then again, dropping the pieces to the damp planks. They dissolved slightly, the false sheen fading. "And you, Master Quill, are a corrosive agent, eroding faith from the inside. Your particular brand of deceit is precisely what the Ministry of Tides exists to prevent." She turned her full attention to him. "I've been watching your 'blessings' for weeks. You're under oath, Merrow. The sea remembers."