Jakk sighed.
"Of course," he muttered. "The eyeball's worth the most."
Gin leaned on his spear, grinning. "I thought these squid were supposed to be dangerous."
Jakk's mouth twitched.
"They are," he said. "You just watched them meet someone worse."
It was… a joke.
A small one, rusty and creaking, but a joke all the same.
They spent the next hour circling the slick, Jakk in and out of the water in furnace-fueled bursts, Gin using his spear and a carefully limited amount of Hemovore tricks to help haul irritated squid aboard when they got close enough. He kept his blood-shaping subtle—reinforcing his grip here, hardening a palm there. No reason to advertise everything to a man who he might be dueling in the near future.
Between catches, they passed the barrel back and forth. Jakk drank like he was feeding a machine. Gin drank like he still wasn't convinced the stuff was safe for human use.
Jakk watched him take another careful swallow and grimace.
"You're bad at that," he said.
Gin looked into the barrel like it had personally insulted him. "It tastes like boiled rope."
Jakk took it back. "That means it's decent."
There were long pauses between the hunts, and in them they traded bits and pieces.
Gin talked some about Hull-9. About being useful. About being the one people looked for when something broke. About dives, quotas, and the slow realization that if he waited for someone to change his life for him, he was going to die waiting.
Jakk said almost nothing about where he came from.
When he did talk, it was about beasts. How certain kinds turned before they struck. How armor sat on different species. What kind of jaw meant crushing force and what kind meant tearing. He knew too much for it to be casual. Listening to him, Gin got the sense Jakk had spent years learning how monsters worked, like they were easier to understand than people.
At some point, Gin stretched out on the deck with his hands under his head and watched the stars sharpen overhead. The boat rocked slow and steady beneath him, heavy now with squid. Ink and salt hung in the air with the fading heat from Jakk's furnace.
His thoughts drifted.
Hull-9.
Lira.
Vexa's stiff little wave. Horvik looking at him like he was something underfoot. Khelt's bright decks and all those watching eyes. The shipwright in the yard, turning him away because someone above him was always watching. Tamsin pressing those salvaged copper pieces into his hands like they mattered.
By the time they turned back toward Khelt, the barrel was nearly dry, the squid were packed away, and the edge between them had eased into something simpler. Not trust, exactly. Not yet. But something closer than before.
Gin sat on the bow while Jakk rowed the last stretch by hand. Ahead of them, the city rose out of the dark again, all hard metal and reflected light. Patrol beacons flashed in the distance. Salvage towers cut into the sky.
Gin looked out over the water and said, almost to himself, "This is what I thought it'd be."
Jakk kept rowing. "What?"
Gin shrugged a little. "Not pirates. Just…" He searched for it. "Being out here. Doing something because you chose to. Nearly getting killed, then laughing about it after."
The oars creaked once more.
When Jakk spoke, his voice had gone flat.
"Pirates aren't like that."
Gin turned.
Something had closed in Jakk's face. The little bit of ease was gone. His expression had hardened into something old and familiar, like a door being shut.
He pulled harder on the oars.
Gin looked at him for a moment, then away.
He didn't ask.
He knew what it was to be pressed at the wrong time. Knew what it felt like when someone reached for a wound you were still trying to hide.
They finished the trip in silence.
At the dock, Gin stepped off carefully, his leg aching again now that the work was done. Jakk stayed in the boat, already securing the catch for the processing crews.
"Hey," Gin said.
Jakk looked up.
"Thanks," Gin said. "For letting me come."
Jakk gave a short, humorless breath through his nose. "Not like i had a choice."
Gin nodded. "Yeah. But you could've thrown me off."
That got the faintest twitch at the corner of Jakk's mouth.
"Try not to get yourself killed before that duel you keep talking about."
Gin smiled. "I'll try."
He left him there with the squid and the ropes and started back toward his berth.
His skiff was where he'd left it.
Except it wasn't.
He slowed.
For a second he just stood there, not trusting what he was seeing.
The bent plates were gone. Or not gone—still the same metal, the same patchwork body—but straightened, reseated, made true again. The old warped line of the hull had been corrected. Seams that used to look like they were holding together out of stubbornness had been sealed cleanly and properly. The previously dead combustion engine sat fitted into place like it belonged there, held by fresh bolts that caught the docklight in dull little glints. Even the broken struts of the solar-skin rig had been replaced with reinforced arms.
She still looked like herself.
Still rough. Still cobbled together. Still no beauty by anyone's standards but his.
But she looked sound.
Fixed.
Gin stepped closer without thinking and reached out.
His fingers found a fresh seam, resin still faintly tacky in one spot.
His throat tightened.
The pile of scavenged parts he'd hauled back earlier—those ugly, battered scraps he'd been clinging to like hope—were gone now. Turned into structure. Into balance. Into something that would hold.
He stood there in silence until he noticed the mark on the inner railing near the mooring bollard.
A small "R," scratched neatly into the paint and circled.
That was enough.
"A Rell always repays a debt," he murmured.
He could see it too easily: the shipwright staying late in the sanctioned yard, jaw set, hands moving fast and careful while he kept one eye on the oversight platform above. Doing work he wasn't supposed to do. Taking a risk he had no reason to take.
All because a little girl had decided Gin was worth paying back.
He laughed once under his breath, though it came out rough. "So she really was family."
The skiff creaked softly under his hand, metal settling into itself.
Gin smiled then. Wide enough that he couldn't stop it.
He'd left Hull-9 because nothing changed there unless you bled for it, and even then it barely counted. Gratitude had always felt like something other people got.
And here—
In one day—
he'd saved a girl, fought off a shark, earned a little respect from a man built out of old damage, gone out hunting monsters in the dark, and come back to find someone had repaired his home just because they could.
He stepped aboard. The skiff rocked under him, different now—steadier, balanced in a way she hadn't been before.
He set a hand on the rail.
"Told you," he said quietly. "We'd get you fixed."
His arm warmed in answer, marrow humming low and pleased.
Above him, Hydrarchy banners snapped in the night wind, blind to all of it.
Somewhere deeper in Khelt, men were already asking questions about shipwrights who bent rules after dark. Threads were pulling tighter.