Gin woke to the sound of his boat grumbling.
Technically, it was only the dock creaking as the morning swell rolled through Khelt's lower berths, but it still sounded like a complaint. Plates flexed and settled with a slow metallic groan, like an old man easing himself upright.
"Yeah, all right," he muttered, pushing himself up from the narrow bunk. "You got fixed. I noticed."
He stepped out onto the deck barefoot.
The air was cool and sharp, carrying brine, rust, and the smell of something frying somewhere up in the higher stalls. Above him, the Hull rose in stacked layers of walkways, cranes, and pipework, all bound together beneath the blue-and-white flags of the Hydrarchy.
The skiff shifted gently under his feet, steadier than she'd been yesterday. Fresh welds traced dull lines along her seams, and the rail that had once bowed outward now sat straight.
Gin crouched and ran his fingers over a bead of resin where old plate met new patch.
"Morning," he said quietly. "How're you holding together?"
His own spine answered with a faint hum beneath his skin.
Not you, he thought irritably. Her.
His ribs buzzed once, as if in protest.
"You ate yesterday," he muttered. "You can be patient."
He stood and rolled one shoulder. The ache from the long-neck fight had mostly faded, replaced by the steady warmth threaded through his marrow. His body felt good. Better than it had any right to, considering he'd nearly been eaten by a shark not that long ago.
He drew in a long breath of sea air and let it go.
"I should thank him," he said aloud.
The words sat strangely in his mouth. Gratitude was usually something people tossed his way without much thought, already halfway gone by the time they said it. He wasn't used to being the one who had to carry it somewhere.
But he'd grown up in a place where nothing got fixed unless someone wore themselves thin doing it. Back on Hull-9, if somebody had patched a leak over his bunk or repaired a broken latch without being asked—
He would have remembered.
Gin pulled on his boots and hopped onto the dock.
"Try not to sink while I'm gone," he told the skiff.
She creaked behind him.
"I'll take that as agreement."
He headed toward the sanctioned shipyard.
The sanctioned yard felt like another world compared to the ragged common docks. The plates here matched. The walkways were reinforced. The railings were straight. Signs in neat Hydrarchy script warned AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. A raised catwalk ringed the yard, built so overseers could look down on everything and make sure it all stayed orderly.
Gin paused at the entrance just long enough for the nearest guard to notice him.
"Work order?" the man asked.
Gin jerked his chin toward the inner bays. "I'm looking for your shipwright. Older guy. Always looks annoyed. Smells like resin."
The guard frowned. "Rell?"
"Yeah."
The man hesitated. His eyes flicked toward the yard, then up to the oversight rail, where a Hydrarchy officer in crisp blue stood with folded arms, watching the workers below.
"He's not on shift," the guard said.
Gin studied him. "Today?"
The guard's expression hardened. "Move along."
That told him enough.
Gin nodded once, easy and agreeable. "All right."
He kept walking anyway, careful to stay just on the legal side of the painted line. Workers glanced up as he passed, then looked away too quickly. Tamsin was nowhere in sight. No familiar scowl bent over some half-open hull.
Near one of the repair bays, he saw a smear of resin on the floor, still tacky. Next to it, a drag mark where something heavy had been hauled away.
His bones pulsed once, low and unsettled.
"Yeah," he murmured. "I know."
He turned and headed for the one place on Khelt that heard everything sooner or later.
The bar.
It wasn't busy yet. Too early for the end-of-shift crowd, too late for the ones who'd slept where they fell. The room still held the stale weight of last night's smoke, layered over with cleaning solvent that hadn't quite managed to win.
Jakk was already at the counter, as if he'd been built into the stool.
Up close, he looked like a repaired hull himself—scarred, worn, and solid enough to outlast the next thing that tried to break him. His hands were wrapped around a mug of something dark, shoulders hunched slightly, as though he were braced for trouble out of habit.
Behind the counter, the barman polished a glass with the weary concentration of a man who knew it wouldn't help.
Gin took the stool beside Jakk. "Morning."
Jakk grunted.
Gin glanced sideways at him. "I'll take that as friendly."
"It's early," Jakk said.
"You're here."
"I said it was early. Not that I was making good choices."
The barman let out a quiet laugh.
Gin rested an elbow on the counter. "Fair."
"You're loud for someone who wrestled so many squids yesterday," Jakk muttered.
"I've been told I'm built wrong." Gin tapped his ribs with a knuckle. "Bones disagree, though. They're very pleased with themselves."
Jakk side-eyed him. "You talk to them often?"
"Only when they start trying to make decisions without me."
The barman snorted. "And here I thought you were joking about the voices."
Gin propped his chin in his hand, turning toward Jakk. "So. Important, serious question."
Jakk lifted his mug in grim preemptive resignation. "Here we go."
"If two Floodborn duel on a floating Hull," Gin said, "and one of them's powered by alcohol, does the winner buy the loser a drink, or is that just cruel?"
The barman wheezed a laugh.
Jakk stared at him.
Then, very slowly, the corner of his mouth twitched. "You're not ready to duel."
"That didn't sound like no," Gin pointed out.
"I'll consider it," Jakk said.
"I'm writing that down as 'inevitable.'"
"As if you can even write," the barman mocked.
Gin turned back to the barman. "Actually, I'm here for something else—"
The door slammed open hard enough to rattle the bottles.
Tamsin nearly tripped over the threshold.
She was breathing too fast, goggles askew around her throat, knuckles white around the doorframe. Her eyes swept the room, wild and wet.
When she saw Jakk, she bee-lined like a launched harpoon.
"Jakk!" she gasped, voice ragged. "They took him—"