Turn 3 of 7

Go below and ask Grieve what she knows about Vos and the customs judgment

You hand the writ back to Anneke with a nod and a murmured "Don't go far" — as if you have any authority to ask her that — and head for the aft companionway. The steps are steep, worn smooth in the centre by years of boots, and the air below decks hits you like a wall: hot oil, coal dust, the sweet-sour tang of flux solder. The *Lamplighter's Daughter* is an old ship with old smells, and right now she smells like she is being measured for a coffin.

Grieve is in the engine room, or rather the space the ship's builders optimistically called the engine room, which is more of a steel closet bolted to the keel with a furnace in it. She is leaning against the housing of the primary boiler with her arms crossed, a wrench in one hand that she is using to gesture at nobody. She is a square-built woman with cropped hair and hands that look like they have been introduced to every piece of machinery on the eastern trade route personally. She does not look surprised to see you.

"They're measuring the lines," you say. "We have four hours. I need to know about Vos — and I need to know about a customs judgment for four hundred and forty marks. It's on the writ."

Grieve's jaw works. She shifts the wrench to her other hand.

"Vos," she says, and the name comes out like something she has been chewing on for days. "Man could charm paint off a wall and sign his name just as fast. He knew the ship. He knew the law — or enough of it to be dangerous. That customs fine was for undeclared cargo. We came in three weeks back with a manifest that said machine parts, and what was actually in the hold was —" She stops. Looks at the boiler. Looks back at you.

"Refined aetherite. Twenty canisters. The sixth-tier customs house flagged it, fined us, and Vos contested it. Said the manifest was filed in error."

"And lost," you say.

"And lost," Grieve confirms. "But here's the thing, quartermaster. I run the engine. I know what goes in the hold because I have to balance the weight. There were never twenty canisters of aetherite aboard this ship. There were twelve. I counted them myself when we loaded at Serault." She taps the wrench against her palm.

"Vos did not contest the fine because he thought he could win. He contested it because contesting buys you an automatic review period — three weeks of paperwork before the judgment becomes enforceable. He was running down the clock, and now the clock has run out, and Vos has run with it."

The engine hums behind her. Somewhere in the bilge, a pipe ticks and cools. You feel the shape of the problem rearranging itself. If the cargo count was wrong — if someone inflated twelve canisters to twenty — then the fine itself might be contestable on factual grounds. But the cargo is gone now, sold or moved, and Vos is gone with it. You ask Grieve where the aetherite went, and she gives you a look that says she has been waiting for someone to ask.