Turn 5 of 7

Head to the third tier to find Rusch and Sons and trace the aetherite sale

You come back up the companionway into fog and grey light, and the cold hits you like a judgment. Anneke Sund is standing at the rail where you left her, the writ folded in her hands, watching the wardens re-coil your mooring lines with the kind of care that means they are cataloguing, not maintaining. She turns when she hears your boots on the deck.

"I have to go up-tier," you tell her. "Third tier. I need to find a chandler called Rusch and Sons before the tenth bell."

"The bench sits in two hours," Anneke says. "If you are not here with the money or a legal stay, I file the execution order at the twelfth. That is not a threat. I want you to know exactly where the clock stands." She tucks the writ into her coat.

"But I will tell you this for nothing — Rusch and Sons is not what you think it is. They are a front name on a register, not a shop you can walk into. If you want to find them, go to the third-tier harbourmaster's ledger office. Every lighter registered in this harbour has a berthing entry, and every berthing entry has a contact name and a signature. That is public record. I cannot go with you."

You nod, and she steps back to let you pass. The gangplank rocks under your weight as you cross to the quay. The stone is slick with fog-damp, and the harbour smells of tar and cold iron. Above you, the tiers of the Gate of Iron Sails rise like the rings of a vast stone coliseum cut into the cliff — each level a broad quay with its own cranes, capstans, and warehouse tunnels, connected by stairways cut into the rock and a system of cargo lifts that groan when they move. The third tier is two levels up. You take the eastern stairway at a pace that is fast without looking like flight, because a running person in this harbour draws the kind of attention that asks questions.

The stairway is busy with morning trade — dockhands hauling rope, a woman with a handcart full of copper fittings, a priest of some harbour sect blessing a bollard. You weave through them, and the fog thins as you climb. By the time you reach the third tier, you can see the full spread of the harbour below: the *Daughter* at her mooring, small now, her envelope sagging against the quay like a tired lung. Two figures stand on her deck. One is Anneke. The other is a woman you do not recognize at first — taller, broader, with a stance that carries authority like a coat she has worn so long she has forgotten she has it on.

You know that stance. That is Captain Ferran, back on deck at last, and she is talking to the Court's clerk.

But the third tier is in front of you, and the harbourmaster's ledger office is a squat stone building set into the cliff wall between two warehouse tunnels, its door propped open with an iron wedge. A sign above it reads BERTHING & REGISTRY — THIRD TIER in faded paint. Inside, you can see a high counter, a wall of pigeonholes, and a clerk bent over a ledger. You have fewer than two hours until the bench sits.

You step inside.