By noon of the second day, the coast unrolled into tidy ambition. Conclave's harbour wore its wealth frankly, quays dressed in fresh stone, bollards polished like manners, warehouses with shutters that wanted to be eyelids. Flags argued politely in the wind, guild banners, house colours, the crown's swan looking self-satisfied as only ink can."Pretty," Jas said, unimpressed. "Like a pastry with poison in it.""Dock soft," Old Noll muttered, thumb to the air. "They scrub for company.""They scrub for the swan," Harp corrected, gesturing at the royal cutter preening near the magistrate's pier. "Paper's favourite friend."Kade took us in with our sails modest and our guns shy. The Wraith put on her good coat: lines coiled clean, pitch not too proud, crew faces scrubbed into anonymity. We slid into a berth we did not own and paid for it by not apologizing. Dockhands stared the way men do when they think your name is a story that might pay for itself twice."Jas, Harp," Kade said, voice t
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