The parcel spat out a bridge plank.
It struck Joss Flint in the shin, bounced beneath his cart, and grew twelve feet long.
His left wheel dropped through the hole it had left behind.
Joss threw his weight onto the right handle.
The cart tipped far enough to lift its trapped wheel, but the iron-edged crate slid toward the river.
Something inside it clacked.
Three more planks ahead of him faded until he could see the black water through them.
“Don’t,” he told the crate.
It clacked again.
He caught the loose strap between his teeth, planted a boot against the axle, and dragged the buckle toward him.
The strap tasted of river salt and somebody else’s grease.
A clean diagonal cut ran halfway through it.
He had checked that strap at Krail’s depot.
Someone behind him said, “Leave it.”
A man in a short gray coat stood where the bridge met the western bank.
His right sleeve carried the three black stitches of a hired marshal.
His knife was already folded away.
Joss considered the distance between them.
Six yards, two missing planks, and a cart handle where the man would have to put his knee.
“You cut my strap.”
“Saved you a worse death.
Step away.”
The cart leaned another inch.
Joss moved with it, keeping the crate’s weight inside the line of the remaining wheel.
“That’s rented equipment.”
The man glanced past him.
“It won’t matter shortly.”
A woman was stranded farther out on the bridge.
Joss had passed her at the first pier: broad basket, patched blue sleeves, laundry cords wound around one wrist.
She had been struggling with a broken sandal while he tried to finish his last delivery before dark.
Now the plank beneath her right foot had vanished.
She gripped the handrail.
Her basket fell and burst against the water.
“Stay where you are,” Joss called.
“An excellent suggestion,” she said.
“I’ll nail myself down.”
The marshal stepped toward the cart.
Joss let go of the right handle.
The cart lurched.
The marshal reached instinctively for the crate, and Joss kicked the free handle upward.
It caught the man’s knee with a solid wooden knock.
He stumbled.
Joss jammed the handle beneath the bridge rail, turning the cart sideways against it.
The rail creaked but held.
Its fastening bolts were better than the deck; he’d replaced two of them himself last winter.
The marshal pulled his knife.
The crate opened its lid.
Joss had carried crates with sprung hinges, shifting lids, and one unfortunate crate of eels.
None had four blunt teeth set inside its upper edge.
The marshal saw them a moment too late.
The lid closed on his knife wrist.
He screamed and hit the crate with his free fist.
It held on.
Joss took the man’s shoulder and pushed him against the rail, keeping that new pressure away from the failing cart.
“Let go of the knife,” Joss said.
The knife dropped.
The crate released him.
The marshal backed away, wrapping his injured wrist in his coat.
Joss expected a second rush.
Instead, the man looked at the missing deck, then at the western pier, judging something Joss couldn’t see.
“You should have taken the easy wages.”
He retreated off the bridge.
Joss hooked the fallen knife up with his boot and pocketed it before turning back to the strap.
Joss waited until the marshal reached the western bank.
Then he tied the cut strap around the intact one, making a short loop that couldn’t slide.
The crate settled into its wooden carrier cradle.
The vanished planks stopped spreading.
For three breaths, Joss could hear only water.
“Courier,” the woman said.
“When you’re finished haggling with the furniture.”
Her handrail had begun separating from its post.
Joss pulled his rope from beneath the cart.
Twenty yards, thin but sound.
He carried it for sacks that preferred the river to delivery.
He tied one end around the cart’s rear crosspiece.
The other he threw to the woman.
It fell short.
“Your rates must be wonderful,” she said.
“Two marks.
Complaints cost another.”
He reeled it in and made a second throw, putting the rope through the handle of his empty lunch tin for weight.
The tin struck her shoulder.
She caught it with a noise that suggested she’d remember him.
“Around your waist.
Under the arms.”
“I know a knot.”
“Then use a good one.”
Joss tested the cart.
His makeshift brace would hold her pull if he kept the handle under the rail, but bringing her across the open section would drag the crate outward.
He needed weight on the other side.
Nine marks in his pocket, six more owed by Ferren Krail, and no amount of either would buy him a stone at this height.
He had been saving for a westbound fare to look for his sister.
Bess used to steal the bread from his tin and leave him the crusts.
He’d give her the whole loaf now.
He used himself.
Joss climbed onto the cart’s right running board, crouched over its sound wheel, and fed the rope around the fixed handle.
The bend would take some of the strain.
His hands would take the rest.
“Come sideways.
Face the rail.
Don’t jump until I say.”
The woman edged along the remaining deck.
Halfway to him, a board turned translucent beneath her heel.
She saw it and froze.
“Eyes on my tin,” Joss said.
“I’d like that back.”
She took another step.
The board disappeared.
He pulled.
The rope tightened under her arms.
She hit the handrail chest first, boots swinging above the river.
The cart jolted against Joss’s knee.
A nail came out of the running board with a sharp little cry.
The crate planted four stubby feet against its cradle.
Joss stared at them.
They gripped.
With the load steady, he could pull harder.
The woman hooked one leg over the surviving rail and crawled toward him, coughing curses in a rhythm that helped him judge when she was moving.
He caught her wrist.
Together they slid off the cart onto the bankward strip of deck.
She lay flat for a moment, then sat up and looked at the crate.
“Your parcel has feet.”
“They weren’t on the invoice.”
“My washing,” she said.
She pressed both palms flat on the deck until she could look at the water.
Joss untied the rope.
“Can you walk?”
She nodded, swallowing twice.
“Sella Marr.
For when I send the bill.”
“Joss Flint.
Put it behind everyone else’s.”
He eased the cart backward one wheel turn at a time.
Sella kept the loose handle clear.
They reached the eastern landing as the last daylight drained from the warehouses.
Reed Dock sprawled below them: crooked roofs, cookhouse smoke, lamps burning beside a crossing that half its people used each morning.
Across the water, the upper city of Crownfall shone behind white walls.
The bridge between them now had a hole wide enough to swallow a wagon.
Joss set his cart on the landing stones and examined the crate’s carrier cradle.
It wasn’t depot wood.
Fine black ribs lay inside the corners, each engraved with tiny measurements.
A brass plate had been covered by Krail’s shipping label.
He peeled the label back.
REED CROSSING.
WESTERN SPAN.
Below that, a needle trembled between two numbers.
Sixty-two was scratched beside a stop.
The needle stood just below ninety.
The plank that had hit his shin lay wedged beneath the cart.
Its nail holes matched the empty bolt heads on the bridge.
Sella followed his gaze.
“Tell me that isn’t what I think.”
Joss looked inside the crate’s open seam.
Between iron bands he could see a row of rail posts, impossibly small, leading away into darkness.
Water dripped from a miniature pier.
He closed the seam carefully.
Krail had paid him to deliver the bridge over itself.
The shipping label named the recipient: Nera Venn, Lower Reed, anchor house seven.
Under her name, a red registry stamp had dried years ago.
DECEASED.
DELIVERY TO BE DISPOSED.
From the western bank came the sound of a bell.
The marshal had found help.
Joss folded the label into his pocket and tightened the knot holding his parcel together.
“Sella.
Is house seven still standing?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m finishing the run.”