The drain gate was heavier than Joss remembered.
He and Tan stood above it on the river service stair, reading the old testing plate by a shielded lantern.
The plate listed the lift chain’s strain at different openings.
Tan moved the gate six inches with its handwheel, stopped, and checked the counterweight in the wall slot.
“Seventy-six at this height,” she said.
“Nearly everything you can handle, if you put yourself under it.”
“I prefer the handwheel.”
She marked the chain link with chalk.
“If it comes down, our prop seats here.
Keep it against the wall post, not the floor channel.”
They left the gate raised far enough to crawl beneath and rolled the narrow prop beside it.
Joss couldn’t bind another load while the bridge frame stayed on his wrist.
That didn’t prevent ordinary iron from holding iron.
He wanted the ordinary part ready before his new skill became necessary.
Beyond the gate, the drain smelled of old river mud and spilled lamp oil.
Joss counted eight steps to the cellar hatch.
On his old runs, it had always been unlocked from outside.
Krail trusted water more than laborers to keep people out.
Tonight, somebody had added a hasp.
Tan used her small wedge and hammer, tapping through a folded rag.
The third tap split the rotten timber around the fastenings.
The hasp came out with a piece of door attached.
Joss took the piece so the damage couldn’t swing and clatter.
They entered beneath the records shelves.
Upstairs, men argued about an inventory count.
Joss recognized Krail’s voice and the impatient rhythm of his clerk, Harl.
The clerk sounded less certain than usual.
“The barge captain wants confirmation that we didn’t remove the span until the district was cleared.”
“Then send the standing order,” Krail said.
“The standing order says assess.”
“Assessment is complete.”
Joss looked at Tan.
She stayed by the cellar door, listening for boots.
He found the dispatch ledger on the third shelf.
Krail kept current papers low because his clerk hated ladders.
The docket number led to a packet tied with red thread.
Inside lay a copy of the route sale, a removal order, and a blank release permit bearing the bonded yard’s embossed seal.
The first serial matched his freight docket.
Krail had sold operating rights to a toll holding company.
The price depended on Reed Dock being classified nonviable.
An appended note named Joss as the unchartered delivery hand assigned to dispose of the unstable span.
He read his name twice.
Tan put a hand against his shoulder.
“Take it.”
He wanted to take the whole shelf.
Every unpaid wage in the lane might be written there.
Every extra page would give them more to carry and another reason to stop.
He took the packet, the original signed removal order, and the sealed permit.
He left the ledger open at the serial entry so anyone arriving could see what was missing.
At the next shelf, a smaller wages book lay under a chipped mug.
Six marks beside FLINT, J.
OUTSTANDING.
Joss tore that page out too.
Tan didn’t object.
She laid the blank permit beside the removal order.
“What does this buy us?”
“A yard release if a carrier presents the original serial and the owner is listed.
Nera’s still on the old asset record.”
“Listed dead.”
“We’ll bring her.”
“To a guarded yard?”
He pictured the chair, the stairs, and the bandage at her knee.
The permit hadn’t made any of them shorter.
“We might not use it for collection,” he said.
“But when they deny this was the same rail, the seal says their holding office received the serial.”
Tan checked the original against the freight docket in his shirt.
“Three matching numbers.
Better than shouting.”
A drawer stood open beneath the shelf.
Joss noticed it only because its edge caught Tan’s coat.
Inside lay registered death notices folded around unpaid account slips.
He found Nera’s name near the top.
Someone had drawn a circle around the address.
The notice had been copied recently enough that the clerk’s ink smudged against his finger.
He checked the address against the disposal label, then slid the drawer back, leaving its coat-catching corner exposed.
Upstairs, a chair scraped.
“The courier knows the back way,” Krail said.
Joss’s hand froze above the shelf.
“You’ve checked?” Harl asked.
“I paid him to use it.
Shut the river gate.
We’ll clear the cellar after the water drops.”
A chain began moving somewhere inside the wall.
Tan opened the cellar door.
The stairs above were clear for the first landing, but light moved beyond it.
Taking that exit would mean running past the dispatch desk.
She pointed toward the drain.
Joss nodded.
They moved without the lantern.
He knew the eight steps by the slope under his boots.
Behind them, somebody reached the upper cellar door and shook its handle.
The river gate slid downward.
Tan reached the prop first.
She rolled its iron shoe beneath the chalked chain link and wedged the wheels against the wall post.
Joss held the gate’s lower edge high enough for the shoe to catch it.
He used his right hand; the left stayed closed around the stolen packet.
Iron struck iron.
The prop rang.
The gate stopped three feet above the drain floor.
“Out,” Tan said.
Joss passed the packet to her.
She pushed it inside her coat and crawled beneath the opening.
The water on their side began rising.
The gate trapped river pressure in the old service channel, while a spill opening poured from the dispatch yard above.
Krail had shut more than one control.
Joss crouched beside the prop.
Its wheels were blocked.
Its shoe sat correctly.
The wall post appeared sound, but the stone around its lower bolt had started making a faint crunching noise.
Tan saw it from the other side.
“Leave it.
Come through.”
He moved toward the gap.
Footsteps sounded behind him.
Two warehouse guards came down the drain stairs, carrying lamps high.
The first had a short club; the second was pulling a longer iron bar through the narrow passage.
Joss could crawl out now.
Tan was waiting.
The packet was safe.
Then the first guard saw the rising water.
“Open it,” he shouted toward the ceiling.
“We’re still below!”
The chain kept moving.
The wall post cracked away from its lower socket.
The prop twisted.
If it failed before both guards reached the gate, the channel would close around them.
Joss reached back to the support.
“Drop the bar,” he told the second man.
“Across the opening.
Seat it against that dry stair.”
The man dropped the bar and dragged its end toward the dry stair.
Joss laid his palm against the prop’s iron shoe.
Its pressure ran through the placed bar into the stair.
His one binding stayed with the bridge seated back at the dock.
Here he guided the prop’s pressure into stone.
The gate stayed full-sized above him, and the stone still had to take its weight.
The first touch didn’t hold.
He had to set his shoulder under the prop’s side to stop it turning while the second guard drove the bar home.
The gate shuddered.
Above them, Krail ordered someone to cut the last retaining chain.
Joss looked at Tan through the narrowing gap.
She had taken the packet out of her coat and placed it safely on the high stair.
Then she was coming back for him.