Quasi perches high on Yuto's shoulder like a self-appointed admiral, tail flicking lazily as they step out from the looming shadow of the Inquisition headquarters. The building's towering blackstone walls recede behind them, swallowing the last of the cool, echoing silence from inside.

The moment they hit the open air of the lower docks, the world changes-loud, foul, alive. The tang of old blood clings to the wind, mingling with the sour musk of sweat and unwashed bodies. Somewhere close, ropes creak and sails snap as a weather-beaten airship groans against its moorings.

The docks here are a graveyard of tired vessels. Massive wooden hulls lean against rusted iron cleats, paint worn thin and peeling to reveal grey wood beneath. The air is filled with the dry rasp of piss, shit, and blood.

Below the creaking gangways, rats swarm in restless tides, darting between broken planks and vanishing into shadowed cracks. [Inquisitors] patrol with predatory focus, their eyes hunting for the smallest signs of dissent. The crimson trim on their black coats catches the light like fresh wounds.

One of them pauses mid-step, gaze flicking toward Yuto. His eyes narrow as they climb to Quasi, who returns the look with a slow, smug blink. Then the Inquisitor's attention snags on Atoro, and whatever spark of interest he had vanishes instantly.

Atoro says nothing, but his presence radiates authority-the same rigid posture and unyielding stride he wore inside the fortress. His wolfish jaw is locked tight, ears angled forward like drawn blades. He moves with purpose, weaving through the dense tangle of docks and alleyways. Yuto and Quasi follow in his wake, the press of bodies and noise closing in on either side.

Gradually, the surroundings begin to change. The air shifts, taking on the faint bite of salt and fresh tar. The shouting of dockhands fades to a controlled murmur. Even the chaos of gulls seems to retreat. The planks underfoot are unbroken here, worn but well-kept, as if the boots that tread them belong to a different breed entirely.

The shipyard ahead is a different world. Broad walkways of oiled wood stretch out like parade grounds, free of debris. Massive sailing airships rest in sturdy wooden cradles, their sails bound in neat rolls, mended until not a stitch is out of place. Fresh paint gleams under the sunlight, highlighting the curves of their hulls. Teams of wolven workers move with clockwork precision, voices low and measured as they pass rope through their hands or examine each inch of rigging. The smell of sweat is still there, but here it smells like honest labor, not desperation.

At the far end of the main pier stands the [Dockmaster's] office-a squat wooden building with clean lines and sliding doors. The wood is dark and polished, etched with the kind of care you only see in places of authority. On its front panels, a masterfully carved emblem shows a crane in mid-flight, talons clamped around an unblinking eye. The detail is so fine that the eye almost seems to follow them.

Atoro reaches the door first. He slides it open in one sharp motion and steps inside without a word, motioning for Yuto and Quasi to follow.

The air inside smells faintly of cedar and ink. Shelves packed with ledgers and scroll tubes line the walls, while a small brazier burns quietly in the corner, giving the room a dry warmth.

Behind a cluttered desk sits the [Dockmaster], a wolven man whose neatly brushed black fur glints faintly in the lamplight. His hanging chin fur twitches slightly as he sizes them up. Sharp amber eyes gleam with a mix of authority and restrained humor-he looks like someone who's equally comfortable giving orders or cutting them down with a single well-placed remark.

"Ah, Atoro," he says, leaning back in his chair with a sly smile. "Dragged some company out here? I was starting to think your slaves were carrying more heresy than cargo."

Atoro stiffens, ears flattening a fraction, but gives only a curt nod.

Quasi's whiskers twitch. "Finally," he says, "someone with a sense of humor."

The dockmaster's grin widens just a hair. "Sit. Can't say I've ever met a talking cat before-let alone one that's a [Captain]. So… business, I assume?"

Atoro clears his throat, voice clipped. "We carry a scroll from the [Primus Judicar]."

The grin dies instantly. The [Dockmaster] leans forward, forearms on the desk. "A scroll from the Judicar?"

Yuto steps forward, producing the rolled parchment.

The dockmaster takes it with deliberate care, turning it in his hands to study the elaborate wax seals and faintly glowing runes. He breaks the seals with his claws, unrolling the parchment. His eyes scan the lines in silence.

When he looks up again, the humor is gone. "A Runed ship," he says slowly. "That's no small award." His tail sweeps once across the floorboards. "One I'm… not thrilled to part with."

He sits back, weighing them with a long look. Finally, he exhales. "But if the [Judicar] commands it, it'll be done. I'll have to take one from another [Captain] until reinforcements arrive."

Atoro's ears flick. "Reinforcements?"

The dockmaster's gaze sharpens. "Message came in this morning. Fleet bound for Kyoshi-hit by Valentine. Destroyed. Command's ordering every old combat vessel reactivated until replacements arrive."

Yuto exhales, tension easing from his shoulders. At least he won't have to report that himself.

Atoro's frown deepens at the open disclosure, but the dockmaster ignores him. Instead, he reaches for a heavy binder, the leather cover worn smooth from years of use.

"Let's see what I can spare."

He flips through page after page-sketches of ships, notes on hull condition, lists of current [Captains]. His claws rasp faintly on the paper until he stops. "Ah. This one."

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He spins the book toward Quasi. "Old, big, slow-but worthy enough for the honor."

Yuto stares at the sketch, brows furrowing. "That's the ugliest Cruiser I've ever seen."

"That's not a Cruiser," he corrects himself. "That's a Barge."

"A runed heavy Barge," the dockmaster confirms. "Too slow for the fleet. Need's a new purpose anyway."

Quasi tilts his head. "Can it fight?"

The dockmaster's laugh is short and sharp. "It's a Barge. If it could fight, I wouldn't be giving it to you."

Quasi flattens his ears. "Nothing else?"

"Not combat ready. I've got smaller vessels, but offering one to someone who's gained the Inquisition's respect? That'd be an insult."

Quasi sighs, tail curling low. "Fine. When will it be ready?"

The dockmaster drums his claws on the desk. "Within a week. I'll have the blood scrubbed out, prison cells torn down, runes repaired."

Quasi freezes mid-tail flick. "…Blood?" His ears angle forward. "Prison cells? What exactly was it used for?"

The dockmaster smiles-slow and wolfish, showing just enough teeth to be unsettling. "Transporting heretics for the Inquisition. That's why it's called the Gallowswake."

Quasi stares at him for a long moment. "…Charming. Nothing says 'welcome aboard' quite like a ship named after execution."

____________________________________________________

Smoke hangs in the low room like a second ceiling. A brass lamp sways over a scarred oak table; cards whisper and chips click in rhythm. Four men sit shoulder-to-shoulder, the space crowded with the smell of sweat, old tobacco, and something fouler that money buys. At the head of the table, Corvin Malvek moves as if underwater: slow to shift, slow to smile, slow to speak. When his voice comes it is small and heavy, as if each sentence had to be carried across a field.

He lays a card down and looks up at them without hurry. "Tell me about the girl."

Joss snorts and rubs the back of his neck. "[Bounty hunter]. Came sniffing where she shouldn't. Knew how we work-followed the pattern of the snatches till she found a trail. Took six of ours before we closed in."

Corvin's hand veers, almost idly, to the cloth in the table's center. Two revolvers rest there, barrels faintly gleaming. The engravings are neat-vines etched along the steel, grips worn smooth-pretty enough to make a man think twice before wasting them. Corvin lets the image sit between them a beat, then turns his attention back to the men.

"How did we take her?" he asks.

Rafe leans back in his chair, rolling a coin across his knuckles as he speaks. "Karthis laid the trap smart-near the docks, fat shipment, plenty of noise to make it look sloppy. She took the bait, came in shooting. Dropped his men one after another before they could get close. First time she slipped away. Second time too. Third time…" He taps the coin on the table. "She burned through her last rounds, went for a reload she didn't have time for. Karthis eventually reached her. No showy fight-just a clean takedown. She was out cold before she hit the boards. She's breathing in the cells as we speak."

"The cost?" Corvin asks, voice flat as stone.

"Four good men and the boy who ran the ledger," Joss says. "Plus the headache. She was looking into our snatches-talked to a magistrate's clerk and some [Captain] who liked his coin too much. She was close. Too close."

Corvin lets the quiet deepen until a candle gutters and he smiles like someone remembering a pleasant thing long buried. "Men can be replaced," he says finally. "A woman like that, asking questions, is a problem. Questions spread. Questions find ears."

Tomas, the oldest of the three, lifts his cup. "It's not just her. Sparkhold's been poking. New ordinances, more guards, public tribunals for missing people-easily for a clerk to link a face to a street, and then the Council wants answers. They push, the [Magistrates] pry. Fumehold's [Councilors] cough up excuses; the [Lord] grinds his teeth, but the [Merchants] squeal and play both sides. Our shipments get taxed, our crews harried. Sparkhold makes a show, Fumehold tries to look impartial-both want the other's blood."

Corvin watches Tomas to make sure he finishes the sentence. He nods once, very slowly. "Names."

"[Councilor] Lysara of Sparkhold," Rafe says. "She's loud about purity, about trade ethics. Gives speeches at the market and funds a few charities so the rabble can see her smile. In Fumehold it's [Dockmaster] Varne-he brags about keeping the peace but he's cut with the same knives, laced his pockets with Gambino coin last winter when the Gambinos tried to muscle the western docks."

"Lysara's show is dangerous," Joss adds. "She's not stupid-she knows how to stir public fury. The [inquisition's] pawing at those sorts of cases on their own; they like a moral crusade. If they sniff a pattern that points back to us-"

Corvin moves a chip, puts it out with that same slow precision. "Then we lose more than men," he says. "We lose routes. We lose trust. We lose the quiet places where contracts are signed and coins slide between palms."

Tomas says, "And the Gambinos watch. They don't trade in flesh like we do, but they watch currency. If Sparkhold's clamp makes our product scarce, someone with clean hands will step in and buy the rumor instead of the thing. Gambinos grow bolder when markets twitch."

Corvin's stare is a slow flame. "We do not hand our trade to a rival because the city gets squeamish. We adapt. We move deeper. We change names on manifests. We bribe the right lower clerks and we bury the right witnesses. But it will cost."

Rafe shifts, restless. "Cost what, boss? More bribes? More men? We're stretched after this-people talking, more patrols, the bounty hunter-if Sparkhold keeps ratcheting up pressure, someone will put a price on our stock and we'll have more trouble finding buyers."

"Which is why," Corvin says, and his words drop like weights into a well, "we must be smarter than they are. Faster than their sermons. Softer with our hands in the dark. And when a rarity comes along-when the market offers something that changes the math-we take it."

He taps the revolvers with a fingernail, brief, dismissive. "Her guns are pretty," he says. "Fine work, but not the point. The point is the eyes that noticed her. The point is hands that record names. The point is a city that decides to make us monsters on a public day."

There is a pause. The heavy door reads on its hinges and a runner slips in-small, nervous, breath smelling of cold wind.

"Boss," he hisses, closing the door behind him. "Word from Sparkhold. Something… odd. A cat. Probably not a skill. It talks-shares sentences with men. Stevedores swore it argued over coin. There's gossip they saw it talking in a tavern. I heard a man at the market say they saw it leaving the [inquisition] docks."

Corvin's face trims into something like hunger. "A talking cat."

"There are rumors already." The runner continues. "Talk of selling it to the experimental houses-Fumehold physicians or private scholars. They pay well for oddities they can cage and prod."

The table goes still. Tomas spits into a cup. "That could buy us cover. Enough coin to grease the right warden and silence a councilor. That could buy us new buyers if we're clever."

Corvin's hands fold, fingers touching, the way somebody who prays does. "We don't sell everything to anyone," he says. "The Gambinos... they keep clean hands for a reason. They won't sully their public with certain trades. But exceptions exist for currency that can't be traced, for rarities that make men forget their principles."

He reaches into a leather pouch and lays a single coin on the table, deliberate and calm. "Find this cat. Quietly. Fast. I want no sermons, no crowds, no [Inquisitors] stumbling on our name. If it is what they say, we sell it to a buyer who will pay enough to blunt Sparkhold's tongues and keep our men fed. If it is a trap-take no one we can't spare."

The runner snaps the coin up, eyes wide. "It'll be done."

Corvin lets the silence swell again, then nods once. "Deal the next hand," he says. "And keep your ears open. A city arguing with itself makes poor witnesses."

They play on as the glowing fumes burn low, and outside the alley the feud between two city governments, two [Lords], two brothers, keeps tightening like a noose-politics folding into profit, law into ledger, and in the dark places men like Corvin count the cost and sharpen their knives.

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