During those three days, Cole performed his duties with even greater care than usual, yet he was visibly more subdued.
On the second night, he went to Sharlo and told him what he meant to do. "Brother, when he comes again, I won't expose him and I won't press him. I'll only talk to him—about the Ding Ward. He's spent eleven years stealing other people's things. I'll return his own things to him one by one, by speaking them aloud. The casket beneath the bed board. The nests on the roof. The storeroom lock he opened for every child in the ward... I remember more than he does himself."
"Who taught you this method?" Sharlo asked.
"You did," Cole said. "At Gern Harbour, you taught the whole port to ask the dead things only they could know, and that broke the false one apart. I'm turning it around—telling a living man the things he himself has forgotten. Perhaps that can call the real one back."
Sharlo regarded the nineteen-year-old boy for a long while, then nodded. "Add one rule. If it hurts him—truly hurts, not pretence—stop. Some forgotten things have locks upon them. Forcing them open can injure a man."
The Sea Magpie came a second time three days later, in broad daylight and under signal flags.
The lookout sighted his ship first: single-masted, narrow and long, with a black-painted hull and dark-grey sail. The ship was small and unnaturally swift, skimming the wave crests like one carved black feather. As it drew near, two signal flags rose upon its mast: REQUEST WATER.
"Request water?" Mick lay over the rail, sputtering with indignation. "Even thieves observe the rules of the sea?"
"They do." Sharlo watched the black ship and made out the objects hanging along both sides of its hull—row upon row of cages, several hundred of every size, swaying gently with the ship's rise and fall. The light within them was almost invisible by day; only a thin, mistlike glimmer veiled the whole vessel. The "black ship hung all over with cages" in Old Bann's letter had arrived.
"Thieves are stricter about rules than anyone," Sharlo said. "A craftsman makes his living by them. Lower half sail. Let him come alongside."
The black ship drew alongside, and Pip leapt aboard the Evening Bell alone.
By daylight, he looked thinner than he had in the fog. His grey-black working clothes had been washed almost white, and the scar slanting from brow to cheekbone seemed faint beneath the sun. He stood in the middle of the deck while the whole ship's company surrounded him—Half-Ladle gripping his soup ladle, Mick clutching his whistle—and saw none of them. Those great, empty-bright eyes fixed upon only one person.
Cole stood beneath the mainmast holding the guiding lamp and returned his gaze.
"The water is there." Sharlo pointed to the fresh-water cask. "Draw it yourself. Now tell us why you came. Water is a pretext. The water aboard your ship is fresher than ours."
"I've come to return some goods," Pip said.
He took two steps forward and stopped ten feet from Cole. Those long, deft hands were clenched now, their knuckles white.
"Three days ago, you gave me a sentence." He stared at Cole, his voice terribly hoarse. "Beneath the bed board. A shoelace, knotted. You said you tied it for me."
"I tied the knot for you," Cole said.
"Take it back."
For a moment, the deck was silent. Pip raised both hands and pressed them to his chest. The movement was so stiff as to seem clumsy—a man accustomed to taking things from other people had no idea how to take something from within himself.
"I'm a man who can't keep anything." He spoke fast and urgently, like reporting goods in a burning warehouse. "Gold, three days. A craft, five. A thought, half a month at most. Eleven years. What has leaked through my hands could fill half the sea—I'm used to it. Let it leak. Once it's all gone, everything feels clean."
"But that sentence of yours—three days!" His voice leapt suddenly. "It won't leak! I lie down at night and it's there. I open my eyes in the morning and it's there. I throw it into the sea, turn around, and there it is again—one sentence, six words, kept inside me for three days without losing a single one!"
He stared fiercely at Cole. For the first time, something living appeared within those great, empty-bright eyes: fear.
"What did you do to me?" the Sea Magpie asked. "Take it back."
Cole looked at him for a long time. Then the boy did something no one had expected—he gently set the guiding lamp upon the deck, took two steps forward, and stood before Pip. Lifting his face, he pronounced each word distinctly.
"I can't take it back."
"Because it wasn't a piece of goods I gave you," Cole said. "It was yours. The Ding Ward. The upper bunk. The casket beneath the bed board, tied shut with a shoelace—Pip, all of that is yours. I only spoke it aloud for you."
"Your craft takes things from other people. Their things reach you through a layer, and that is why they leak." The boy's voice trembled, but every word struck home like a nail. "Your own things have never leaked. You simply haven't touched anything of your own in eleven years—you've forgotten what 'your own' feels like."
Pip stood frozen where he was.
"You don't believe me?" Cole stepped half a pace closer. "Then let me return a few more. The storeroom in the Ding Ward. A sheet-iron lock, the key at Matron Cooper's waist—but every child in the ward could open it, because you picked it with wire for every one of us. You taught us: once inside, look but don't take. If anything was taken, Matron would change the lock, and then no one would ever get to look again."
Pip's lashes quivered.
"The nests on the roof. You raided three. You left the fourth alone—there were eggs inside. You crouched up on the eaves all morning watching them, then climbed down and told me: a nest with eggs is somebody's home." Cole's voice was steady, sentence after sentence, as though he were setting each possession back in its proper place. "The year it snowed, you gave your mattress to Toby, who wet his bed, and slept wrapped in a sack for half the winter. Toby never knew, not even on the day he left. I knew—because I helped you sew the sack."
"Pip," the boy said at last, "all of these things are yours. Eleven years, and not one has leaked away. You aren't a man who can't keep things—"
"You are a man who can't keep other people's things. What is yours, you keep more securely than anyone."
Pip lowered his head and stared at his hands, then looked up at Cole. His lips moved—and that line of pale thought-script above him flashed madly, its fragments tightening Sharlo's chest as he read them.
【Mine】【Beneath the bed board】【They didn't take that casket】【What they took was】【What they took was—】
The words broke off sharply.
Pip's face changed. As if struck squarely in the chest, he staggered half a step backwards and clapped one hand over his heart—not the clumsy pressure of a moment ago, but the grip of a man holding a place that hurt.
"Pip?" Cole sprang forward.
"Stay back." Gasping, the Sea Magpie waved him away. His young face was frighteningly white. "It's nothing. An old complaint. When I think of things I shouldn't, it hurts here." He straightened and pulled his mouth into a dry smile. "The Central Counter's craftsmanship. Finest-grade goods must have their inventory—must have their inventory cleared before they leave the factory. Anything cleared from the inventory mustn't be thought about. Thinking hurts."
The blood in Sharlo's veins chilled by degrees.
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Inventory cleared before leaving the factory. Eight children had been taken away and sent into the Central Counter's workshop. Before their names were kindled, one thing had first been taken from each of them—what it was, Pip himself could not remember; trying brought pain. Yet the thought-script that had failed to finish had already given half the answer. What they had taken was—
The casket beneath the bed board had not been taken. What had been taken was the thing that gave that casket meaning.
"Pip," Sharlo began slowly, "you've stolen for eleven years. Gold and silver leak from you without a thought, but I know what you've been collecting for the Central Counter this past month—the direction of home. An order for one hundred portions. Am I right?"
Pip's head snapped up.
"You collect people's 'direction of home' more easily than you collect anything else." Sharlo looked at him and spoke one deliberate word at a time. "Because it is the only thing you recognise, and the only thing you cannot remember. In every person under heaven, you have been searching for the one piece of goods they cleared out of you."
The deck went silent as death. Sea wind swept across several hundred cages, and every glimmer within them swayed as one.
"The order is for one hundred portions," Pip said suddenly. His voice was flat as iron, but he did not deny it—a thief did not lie. "Sixty-one collected. Delivery north before spring begins. On Settlement Day, the Central Counter said—"
He stopped. The light in those great eyes wavered into confusion for one instant.
"The Central Counter said that once I delivered the full order, they would return my one piece to me," he said. "Eleven years. They said this time they'd truly return it."
"Pip." Cole's voice tightened as he asked the other question he had held inside for three days. "The eight who boarded that cart—what happened to the other seven?"
Pip looked at him. The calm in that glance was terrifying.
"When we reached the workshop, there weren't only eight of us," he said, like reading out an account. "Twelve. Gathered from every region. The cleverest-handed children. The Central Counter's people spent two years selecting them across the continent."
"Three years. The number who finished their apprenticeship—" He raised one finger. "One."
"What happened to the other eleven?"
"The inventory clearing broke them," Pip said. "They never came out of the workshop."
He did not explain another word. Yet everyone upon the deck understood. The handle of Half-Ladle's soup ladle creaked in his grip.
"Pip—" Cole's voice had changed. "They deceived—"
"A thief doesn't lie." Pip cut him off and shook his head. The smile upon his face was uglier than tears. "But the Central Counter isn't a thief. The Central Counter is a house of trade. I can tell truth from falsehood in a trader's words—they didn't lie. They truly will return it."
"But I can tell one other thing." His voice fell soft. "They never lose a pledged article that its ticket can redeem. If they can return mine, that means they still have it. And if they still have it, that means—it is valuable. Redeeming something valuable requires interest."
"They didn't say what the interest would be."
At that moment, something changed without warning.
One of the dozens of cages at Pip's waist suddenly went dark. It did not dim by degrees, as leaking light did—it went out. The knot of light inside seemed pinched dead by an invisible hand, leaving an empty cage to sway gently in the wind.
Pip looked down, and his face changed violently.
"The Comptroller is here." His voice drew taut in an instant. "The Central Counter sent someone to audit the books—I'm short of my quota this month." He whirled and sprang onto the rail in three bounds.
Once there, he stopped. He tore a cage from his waist—the blue-grey light inside revolved slowly, fine smoke feathering from its edges: forty years of water-sense—and flung it backhanded to Sharlo.
"The Ende. Registered at Gern Harbour. Her owner's surname is Hansen." His words came fast and dry. "Return it to the old helmsman for me. Tell him..."
He faltered. A thief's cant contained no words for returning a possession.
"Tell him the cage rusted through," he said at last. "It couldn't hold it anymore."
Those great, empty-bright eyes swept one final time over Cole, over Sharlo, over the ship laden with all the goods he could not take away.
"Take your ship east for three days. Don't follow me. Stay out of my affairs."
"Pip!" Cole chased him to the rail. "That night—when you passed my bed, what were you trying to say?!"
The back of the man who had already leapt aboard the black ship stiffened for an instant.
The black ship cast off and spread sail. Its black-feather hull made one turn upon the waves and shot half a mile away in the blink of an eye. From far off, the wind bore a sentence back in fragments, almost too broken to understand—
"The feverish ones were left behind—"
"Only the healthy boarded the cart—they only chose the healthy—"
"Your name—I crossed it off—it was me—"
The black sail vanished into the horizon. The deck was silent as death.
Cole gripped the rail without moving. The wind assembled those three broken sentences in his ears, then assembled them again. The boy's fingers dug into the rail until the knuckles blanched. Suddenly he turned around, his eyes frighteningly red.
"Brother. What did he mean? You understood—you must have understood."
Sharlo did not answer at once. He passed those three sentences through his mind again and set beside them the madly flashing fragments from the fog three nights ago—【Feverish】【Crossed off the roll】【He didn't get on the cart】. Set against each other, the answer lay there, black and gleaming.
"The list of eight names originally had yours upon it, not his," Sharlo said slowly. "You had a high fever that night. He passed your bed and saw you burning—then went and crossed your name off the list and added his own."
"He took your place and boarded the cart."
Cole stood frozen.
"He was nine years old. Like the rest of you, he believed that being 'taken in by a good family' was the greatest blessing under heaven." Sharlo kept his voice low. "So do you understand what he has carried? For eleven years. At first, he thought he had stolen your good fortune—left his sick brother behind and gone to enjoy a better life himself. That was guilt. Later, when he reached the workshop and understood where the cart had been going, he could no longer tell: had he stolen your road, or taken the blade in your place?"
"He has been trying to balance that account for eleven years and never managed it," Sharlo said. "The man who can keep nothing has been unable to let that one account leak away."
Cole's tears struck the deck. Yet the boy made no sound of weeping. He clenched his teeth, scrubbed the tears away by the handful, and forced the words through them one at a time.
"He didn't steal anything from me."
"He took the blade for me. He has taken it for eleven years, all while believing himself a thief." Cole jerked up his head. "Brother, bring him back. I must tell him to his face how that account is settled—that night, the name he crossed out wasn't mine."
"It was his own life."
That night, they held council in the chart room.
"East for three days." Viola wrote Pip's words upon a sheet of paper. Her pen paused. "It is a warning and a confession. He knows the Comptroller is dangerous. The Comptroller has come to audit him, and he is afraid we'll be caught in it."
"An order for one hundred, sixty-one collected," Sharlo continued. "A little over a month remains before settlement. He's thirty-nine portions short. His quota this month is insufficient because he spent his time upon our ship—twice—and went away empty-handed." He paused. "The Central Counter keeps no one who leaves a deficit. Mr. Bassoon's exact words. His predecessor did not even leave behind the fact that he had existed."
"Then the Central Counter now has two bad accounts," Viola said. "Bassoon is short the harvest of two ports. The Sea Magpie is short thirty-nine directions. Both are risking their lives to make up the difference."
"And the Comptroller has already arrived."
For a moment, the chart room was quiet. Sharlo studied the hundred-mile sweep of sea upon the wall chart and set the cage Pip had left upon the table. Blue-grey light revolved slowly within it, trailing fine smoke.
"East for three days," he said. "We won't."
"We can't keep up." The chief mate threw cold water upon the notion. "That black ship is thirty per cent faster than us with the wind and twice as fast against it. Chase her at sea and we'll still be chasing next year."
"We needn't chase her."
It was Casimir who spoke. The navigator had appeared in the doorway without anyone noticing, holding his bitter tea.
"That ship of his carries several hundred cages, and every one is leaking," he said. "What leaks out isn't smoke. It is something of the road—courage, direction, whatever it may be, it knows its own master. The moment it seeps through a crack in a cage, the first thing it does is drift towards home. I've watched from the bow for three days. Across this sea lies a layer of faint light drifting south and east, like rivers running backwards out of the sea."
"That light lies thickest in the black ship's wake." Casimir sipped his tea and spoke with perfect courtesy. "He imagines he comes and goes without leaving a shadow. In truth, for eleven years, wherever he has gone, he has leaked—his footprints lie all over the sea."
The Old Boatman added from outside the door, his voice deep. "Among the things leaking out are sixty-one portions of 'the direction of home.' Nothing knows its road better than direction. The blue-green glass lamp can see them."
"A spirit-ferryman lights the lamp; a Worldstrider reads the road." Sharlo surveyed the chart room and slowly nodded. "Pass the order—"
"Follow him," the Curtainbreaker said. "Follow the light he leaks."
The Evening Bell shifted her sails, came about, and cut into that invisible road of light.
After nightfall, Sharlo opened the black notebook beneath the lamp and entered the accounts of the past several days. When he reached the words "the Comptroller," his pen paused.
"You're wondering what it is," Viola said from across the table as she arranged her register, without looking up.
"I am," Sharlo said. "Emery was a wax shell; his double walked for seven days. The assassin at Duren's field headquarters was a wax shell and lay hidden for three. The lie point at the military post office was wax. Accountant Gu melted into wax in open court. The hand the Central Counter uses to audit its books has always followed one pattern."
"That cage at Pip's waist went out cleanly." He spoke slowly. "To snuff out a knot of light across dozens of miles of sea—that isn't the work of a bookkeeper. This time, I fear the Central Counter has sent more than an auditor."
"A collector," Viola said, closing her register.
Outside the window, the night sea was silent. Ahead of the bow, the leaking road of light showed and vanished upon the black water, leading north like a line of writing blurred by rain. At its end, a magpie who could keep nothing dragged his incomplete consignment towards a counter colder than he could imagine.
"If you can't sleep, stand another hour of watch." Sharlo blew out the lamp. "Beginning tomorrow, keep your eyes open."
"This time, we aren't the hunters," he said. "We're going to get ahead of the collector—and steal the man out from under him."