The bar smelled like smoke, sweat, and victory.
Victory, Gin decided, had a lot in common with tired people and spilled alcohol. It hummed in the air like a held breath finally let out.
Someone had dragged extra tables together, jammed barrels into the corners, and draped a piece of fabric over the bar counter. The fabric was painted in quick, messy strokes: cheap ale to celebrate our HERO GIN FARCAST for defeating the evil Hydrachy officers Marren and Venn.
"Subtle," Gin told the barman.
"I'm a man of nuance," the barman said, sliding him a cup.
Gin looked into it. Liquid shimmered—brown, sharp-smelling. Not his usual kind of drink. He lifted it anyway.
"Medic said I should hydrate," he mused. "This counts, right?"
"Absolutely not," the barman said. "Drink it anyway. You earned it."
Around them, the bar was fuller than Gin had seen it. Shipwrights, divers, deckhands. Even a few guards in plain shirts, jackets thrown over the backs of chairs. Their weapons were conspicuously absent. Their laughter wasn't.
Near the far wall, Tamsin perched on a stool, legs swinging, a mug of something non-lethal in both hands. Rell sat beside her, arm in a sling, eyes still shadowed but lighter at the edges, like someone had opened a hatch in a long-closed room.
In the corner, on a long bench with his boots off and both arms bandaged to the elbow, Jakk snored softly.
He wasn't as catastrophic as he'd been the first time Gin had seen him sprawled outside the bar. This looked more like a man who'd run out of awake.
His skin still radiated faint heat, but it was no longer scorching. The Brinefurnace reef had banked to embers.
Someone had thrown a blanket over his legs.
"Let him sleep," the barman said when Gin's gaze lingered. "If anyone's owed it, it's that walking bonfire."
"Did the medic say he's—"
"Alive," the barman cut in. "Singed, shocked, dehydrated to hell. But alive."
Gin let out a breath he hadn't noticed he was holding.
"What about Holst and Marren?" he asked quietly.
"Under lock and watch." The barman snorted. "I hear the guards are being very creative with the interpretation of 'standard confinement.' Nothing that'll kill them. Just… make them think."
"Good," Gin said.
Behind them, a low groan interrupted the moment.
Jakk shifted on the bench, one hand coming up to scrub at his face. Bandages crinkled. He blinked blearily at the ceiling.
"Alive," he muttered. "Damn it."
"Language, Mirefell," the barman called. "There are children present."
Tamsin made a rude noise. "I work in a yard."
Jakk's gaze tracked toward the voices.
His eyes found Gin first. Then the bar came into focus. The crowd. The absence of Hydrarchy uniforms.
His shoulders sagged.
A strange sound escaped Jakk. It took Gin a second to realize it was a laugh, scraped raw and incredulous.
"You're an idiot," Jakk said.
"I get that a lot."
Jakk's gaze shifted to Rell and Tamsin. To the guards. To the others in the bar. He saw no fear in their faces. Wariness, sure. Weariness. But also something else.
Gratitude.
Hope.
It hit him harder than any jellyfin shock.
He put a hand to his chest.
The Brinefurnace reef under his palm pulsed, less like a roaring engine and more like a steady, cautious warmth. For the first time in years, the guilt that had sat on his ribs like a weight felt… lighter. Not gone. Not absolved. But no longer welded in place.
Jakk's throat worked.
"I—" he started.
The words stuck.
The barman moved down the counter, like he'd been waiting for this moment since the first time he'd found Jakk passed out against his doorframe.
"Since we're all telling stories tonight," he said casually, "maybe they should hear yours from someone who was sober enough to remember it."
Jakk flinched. "Barkeep—"
"Hush," the barman said. "Drink your water."
He slid a cup into Jakk's hands. It steamed faintly. Not alcohol. Broth.
Jakk stared at it like it was a foreign object.
Gin dragged a chair closer, ignoring his own protesting body, and sat. Tamsin and Rell shifted on their stools to listen. The scarred guard leaned in the doorway, arms folded, pretending she wasn't interested.
"Back when this Hull was newer," the barman began, "before Khelt had three full rings and a quota spreadsheet in every office, a patrol skiff came in with a story."
Jakk closed his eyes.
The barman went on anyway.
"Pirates had hit a merchant ferry," he said. "Standard horror show. Guns. Smoke. People screaming. In the middle of it all, there was a little rowboat with three idiots in it who thought they were about to meet romantic criminals instead of desperate men with nothing left to lose."
Tamsin's eyes widened.
"Two of those boys made it back," the barman said softly. "One didn't."
Jakk's fingers tightened around the cup.