Loccy followed the guards down the yard steps with a honey pastry tucked inside her sleeve for later.
Morning mist hung over the channel mouth, and the long beam sagged above it like an old horse asleep standing. Two guards flanked Hajin, a third shadowed Ferra, and Olan walked last with Wren's cousin's token wrapped in plain cloth.
"One fault, the captain said," he called up to the foreman on the gear house steps, "so where do I stand to look at it?"
"Below the beam, with the repair crew, and touch nothing."
"Love that, very welcoming."
The foreman tapped the ledger under his arm and spat into the channel without answering.
Ragged workers crouched beneath the downstream end, hammering wedges under the timber props that kept the beam from dropping further. Ferra knelt beside the nearest prop, pressed her thumb into the grain, and her whole face went flat and dangerous.
