Chương 10: Chapter 9: A Woman's Burden

The boathouse door opened onto Dock Ward noise, voices, rigging, water against stone. Jack paused. A woman stood there, hands folded tight in front of her, as if she'd rehearsed where to put them and forgotten why. Clean clothes, worn thin. The kind of careful neatness that came from not having enough to replace anything. She looked past Jack, eyes flicking briefly to the others behind him, then back again.

"Are you the ones they've been talking about?" she asked. Not bold, just forced steady. Jack didn't make her say it twice.

"You're looking for Breakwater Holding," he said. Something loosened in her face, not relief exactly, permission to hope. Jack stepped aside.

"Come in." She hesitated just long enough to show him this wasn't easy, then crossed the threshold. The boathouse smelled of fresh timber and old salt. Renovations were underway but unfinished, exposed beams, stacked planks, a space still deciding what it was going to become. The woman glanced around, taking it in, then nodded once, as if the place had passed some private test. Jack gestured to a crate.

"Sit." She did. For a moment, no one spoke. The city filled the silence instead, the creak of wood, distant shouts from the docks, the low, constant presence of water. Jack watched her hands. They trembled when she thought no one was looking.

"We're listening," he said.

"Start from the beginning." She swallowed.

"My name's Mara Fenwick," she said.

"My brother works at the counting house on Beacon Street and Main." She hesitated.

"Worked. I don't know what to call it anymore." Aldric shifted slightly, attentive but silent.

"It didn't start all at once," Mara continued.

"There was a change. New management. Better pay. No guild seal, but the coin showed up on time, so people took the work." Her mouth tightened. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"They went in the same men they'd always been. They didn't come back the same way." Jack let that sit.

"In what way?" Seraphine asked gently. Mara looked down at her hands.

"Forgetful, at first. Quiet. Like they'd left something behind and couldn't remember what it was." She looked up.

"One man stopped recognizing his wife. Another started walking into the harbor at night. Said the water was calling him." Kael's expression darkened, but he didn't interrupt.

"My brother…" Mara paused, steadying herself.

"He still comes home. Still eats. Still breathes." She let out a short, humorless breath.

"But he doesn't sleep. He sits at the table and stares at nothing. Sometimes he talks about numbers that don't add up." Jack leaned back slightly, listening.

"Last night," she said quietly, "he called me by our father's name. Father's been dead ten years." The room held that. Aldric spoke first.

"Has anyone tried to leave?" Mara nodded.

"Two men. One vanished. One came back screaming and hasn't spoken since." Seraphine closed her ledger without writing anything.

"This doesn't sound like normal exploitation," she said.

"That's not bookkeeping," Jack said quietly. Mara nodded, grateful someone else had said it aloud.

"The Watch won't listen," she continued.

"They say no crime's been reported. The guilds won't touch it without coin." Her voice wavered, then steadied.

"I just want to help my brother." Jack studied her face. No agenda. No theory. Just fear and stubborn love. Kael asked quietly, "Has your brother said anything about what he's working on now?" Mara shook her head.

"He won't talk about it. Just says it's important. Not important like pride. Important like… obligation." Jack felt a flicker of unease.

"And the place itself?" Seraphine asked.

"Beacon Street has half a dozen buildings like that." Mara hesitated, then nodded.

"It's old," she said.

"Older than most things on Beacon. When the city expanded, they moved the counting houses inland, built new ones closer to Trade Ward where the books actually mattered." She swallowed.

"But that one stayed." Aldric's eyes narrowed slightly.

"Why?" Mara gave a small, helpless shrug.

"People said it was too expensive to move. Or too tied to the street. Or… too important." She shook her head.

"Dock Ward talk. You hear enough of it, and it starts sounding like the truth." Jack didn't like that.

"When I ask what he's counting," Mara continued, "he says it isn't money. When I ask who it's for, he says it isn't people." No one spoke for a moment. Seraphine's voice stayed soft.

"We'll need to talk to him." Mara looked up sharply.

"Would you?"

"Yes," Jack said.

"But not here. And not like this." She nodded quickly.

"I can get him to come." A beat.

"But not by telling him strangers want to talk. He won't. He barely leaves the place anymore." Jack waited.

"If I say I'm sick," she continued.

"Or I need help moving Father's things. Something familiar. Something grounded." Kael inclined his head.

"That would help anchor him." Aldric asked, "How long?"

"An hour. Maybe two. He'll argue. He always does now." She managed a thin smile.

"But he won't refuse me." Seraphine spoke softly.

"When he gets here, don't correct him if he's wrong. Let him talk first." Mara's breath caught.

"What if… what if whatever's wrong follows him?" Kael met her eyes.

"Then this is the safest place he could be." Mara nodded, decision settling into place.

"I'll bring him," she said.

"Tonight. Tomorrow, if I have to." She stood, pulling her cloak tight. At the door, she hesitated.

"If this goes badly," she said quietly sobbing, "if he doesn't want help," Jack understood without asking her to finish.

"We'll do what we can," he said.

"That's all we promise." She nodded once and stepped back into Dock Ward, swallowed by noise and fog. Jack watched the door close. The counting house had been there longer than the city remembered why. And now the men inside it were starting to change.