Oryn Mast hid a family of four under the deck of her skiff, and the crime lord who owned her boat wanted her tonight. She crouched on the inspection dock, checking the loose plank she'd cut over the smuggling hold. Below it, a mother pressed a hand over her child's mouth. Oryn had promised to run them past the swamp, to the free settlements. She hadn't promised it would be tonight, but tonight was the only tide clear of patrols. A courier's skiff cut through the reeds and bumped her dock. The man tossed a sealed message onto the planks without stepping off. "Vess wants you at the deep channel. Now. A shipment came in." He didn't wait for an answer. He poled away into the dark. Oryn broke the seal. She read it twice. Vess bankrolled her cargo runs. He fronted her fuel, her repairs, her silence at the checkpoints. Refuse him, and he'd ask why. He'd send men to search her boat. They would find the plank, the hold, the family. She knelt by the cut plank. "Change of plan," she whispered. "You stay under. You don't cough. You don't move." The glowing reeds along the waterline lit her hands green. She snapped an armful and packed them over the false deck, hiding the seam. Then she poled to the deep channel. Vess stood on his barge beside a crate. Two men flanked him. He was thin, gray at the temples, and he smiled like he'd already won. "You took your time." "Tide's wrong for speed," Oryn said. He lifted the crate lid. Inside floated a creature made of dark metal and light, its fins ribbed with rings that pulsed. Wires trailed from its skull like antennae. "A collector across the swamp paid triple. You run it tonight. Same channel you'd take to the settlements." He watched her face when he said it. "Odd, how well you know that route." Oryn kept her voice flat. "I know every route." She took the crate. Refusing meant a search. Accepting meant Vess's route ran the same water as her escape. She loaded the creature beside the hidden plank and poled into the reeds. An hour out, she stopped where the channels forked. One arm curled back toward Vess. The other opened toward the settlements. She pried the plank up. The mother blinked in the green light. "He knows," Oryn said. "Or he's close to knowing." She looked at the pulsing creature, then at the fork. If she delivered the crate, she bought Vess's trust and lost the tide. If she ran now, she saved the family and made Vess her enemy for good. She cut the crate's rope and shoved it into the water. The creature sank, its light fading under the black surface. Then she poled hard down the settlement channel. By dawn, Vess would know she'd stolen his shipment and vanished. There was no going back to the dock now.