Black Dock Rising

Tobin Fenn knew the fish was bad before he opened the crate. The wrongness came through the wood, a faint ache behind his eyes that magic always caused. Old magic, sour as spilled vinegar, soaked into the planks. He crouched in the alley behind Greta's smokehouse and traced a finger along the crate's edge. There. A tiny spiral burned into the corner, almost invisible under the grime. The kind of mark a customs clerk would miss even if he was staring at it. Greta stood in the doorway, wiping her hands on a stained rag. She was sixty and built like a barrel, with arms thick from hauling fish for forty years. "Well?" "Bad batch. Where'd it come from?" "Brack's crew brought it in last night. Said it was clean." She spat on the ground. "Charged me full price." Tobin stood and brushed dirt from his knees. He kept his head down, the way he always did when working. The burn scar on his left hand pulled tight in the cold air. "Don't open it. Don't sell it. Bury it or burn it." "That bad?" "Someone wanted to know who was buying from Brack." Tobin tapped the spiral. "That's a tracking spell. Anyone who touches this fish shows up on a port authority ledger." Greta's face went pale. "I can't eat that loss." "You can't eat a raid either." Tobin picked up his satchel. "I'll find out who's marking Brack's goods. Keep your distance until I do." She nodded and shut the door. The bolt slid home. Tobin walked the length of the Black Dock, past fish stalls and rope sellers and men who stood in doorways with their hands in their pockets. The sun was sinking behind the old city and the tide was coming in. Water slapped the pilings under his feet. Salt and rot and cheap lamp oil filled the air. He needed money. Greta's job paid three coppers and his mother's rent was due in six days. She'd been late twice already. The landlord had stopped sending reminders and started sending his son, a boy of fourteen with a knife on his belt and a smile that never reached his eyes. Tracking spells were expensive. Someone with real resources was using Brack's crew as bait, and Tobin had just stepped into the middle of it. He should walk away. He'd been walking away from port authority business for six months. That was how he'd survived. But Greta was one of the few people on the Black Dock who still hired him. If she got raided, she lost everything. Tobin knew what that felt like. Brack found him an hour later, sitting on a bollard near the Outer Piers with a bowl of fish stew. The crew leader was broad and bald, with a broken nose and arms covered in stevedore tattoos. He walked up too close, the way men did when they wanted a fight. "You told Greta my fish was bad." "I told her the truth." Tobin didn't look up from his stew. "You cost me a customer." "Someone tagged your shipment with a tracking spell. If she'd sold that fish, the port authority would have raided her shop and traced it back to you." Tobin took a bite. "I did you a favor." Brack's jaw tightened. "Favors cost money." "I know. That's why I'm going to find out who tagged your goods. In exchange, you pay me what you would have made off Greta." "That's a lot of copper." "That's the price of doing business with a dead man." Tobin met his eyes. "Or do you want to explain to the port authority why your crew is carrying marked goods?" Brack was silent. Then he laughed, short and ugly. "You've got nerve for a disgraced investigator. Half the dock thinks you're cursed." "Half the dock is right." Tobin set down his bowl. "Two days. I'll find the tagger." "One day." "Two, or I walk and you explain the spell yourself." Brack's hand moved toward his belt. Tobin didn't flinch. He'd learned that flinching made men like Brack feel invited. "Fine," Brack said. "Two days. But if you're lying about the spell, I'll cut the truth out of you myself." Tobin picked up his stew and walked away. He finished it in the alley behind a closed warehouse, listening to the dock crews work in the dark. The tide was high now, water black and cold. Lanterns bobbed on the harbor, marking the channel between the outer buoys and the inner gates. He had two days to find a magic user who could afford a tracking spell. Two days to figure out who was running a sting on the Black Dock and why. He had a few ideas. Most of them were bad. Mira was waiting at the old tide gate stair, the one the Lir family had sealed twenty years ago. She sat on the third step with her knees pulled up and her silver locket in her hands. The locket was the only thing their father had left her before the tide gate killed him. "You're late," she said. "I'm always late." Tobin sat beside her. "What did you find?" Mira worked as a maid in the Lir estate. She had access to rooms most people never saw and a talent for listening at doors. Tobin had never asked her to spy for him. She did it anyway. "Voss was at the estate last night. He met with Councilor Tal in the east parlor. An hour." Tobin's stomach tightened. Voss. The man who had pulled him off the street at nine, trained him, and then signed the order that took everything from him. He hadn't spoken to Voss since the day of his dismissal. "What did they talk about?" "The door was thick. I couldn't hear." Mira pulled a folded paper from her apron. "But I found this in the wastebasket after they left." Tobin unfolded it. Columns of numbers filled the page, arranged in the format of a port authority ledger. The numbers sat in the usual places, but they didn't match any shipment he knew about. "Where did this come from?" "Councilor Tal was using it to take notes." Mira bit her lip. "Tobin, something is happening. The whole estate is on edge. Dovan Lir came back from the mainland two days ago and he's been arguing with Kestrel. The servants are scared." Dovan and Kestrel Lir. The two sons of old Marius Lir, who had ruled Vess for six generations. Dovan was the older, but Kestrel had always been their father's favorite. If they were fighting, the whole port would feel it. "Did Voss ask about me?" Mira's voice went quiet. "He asked if you were still working the Black Dock. Councilor Tal said she'd had you watched." Tobin crumpled the paper. The scar on his hand throbbed. He remembered the look on Voss's face when he signed the dismissal order. He remembered the chains. "Why would Tal have me watched? I'm nobody." "You're not nobody. You're the man who reads marks. Everyone knows it." Mira put her hand on his arm. "They just don't know what to do about it." Tobin stood. The tide was pulling back and the water below the stair had dropped. He could see the old gate mechanism, rusted and sealed, covered in weeds. Somewhere under the port, the real records were waiting. The second ink. The truth about the Lir family and the port authority and everything Voss had tried to bury. "I have to go," he said. "Stay close to the estate. Don't take risks." "What are you going to do?" "Find out who's marking Brack's goods. Then find out what Voss is planning." He squeezed her hand. "If I'm not back by tomorrow night, go to Greta's smokehouse. She'll hide you." Mira nodded. She didn't cry. She never did. Tobin walked down the stair and into the dark. The water was low, the pilings slick with algae. Magic residue clung to everything, soaked into wood and stone and iron. Some of it old. Some of it fresh. Someone was working magic on the Black Dock tonight. Tobin turned toward the warehouse district, where the fresh residue was strongest. He had two days to find the tagger before Brack made good on his threat. Two days to figure out who was watching him and why. The first thing he needed was a name. The spiral mark on the crate was a signature. Every magic user had one, whether they knew it or not. The shape of the residue, the way it curled and settled, told you who had cast the spell. He knew that spiral. He'd seen it before. It belonged to a man who was supposed to be dead.