The night smelled of wet rope and old tar. Moonlight lay thin across the water like a pale ribbon. Kael dismounted where the quay gave way to a muddied path and tied his horse to a post that groaned under the weight of tide and time. He walked without haste. The ledger's entries had been a map enough. He felt their ink under his skin, an old obligation pulling him forward.
Footsteps and voices skated over the boards of the wharf. Lanterns swung on low hooks, painting brief islands of gold on the planks. Men moved like ghosts between the shadows, shoulders hunched against the wind. The Black Wharf had no shame about what it hid. It kept secrets with the same blunt loyalty it used to tie cargo.
Kael kept his hood low and his head bent. He carried nothing more than the scrap of paper and the uneasy certainty that someone waited. He had imagined the meeting a dozen ways: as danger, as trap, or as an ally stepping out of the dark. Each possibility felt like a coin he dared not flip.
He reached the notch in the quay where the water cut a small inlet and the boards gave space for a figure to stand. The person there faced the sea, hands clasped behind their back like a sentinel. When the figure turned, the face revealed itself to be neither old nor young. It was weathered, yes, the kind of face that could remember the faces of many ports, but the eyes were sharp and alert.
"You came," the figure said. The voice was low and even. "Good. I did not send for a prince to scare him."
"I could ask the same," Kael answered. He kept his tone guarded. "Who are you?"
The figure bowed slightly as if in courtesy rather than in submission. "Names matter less here than timetables," he said. "Call me Merrow."
Kael had expected a merchant, a smuggler, perhaps a petty criminal. Merrow did not fit any single label. There was a careful economy to the man. His hands were scarred in small, precise places that spoke of rope and knife and the ordinary violence of docks. Yet he carried himself with a kind of respect that came from knowing which loyalties were worth holding.
"You know Elira," Kael said. The name was a small shard of glass he held before the man's face.
Merrow's jaw tightened. "I knew a woman the sea loved like a child. She was not the Saint yet. She was a woman who could make sailors tell the truth when they lied for coin. She had a laugh that could sting. I kept a small favor for her once. A thing of no value to some, but priceless to others."
Kael stepped closer. "We found some of her things beneath Everfell. The house led me. It led Seraphina too."
Merrow's eyes flicked toward the dark outline of the palace on the cliff. "Everfell keeps its own. That is why men leave things at the wharf. They hope the sea will be kinder than a ledger."
"You sent the note," Kael said. "Did you mean me harm?"
"No." Merrow's mouth made a small line, almost a smile. "I meant you awake. You keep your guilt on a shelf like a ceremonial sword, Prince. It is heavy and it collects dust. Some debts need air."
Kael felt the weight of the accusation, heavier because it was true. He folded his hands behind his back in a similar posture. "If you want something returned, say it plainly."
Merrow tossed a small bundle onto the planks between them. It landed with a dull thud and unwrapped itself in the lantern's glow. Inside was a fragment of sail, its weave worn but familiar. A small child's token had been stitched to it, a painted bead that had once hung from a toy.
Kael touched the fragment and felt a cold bloom spread through him. The piece smelled of salt and something older, a memory almost living. "This was in Everfell," he said.
Merrow nodded. "You carry more than you know. Men trade favors as if they were currency. Some of those favors have a cost they do not pay with coin. They pay with silence."
"Who took these?" Kael asked. His voice was more urgent now, not from anger but from a sudden, sharp need to account.
"People who thought their hands were clean," Merrow said. "People who wrote themselves out of debt by writing others into it. Men who gave money with the intention of covering what might have been called scandal. Logs that name nothing are the most dangerous. They made the Saint a story and then sold that story as safety."
Kael swallowed. Each word carved a deeper channel in his mind. He had always kept his distance from the small cruelties of governance. He had followed counsel and decree. He had not thought of the ledger as a weapon until the house placed a page in his hands and made him read his own name.
"Do you want me to return this to the sea?" Kael asked. The words left his mouth like a small prayer.
Merrow considered the fragment in Kael's hand. "Either return it, or tell me why you kept it. If you have reasons, explain them so that we can shape what must be done next. Secrets left unspoken breed worse things."
"The council said it was necessary," Kael said. The old phrase felt thin under the salt air. "They feared a power they could not control. They feared what she might become."
"And did they fear rightly?" Merrow asked. "Or did they fear the truth of their own smallness?"
Kael had no answer that did not feel like betrayal. He held the sail fragment up to the moon. The small bead caught the light and seemed to spin a tiny story all its own.
"Merrow," he said finally, "if I return this, will the house stop calling me?"
The man's eyes did not soften. "The house will speak for as long as it needs. Returning a thing might quiet a wound for a night. It will not undo what was written. Only an account will do that."
"What account?" Kael asked.
"A reckoning," Merrow said plainly. "Not a public burning, not a proclamation. An honest ledger where names are set and reasons told. A table where debts are named and settled. You are a man of law, Prince. You used the law as a blanket. Now the law must be used as a mirror."
The wind tugged at the lanterns and the boards creaked like old lungs. Kael felt the enormity of Merrow's words. A public accounting would be chaos. A private arrangement might quiet the house, but it would leave marrow-deep wounds unexposed. He had to choose between the palace and truth, and the two felt like two different bodies he had once owned at the same time.
"I need time," he said.
Merrow shrugged as if time were a small favor he could give. "Time is a tide. Use it carefully. There are other watchers too. If you delay, men with harder hands will act without your counsel. Some call themselves keepers and they keep different kinds of books."
Kael looked at the man, the sea, and the pale ribbon of moon. There was a small absurd comfort in the fact that the world outside Everfell made demands of him that could not be answered by decree. It was messy and human. It required him to step down from the throne's perch and walk among people.
"Return the piece now," Merrow said. "Let the sea have it. The act will not absolve but it will be seen."
Kael hesitated only a moment more. He took the fragment and walked to the water's edge. The tide licked at the planks and sent a cold breath up his legs. He untied the small bundle of cloth and held it over the water. The sea accepted the offering without curiosity. He watched the beads catch the moon and sink into memory.
When he turned back, Merrow had already retied the knot on his coat.
"There will be more," Merrow said.
Kael nodded. "Then tell me who else I should speak to. I will follow the ledger."
Merrow named three places: a warehouse by the north quay, a tavern called The Clinging Oar, and a ship captain who kept his logs in a chest that never saw daylight. He spoke each name without flourish, like a man reciting a list of provisions.
"Do this quietly," Merrow cautioned. "Some of these men have family and pride. Pride is a fragile thing. Break it the wrong way and you will find enemies who will cut deeper than memory."
Kael felt the map of tasks spread before him like a chart. The house would still speak. Seraphina would still watch. The ledger had given him work that was as much confession as duty.
He mounted his horse with a new steadiness. The Black Wharf receded behind him into the dark, its lanterns bobbing like distant stars. He carried the stain of the sea on his fingers and the knowledge that every item returned would be a small repair. It might not heal the wound, but it would mark him as someone who took steps.
The palace rose behind him like a silhouette of obligation. Everfell had not been quiet while he was away. He knew the house would greet his return not with forgiveness but with expectations.
The night held its breath as he rode. Somewhere, faint and patient, the house whispered his name and the word remember. He let it speak. He had work to do.