"He did not widen."
"Good," Gray said. "Now hurt one thing." He pointed at the coin still warm on the deck. "That, not everything around it."
Pelly clicked his chopsticks once, warning and permission in the same sound. "Barrel stays. Deck stays. Captain's hand remains unboiled."
"Ambitious," Andrew said. He tugged his rope and a small cloud slid over, patient and square, settling just off the practice square like a cushioned edge. "If anyone is dramatic, I'll be polite about catching them."
Teuton planted himself by the rail. "If anyone is dramatic, I'll be annoyed."
Ace rolled his shoulders. The ache behind his breastbone sat there like a note not yet played. He set his feet as the ship breathed under him.
"Add a constraint," Gray said. He lifted a thin length of thread from his pocket, tied it to a splinter on the rail, and let the coin hang from it so the metal kissed the deck without resting on it. "Pierce the coin. Leave the thread untouched."
"That's petty," Pelly said, approving.
"Petty keeps us alive," Gray said.
Ace exhaled and brought the fire up in a line. The urge to make a cone flexed in his hands; he let the urge exist without obeying it. The wire of flame leaned toward the coin.
The thread smoked.
"Stop," Pelly said.
Ace cut the heat. The smoke thinned, left a brown whisper on the white thread like a fingerprint of impatience.
"You're treating everything as the target," Gray said. "Hurt one thing."
Ace nodded. He put the urge back into his breath and tried again. He set the wire closer to the coin's center, lifted it a hair higher, and refused the spread the way you refuse a bad habit.
The thread darkened again, less than before. The coin warmed a meaner red.
"Better," Gray said. "Smaller."
Alder hummed under his breath with the wheel steady in his hands. Abel watched the horizon with half a glance angled in Ace's direction. Latin's fan whispered open and shut. Bard's bow drew nothing but timing out of the air.
Ace held the wire until his eyes went cross. He felt the ship's minute sway and let the sway tell him when to lean. He shaved heat off the edges of the line until it was all center and no show.
The coin whispered. The thread stayed white.
"Now you are interesting," Pelly said.
Ace brought the point down one breath's height more. The coin's skin pushed back. He found the pressure he had felt on Gray's palm and pressed into it as if the metal had a door and he had found the keyhole.
A ring around the coin's center softened. The thread trembled but did not char.
"Stop," Gray said.
Ace pulled back, blinking the ghost of the line out of his vision. The coin settled, a slick of steam breathing off it. The deck was clean. The thread was not.
"Progress," Gray said.
[LOGBOOK][COIN TEST: BETTER WITH A RULE. HE LISTENS WHEN THE RULE HAS TEETH.]
"Again," Gray said.
Ace nodded. He heard Andrew's rope sigh as the cloud edged closer, as if sympathy could take shape and sit down. He brought the wire up and made it smaller because there was nowhere left for it to go but into patience.
"Don't flex to show off," Gray said. "Flex to fit."
"This is the first time I like your advice," Pelly said.
"You liked my dessert," Gray said.
"I liked Andrew's dessert," Pelly said. "I tolerated your happiness."
The coin's surface went dull-silver. Ace kept his breath thin. When the urge to widen spiked, he filed it down with the memory of magma and the knowledge that trying to be impressive had gotten him killed. Hurt one thing.
The wire kissed the center. The metal resisted and then softened. A soft edge formed in a place that wasn't edges yet.
"Stop," Gray said.
Ace did, and this time a fleck of light clung to the hole that was not quite a hole.
"Angle," Gray said. He set his own hand out and let black fire bloom in a hair of darkness. "Your line drops straight. The thread feels your heat because you do not think in angles."
Gray lowered his flame so it looked like a balanced needle hovering. He didn't touch the coin. He touched the air around the coin so carefully the air seemed to hold its breath. The hanging thread didn't even discolor.
Ace watched the geometry rather than the drama. "You're stealing space from the heat."
"Good," Gray said. "Words that make sense. Do that."
Ace set the wire at an angle that felt wrong to his eyes and right to his skin. The coin accepted the whisper. The thread sat there, innocent, as if the flame belonged to a different world.
A tiny sound, like a midge trying to bite steel, ticked in the air. The coin's center darkened in a neat dot the size of the truth.
"Stop," Gray said.
Ace stepped back. He didn't grin. It felt too much like a beginning to spend on celebration.
[LOGBOOK][NOTE: HE LEARNED ANGLES. NEXT: MOTION.]
"Move it," Gray said.
Pelly groaned softly. "Of course."
Gray pinched the thread between two fingers and set the coin swaying. Not a wild swing—just enough to make the target complain about being predictable. The deck, the sway, the coin: three different musicians trying not to play at the same time.
"Catch the center," Gray said. "Hurt one thing that doesn't want to hold still."
Ace accepted the insult and the invitation. He let the ship teach him the beat. He waited for the moment when the coin's motion and the deck's motion canceled a fraction of each other, leaving a fragile quiet. He dropped the wire through that quiet.
The thread flashed tan and then paled. A second dot appeared in the coin's face, shy as a freckle.
"Closer," Gray said. "Again."
Alder made a minor adjustment to the wheel. Charles, still cross-legged, rolled his cup and beads and listened with his head turned as if the ocean had a mouth on a different side today.
"Noise is changing," Charles murmured. "Less salt, more iron."
"Words, not poetry," Pelly said, eyes on the thread.
"Signal wants a point," Charles said. "A point like that." He nodded at the wire in Ace's hand.
"Good to know fate is a fan of geometry," Andrew said.
Teuton scratched his jaw. "Fate can row if it wants to help."
Ace brought the wire down again on the sanded beat between sway and sway. The dot deepened. The thread kept its innocence.
"Again," Gray said, pleased.
The work borrowed silence. Even Bard respected it. Latin stopped flicking the fan. Abel announced, without moving his head, "Horizon clean."
"Keep it so," Pelly said.
Ace kept the angle, the breath, the refusal to widen. He learned that patience had steps. He stood on the lowest one and reached for the next. The coin started to look like a problem that enjoyed being solved.
"Harder," Gray said softly. "You will not always have time to listen. Teach your hands to hear faster than your ears."
Ace narrowed the wire until it felt like it might wink out. He shoved that fear down into his wrists and pushed. The dot in the coin punched clean. The sound was tiny and rude.
The thread did not brown.
"Stop," Gray said.
Ace did. The hole admitted the sun in a sliver. He looked at it as if it might look back and tell him a secret.
[LOGBOOK][MOTION DRILL: PASS. THREAD REMAINS PRETTY. NEXT: SPEED.]
"Now do it before I finish a sentence," Gray said.
"Do not encourage him to rush," Pelly said, scandalized on principle.
"Speed is not rush," Gray said. "Speed is memory executed without doubt."
He set the coin swinging again, faster. He opened his mouth. "Do—"
The wire flicked. The dot appeared. The thread was innocent as weather.
"—it," Gray finished, a shade amused. "Acceptable."
Pelly's mouth did something dangerous to his cigarette. "Unacceptable that I am impressed."
"Get used to it," Andrew said. "We live with talent."
Teuton grunted approval in his dialect of understatement.
Ace let the wire dissipate and flexed his fingers. Heat faded. The point behind his breastbone eased, not gone but quieter, as if it had been listened to properly for once.
"Again," Gray said.
Ace brought the wire back. He repeated the work until repetition stopped being repetition and became shape. The hole's edge sharpened. The coin spun a little and then settled. The thread still did not know it had been in danger all this time.
"Enough," Pelly said at last. "The deck is smug. I hate smug."
"Food," Andrew said, without moving toward the galley yet.
"Course holds," Alder reported. "Feel of the sea is steady. Fate?"
Charles rolled his cup and smiled at something only he could hear. "The door is still a door. The key is getting sharper."
"Flattery," Pelly said dryly, which was as close as he came to praise.
Gray took the thread in his fingers and tore it with a quick jerk. He flipped the coin to Ace. Ace caught it without burning himself or the air around them.
"Souvenir of your first good day," Gray said. "Don't wear it. Put it in your pocket so you remember you haven't earned it yet."
"I like hate-presentations," Pelly said. "They keep expectations honest."
Ace slid the coin into his pocket. It felt heavy, which was ridiculous and correct.
[LOGBOOK][ACE MADE A HOLE IN A COIN WITHOUT HURTING WHAT HELD IT. HE UNDERSTANDS SMALLER. HE UNDERSTANDS ANGLES. I AM RUNNING OUT OF PLEASANT WAYS TO BE SURPRISED.]
Gray's grin tilted. "Last test before you eat."
"Of course," Pelly said to no one. "Of course there is a last test."
Gray plucked a second coin from nowhere a captain keeps such things and set it on his knuckles. He didn't look at Ace. He looked at the sea, at a point none of the rest of them could see.
"When it leaves my hand," Gray said, "mark it before it turns over twice. One dot. No thread to blame if you miss. Hurt one thing while it refuses to wait."
He tossed the coin.
Ace lifted his hand. The wire woke.
[Foreshadow] Target-on-the-move drills will decide the first real fight that matters.