"Before it blinks," the captain said.
Ace lifted his hand. The wire woke.
The coin went up fast enough to want to be a line instead of a circle. Sun took it and made it bright on purpose. The ship breathed. Pelly's chopsticks ticked once against his palm, a tiny, rude clock.
Ace dropped the wire on the way up. It skated past the rim without leaving a kiss. The coin reached the top, forgot how to be up, remembered how to be down, and came back into Gray's hand as if it had never been in doubt.
"Too early," Gray said, not unkind. "The blink is not the launch. It's the silence at the top. You can only hear it if you stop trying to be the loudest thing in the world."
"I enjoy being the loudest thing in the world," Pelly said. "Please don't take that from me."
Andrew let the rope exhale. A cloud drifted in and sat off the practice square like a polite stool that had done this before. "Insurance," he said. "And shade. Your coin is vain, captain."
"All my things are vain," Gray said. "Again."
He snapped the coin up. Ace watched not the glitter but the moment between. He kept the wire thin enough to frighten his own habits. The coin's climb thinned into a breath. Ace lowered the line into that breath.
A pinprick bit at the center. The coin fell; Gray caught it without looking.
"Acceptable," Gray said. "Again."
[LOGBOOK][VERTICAL TOSS: HE HEARD THE BLINK WHEN HE STOPPED TRYING TO IMPRESS THE SKY.]
Pelly glanced at the deck. "Still uncharred. You're welcome."
"Thank me when the day is over," Ace said.
"I never thank mid-shift," Pelly said. "It encourages fate."
Gray turned the next toss into a trick: same speed, lazier wrist. The coin pretended to be the previous coin until it wasn't. Ace aimed at the memory and missed by a breath, which felt like an honest miss and not a failure of character.
"Air is liar's work today," Charles observed from his carpet, rolling his cup. "It's full of words that don't finish."
"Words, not poetry," Pelly said.
"Air is messy," Charles translated.
"Then make it messier," Gray said, flicking a glance at Andrew.
Andrew smiled like a child about to misbehave. He pinched the rope and the cloud leaned over the deck and sweat a fine mist. The sunlight turned to a million tiny coins that didn't deserve to be caught.
"Hold your needle," Gray said. "The world will move. Do not."
Mist beaded on Ace's lashes. He didn't blink. He listened for the second when the coin forgot and the water didn't matter and the ship's breath paused to admire itself. He put the wire into that second, not wider, not proud.
The mark landed. The coin came back wet and offended.
"Better," Gray said. "Again."
They burned the drill into the day. The mist made the air complicated; Ace made the wire simpler. When the urge to widen rose like a rumor, he let it sit on his shoulder and did not invite it to his hand. He learned how mist made the heat veil at the edges; he shaved those edges down until there were no edges, only an answer.
"Two verticals," Gray said at last, balancing a coin on each finger. "You will want both. You get one."
Ace nodded. Hurt one thing.
Gray snapped them up with different spins. They climbed together, paused apart. Ace killed the reflex that reached for both and took the one that lied more convincingly. He hit the blink and left the other coin to gravity and Andrew's cloud.
"Choosing is a muscle," Gray said. "Do not let it atrophy."
"Atrophy is a fancy word for regret," Pelly said.
"Regret is a fancy word for dishes," Andrew said.
"Wash them then," Pelly said.
"I inspire washing," Andrew corrected.
Alder's hum shifted with a small change in the sea's shoulder. "Course holds."
Abel added, "Horizon clean. One gull thinks we're interesting."
"Pay it," Pelly said. "Buy silence."
Ace took the air back and made it forget it had ever argued with him. The coins rose, turned, blinked; the wire met them in the quiet without courting the noise.
"Over rail," Gray said, pleased enough to escalate. He threw the coin not up but out and then added insult by spinning it vertical mid-flight so that it wanted to climb while it fell.
Andrew's cloud slid under the arc with the patience of a good waiter. Ace went with it, not running, not rushing—memory without doubt. He waited for the minute-long second when down forgot to be down and the coin tried to be crown and failed. He put the wire there.
The mark landed. The coin bounced on the cloud as if embarrassed to need help.
[LOGBOOK][BLINK OVERBOARD: HIT. HE LET THE WORLD HELP WITHOUT FEELING SMALL. PROGRESS = TRUST.]
Ace let his breath out. The ache behind his sternum answered like a polite echo. Smaller, he told it, not to crush it but to teach it manners.
"Break," Pelly said, ticking the chopsticks once. "Fifty heartbeats. Then we ruin the concept of subtlety again."
Colin appeared with uncanny timing and a cup that tasted like a good decision. "Water."
"Debt noted," Ace said.
"Incorrect," Colin said, cheerful. "Debt compounding."
Andrew produced a small pastry and set it on a napkin at Gray's elbow as if he were bribing the weather. Gray took a bite and forgave the universe for existing.
"You will teach me to like your rules," Ace said.
"I will teach you to like your results," Gray said. He tapped a knuckle, once, against Ace's sternum, exactly over the ache that wasn't a wound. "Doubt lives here when it can't find rent elsewhere. Make it small. Doubt is a fire that loves range."
Ace nodded. Make it small. He looked at the logbook lying open on the coil beside Gray. "Per your rule," he said. "Write instead of telling."
"Yes," Gray said. He flicked sugar from his thumb. "Brackets. Show me first."
Ace took the pencil, found a clean corner, and wrote.
[I WILL MARK WHAT KILLED ME.]
He held the book. Gray read the line the way a man tests a rope before climbing. His smile didn't change shape, but its temperature moved.
"Acceptable," he said. "Keep the name off the page. Keep the bite on your hands."
Ace nodded and set the book down. Not wider. Smaller. One thing.
"Back to work," Pelly announced, because if he didn't schedule reality it would show up late.
Gray rolled three coins into his palm and sent them vertical, fast and neat and mean, one after another. "Two out of three," he said. "Before each blinks."
Ace didn't count. He listened. He hit the first blink; the coin came away complaining. He missed the second by a breath; the wire arrived as down retook the coin, and the mark skimmed the rim without buying a ticket. He caught the third clean at the top and let the heat bite and not boast.
"Name the miss," Gray said.
"Haste," Ace said automatically, and then, honest: "Hesitation. I tried to be careful at the top instead of certain."
"Good," Gray said. "Hesitation is wider than it looks. Make it small."
Pelly exhaled smoke sideways so it wouldn't touch the deck he was protecting with his entire personality. "Kitchen soon," he warned. "The cook's patience is shorter than a blink."
"After one last set," Gray said, because gravity had laws and so did he.
He varied the throws. He lied with his wrists and then told the truth. Ace refused to take the bait and took the beat instead. Mist beaded and slid from his lashes. He did not blink when the coin did.
[LOGBOOK][THREE FAST VERTICALS: TWO MARKS, ONE HESITATION. DIAGNOSIS: HE TRIED TO LOOK GOOD AT THE TOP. PRESCRIPTION: MAKE VANITY SMALL.]
Alder adjusted a degree and let the ship forgive him. Abel lifted his chin half a degree. "Horizon adds an island line," he said, quiet as a weather report. "Very far."
"Let it remain far," Pelly said. "We have coins to insult."
"Door is heavier," Charles murmured, listening to whatever he always listened to. "If you push, it will swing."
"We don't push doors," Gray said. "We learn the hinge."
"Poetry," Pelly said, scandalized. "Captain, control your scholar."
"He's not tame," Gray said, pleased. "Again."
They worked until repetition turned into shape again. Ace felt fatigue try to pretend to be wisdom. He refused it. He put the refusal into the needle and let the needle speak.
When Pelly finally said, "Enough," the day had not moved more than a handful of minutes and the ship had not shifted more than a polite nod, and yet Ace's hands knew things they had not known at dawn.
"Food," Andrew called, because mercy could arrive in bowls.
"One last thing," Gray said, because mercy enjoyed company.
Pelly sighed without heat. "Of course."
Gray flipped a coin to Ace. "Pocket that one. It remembers you now." He took another coin, pinched it vertical, then put it away. He pulled a small nail from a pouch and rolled it between finger and thumb until it caught light with a harder shine than a coin.
"Eat," he said. "After, we mark steel."
Ace looked at the nail and didn't mistake the jump in his pulse for fear. Smaller, he told it. One thing.
He followed the crew toward the galley. The logbook lay on the coil where the mist had not dared to fall, bracket line drying like a decision.
[LOGBOOK][AFTER FOOD: STEEL.]