He did not widen.
The blank hung for a breath like a thought the sea hadn't decided to finish, then began to fall. Ace lifted his hand and set the wire where weight forgets to pretend—the blink. He didn't chase shine; he stole a sliver of balance. The line kissed iron, not proud, not loud. The blank tilted a rude hair and splashed short, water clapping politely instead of suing for war.
Pelly didn't smile. That was his way of being pleased. "Deck remains a deck," he reported.
"Acceptable," Gray said, as if he'd been waiting for the blank to choose manners.
The nameless hull to port watched them with gunports open—teeth shown, not used. A coil of rope arced from its foredeck in a lazy warning, too short to reach, long enough to declare ownership of the air between ships.
"They're speaking," Charles murmured, head tilted. "Words without words."
"Translation," Pelly said.
"Prove you can pass without widening," Charles said.
Gray's grin nudged Ace's shoulder without touching it. "Answer."
Ace kept the wire small in his palm the way a man keeps a promise he intends to keep again. He aimed not at rope or pride but where the rudder line on the nameless hull cut the day into math—the hinge of how it turns. He did not cut. He marked—a pinprick at the collar where leather met wood, enough to say I could, not enough to say I did.
The hull's stern twitched a courtesy left, then back. Gunports stayed open. The bell did not ring.
[LOGBOOK][BLANK: TILTED. RUDDER LINE: MARKED WITHOUT CUTTING. RESULT: COURTESY RETURNED.]
"Cloud," Andrew offered, because obedience was easiest to test by attempting it.
"No cloud," Gray said. "We keep rules."
"Rules," Pelly echoed, ticking chopsticks. "Don't widen. Choose one. Deck stays a deck. Cloud on order. Lines first. No one falls. Don't say names. Smile at fate."
Alder's hands made breath out of wood. "Helm steady," he said, which was a feeling as much as a sentence.
Damon checked a cleat with affection disguised as suspicion. Teuton shifted weight and the ship felt braver for it. Abel's eyes stayed on the nameless hull's hands—guns, ropes, wrists, intention.
The hull tried again. A man in a dark cap swung a lead line—sounding weight on cord—once, twice, then cast. It dropped just fore of their bow and bit water. A good lead tells truth. An angry one tells rumors.
"Choose," Gray said.
Ace selected the weight, not the cord, and set the wire where metal blinks into honesty after air has lied to it. A pin of heat nicked the edge at an angle that would steal space from the splash. The lead hit wrong, bobbed, told a polite false depth, and got hauled in with a frown that sounded like cursing from across water.
"Petty," Pelly said, approving. "Best dialect."
[LOGBOOK][SOUNDING WEIGHT: NUDGED AT BLINK. THEIR DEPTH READ LIES. ESCALATION: NONE.]
Wind tested the rules by freshening; the choke ahead showed its spine in a braid of foam. The nameless hull slid a yard to starboard and left a thin vein of water between two pale jaws—a hinge within hinge.
"That's a courtesy," Damon said, surprised enough to be respectful. "Professionally, I approve."
"Don't thank strangers," Pelly said. "They'll think we have hearts."
"We have stomachs," Andrew said.
"We feed stomachs after we live," Pelly said.
Charles turned his cup and listened to the way nothing answered. "Breath to starboard," he said. "One degree, then back. Walk the vein. Don't widen; it wakes."
"Alder," Gray said.
"Aye," Alder said, and the wheel listened.
Ace's hands started shaking late, polite as always. He turned them palm-down and let the shadow of the rail pretend to own them. Cost, not failure. He repeated Gray's words until the shake learned manners.
"Blink work only," Gray said, soft enough for crew and sea. "If it isn't a hinge, let it be."
A knotted float slid from the nameless hull's quarter and drifted across the vein, not a block, a test. Ace let it float. Choosing is a rule. He set the wire instead on a curl of white water that wanted to pretend it was a hand. A small kiss; the curl forgot its plan and laid down.
"Acceptable," Gray said.
The gunports stayed open because some courtesies need teeth to feel honest. The bell rang once, then held its breath.
"Translation," Pelly said.
"Proceed," Charles said.
They did, at a walk that only looked like a stroll if you didn't know how much math lived in it. Damon let a line run two inches and stop. Teuton bent and lifted a coil off the deck just because a deck that can trip you should never get a chance to be smug. Abel touched nothing with his hands and everything with his eyes.
The nameless hull's bow nodded—once, a fraction. Ace felt the weight of that not-nod like a coin he wanted to spend later.
"One more courtesy to pay," Gray said. "Ace—kiss, don't bite."
"Where," Ace asked, already aiming.
"Here," Gray said, and directed his eyes at a belly plank where water fangs churned a sliver of whirl. Not their hull. The sea's hinge. "If you let that spin widen, it will take our stern. Unspin it, smaller than pride."
Ace breathed with the ship. The needle landed like a polite comment in a loud room. The whirl hiccuped, remembered childhood, and decided not to make a speech. The stern slid past; the wake did not learn a new shape.
[LOGBOOK][WHITE WATER: NUDGED. WHIRL: UNWOUND. NAMED NOTHING, SAID HELLO.]
"Kitchen after this vein," Pelly bargained with reality.
"Kitchen after rules," Gray said, which sounded the same, only more tyrannical.
A rope buoy from the nameless hull drifted close enough to read the mends in its weave. Ace left it alone. He had learned to choose one thing and not apologize to gravity for the rest.
"Good," Gray said, not looking, knowing.
The vein doglegged. Alder turned the wheel a breath before Charles could nod. Damon's mouth made a near-smile. Teuton let a noncommittal grunt pass for applause.
Abel said, "Gunports closing," as if narrating weather. "No chase. We are a story they decided not to read."
"Mutual relief," Pelly said.
The bell did not ring again. The hull slid away the way a decision backs out of a room without turning its back.
"Note the hinge," Gray said, and took up the book.
[HULL WITH TEETH: COURTESY TRADED. PASSED THE VEIN. NO NAMES, NO SHOW.]
They emerged from the choke's private grammar into swell that wanted to be poetry and failed. Ahead, the teeth of Rocks climbed the sky in stacked cuts: black stone, white water, blue rage. Between two jaws a ribbon of calm was pretending to exist.
"Rules," Pelly said again, out of habit and superstition.
"Don't widen," the crew said together, because sometimes liturgy keeps hands steady.
Andrew bounced on his toes and didn't ask for cloud. He had learned.
"Status," Gray said.
Alder: "Helm steady. Breath from port."
Abel: "Horizon adds foam and rumor; no flags."
Damon: "Lines right. I will complain later about what we asked them to do."
Teuton: "I will catch anyone who forgets fear."
Colin: "I will plug what leaks."
Charles: "Door: teeth; hinge: thin; answer: small."
Ace rolled his shoulders. The shake had quieted. The nail in his pocket pressed a simple truth into his leg: bite, don't brag.
"Choose one channel," Gray said, eyes on the ribbon between fangs. "If the sea offers a dozen, it is lying. The right one will blink."
Ace lifted his hand. He didn't aim at the ribbon's loudest glitter. He watched for the instant when the foam forgot to sell itself and water showed the seam of its plan. There—the blink—a soft dip no one would see unless they'd spent a week insulting coins.
He set the wire there and touched water, not to burn, to tilt. The dip darkened. The ribbon held.
"Acceptable," Gray said, softer than the wind. "Again."
They walked the ship into the throat of Rocks, rule by rule. White jaws hissed on either side and forgot them because they refused to be large enough to notice.
"Kitchen after you keep doing that," Pelly said, which was love, transliterated.
Alder breathed with the wheel in fractions and then decimals. Damon threaded a line as if unpicking a story. Teuton's hands hovered near nobody and meant everybody. Abel named nothing and watched everything. Charles let his cup sit, empty, because prophecy doesn't drink while navigation thinks.
Ace kissed a second blink—a foam lip that wanted to argue its case. It chose silence instead.
[LOGBOOK][ROCKS: TEETH SEEN. CHANNEL: CHOSEN. WE ANSWERED SMALL.]
A growl under the keel made Damon squint like a teacher realizing someone had cheated with elegance. "We are above something unforgiving," he observed.
"We always are," Pelly said.
The ribbon narrowed. The right-hand tooth spat a thin tongue of foam into their lane; a left-hand breaker curled a jealous shoulder.
"Choose one," Gray said, so gentle Ace almost smiled.
Ace chose the tongue. He pricked its base at the blink where push becomes spill. The tongue lost interest. The jealous shoulder sulked into beauty.
"Acceptable," Gray said. He tipped his chin toward the next seam. "Again."
They were inside. The world pared itself down to frames, then to beats, then to breaths. Ace set pin after pin into water, a conversation that asked for respect and got it. The ship threaded teeth.
"After this," Pelly said, "I will demand dessert."
"You will receive rules," Gray said.
"I will receive dessert," Pelly said.
"Translation," Andrew whispered to Ace, delighted. "He will receive dessert."
The ribbon kinked once more, an S where there should have been a line. Hinge within hinge. Ace set the wire at the hinge, not the noise. The S remembered it was two straight lines having a panic.
The world opened by a finger's width and then another.
Outside the jaws, a swell flexed its back. "Alder," Charles said, simple as air.
"Aye," Alder answered, already there.
The last blink before the channel widened presented itself like a dare delayed. Ace put the answer there and felt the sea decide to be reasonable in public.
They slid out of the teeth and into a bowl of calmer blue that had nothing to recommend it except the fact that it existed.
Pelly's exhale was a mathematical proof. "Kitchen."
Gray let himself nod once. "Kitchen. Short."
Ace lowered his hand. The shake hadn't come back. It would. Cost, not failure. He could afford it.
The bowl did not stay quiet out of generosity. Ahead, the black siding of Rocks proper lifted in cliffs and broken plates, with caves shaped like mistakes. Lines of white where water failed to forget itself wrote stubborn margins.
"Choose one," Gray said softly, but he wasn't looking at water. He was looking at the places where ships had tried to be remembered.
"We will not be remembered by being loud," Pelly said. "We will be remembered by continuing to exist."
"Acceptable," Gray murmured, and his grin sharpened as if an old appetite had woken. He flicked his eyes to Ace. "Show me one more hinge."
"Which," Ace asked.
"The ribbon's throat," Gray said, pointing into white where a narrows pinched their bowl to something that wanted to be a question. "Choose one channel."
Ace lifted his hand.
He did not widen.