"Grate or shove," Gray said, delighted. "One."
Ace did not widen.
The cross shove shouldered in from starboard with the confidence of bad advice. Above, the grate found its rhythm and dropped, chain spelling a word made of iron and intention.
Choose the hinge. Ace took the grate.
He set the needle at the grate's cheek where tooth rides track, the small part that moves first when mass pretends it is noble. The blink lived there—between pull and seat—thin as a lie ending. Ace pricked once at the guide, then once at the pivot a finger's width away so the first pin wouldn't be alone. He angled the heat to steal space from the metal so the bite stayed in the hinge, not the grid.
Iron hesitated. The grate hung, all its weight suddenly ashamed of gravity.
"Acceptable," Gray said.
The shove still came. Alder breathed into the wheel and shaved a degree he immediately gave back. Damon leaned a brace until wood and rope remembered manners. Teuton set a boot and made mass do what it was told.
"Deck remains a deck," Pelly reported, because saying it makes the universe resent you less.
[LOGBOOK][CHOICE: GRATE FIRST. GUIDE + PIVOT PRICKED. DROP HESITATED. CREW ATE THE SHOVE.]
The water's second shoulder arrived to see if the first had simply been timid. It pressed, not harder, just ruder. Ace let it be. Choose one. He kept his eyes on the grate's decision—a tiny stutter where weight tried to remember the plan. He did nothing and the grate, denied the hinge it needed, chose to stay almost and called it virtue.
"Good," Gray said, warm as a blade. "Now let it regret us later."
A thin click answered from the left wall—ratchet pawl finding tooth. Someone had built a safety that wasn't safe for guests. The pawl's spring began to speak in the high voice of small metal that believes in rules.
"Choose one," Gray said.
Ace took the pawl. He waited for the blink—spring stretch becoming seat—and put a single kiss into the spring's shoulder, not to burn, to ease. The pawl lost its appetite for work and decided to supervise instead. The grate stayed hesitating, then sulked.
Damon's mouth twitched. "Whoever made this just felt tired and doesn't know why."
"Good," Pelly said. "Let them blame weather."
They slid clear of the grate while its chain tried to be brave. The alley bent. Water darkened like a hand passing over it. A trip-line skated just under the skin on the return arc—set to sing if anyone stroked it wrong.
Charles tilted his head. "Breath out… breath in… now."
Ace did not touch the line. He let the blink carry them past without performance. Choosing is a rule. His hands stayed small. The line never learned it had almost had an audience.
"Acceptable," Gray murmured, which meant he had been waiting to see if Ace had learned to leave a thing without feeling small.
[LOGBOOK][PAWL SPRING: EASED. TRIP-LINE: LEFT UNSUNG. RESULT: NOBODY HEARD US.]
Cold licked the hull from starboard: the counterweight again, different shaft, new sulk. The slit before them inhaled—a throat no wider than a stubborn opinion. The chain's chant said pull… seat in a hurry that made failure probable.
"Collar," Gray said.
Ace set the needle where link meets link, the little collar that pretends to be continuous and must be reminded it isn't. He waited for the inhale's blink and pressed smaller than courtesy. The chain slacked a hand's width. The gate eased enough to pretend it had meant to.
Alder took the gift. Damon made the brace a friend. Teuton eyed the ceiling like a man willing to argue with stone if he had to.
Andrew had his rope in both hands and the cloud in neither. He held still and looked like restraint in human clothes.
They passed through the slit's shoulder; the cold softened to indifference.
"Stop making it look easy," Pelly said. "It offends my sense of drama."
"I'm saving it for the kitchen," Andrew said.
"No one applauds the kitchen," Pelly said.
"I do," Andrew said. "Very loudly."
The passage opened into a well where black walls wore pale rubs in the shape of other people's mistakes. A scrap of lantern light lived in a ceiling hole and died of embarrassment.
"One more human hinge," Abel said, weight shifting by a breath, eyes conducting math. "Port side, low."
They eased along the port wall. A shutter lived there, lower than the others, its pivot caked with a hundred patient years. It had not decided to fall yet. It had decided to warn first: a faint tremor where metal prepared to remember being a door.
Ace inhaled with it and did nothing. Then, when the tremor blinked, he put a single pin on the pivot's lip—agreement with the past, not a correction. The tremor chose to be a story instead of an action.
"Acceptable," Gray said. He flicked a glance at the coil. "Log it."
He wrote without putting his eyes on the page.
[SHUTTER (LOW): PIVOT KISSED ON BLINK. CHOSE MEMORY OVER MOTION.]
They coasted into a narrower throat that borrowed light from regret. The wash under the keel started to hum in the way water does when it wants to name itself current and needs permission.
"Hold," Gray warned softly.
Ace held. Cost, not failure. His hands had not started to shake again. They might after. He did not tell them when.
The throat made an S like a man changing his mind without witnesses. Alder bent the wheel two degrees and bent it back one. Damon slid a cleat the length of an apology. Teuton adjusted gravity by discovering a better place to stand.
Ahead, a grille most men would have missed waited like a bad idea behind good manners—low, wide, with bars thick enough to remember mercy but spaced for insults. No chain this time; a counter-spring in the wall that would fire down if asked. The water on its lip blinked.
"Choose," Gray said.
Ace chose neither. He chose the spring. He kissed its seat at the blink where cocked becomes ready, not to free, to discourage. The spring kept believing in itself, only with less enthusiasm. The grille waited for a cue it didn't receive.
"Sometimes the best hinge answer is a yawn," Pelly said.
"We do not teach yawning," Gray said. "We inspire it."
[LOGBOOK][GRILLE SPRING: SEAT DISCOURAGED. RESULT: NO DROP.]
The well loosened its jaw and then gave them a window of light to starboard—thin, vertical, taller than a man, not tall enough for dignity. Through it, a silhouette sat still against bruised blue: a ship, not large, not loud, in the posture of someone listening with their hands.
Abel spoke without adding volume to the day. "Hull at rest. Sails furled. Lines aboard. Lantern doused. Watching."
"Don't widen," Gray said, gentle as blade oil. "We knock. We do not show."
"Cloud?" Andrew asked, not hopeful, just thorough.
"No cloud," Gray said. "If they want weather, they can buy it."
Pelly set his ash dish down like a judge setting down mercy. "Deck remains a deck," he reminded history. "Let's not give it a reason to become an anecdote."
Charles tilted his head. "Door with ears," he said. "Hinge that belongs to hands."
"Translation," Pelly said.
"They will answer a small thing," Charles said.
Gray took a coin from nowhere he never bothered to explain. He rolled it once on his knuckles and did not throw it. He just looked at Ace and let the world be a sentence with one word missing.
Ace lifted his hand.
He did not widen.