Chapter 209: Saltwater Engine

Salt water poured up through the docks.

Lines of blue spread across the dock planking. They broke through the stone and dragged supply crates into the rising water. The saltwater engine was screaming beneath the customs house. It was an ancient engine, built by demons to help push the rivers through the storm gates in times of emergency.

Keth had turned it into a weapon. Bells were ringing above them across the harbor, and the shouts of the evacuation line carried down through the cracks in the floorboards.

"The low docks are clear!" Corin called from the evacuation line. "The evidence sheets are stored in the customs house archive. The gate crews are at the western controls."

The canal pilot stood with him as he called out names from the labor roster. The workers didn’t follow a broker’s shouting. They followed the posted flood height, the gates that were open, and the stairways that were safe to use.

Austin Veyron’s crew made their way into the lower levels of the customs house. The steps were slick with salt water, and the lanterns hanging from the walls swayed as the engine shook.

The saltwater engine took up the entire space beneath the docks. It was a mass of blue iron pressure wheels and salt-glass tubes, groaning and hissing as the pressure built. Salt water sprayed everywhere, and the smell of brine hung in the air. The floor shook under Austin Veyron’s feet. At the engine’s core, a demon spun within a sphere of salt water, held in place by Blue Merchant chains.

The saltwater demon floated inside the sphere. Silver-blue markings shimmered beneath her skin, and coral ran up her arms. Her eyes opened when Austin Veyron approached.

"Keth commanded the engine to flood the square," she said from within the water. "He wants to destroy the contract evidence."

"Do you want the engine stopped?" Austin Veyron asked.

"I want to keep the harbor safe," she said. "I choose my own flow."

The pressure wheels let out a screech, and salt water flooded across the floor of the chamber. It was up to their knees now, and so cold it burned.

The salt water formed more constructs. They were shaped like the harbor workers, made of brine, barnacles, and blue lines from the ledger. Each one held a hook of flood water, and salt water streamed off them as they walked, leaving no trail behind.

THE HARBOR BELONGS TO THE ONE WHO HOLDS THE FLOOD.

The first construct struck the door to the customs house archive, its hook digging into the wood, and Tamsin stopped it with her spear. Rin’s claws cut one of the blue ledger lines from its arm, but the line grew back across its body. Veyra fought another in the rising water, her sword glowing blue in the reflected light.

Tessa and Ceryn carried the evidence sheets to a dry stone ledge above the engine. The Blue Merchant broker followed them. She was soaked through, but she stood tall with her broken blue ledger in her hand.

"I can testify that Keth used an engine that was sealed under charter," she said.

"Do you choose to testify?" Tessa asked.

She looked at the water, then at the harbor workers above them. "I do. My charter has rules that I am bound to follow. He believes he is above them because he thinks owning things makes him untouchable."

Keth called down from the catwalk above them, his voice echoing off the iron pipes.

"Rules are just what the rich call their chains when they’re the ones holding the keys!"

He was soaked up to his knees, and his black coat was torn at one shoulder. He held the red ledger in one hand and a salt-glass detonator in the other. "Flood the docks. They’ll have to buy from us by sunset."

Austin Veyron could feel the engine beneath him. DEVOUR felt it too. It wanted the water pressure. He could consume the engine and stop the flood altogether.

He could become the harbor’s private wall.

Veyra came to him through the water.

"Name it."

"I want the flood."

"What would that create?"

"It would make me the owner of what I’m saving them from."

Sable’s crown shard glowed through the spray. "Devour the claim, not the harbor."

Austin Veyron saw the words inside the saltwater constructs.

THE HARBOR BELONGS TO THE ONE WHO HOLDS THE FLOOD.

The engine was built to control water, not to give someone the right to own a city by flooding it.

"Target," Austin Veyron said. "The harbor-flood ownership claim. Not the engine. Not the demon core. Not the docks."

"Witnessed," Veyra said.

"Witnessed," Sable said.

Austin Veyron touched the white root chain to the nearest blue ledger line.

DEVOUR opened. The claim tasted like flooded streets being sold by people standing somewhere dry.

THE HARBOR BELONGS TO THE ONE WHO HOLDS THE FLOOD.

He consumed belongs.

The saltwater constructs fell apart into plain water. The ledger lines ripped free and vanished. The engine still roared, but it no longer obeyed Keth’s claim.

Nyra lifted her heart shard toward the demon core.

"The chains are separate from the pressure wheel," she said. "I can keep the bound current from reaching the harbor gates. But someone will need to choose where the flow goes."

The saltwater demon looked at Austin Veyron.

"I will choose," she said. "Open the western wheel and the south wheel. Close the inner gate. I can turn the flood away from the city and out to sea."

Corin’s voice came through the relay from above. "The west wheel crew is ready. The south wheel crew is ready. The inner gate crew needs the pressure count."

The demon spoke the number. Tessa repeated it, and Ceryn wrote it down. Each crew at the gates answered once they knew what they needed to do.

Keth saw what was happening, and his face twisted with anger.

He leaped from the catwalk onto the control rail, the detonator raised in his hand.

Veyra cut him off. Her sword knocked the detonator from his grip, and it shattered on the floor. He ran for the service tunnel, but Rin caught up to him and pinned his coat to the rail with her claws.

"You don’t understand," he growled. "The Blue Merchants will buy every gate and every canal. There isn’t enough time to witness it all."

Austin Veyron walked toward him through the water, the cold dragging at his legs with every step.

He could smell the demon in the broker: fear, red ink, and old water debts. DEVOUR wanted to devour all of it. It would be easy to take a life and gain power from it, to end one man’s power to hurt others.

But Keth wasn’t the engine. He was the proof of the contracts he had worked under.

"Do you choose to speak?" Austin Veyron asked.

"I choose nothing," Keth said with a laugh.

"Then you can speak when this harbor dries."

The crews began working the gates. Austin Veyron could hear them through the relay, calling to each other and straining against the old wheels.

West wheel open.

South wheel open.

Inner gate closed.

The saltwater demon core glowed a brilliant silver-blue. The chains that bound her loosened as Nyra held the current in check. She wasn’t freed because Austin Veyron devoured her power. She was freed because the claims were no longer being enforced on her flow.

The water rushed out through the western gates and into the sea. The south wheel opened and let the pressure drain from the low docks. The customs house stopped shaking, and the engine quieted to a hum.

The saltwater demon stepped out of her broken core, water dripping from the coral lines that ran up her arms.

"My name is Oona," she said. "I will guide the harbor’s flow with those who choose to work the gates. No broker will own the flood."

Above them, the water began to recede, draining out through the gates with a long, tired gurgle.

The workers made their way back to the square through the pools of water left behind, past overturned crates and tangled ropes and a fishing boat that had been lifted onto the stones. Corin pinned the evidence sheets up for everyone to see. He wasn’t shaking the way he had been at the auction. The Blue Merchant broker stood beside him and read her testimony: Keth had exceeded his charter by flooding the square with a sealed engine, and he had tried to destroy the public record of contracts.

Keth was marched up into the square in iron cuffs, still shouting. The crowd let him pass, but no one mocked him. They simply watched, which seemed to infuriate him more.

Tessa pulled open the red ledger they had recovered from the flood. "There’s more."

A page sealed with red wax held the next Blue Merchant contract.

RED TIDE CONCLAVE.

LOT: EMBER CANAL NETWORK.

Ceryn looked at the page and read what was written below. "The Ember Canals would let the Blue Merchants control water prices across three provinces. And every barge repair along with them."

Keth smiled again, but this time it was darker, and his cuffed hands rattled as he leaned forward.

"You saved a harbor," he said. "They’re buying a whole landmass."

Austin Veyron looked at the red wax trail that led to their next target. Above him, the dock workers were arguing about how to repair their docks. They were loud and rowdy and free.

This was only the beginning of their contract war.