Wren’s extra nets smell like old work and new panic.

They are good nets. That is the problem. Last week’s storm made lace of the other set; this hill of green is the spare life of a boat. Wren is not cartoon-greedy. Wren is a person who has seen a table get quiet.

“Kelpie’s running,” Wren tells anyone. “Better to take fish before it takes us.”

Which is how a warning-story gets turned inside out: the horse meant stay off the bar, and hurry heard grab first.

Pip fingers a mesh. “These in the kelp nursery on a spring flood are a closed door with teeth.”

Kade’s chest sits in your head, cool and whole. A skin as salvage is the same shape of hurry: lock it so nobody else does, and you have still taken a door.

You can show Brine the nets and the hurry, and ask for the rule that is not spite.

You can sit on the quay with Pip and charcoal and draw the three stories apart until your hands stop shaking.