Pip brings a tin cup because Pip believes in evidence that fits in a pocket.

West of the Slip, the Brin is still a river: brown, sure, talking over stones you cannot see. A few boat-lengths east, the inner harbor goes cloudy-green. You dip. You taste. You dip again farther, toward the kelp’s inner edge, and salt writes its name on your tongue.

In the shallows, fry stitch themselves into the mix. Mudlarks pick. A heron stands like a question nobody has to answer. This is the estuary: not a border painted on paper, a room where two waters make a third kind of work.

Wren’s extra nets here would be a thief in a nursery. Kade’s chest, inland of this pantry, still holds a coat that belongs to the Stack north of the bar—not to the ledger.

A channel marker—Wren’s hurry last week—leans drunk on its perch, wand knocked askew. Boats will guess wrong if it stays lying.