Merrick is delighted. Delight, on Merrick, looks like a gull who has found a shiny hook.

“One,” they say. “A seal-person whose coat is a door. You take the door, you take the home. Travelers needed a reason not to raid a haul-out for oil and hide, so they gave the reason a face.”

“Two. A water-horse in the millpond, the ford, the tidal bar—mane of foam, back that begs a rider, then down. The animal that grew that story never needed hooves. It needed a current and a person in a hurry.”

“Three. A village that marks the Promise-Post—closed days, small sets, leave the breeding rock—and the fish return. Spirit-bargain, some said. Still a stock, I say, and still a warning dressed as wonder.”

Merrick taps your knee. “People stitch. Drownings from far inlets. Seals’ eyes in the wet. A coat in a chest. Nobody had to be a villain. They had to be hungry and fond of a good tale.”

Pip glances toward Kade’s office, where the salvage chest sits like a held breath.

Merrick’s eyes follow. “Stories are pockets. Salvage is a pocket with a lock. Those are not the same kind of pocket.”