The ferry was late, and the tide would not wait for it. Kesh stood at the end of the jetty with the water climbing the pilings, counting the gulls the way her mother had taught her — not for luck, but to keep her hands from shaking.
Behind her the town was already closing itself up for the night: shutters drawn, lamps carried inward, the smell of woodsmoke folding down over the roofs. Nobody came to see her off. She had not expected anyone.
When the boat finally slid out of the dark it rode low, heavy with salt sacks stacked to the gunwales. The ferryman did not slow. He simply put out a hand, and she took it, and stepped across the gap of black water as if it were nothing at all.
⁂
They were an hour out before he spoke. “You’re the one who settled the Harrow debt,” he said. It was not a question, so she did not answer it.
The far shore was a low grey line that never seemed to come closer. Kesh pulled her coat tight and watched the wake unspool behind them, silver on black, and let herself believe — just for the length of the crossing — that she was going somewhere new.
