"Who do you work for?"
"I'm independent. Charter work, nothing permanent."
Rafe grabbed a fistful of the man's shirt and pulled him off the rail. Not hard enough to hurt. Hard enough to make the point that hard enough was available. The man's feet scrambled on the deck.
"Let me try that again. Who hired you to dock in Hollow Oak without filing a mooring record?"
"I don't know his real name. He goes by Sloane. Paid me to run messages and keep an eye on dock traffic." The words came fast. "That's it. Messages and observation. I'm not muscle."
"What messages?"
"Sealed letters. I don't read them. He pays well enough that I don't need to."
"Who do the letters go to?"
"Traders. Freight runners. People on the river. I drop them and leave." He was breathing hard. "Look, I'm a courier. That's all."
Rafe held him there for another three seconds. Then he let go. The man stumbled back against the rail, apple rolling across the deck.
"You're going to leave Hollow Oak today," Rafe said. "And you're going to tell Sloane that I know he's here. That's the only message you're carrying from now on."
He stepped off the charter and walked back up the dock. His hands were steady. His wolf was not.
Dex met him halfway. "Confirm?"
"Malrick's running a courier out of that charter. Sealed letters to traders on the river. The forged manifest, the rumors about weather magic, the timing of all of it. He's orchestrating from somewhere close."
"Close enough to watch the western path at night."
"Yes."
Rafe sucked in his patience as he looked out over the lake. The afternoon light was cutting gold across the surface. Somewhere beyond the tree line, Isla was at her cottage or at Corin's meadow or hauling sandbags along a retaining wall, and she didn't know that the man dismantling Rafe's livelihood was the same one who'd left a note at her door. He was sure of it now.
She had to know. At least that’s what he told himself when he went to her cottage that evening.
The walk was becoming familiar, which bothered him. The birch path, the beekeeper's field, the point where the lake became visible through the trees. His wolf settled into something calmer with each step west, and he resented the animal for it because calm was not what this situation called for.
She opened the door before he knocked. She'd been at the window, probably. Watching the path. Her hair was tied back,loose strands framing her face. She had a smudge of something dark on her forearm, dirt or charcoal.
"Lupeus."
"Can I come in?"
She stepped aside. The cottage was warm, the woodstove going. The kitchen table had a mug on it, half empty, and a book facedown near the lamp.
"I need to talk to you about something," he said.
"You look like a man who needs to talk about several things."
He almost smiled at that. "There’s rumors in town. About the storms, about the weather being connected to someone in Hollow Oak. You noticed anything shifting?"
"I noticed people stopped talking when I walked past them yesterday." She leaned against the counter. The same counter. He made himself not look at it. "Edgar at the Mercantile was careful with me. A woman on the herb shelf looked at me like she was running odds among other things."
"It's manufactured. Someone forged my supply manifest and posted it at the dock tavern, matching my route dates to storm losses on the river. The implication is that I'm using a stormcaller to sabotage competing trade."
Her face went still. "Using me."
"Using the idea of you. Nobody's named you directly. They don't have to. Everybody knows you're here."
