"It defined yours. You built three routes off the back of that contract. Every client you took from me in the two years after traced back to the credibility you bought with stolen information." Rafe kept his voice even. The tavern noise covered them well enough, but he wasn't interested in giving Petch or anyone else a performance. "So when I hear your name asking after the Ashvane, when I find a courier running sealed letters out of an unregistered charter, when a forged manifest shows up on the supply board matching my route dates to storm losses, I don't need proof for that either. I know the shape."
Malrick's smile hadn't moved. "You give me too much credit."
"I give you exactly the right amount."
"If I were doing what you're describing, which I'm not conceding, what would be the purpose? You're already stranded. Your ship is damaged. Your cargo is lost. Why would I need to do anything more than wait?"
"Because waiting isn't your style. You don't wait for opportunities. You build them." Rafe leaned forward. "The manifests. The rumors. Tying my name to the storms on this stretch of river. You're not trying to beat me to a contract this time. You're trying to make me unemployable."
"That's a dramatic reading."
"Tell me I'm wrong."
Malrick studied him. The amusement was still there but underneath it something harder had surfaced, the calculation that lived behind every warm expression. He took the bottle and refilled his glass with the unhurried movements of a man who controlled the tempo of every conversation he entered.
"You've always had a weakness, Rafe. You're honest. You run clean routes, file accurate manifests, honor your contracts to the letter. It's admirable. It's also predictable." He drank. "Predictable men are easy to frame because no one believes they'd fight dirty. All I'd have to do, hypothetically, is create the appearance of an advantage you'd never actually take. The river does the rest."
"And the stormcaller?"
Malrick's eyes sharpened. Just slightly. A tightening at the corners that his smile couldn't quite cover. "Ah."
"Don't play coy. You've been asking about her since you got here. Description, location, the weather patterns around the lake. Your courier confirmed it before I sent him packing."
"You roughed up my courier?"
"I gave him career advice."
Malrick laughed. Short, genuine, the kind of laugh that reminded Rafe of the man he'd known years ago, before the Kellert account, before the stolen bids, before the split that turned professional rivalry into something personal. There had been a time when that laugh had meant camaraderie. Now it meant Malrick was recalibrating.
"The stormcaller is remarkable," Malrick said. "You must know that. A living weather system with enough power to wreck a cargo vessel from half a mile away. Do you have any idea how rare that is? How valuable?"
"She's not a commodity."
"Everything is a commodity, Rafe. The question is who benefits from the exchange." He leaned forward, mirroringRafe's posture across the narrow table. "You're stranded in a town with a woman who can control storms, and you're using your time fixing rigging. Think about that. Any captain on this river would kill for what you're sitting next to."
"I'm not any captain."
"No. You're the honest one." Malrick's voice dropped. Not threatening, worse. Sympathetic. "You've been running clean routes for fifteen years and what has it gotten you? A damaged ship, a lost contract, and a week in a town you didn't choose. Meanwhile, every captain who cuts corners, who uses every advantage available, who understands that the river doesn't reward morality, they're running your routes. Billing your clients. Sleeping in better ports."
"And you're one of them."
"I'm the best of them. Because I understand something you never will." He set his glass down. "Power isn't moral or immoral. It's a resource. The fae woman here has more of it than anyone on this river has seen in a generation. You can either use that or you can watch someone else do it."
"Someone like you."
"I'm offering perspective. Not a partnership."
Rafe stood. The chair scraped back on the wood floor, causing two freight runners near the door had stopped talking.
"Stay away from her," Rafe said. The words came out quieter than he'd intended, which made them land harder. "Stay away from her cottage, her practice ground, her town. If I find out you've gone near her, the courier conversation will feel like a friendly chat."
Malrick looked up at him from the chair, still smiling. Still calculating. "You're very protective of something you claim isn't yours."
"She isn't mine. That's the point."
He walked out of the tavern into the evening air. The lake was turning copper in the last light. His hands weren't shaking but they wanted to be.
Malrick had come to Hollow Oak for Isla. Not just to take Rafe's routes. Not just to undermine his reputation. He'd come because he'd found a stormcaller and he saw what every man like him saw when he saw power: a tool waiting to be picked up.
