"I don't know him."
"I'll introduce you. But Rafe." Rowan paused at the gangway. "Bring something concrete. Emmett doesn't work on suspicion."
Rafe had something concrete. He'd had it since yesterday afternoon.
Dex had donewhat Dex did best. He'd walked into rooms, bought drinks, asked questions that sounded like small talk, and come back with two pieces of information that turned Malrick's campaign from suspicion into evidence.
The first was a freight runner named Caul who operated a small barge on the eastern channel. Dex had found him at the Maeve’s tavern nursing a beer and a guilty conscience. Over the course of forty minutes and three drinks with promises of more once they got to the dock tavern, Caul had admitted that aman matching Malrick's description had paid him two hundred in silver to tell anyone who asked that his last cargo loss was weather-related and that the storms had started getting worse around the time the Ashvane began its regular stops.
His last cargo loss had been a loading error at the Ardenmere docks. Nothing to do with weather. Nothing to do with Rafe.
The second piece was cleaner. A supply manifest from a trader named Vorst, showing a cargo loss attributed to storm damage on a date that Rafe had been docked three hundred miles south. Vorst's manifest had been filed with the trading consortium's records office. The original, which Dex had obtained through means he declined to specify, showed the loss as mechanical failure. Someone had altered the filed copy to read weather-related.
"Vorst didn't file the altered version," Dex had told him. "Someone accessed the consortium records after the fact and changed the cause of loss. The handwriting in the margin matches the handwriting on the forged manifest that was posted here."
"Same hand."
"Same hand. Same ink. Whoever Malrick has doing his paperwork is consistent."
Rafe had both documents in his jacket pocket when Rowan walked him to the council building that afternoon.
Emmett Hollowell's office was on the second floor of a stone building near the Council Glade path, a room that looked like it had been designed for function rather than impression. A heavy desk, two chairs for visitors, a window overlooking the square, shelves lined with ledgers and bound records. No decoration. No personal effects beyond a worn jacket hanging on a hook by the door.
Emmett was standing at the window when they came in. Tall, broad through the shoulders, dark brown hair with a few strandsfalling forward over stormy gray-blue eyes. He turned when Rowan knocked on the open door. His gaze moved from Rowan to Rafe.
"Emmett," Rowan said. "This is Rafe Lupeus. Ashvane's captain. He's got something you should hear."
Emmett nodded and gestured to the chairs. Rowan stayed by the door while Rafe sat.
"I know who you are," Emmett said. "You've been docking here the better part of a week. Storm damage." He sat behind the desk. His movements were deliberate, unhurried. "What do you have?"
Rafe pulled both documents from his jacket and set them on the desk.
"A merchant captain named Malrick Sloane has been operating in Hollow Oak for the last better part of the week," Rafe said. "He's renting at the Hargrove farmstead north of town. In that time, he's bribed at least one freight runner to misattribute a cargo loss to weather. He's altered a filed supply manifest in the trading consortium's records to do the same. He's posted a forged version of my own manifest on the supply board at the dock tavern, matching my route dates to storm losses. And he's approached Isla Green directly, at her home and at the river, using details from her past to pressure her."
Emmett picked up the first document, read it, set it down. Picked up the second and read that too. His face didn't change during any of it.
"The freight runner who took the bribe," Emmett said. "He'll confirm this?"
"His name is Caul. Eastern channel. My first mate got the admission over drinks."
"That's not a sworn statement."
"No. But the altered manifest is documentary evidence. The original shows mechanical failure. The filed copy showsweather damage. The handwriting in the alteration matches the handwriting on the forged manifest posted here."
Emmett looked at both documents side by side. "You're saying this Sloane is building a case that you're using weather magic to sabotage competing trade routes."
"He's building a case that ties me to the stormcaller living on the western shore. The implication is that I'm directing her, or at least benefiting from her. If the river traders believe that, I lose every contract I hold."
"And what's his interest in Isla Green beyond the narrative?"
"He sees her as an asset. He told me to my face that her power is a resource. A commodity." Rafe leaned forward. "He approached her yesterday. Used her father's death as leverage. Tried to frame himself as the only person who understands what she is."
Emmett looked at Rowan, who was leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed.
"You've met this Sloane?" Emmett asked Rowan.
"No. But I've seen the charter his courier was running out of the eastern dock. No registry, no mooring record. Rafe sent the courier packing three days ago."
