The False Manifest

He tapped the sounding chart with a scarred finger. "You say this was a private transport barge carrying textiles and coastal wine."

"That was her declared manifest, yes."

"Then why does your draft calculation show a twelve-inch displacement override on the keel?" Tivian looked up, fixing her with a hard stare. "A timber hull carrying wool and wine doesn't draw nine feet of water in fresh canal surge unless she's lined with double-layered armor plating. And this current shear annotation—someone took sounding leads three weeks ago, not three months ago. The silt drift around the rudder post is barely four inches."

Zsuzsóka’s expression remained perfectly still, but a slight tightening around the corners of her mouth told Tivian his arrow had hit bone.

"Furthermore," Tivian continued, his voice dropping into a flat, dangerous register, "the Western Shelf of the Deep-Drifts has a sub-surface vortex. If you drop a standard four-man diving bell down there, the cross-current will smash it against the granite shelf before the diver can even clear the hatch. You don't need a bell for this job, Lady Várady. You know damn well a bell can't hold station in that shear. You need a motorized, single-man pressure suit with a high-torque silt-thruster."

Oszkár looked between Tivian and the merchant woman, his brow furrowing as he caught on.

Zsuzsóka tilted her head, studying Tivian with something that looked almost like genuine respect. "You have a remarkably keen eye for ballast math, Master Lánczy."

"I fix things that sink," Tivian said. "Which means I know when someone is lying about how heavy the wreck is. The Kormorán wasn't a wine barge. She was an armored blockade-runner. And whatever is in that lockbox is heavy enough that you're willing to pay a fortune to two bankrupt dredgers rather than hire a cartel crew who might look inside."

The three retainers at the watergate shifted their feet, their coats parting slightly to reveal the brass handles of pneumatic silt-pistols at their belts.

Tivian didn't flinch. He picked up the heavy brass spanner resting on the workbench beside him, letting the brass tool rest casually in his palm.

"If your men draw those toys in my dry dock," Tivian said mildly, "the Mark IV engine behind me has a live vapor chamber. One tap on the pressure relief valve and this whole slip fills with three hundred degrees of alchemical tallow steam. We all drown together, except you'll be doing it in velvet."

For three long heartbeats, nobody moved. The only sound was the lap of the greasy canal against the timber pilings.

Then Zsuzsóka raised one gloved hand. Her retainers immediately relaxed their postures, stepping back half a pace.

"I told you," Zsuzsóka said, her voice cool and unhurried. "I require a salvage crew with nerve. If I wanted cowardly laborers who ask no questions and drown on schedule, I would have hired the Red Channel Syndicate."

"You couldn't hire the Syndicate even if you wanted to," Tivian countered. "The moment they saw an armored hull in the Deep-Drifts, they’d claim the entire wreck under municipal salvage laws and lock you out. You came to us because we're desperate, we're capable, and we hate the cartels enough not to run to their wardens."

Zsuzsóka let out a soft breath that was almost a laugh. "Accurate on all counts. So, what are your terms?"

"Two hundred sovereigns," Tivian said without hesitation. "In hard imperial gold. Upfront. Right now."

Oszkár choked on his spit, coughing violently into his sleeve.

"Two hundred?" Zsuzsóka arched a dark eyebrow. "That is nearly half the total contract before you have even wet your boots."

"A heavy pressure suit with motorized joint-servos costs a hundred and twenty sovereigns at the Iron Market," Tivian said, counting off on his grease-stained fingers. "Twin alchemical air-tanks with double regulators, another thirty. Plus forty sovereigns to buy bulk sulfur and tallow grease to mount our Mark IV engine directly to the suit's ballast frame. The remaining ten is for the dock fees so the bailiffs don't padlock our crane while I'm sixty feet under."

He stepped closer, holding out the chart.

"You want that iron box from forty fathoms down? You pay for the rig that can survive the dive. If I fail, you keep the coordinates and hire someone else. If I succeed, you get your cargo, you pay the remaining two hundred and fifty sovereigns, and we buy our new bell. Take it or get back on your boat."

Zsuzsóka looked at Tivian. Her gray eyes were sharp, calculating the risk with the precision of a high-terrace banker balancing a ledger. She didn't blink.

"You dive alone?" she asked.

"I dive," Tivian said. "Uncle Oszkár runs the surface compressor and monitors the air line from our skiff. No other crew. No extra mouths to talk."

"Three days," she said. "The lunar ebb begins on Thursday night. That gives you a four-hour window where the Thresher Tides weaken in the Deep-Drifts. If you miss that window, the current will drag the Kormorán off the shelf and drop her five hundred fathoms into the abyss."

"Three days is enough to assemble the suit and tune the engine," Tivian replied.

Zsuzsóka reached into the pocket of her traveling cloak and pulled out a heavy leather pouch. When she dropped it onto the timber workbench between them, it landed with a deep, dull clink that made the wood groan.

"Two hundred sovereigns," she said. "Count them if you feel the need."

Tivian loosened the drawstring. Inside, rows of thick, milled gold coins gleamed in the dim gray light of the shed—heavy imperial crowns stamped with the sovereign seal. Real, unclipped gold. Enough to keep the wolves from their door and buy the best diving armor the lower district could forge.

Tivian retied the pouch and tucked it firmly into his leather coat.

"We have a deal, Lady Várady."

"Thursday midnight," she said, turning toward the slipway. "My cutter will be waiting near the North Siphon locks. Bring the coffer unopened. Do not disappoint me, Master Lánczy. People who fail House Várady rarely enjoy the luxury of bankruptcy."

She stepped back onto her vessel without looking back. Her retainers cast off the mooring line, and with a muffled roar of its siphon-tubes, the dark oak cutter glided smoothly out into the canal, disappearing into the morning mist as quickly as it had arrived.

Oszkár stood staring at the empty water for several seconds before letting out a long, shuddering sigh. He walked over to the workbench, his old hands trembling slightly as he leaned against the timber.

"Two hundred sovereigns," the old man whispered, shaking his head. "Gods above, Tivian... I haven't seen that much gold in one pile since your father brought home the salvage share from the Old Sluice collapse."

"It's a down payment on a grave if we aren't careful," Tivian said grimly.

He walked back over to the workbench and smoothed out the bathymetric chart Zsuzsóka had left behind.

In the bottom right corner of the parchment, half-hidden beneath the dark wax of the Várady seal, was a tiny series of stamped numerals—the official canal registration code for the sunken hull.

K-884-V.

Tivian froze.

His thumb traced the stamped numbers. A cold knot formed in his stomach, tighter and heavier than the gold in his coat pocket.

"What is it?" Oszkár asked, noticing the sudden stillness in his nephew's shoulders.

"K-eight-eight-four," Tivian murmured, his voice barely audible over the hum of the distant dockyards.

"What about it?"

"That's not the registry for a new barge," Tivian said slowly. "Five years ago, when the Grand Siphon flooded the Lower Reach, the city watch cordoned off three military transports that were caught smuggling contraband out of the Upper Arsenal. One of them was K-eight-eight-four."

Oszkár blinked his good eye, his weathered face draining of color. "That wreck was supposed to have been cleared and scuttled by the Harbor Authority four years ago. The official log said the cargo was incinerated."

"It wasn't incinerated," Tivian said, staring at the depth marks plunging into the blackness of the Deep-Drifts. "Someone moved the hull down into the deep trench and sank it where no civilian bell could ever reach it."

He looked up at the foggy canal where Zsuzsóka's cutter had vanished.

"She didn't lose a courier box, Uncle. She knows exactly what was locked inside that military hull five years ago. And whatever it is, she just paid two hundred sovereigns to put me in the water to dig it up."