Drew’s first thought was Rafael.

  With Marisol gone for what was supposed to be her second meeting, the timing fit too well. But as the galleons descended through the cloud layer, the shape of the threat became unmistakable. There were more than three ships, and each flew the banners of Nueva Trujillo.

  There were no shouted commands, only signal flags shifting in disciplined sequence. The ships descended as one body.

  The square went silent.

  Not the wary hush that followed speeches or executions, but a total absence of sound. Even Marisol had never done that to Deadwake.

  As the ships dropped lower, details sharpened. Each hull bore the same white registry script near the stern, identical down to the spacing. Drew counted the gun ports cut into the undersides of their hulls. Not broadside cannons meant for naval duels, but downward facing batteries built for island suppression.

  Most Deadwake designed ships didn’t carry weapons like that.

  Beside him, Thren stood rigid, the crown of his head brushing the rafters. The posture was proud, but the tension in him was unmistakable.

  Distance had lied. As one galleon passed overhead, its sails eclipsed the sun, plunging the square into shadow. The hull followed, vast enough to feel architectural. Drew’s eyes tracked the side masts, slightly curved and wrong for their class, laminated rather than carved.

  The same construction Claire had used for her canoe on the Windfall run.

  Drew’s stomach tightened.

  Understanding clicked into place. Too clean. Too deliberate. They were in trouble.

  Sweat traced a line down Drew’s brow as a lone canoe detached from the lead galleon, descending in a slow, lazy spiral toward the square.

  The crowd surged. Bodies pressed in behind him, elbows and shoulders jostling for the view. Someone tried to wedge past, reaching for the window.

  Drew didn’t move.

  When a woman shoved harder, he turned just enough to plant his shoulder and ease her back, steady and firm. He kept his place, eyes fixed on the sky.

  The canoe settled over the square. Two occupants stood within it, both red-haired. An anchor dropped, striking the cobblestones with a low clang, the only sound in the square.

  The commodore bowed his head briefly, thumb brushing the small brass cross at his wrist. He spoke, voice carrying clear and unforced.

  “I am Commodore Montreval of the Fourth Periphery Squadron, Nueva Trujillo Navy.”

  The silence deepened. Drew could hear the wind moving through the square.

  “I appear before you in violation of standing convention,” Montreval continued, “due to the ruinous nature of your collective choices.”

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  He paused, letting the words settle.

  “We are not here to punish,” he said. “By authority of the Periphery Compact, we are here to stabilize. To protect. To grow Deadwake.”

  The first murmurs ran through the crowd below.

  With a measured flourish, he gestured to the other occupant of the craft.

  “We present to you the next Gobernadora Intendente, the future Administrator of the Southern Deadwake Protectorate.”

  His gaze swept the square.

  “Claire Montreval.”

  The square did not cheer.

  Nor did it erupt.

  Instead, it breathed.

  A low murmur rippled outward as captains and factors turned toward one another, eyes sharp, mouths tight.

  A man next to Drew muttered “Protectorate today, Monopoly tomorrow.”

  His companion an older women hissed back “Sounds like direct annexation.”

  Drew thought of Deadwake in terms of margins.

  It prized freedom, but not the kind poets talked about. Freedom to chase profit. Freedom to plunder rivals. Freedom from anyone telling them where the ledger ended.

  Control, not violence, was what they hated.

  He wondered if this was the annexation the others feared, the beginning of banners and governors and taxes. But his gut told him this wasn’t conquest. It was foreclosure.

  Claire hiked her dress and set one foot on the lip of the canoe. Across the square, Marisol still stood on the balcony, motionless and watchful, carved from the same stone as the building itself.

  The crowd fell silent.

  Claire’s gaze swept the square and paused on him through the window, just long enough to measure, not long enough to acknowledge.

  “Deadwake values independence,” Claire said evenly.

  “So do we.”

  A ripple moved through the square.

  “Many factions have already folded,” she continued. “You are gathered at the last open exchange in Deadwake. How many of those factions can still honor their commitments? How many can meet their contracts at the other exchanges?”

  A beat.

  A shout broke the silence.

  “No!”

  Another voice followed, sharp and angry.

  “Not even eighty percent of their own!”

  The crowd surged, noise spilling over itself as old grievances found fresh air.

  Claire did not raise her voice. She did not gesture.

  She simply waited.

  When the noise finally ebbed, she stood as she had before poised, aloof, calm somehow seeming taller than her slight frame should have allowed.

  “I stand before you as one of your own,” Claire said. “A graduate of the Black Keel Hall.”

  That earned her a flicker of attention.

  “I am here to offer a trade.”

  She did not raise her voice.

  “We will not underwrite failed exchanges,” Claire said. “Their contracts were broken before we arrived.”

  She let the words settle before continuing.

  “Markets collapse when sentiment outruns structure. Deadwake has been living on sentiment.”

  A murmur rippled through the crowd.

  “However,” she continued, “as Gobernadora Intendente, on behalf of Nueva Trujillo, I will purchase a quarter of Deadwake’s westernmost islands. Immediately. The proceeds of that purchase will be distributed among the remaining factions of Deadwake.”

  Silence.

  “Any faction that retains control of an island and at least one skyship may present themselves at the Casa Sagrada at noon tomorrow,” Claire said. “Funding will be offered. Routes stabilized. Credit extended.”

  She paused.

  “Those who cannot meet those conditions are already finished.”

  A beat.

  “New contracts against the Tzoma Kai will be issued first.”

  Cheers broke out unevenly first from the merchants, then the smaller captains, until the sound swelled and swallowed the scattered shouts of protest. The noise was deafening.

  Drew looked out the window toward Marisol’s balcony.

  She had already turned away.

  By the time the crowd found its voice, she was gone.

  Drew looked up at Thren.

  The old pirate was still, head tilted slightly, beak clicking once slow, thoughtful, as if measuring how much Deadwake had just shrunk.

  Drew’s thoughts flicked back to the system prompt he’d received about Claire. Incompatible trajectories.

  He looked up at the Nueva Trujillo ships again. At the laminated spars. The layered joints. The design choices that assumed warehouses, dry docks, and accountants who never slept.

  They weren’t improvising. They were iterating, and iteration required failures Drew could not yet afford.

  Something tightened in his chest, not fear, not envy, but something sharper.

  They had started earlier.

  That advantage would not last.

  It would be taken.

  Drew straightened.

  He had a lot of work ahead of him.