The rain began after dark, not hard, but steady enough to make the windows run and the room smell of wet soot and old wool. I sat at the table with Croft’s papers spread in front of me. I had not touched them in an hour.
Caleb moved in the next room, laying out our coats, checking the straps on the leather satchel, sorting spare fuel blocks and harpoon heads into neat rows. The sounds were small and methodical. I listened without meaning to. It was the kind of quiet that made every object feel heavier.
We were leaving in two days. I had not decided what to do with the two red stones hidden beneath the loose board near the hearth. They were still there, still warm through the oilcloth, still wrong. I told myself I would decide in the morning.
The knock came low, as if the man on the other side did not want to wake the street.
Caleb’s footsteps stopped. I heard him cross the room, then the rattle of the old lock.
“Mr. Okafor,” he said.
Zeke came in out of the rain. Water ran from the brim of his coat. He didn’t smile. He didn’t look around. He held a small parcel wrapped in oilcloth, both hands cupped around it like something that might slip.
He stood in the center of the room for a moment, dripping onto the boards.
“I won’t stay long,” he said.
I pushed the papers aside and nodded to the chair. He sat. The chair creaked once.
Caleb closed the door and stayed near the wall, arms folded, watching.
Zeke set the parcel on the table. For a long moment he simply stared at it. The rain had soaked the twine. His fingers worked at the knot slowly, the way a man might undo a bandage he already regretted removing.
Inside was a bottle.
It was small and heavy, corked and sealed with wax. The water inside was pale green at the top, clear as shallow sea glass. Along the bottom ran a thin black-gold layer, thick as oil, moving when he turned the bottle.
“From Crawmoor,” he said.
I looked at the bottle, then at him.
“Water?”
“Sea water,” he said. “I think.”
Caleb shifted. I didn’t look at him. I kept my eyes on Zeke.
“A man I know pulled it from the harbour,” Zeke went on. “Wouldn’t keep it. Said it felt wrong. I gave him a few shillings.”
He turned the bottle once, then let it rest. The black-gold settled slowly, like something reluctant to stop moving.
“Why bring it here?” I asked.
Zeke’s jaw tightened. He didn’t answer at first. Then he said, “Because I’ve been asking about Crawmoor.”
He leaned back, or tried to. The chair wasn’t built for a man his size. His hands rested on his knees, and his eyes stayed on the bottle as if it were a hole in the table.
“The fishermen won’t go out anymore,” he began. “Not when the fog sits low. They say you can hear it before dawn. A sound under the hull. Too many voices. Not wind. Not tide. Then it stops.” He shook his head. “Just stops. And the sea goes flat.”
The rain tapped against the window.
“The two lighthouse keepers,” he said. “They found their clothes on the rocks below the light. Shirts, boots, oilskins. Folded neat. The lamp still burning.” He paused. “No sign of them after that.”
The room had gone very still. I could hear the coal settling in the hearth.
“The girl,” I said. “Lord Rydell’s daughter.”
Zeke nodded slowly.
“She used to stand on the cliffs in the evening. Singing to the water. People thought it was pretty.” He looked down. “The night she went missing, some of them heard the choir from the church. Beautiful, they said. Like it was calling her.”
He stopped. The pause stretched.
“Only it wasn’t Sunday,” he said. “And there was no service.”
He did not look at me. His voice had gone quieter, the way it did when he was speaking about something he could not break open.
“Church was locked. No one inside. But they heard it clear across the fields. Then it stopped. And the girl was gone.”
He rubbed the side of his face with one hand. The gesture was tired, not afraid.
“The men who went looking wouldn’t go back,” he said.
The words settled into the room. Outside, the rain went on, soft and patient.
I looked at the bottle. The black-gold layer rested along the bottom, still as something waiting.
“What do you think it is?” I asked.
Zeke didn’t answer for a long time.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I know the man who gave me that bottle wouldn’t keep it in his house. And I know the fishermen cross themselves after dark.” He paused. “Whatever’s out there, it already knows how to wait.”
Silence filled the space between us.
Then Zeke stood. He pulled his coat around himself. The wet wool made no sound.
“I gave you that paper,” he said quietly. “Blackwood. I thought it was just another hunt.”
He didn’t finish. He didn’t apologize. He just let the sentence hang there, unfinished, like a bell that didn’t ring.
“Izzy left a package for you at the chapter gate,” he said. “Harpoon heads, fuel blocks. Whatever she could spare.”
“Thank her for me.”
He gave a single nod. At the door, he stopped. He didn’t turn around.
“Don’t go near the water at night,” he said. “That’s when it sings.”
Then he was gone.
The door closed with a sound softer than I expected. The rain swallowed the rest.
Caleb stayed by the wall for a long time. I didn’t speak. I turned the bottle once. The black-gold layer moved, then settled again.
After a while, Caleb said, “He’s worried.”
“He’s guilty,” I said.
Caleb didn’t ask why. Maybe he already knew. Maybe he’d seen the same look in his own reflection.
Outside, the rain kept falling, thin and patient, and the city seemed to pull in on itself, damp and dark and waiting for morning.