The Reach had a way of chewing on thoughts, same as it chewed on men.
Dommie pedaled down the uneven street, the evening fog curling around the tires like smoke. His jacket flapped loose against the cold. Without his uniform, without his station, he felt strangely untethered — like a stray leaf caught in the wind.
But he had nowhere else to be.
Thatcher's words still scraped at the back of his mind like grit under a tooth:
"Dominic Palmer, I think you've been overworked. Take a week to rest. Paid leave."
Spoken without a hint of sympathy. No anger. No kindness. Just a dismissal.
Like a tradesman setting aside a broken tool.
Dommie gritted his teeth and pushed harder on the pedals.
He remembered Evelyn Harrow too.
Her standing awkwardly in Thatcher's office, arms crossed tight against herself, avoiding his eyes.
"I'm sorry, Dominic," she'd said, voice low but steady.
"It was a stupid prank. I didn't mean to humiliate you. I didn't mean any harm."
A part of him had wanted to believe her — to believe she noticed him at all.
That maybe, somehow, it had just been a foolish joke gone wrong.
But then came the voice of his mother, sharp and bitter in his memory:
"They don't care about you. High bloods smile at you while they carve you open."
The words gnawed at him like rats at old rope.
The black stain of humiliation hadn't left.
Not from the way the nurses looked at him.
Not from the way Thatcher had carefully avoided saying anything human.
The Reach didn't forgive foolishness. One bad story — one moment of weakness — and a man could find his name a punchline, his career rotting at the bottom of the wharf.
Dommie shook the thought away and focused on the real reason he was out here.
His sister had disappeared again.
Stubborn and wild as she'd always been, thinking nothing of it while the ones who cared had to carry the weight.
Maybe she was holed up somewhere drunk. Maybe worse.
He wouldn't know unless he found her.
The crooked sign of the Black Harpoon swung above him, creaking in the cold mist.
Dommie locked his bike to a rusted pipe and walked toward the door, shoulders hunched like he expected the building itself to spit him out.
Inside, the Harpoon smelled of fish, smoke, and old regrets.
The crowd was thinner tonight — a few fishermen hunched over cheap pints, muttering into their sleeves.
Behind the counter stood Boneman Jimmy, polishing a glass with a rag thin as mist.
Dommie crossed the room, feeling every step creak against the floorboards.
Jimmy gave him a slow once-over.
"Help you, kid?"
"I'm looking for someone," Dommie said, voice low.
"My sister. Maddie Palmer. She come through here lately?"
Jimmy didn't pause polishing.
"Haven't seen her. Last shift I worked was Thursday. Ain't been behind the bar since."
Dommie hesitated, knuckles tightening against the wood.
"I'm her brother," he said. "If you know anything... please."
Something shifted in Jimmy's eyes.
A slow softening.
He set the glass down.
"Maybe I heard a thing or two," he said. "Not firsthand. Word is, she was in here Friday night. Caused a bit of a mess. Left without paying her tab."
Dommie felt his stomach twist.
Jimmy shrugged, glancing at the door like he expected trouble to follow.
"Someone said she was outside talking to a foreigner. Didn't see it myself. Just the talk."
Dommie swallowed hard.
Jimmy tapped a knuckle against the counter.
"Lotta things disappear around here, kid. People. Promises. Hope."
Dommie nodded stiffly.
"Thanks."
Jimmy grunted, already turning away.
Dommie pushed back into the evening fog.
The cold gnawed at his bones as he unlocked his bike.
Somewhere out there, his sister was tangled in something he didn't understand.
And for the first time in a long while, Dommie Palmer was afraid.
---
Across town, under the yellow glow of sputtering gas lamps...
The Town Records Office buzzed with the low, steady hum of dying light fixtures.
Inside, amidst a small mountain of files and notes spread across a battered table, sat Elias Whitaker.
His coat was tossed haphazardly over the back of the chair. His sleeves rolled.
His pen scratched quietly against a worn notebook.
Names and connections sprawled before him like a madman's spiderweb.
Above the chaotic stacks, careful titles in his sharp hand:
Bracketts
Wrens
Croft
Deepwell
Scrawled notes bled down the page in urgent shorthand:
Silas Crowe assaults Police Chief Benjamin Wren (related to Edward?).
Mayor blames disappearances on cultists (convenient?).
Margaret Brackett's financial footprint too large for a fish town.
Marion Croft hosting gala for Deepwell miners (morale or propaganda?).
The Butcher — unknown.
He paused, staring at the name The Butcher, circled twice in heavy ink.
The room felt colder than it should have.
Or maybe that was just the exhaustion creeping in, the feeling that the further he dug, the less ground he seemed to stand on.
Elias exhaled slow through his nose.
Pushed the chair back.
He slid his notes into a folder, the motions careful but quick, like a man packing weapons.
He still didn't know where this thread would lead.
But he knew enough to follow it.
Coat slung over one shoulder, notebook tucked beneath his arm, Elias Whitaker stepped into the Reach's deepening fog, one more ghost among many.
---