Written in the Stone

The cursor blinked at the end of the last sentence, as if testing her nerve. Elara read through the proposal again, her eyes tracing the familiar scaffolding of her argument, every section honed and cross-checked until the language felt like polished stone. “The coastal promontory of Ailean Tìor, long overlooked due to its remoteness and the unreliability of mid-century survey logs, presents a compelling candidate for a late Iron Age settlement with Pictish cultural overlays.” She had written that line at three in the morning, breath shallow, fingers trembling from too much tea and too little sleep. Now, in the quiet of her office, the words anchored her.

The maps lay spread across the desk in crisp layers: old nautical charts, surveyor sketches, satellite images she had annotated until the margins looked like a code. She had numbered her hypotheses, ranked her excavation zones by probability, and tabulated a list of required equipment with projected service intervals. Her calendar, color-coded and aggressive, mapped out eight weeks of work in hours and tasks: dig, document, verify, repeat. Every column was her voice saying, Control what you can.

The budget spreadsheet sat in a separate window, red flags resolved and converted to green. She had shaved extras down to essentials so cleanly it hurt. No extra assistant. Reduced redundant machinery. A borrowed total station from Dr. Anders’s lab in exchange for guest lectures. She had debated removing the field lab from the list, then refused; she’d rather sleep on the floor than sacrifice the integrity of her samples. She had memorized the argument for every pound.

Her phone buzzed against the desk. She stared at the notification: an email from the grant coordinator. She opened it with her spine stiffening involuntarily.

“Dr. Vance, Congratulations. Your emergency funding request has been approved. Conditions apply: project start within 10 days. Preliminary report due at the end of week three. Final data deliverables due by day 56. Department oversight will schedule two virtual check-ins per week. See attachment for disbursement breakdown.”

Her breath left her in a hard exhale, almost a laugh. The word approved glowed at her. She swallowed. Ten days. Fifty-six days. Two check-ins per week. The rush of relief flooded in with a second wave of nausea. She clicked the attachment, scanning the figures. It matched her lowest acceptable projections. It would be enough if nothing went wrong. Things always went wrong.

Her office door was half-open. Down the corridor, a printer chugged and sputtered, and someone laughed, a sound she always felt from a distance. She hit print. The final proposal slid from the machine warm and slightly curled, her name crisp at the top: Dr. Elara Vance, Principal Investigator.

She smoothed the pages and stared at the signature line marked with the dean’s name—already signed—and the department head’s note in the margin: “Make this count. The board is watching.” She could hear his voice, calm and evaluative. She sanded down that thought before it could splinter.

She returned to her desk and typed a reply to the grant coordinator, each sentence efficient and polite. Thank you. I accept the conditions. Project start date confirmed. Timeline attached. She attached the project Gantt chart, the insurance certificate, the equipment quotes, and a revised logistics plan. She double-checked the attachments twice, then clicked send.

Her palms were sweaty. She wiped them on her skirt and pulled up her field list. It was already packed with detail, but she added to it anyway. Waterproof storage bins, extra silica packets, redundant batteries, a second backup drive. She circled satellite phone rental and wrote in capital letters: TEST BEFORE DEPARTURE. She underlined it twice.

On the bookshelf above her desk, a photo of her parents watched from a seaside picnic decades ago, her mother shielding her eyes from sun, her father’s arm around both of them. She moved the frame slightly, aligning it with the edge of the shelf. When she inhaled, she could almost smell the salt in the air, the one thing about going north that didn’t frighten her.

Her computer chimed. Another email. This one from the department chair.

“Elara, glad to see the approval came through. As we discussed, there’s a lot riding on this. Albright’s proposal is still under consideration for the comparative site in Orkney. If you can produce definitive evidence within the deadline, we’ll have leverage for long-term funding. Don’t overextend. Keep your deliverables tight. We’ll set your first check-in for Tuesday at 9:00 AM. Send us your daily logs.”

She stared at the name Albright until her jaw tightened. She had expected him to be waiting, circling. He always was. She pulled up the list she kept in a separate document: Pitfalls. Under that, she had bullet points. Do not overshare in early reports. Avoid speculation. Focus on replicable methods. She added: Keep raw data secured; export read-only copies.

Outside her window, the campus quad was a grid of damp grass and early spring light. Her reflection overlaid the scene—a neat bun, a soft sweater she only wore when the anxiety clawed. She forced her shoulders down and picked up a pen.

Flights: Inverness. Ferry: Ullapool to Stornoway, then private charter. Accommodation: remote cabins, pre-arranged. Local guide: pending. She paused there, the empty line a small gap. She had submitted the request to the coastal registry for licensed local guides. She had an acknowledgment but no details. She opened the email again and reread the name: Kael MacLeod. No website. No affiliation. Available on short notice.

She typed his name into a search bar and got a scatter of unrelated links. A few landscape photos on a spare social media account, a canoe, a dog, a sweeping bay of green and gray. She stared at the image longer than she meant to, impatient with herself. She pinned her timeline to the glass board, careful to align each magnet.

Her phone buzzed again. The grant’s first disbursement had hit her account. Real. She took a breath and opened a new checklist: personal gear. She had written it two weeks ago, then rewritten it. Water-resistant notebooks, thermal layers, gloves. She added a line—sleeping mask—because she knew how bright the nights could be.

Her calendar pinged. In ten minutes, she had a brief meeting with the lab tech to pick up the borrowed equipment. She stood, smoothed her skirt, and pulled on her coat. Before leaving, she clicked into her email one more time and typed to the guide registry contact: “Please confirm guide credentials and availability as soon as possible. Project start within ten days. This is time-sensitive.”

She hovered over send, then hit it. On her way out, she turned off the desk lamp and let the office go dim. In the hallway, she walked quickly, counting her breaths, letting each checklist item slot into place like a gear engaging. The pressure pressed at her back, a constant, insistent push. Ten days. Fifty-six days. Do the work. Do it right. Make it count.

Elara’s living room had become a staging ground. Plastic bins were labeled in neat block letters: Survey, Documentation, Preservation, Emergency. She moved between them like a conductor, her clipboard tucked against her ribs, pen uncapped and ready. The weather charts she’d printed from the marine forecast site were spread over the coffee table, arrows and pressure systems traced in red pencil, likely wind shifts circled in blue. A yellow sticky note over her laptop read: Cross-check three-day models. She had already done it. Twice.

She weighed a coil of paracord in her hand and set it in the Emergency bin. A second coil followed, because redundancy soothed the sharp edge of her nerves. Beside it, vacuum-sealed meal packets lined up in a disciplined row, each marked with a date. She held one, thumb pressing against the plastic seam, as if she could feel the week inside it. Her heartbeat was steady only because she forced it to be, inhale four beats, exhale eight. Control what you can.

She cross-referenced the tool kit checklist with the physical contents: trowels, brushes, site flags, pH strips, nitrile gloves in three sizes, headlamps with fresh batteries. The total station case sat like a compact promise near the door. She removed the instruction manual and slid it into a waterproof sleeve, then added a duplicate she’d printed and laminated. If one got wet, the other would survive.

Her phone vibrated. She didn’t look. Not yet. She lifted the boots she’d chosen for the field—broken in, waterproof, with sturdy soles—and ran her fingers over the seams, checking for any sign of weakness. She had patched a scuff. She checked it again anyway. The binoculars lay in their case; she wiped the lenses, capped them, and placed them back. When she opened the first aid kit, she restocked the hydration salts and added an extra roll of cohesive bandage, recalling a photo of an ankle twisted on a wet slope. She pictured it and adjusted her plan: slower pace on the first day, no heroics.

She finally glanced at her phone. The email preview flashed the guide registry header. Her throat tightened, and she set the boots down with too much care. She wiped her palms on her jeans and retrieved the laptop from the kitchen counter, clearing a space among the maps.

“Guide assignment confirmed,” the subject line read. She opened the message. The text was short, efficient.

“Dr. Vance, your local guide for Ailean Tìor is Kael MacLeod. Attached: contact information, availability, rate agreement, and profile. Note: Kael has extensive local knowledge of the Outer Hebrides and marine conditions. Standard credentials attached.”

She clicked the attachment. A simple profile opened, almost insultingly sparse. Name: Kael MacLeod. Years active: unspecified. Primary specialties: coastal navigation, small craft handling, wildlife awareness. Certifications: small craft pilot’s certificate, basic first aid, rescue diver. References listed as: “available upon request.” She raised her eyebrows. Everyone else had references embedded, with quotes and institutional affiliations. His profile had a single link labeled Portfolio.

She clicked it. A page loaded with a dozen photographs, not of him, but of bleakly beautiful coastlines and a dog with salt-streaked fur staring out at a gray sea. A self-portrait—if it could be called that—was a blurred shot in a mirror, his head turned away, shaggy hair, a stretch of shoulder under a threadbare sweater. She waited for more and scrolled. That was it.

Her stomach tightened. She looked for a CV. There wasn’t one. She checked the time stamps on the certifications. Valid. Good. The relief was thin and unsatisfying. She dragged the email into a folder and opened a new tab, typing his name again into search. The same spare social media page surfaced. A canoe at dawn. A shoreline that could have been anywhere north of Ullapool. She clicked his followers list, skimmed, saw local names that meant nothing to her. She scowled at her own reflection in the dark laptop screen.

She opened her notebook, flipping to a clean page. At the top, she wrote: Kael MacLeod—due diligence. Underline. She drew two columns: Known and Unknown. In Known, she listed the certifications and the portfolio link. In Unknown, she started with everything else: punctuality, reliability, respect for scientific protocol, ability to follow a schedule, communication style. Bias acknowledged, she wrote in parentheses, and it calmed the knot just enough to breathe.

The weather charts called to her. She refocused on them because numbers and patterns obeyed rules. The wind would shift on day two, bringing low clouds and a likely drizzle. She circled the window for boat departure in green and noted the backup day in orange. She added extra tarps to the packing list. She taped the checklist to the inside of the top bin and taped a second copy to its lid. She stacked the bins in exact order of use: Survey on top, then Documentation, then Preservation. She took a photo of the stack, so she’d know if anything changed.

Her phone chimed again. Another email, same sender. “Additional note about assigned guide.” Her pulse jumped. She clicked.

“Dr. Vance, Mr. MacLeod is based in Stornoway and is familiar with Ailean Tìor. He has worked with private charters and conservation groups. He is not affiliated with academic institutions. He comes recommended by the harbor master. Please direct scheduling to him directly.”

Private charters. Conservation groups. Not academics. She swallowed. That explained the photographs and the lack of a formal CV. The harbor master’s recommendation mattered. It should have reassured her. The tension in her shoulders didn’t ease.

She copied the number into her phone and stared at it. The urge to call immediately tugged, but the idea of an unstructured conversation with someone who might be careless twisted in her chest. She opened a new email instead.

“Mr. MacLeod,” she typed, and then paused. “Kael,” felt too familiar. “Mr. MacLeod—my name is Dr. Elara Vance, and I’ve been assigned to you as part of a research expedition to Ailean Tìor. I’d like to confirm your availability and discuss logistics, including departure timing, gear transport, and safety protocols. Please advise your preferred method of communication and the earliest time today for a call.”

She read it twice for tone and removed one “please.” She attached a brief logistics PDF—weather windows, proposed departure, her gear list’s top-level summary—and hovered over send. The image of his profile picture flared in her mind: the careless tilt of his head, the way the camera hadn’t fully caught him. Unapologetic. It felt like a warning.

She hit send.

Then she stood very still, the quiet of her flat pressing in, the neatness of the piles both a comfort and a challenge. She picked up her pen and returned to the Unknown column, adding: boundary-setting. She underlined it. She added: contingency planning for guide no-show. She mapped a backup route to the boat dock, wrote down the names of two other smaller charter companies. She closed her eyes and pictured the island, the green slopes under a low sky, the sea dark and restless. She imagined arriving on schedule, everything in place. In her mind, the guide was a silhouette without features.

Her phone buzzed on the counter. An unknown number flashed across the screen. Her chest tightened and expanded all at once. She steadied her hand before she picked it up.

“Hello?” she said, already braced for a voice. There was only an oceanic hiss, then a click, and a recorded tone.

“Kael here. If I didn’t pick up, I’m either on the water or I didn’t feel like it. Leave it if you must.”

A low chuckle, warm and lazy, rolled through the speaker before the beep cut it off. Elara pulled the phone back from her ear as if it had burned her. The muscles along her spine tightened. She hung up without leaving a message, stared at the screen, and then, because that wasn’t an answer, called again. The same greeting. The same laugh. The beep.

She ended the call and stared through the narrow slats of her blinds at early evening skirting the city. The impulse to tear up her plans and find a different guide was immediate, visceral, and deeply satisfying in her mind. But the harbor master’s recommendation ran like a thin thread through her thoughts, practical and inconvenient. She could escalate. She could ask for a reassignment. It would cost time she didn’t have.

The train the next morning was punctual. That, at least, she could control. She arrived with her bins labeled and strapped, each tag laminated, each knot secure. A porter eyed the stack and muttered, “Expedition?” She nodded, clipped, and tipped him more than was necessary so he wouldn’t argue about the weight. The carriage filled with damp coats and the smell of tea, and she wedged herself by the window, notebook open across her knees, the Known and Unknown list staring back at her in her own tight handwriting.

As the city fell away, the land opened into a wide, unspooling ribbon of green and slate. The sky sat low and promising rain. Sheep drifted like lint across fields, and stone walls ran in measured lines that dissolved at hill crests. Elara breathed carefully, keeping pace with the rhythm of the train because it was steady and unbothered by anything ahead. She sent another text: Confirming arrival Stornoway at 15:20. Please confirm dock meeting time and location for morning departure to Ailean Tìor. No answer.

She told herself it was poor signal. She closed her eyes and counted backward from one hundred, then opened them again when the tracks curved along a country road lined with puddles. The further north they traveled, the more the light thinned, as if the sky were being wrung out.

By the time the ferry came into view, the wind had picked up and the air snapped at her cheeks. The terminal was a squat building with fogged windows and a clatter of boots through the doors. The sea beyond was a shifting plate of steel, gulls wheeling and complaining. She stood with her bins, their edges pressed into her thighs, and checked her watch. On time.

The ferry’s interior was functional and loud, a churn of voices and the salt smell that got into your throat. Elara found a bench near a window and set her phone on the table in front of her like a talisman. She composed a voicemail script in her head—organized, professional, impossible to misinterpret. She called. The same message, lazy and insolent, flowed into her ear. She waited through it this time.

“Mr. MacLeod,” she began as soon as the tone sounded, careful with her words. “This is Dr. Elara Vance. I’m on schedule. I’ll be in Stornoway by fifteen twenty. I’d like confirmation of our meeting time and location at the dock tomorrow morning, as well as a brief safety overview. Please call or text to confirm.” She paused. “We are on a tight timeline.”

She ended the call and watched a boy press his face against the glass, eyes wide as the ferry nosed out into chop. The water slapped against the hull, rougher than the forecast had suggested. She reassured herself with a mental recitation of the marine report, picturing pressure lines and shifts. Her hands were steady. She curled them into fists and flexed them out again.

The ferry lurched, and a woman across the aisle grabbed her husband’s arm and laughed. Elara swallowed against the rise in her stomach and kept her gaze fixed on a point near the horizon. When her phone buzzed, she jumped, heart leaping. A spam alert. Her jaw tightened until it ached.

Stornoway greeted her with a wet wind and the smell of diesel and seaweed. The dock was a sprawl of ropes and crates, gulls sliding sideways on the gusts. The harbor master’s office sat to one side, blue paint chipped and bright against the gray. She shouldered her pack and watched as a crewman helped her roll her bins down the gangway, the wheels thumping over the lip.

“Taxi?” he offered. She shook her head and pointed to the harbor offices. “Five minutes,” he said, hauling a case of something pungent past her. The cold slipped under her sweater and settled between her shoulder blades. It was the kind of air that worked its way into bone.

Inside the office, the heater rattled like an old man’s cough. A woman behind a desk glanced up from a ledger and pushed a mug toward her. “You look like you need this.”

Elara wrapped her fingers around the tea and let the heat sink in. “Thank you. I’m meeting a guide in the morning. Kael MacLeod. Do you know if he’s about?”

The woman’s mouth tilted. “He’s about when he’s about. You’ll find him either down by the south slips or at McBride’s when the weather’s like this.”

“I’ve left messages. He hasn’t responded.”

“Signal’s patchy,” the woman said, and then, as if it were an apology, “He’s good on the water. The best, some say.”

Good didn’t equal punctual. Elara nodded anyway, because the alternative was to let her frustration show. She took the tea outside and stood under the slight overhang, watching the rain lift and fall in brief shivers across the harbor surface. She called him again on instinct. The voicemail came like a smirk. I didn’t feel like it. This time she didn’t leave a message. She lowered the phone and exhaled, slow and measured, until the tightness in her chest loosened by a notch.

The port town was a patchwork of slate roofs and narrow streets that curved as if they couldn’t quite commit to straight lines. The inn she’d booked sat above a pub with a painted sign of a stag that had seen better days. The room was small and clean, white duvet tucked sharp, a window looking out over chimneys and the suggestion of sea beyond. She lined her bins along the wall in order of access and set her notebook on the bedside table. The mattress was firmer than she liked. She tried to sit, then sprang back up and paced.

At six, hunger nudged her downstairs. The pub smelled like frying fish and old wood, and conversations rose and fell in easy arcs. A group of men in heavy sweaters stood near the bar, laughter rolling among them. She caught the name Kael in the cadences, familiar as if it belonged to a neighbor. Her hand tightened around her glass of water.

“He’ll turn up with a seal behind him and no explanation,” one of them said, grinning. “Or not at all.”

“Or he’ll send some poor sod to fetch his gear while he chats up the tourists,” another added. The group laughed again, fond and exasperated, and Elara looked down into her water until her reflection blurred.

She ate quickly, the fish hot and crisp, flavor lost to the buzz in her head. When she climbed back upstairs, the hallway creaked under her feet in a way that felt like an old house settling and not like a warning. She sat on the edge of the bed and finally allowed the smallest sliver of weariness to lean into her bones.

She called him one last time for the night. The voicemail picked up, inevitable. “This is Dr. Vance,” she said, voice low in the quiet room. “I’ll be at the south slips at seven. I expect you there.” She hesitated, the words that wanted to follow—don’t make me regret trusting you—pressed behind her teeth. She swallowed them. “Good night.”

She ended the call and set the phone face down. The rain tapped at the window. She stretched out on the bed fully clothed, eyes open to the dim ceiling, and listened to the town breathe around her. The plan held. It had to. In the morning, she would meet him. Or she would adjust. Either way, she would not be at the mercy of a man’s whim and a lazy laugh.

The pub’s hum rose with the night. Voices thickened with drink and comfort, chairs scraped, and the wood stove in the corner popped and sighed. Elara kept to a small table near the wall, her notebook open beside a plate of chips she wasn’t eating. The water in her glass had sweated a ring on the varnish. She told herself she came down for food, for a change of air. But really, she wanted to anchor herself in the town with something tangible—faces, rhythms, a sense that the place would bend to a plan.

She’d barely sat when a burst of laughter rolled from the bar. The fishermen were back, shoulders damp from rain, cheeks ruddy from cold and ale. She recognized the one with the salt-and-pepper beard from the ferry—a friendly nodder. Now he leaned into his mates and said, “Did you hear about Kael’s latest? Took the bishop’s nephew out and came back without the nephew or a single fish.”

“Came back with a seal, though,” another put in. “He swears the seal was ‘guidance from the old ones.’”

“Guidance right into a sandbank,” the bearded one said, chuckling. “Left the poor boy knee-deep in cold muck while he rescued his camera like it was a baby.”

The table erupted. Elara’s fork paused mid-air. Her scalp prickled. She kept her eyes on the notebook, though the words on the page had blurred hours ago. The name sat in the air like a pebble in a shoe. Kael.

“Remember when he tried to fix MacGregor’s engine with seaweed?” someone said. “Said the kelp had conductivity. Nearly set the boat on fire.”

“Ay, but he always smiles and we forgive him,” the barkeep said, wiping a glass. “He’s like a stray dog you can’t stop feeding.”

“He’s trouble you can’t be angry at,” another man added. “Women like him fine.”

Elara smoothed a hand over the page, forcing herself to take a breath before her shoulders locked up. She told herself gossip was a function of small places, stretched truths for the sake of laughs. But every line they fed each other felt like a notch cut into the thin confidence she’d been building against the unknown.

“He’s got a heart, he does,” the bearded one said, his voice softening around the edges. “Remember when Mairi slipped on the quay? He had her in his arms before she hit the water. Fast as you like.”

“And then he missed the tide the next morning because he was meant to fix her railing and fell asleep on her stoop,” the barkeep said, rolling his eyes. “Woke up with a cat on his chest and a sunrise on his face like a painting.”

“Charmer,” the first man said. “Unreliable as a summer forecast.”

Elara took a steady sip of water and found it did nothing to cool her. She couldn’t afford charming, or unreliable. She had grant money that would evaporate if she missed deadlines, a department chair who had smiled and said we’re all rooting for you with a look that said don’t fail. She had maps and models and a window so brief it already felt like it was closing.

She shifted enough to put her back fully against the wall, spine aligned, the wood solid between her and the room. Their laughter swelled again, but she caught the way it softened when one of them said, “He knows the water like it’s in his blood. Climbed into a swell in January to cut a line off a whale. Came back blue and grinning.”

“Aye,” the barkeep said. “He’ll be late to your wedding and early to your wake.”

The women at the table nearest hers laughed at that in a way that said they knew him too. Elara’s jaw tightened until her teeth felt like they’d grind. Her thumb ran along the edge of her page, the paper cool and precise against her skin, a small relief.

“Think he’ll settle?” someone asked, a question you asked about a storm or a boy.

“He’ll settle when the wind stops,” came the reply. More laughter. A low hum of affection underneath.

She closed her notebook and stacked her utensils neatly on the plate to give her hands a task. Professional distance, she promised herself, even if it felt like wrapping a fragile thing in too much paper. She would run the schedule, keep the ledger of days, log every decision. She would treat him like an element to manage—like weather—factored into her plan, not an agent of it. He could be late, and she would be early. He could laugh, and she would not. If he faltered, she would have contingencies. She had always been good at contingencies.

“Another?” the barkeep asked as he swung by her table, eyes kind.

“No, thank you,” she said, matching his warmth with a practiced polite. “Early morning.”

He nodded like he understood more than she said. “You’re the archaeologist, then. Off to Ailean Tìor.”

“Yes.”

“Kael’ll look after you.”

Elara held his gaze and gave the faintest lift of her brow. “I’ll look after the work.”

He smiled at that, a flicker of respect passing through. “Fair enough.”

She placed cash under the glass and slipped on her coat. The room pressed warm against her as she stood, the steam of bodies and food and community. On her way out, a gust of damp air slid in when someone opened the door, spilling rain-song across the floorboards. She paused at the threshold and glanced once at the group at the bar. Their faces were the same as the sea’s surface—lined, open, changeable. She knew better than to take any of it as gospel. Still, she felt the weight of their warnings settle like silt.

On the street, the night had deepened into a soft bruise of gray-blue. The rain was light, the kind that worked quietly, beading on her lashes. She tucked her chin down and set a steady pace back to the inn. She cycled through her lists as she walked—headlamp batteries, waterproof seals, emergency flares—each item clicking into place like a bead on a string. She added one more: contingency for nonresponsive guide. She pictured herself at the dock at seven, calm and prepared, a person you didn’t waste. If he didn’t appear, she would hire a different boat. She would call the harbor master at six fifty-nine and tell him she was ready to pay extra. She would not wait beyond seven fifteen.

In her room, she shut the door and leaned against it until the latch clicked. The quiet was immediate and almost shocking. She turned on the small lamp and watched the light spill over the bins lined along the wall, her life condensed into boxes with laminated labels—trowels, brushes, textiles, batteries, boots. Order answered something raw inside her, smoothing the feral edges the pub had raised.

She set an alarm for five-thirty. She opened her notebook and wrote in a clean, controlled hand: Maintain boundaries. Keep records. Do not cede control. She underlined the last twice and set the pen down.

Her phone sat face down on the bed. She flipped it over, half-hoping for a new message, even a curt acknowledgment. Nothing. The blank screen reflected her face back at her, eyes sharp, mouth set.

When she finally slid under the duvet, the room felt too warm. She pushed the blanket down and lay on her side, watching the window glow faint with the light of the pub sign below. The rain had eased to a whisper. Somewhere in the distance, a gull cried like a hinge.

She repeated her rule until it settled into her bones: professional distance. She would work with him—not around him, not for him—and he would not jeopardize the thing she had built with years and sleepless nights and a spine stiff as steel. She closed her eyes only when she’d made that promise enough times that it felt like a shield. Outside, the town shifted and sighed. Morning would come, and with it, the test of her resolve.

Dawn came gray and damp, the harbor wrapped in a low mist that smelled of kelp and diesel. Elara reached the dock at six forty-five, her breath frosting faintly as she counted her cases—eight, not including the backpack strapped to her shoulders. The boat rental office was dark. A gull watched her from a rusted post and screamed occasionally, an opinion she chose to ignore.

By seven sharp, she had two of the plastic crates stacked at her feet and the rest lined in order of usage. She’d already checked the waterproof seals twice and run her hands over the labels for the hundredth time. Calm pressed like a cool cloth over her thoughts. At seven-oh-eight, that calm began to fray.

At seven sixteen, footsteps sounded behind her, unhurried even on the slick boards. She turned before he said her name.

Kael MacLeod was taller than his photo suggested, the kind of height that made the small dock look crowded. He had a hood shoved back despite the drizzle and a battered wool cap crushed into his back pocket like he lived in defiance of weather. Stubble darkened his jaw, and rain had beaded on his lashes. He smiled—easy, unrehearsed—and something in her chest tightened in annoyance.

“You’re early,” he said, as if she had offended the tide.

“And you’re late,” she returned, her voice even.

He tugged his sleeve back to glance at a watch that might have belonged to a grandfather, the glass scuffed, the leather worn. “Only if you believe in minutes.”

“I do,” she said. “Very much.”

His gaze dropped to the neat army of her cases. The smile tilted, wry and appreciative. “Planning to build a second island?”

“Planning to work,” she said. “This is the bare minimum for responsible documentation.”

He crouched at the nearest crate and read the laminated label. “Textiles. On Ailean Tìor.” He tapped it with a finger. “You know the goats there fear gloves?”

She blinked. “I’m not outfitting goats. And textiles refers to the preservation supplies in case of organic finds.”

He opened the next label. “Microdrone. Let me guess—that’s the small wasp-looking thing that makes the seals curse?”

She stared back at him. “It’s quiet. And necessary for aerial mapping.”

“Mm.” He moved along to another. “Two full boxes of batteries. For when the island eats the sun?”

“For when the island eats the radio,” she said. The answer came without heat. She was saving that for later, when she’d need it most.

He straightened and rolled his shoulder like a man warming to a task. “I should have brought a second boat.”

“You could have,” she said. “If you had arrived on time, we could have coordinated.”

His eyes flicked to her face. Something like surprise registered there, then respect. “Fair. I’m Kael.”

“Elara Vance.” She didn’t offer a hand. He didn’t seem offended.

“Boat’s down there.” He jerked his chin toward a narrow slip where a weathered vessel waited, low and solid in the water. He looked back at her cases. “We’ll need to get creative.”

“There’s a distribution plan,” she said, reaching for the top crate. “I did the weight calculations. You’ll take the denser equipment forward. I’ll sit aft with the lighter cases. We’ll strap the rest.”

He watched her lift with what might have been a suppressed smile. “You’ve never done a run out here, have you?”

She adjusted her grip. “I’ve done riverine transport on six continents.”

“Rivers don’t try to spit you back out.”

“Neither do my deadlines.”

That made him huff a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Right, professor. Let’s load.” He slid into the space beside her and took the crate from her hands, fingers brushing her knuckles, warm despite the damp. “Save your back.”

She let go before the contact lingered and moved to the next case. He carried weight like he’d been born to it, casual and sure, stepping around slick coils of rope without looking. His boat smelled like oil and wet rope and the faint ghost of fish. Everything about him suggested someone whose body knew this place better than his mouth knew the time.

By the time they had the cases arranged in a tight grid, her hair had dampened at the temples and her palms were raw from plastic ridges. He tied the last strap with a complicated knot and glanced at her backpack.

“You’ll want to stow that under,” he said. “She’ll soak you if you keep it on.”

“She?” Elara arched a brow.

He patted the gunwale. “Every boat I’ve trusted has been a she.”

“And how many have you trusted?”

He grinned. “Enough to know not to anger this one with extra ego.” He nodded toward the pack again. “Under.”

She slid it into the dry well, resisting the urge to keep it close. He moved to the controls, hands competent and relaxed, and the engine coughed awake. The sound carried across the flat morning like a declaration.

“You’ve got permits?” he asked over the engine, tone neutral.

She reached into her pocket and held up laminated copies in a plastic sleeve. “Three. Including one signed by someone who advised me not to hire you.”

His eyes met hers. The humor dimmed, something sharper flashing through before smoothing out. “You hired me anyway.”

“I hired the only person who knows Ailean Tìor like the back of his hand,” she said, and surprised herself with the smallest concession. “And because you were the only one who answered my email.”

“I didn’t answer your call,” he said.

“No,” she said. “You didn’t.”

The boat eased out of the slip. He navigated with his whole body, knee braced, shoulders loose, the wheel steady in his hands. The town slid by in shades of stone and salt-streaked paint. Mist licked the water. Elara turned her collar up and stared ahead, refusing to glance at the profile beside her.

“Rules?” he asked after a moment, like he was accepting a weather report. “You look like a rules person.”

“I am,” she said. She didn’t look at him. “We stick to the schedule. We prioritize safety. We document everything. We don’t cut corners. And we arrive on time.”

“Four out of five,” he said. “I can live with that.”

“Five,” she said, and then—against her own instincts—added, “Please.”

He cut her a sideways look that softened something in his face she didn’t want to name. “All right, Elara Vance. I’ll try to bend minutes into something useful.”

“You’ll be on time,” she said.

His smile returned, a quiet curve. “We’ll see.”

She felt the argument gather in her chest like a storm and held it there. The day stretched ahead, a line between what she had planned and what she couldn’t control, and somewhere on that line was the island. She fastened the last strap with more force than necessary and set her hands on her knees to steady the impulse. Beside her, Kael whistled under his breath, a low, tuneless thing that matched the engine’s rhythm. It grated. It soothed. It made a promise she didn’t trust.

Their clash had a shape already—her edges, his ease. The water narrowed, the harbor mouth opening to the gray expanse beyond, and she fixed her eyes on it, refusing to give ground before they’d even cleared the pier.