The Harbourmaster's Shorter Daughter

Wen Corvin is the shorter daughter of the harbourmaster's family, which means the tide-locks went to her sister and the boats went to her, and she has never once minded — except when Sylla is being Sylla. Then a foreign ship docks with a navigator who has a chart of the drowned quarter, the part of the old city that has been under the river for two centuries, and Wen ferries him out to see it. Somebody is opening the locks at night. Not much water. Just enough. And what is coming through, street by patient street, is not a flood but a population — legal, tired, and asking to be counted. Wen has the river knowledge to find the leaks and the navigator has the charts. Between them they have one season, one sister to lie to, and one very old lock that was never, ever, meant to be opened from below.