The Accord began as a promise that no shore would close its harbors during a famine. Forty-one years later its grain schedules, lighthouse duties, and rescue levies bind together people who still disagree about almost everything. Membership grants passage, not obedience: the Glassreach League and the Basalt March retain their own laws.

Now the sea withdraws farther every night. Warehouses stand over mud, old foundations emerge from the sound, and the treaty has no clause for a harbor that ceases to be a harbor. In Lumeport, the Council of Nine Moorings must decide whether to restart a buried engine or admit that the pact was built on a concealed debt.