Chapter ONE - Weebly

olled barrels, and others worked in tandem to carry
timber. Ethan waited until several of the men had
entered, and then followed them inside, pausing by the
door to give his eyes a chance to adjust to the dim light.
Shouted conversations echoed through the building, an
incomprehensible din that made the space feel smaller
than it was.
Wares were stacked everywhere, and in addition to
the workers who off-loaded the ship, a host of others
sorted items into different areas, supervised by a
number of foremen. At first it struck Ethan as chaotic,
but it didn’t take him long to discern a rhythm and
pattern to what everyone was doing.
He began to walk through the building, taking care
to stay out of the way, even as he searched for Cyrus
Derne. He didn’t see either Derne or his father, and he
wondered if perhaps they were elsewhere on the wharf.
But as he reached the back of the warehouse, he
spotted both merchants in a small office.
They were speaking in low voices to a man of
medium build who couldn’t have been much older than
Ethan’s thirty-nine years. After a moment, Ethan