Westward, where the Silver River widens toward the sea, lies Tidegate, the working-class waterfront. Fishing docks and seafood markets crowd the shore, and the smell of the tide, of nets, of gutted fish, is always present. Small boats bob against weathered piers; cranes and warehouses stand where the older industry has not yet been redeveloped.
Tidegate's families have worked the water for generations, a community that exists slightly apart from the rest of Aetherbridge's institutions — suspicious of the university, foreign to the status games inland, and quietly proud of work that cannot be faked. It is poorer than Cresthaven and more real than many of the city's polished streets. The seafood markets open before dawn and close by mid-morning, and the waterfront's rhythm follows the tide and the catch rather than any administration's schedule. Its signature detail is the dawn auction at the fish market — the shouted bids and the heft of the day's catch, a commerce that the city's formal economy mostly pretends not to see.