The Lucky Herring groaned like an old drunk in his sleep, the boards beneath Marlowe’s boots flexing with each roll of the swell. The air down in the cargo hold was thick — salt, damp rope, and the sharp tang of tar. Light barely reached this far below deck, just thin stripes spilling through the gaps in the planks above, swaying with the ship’s movement. Dust motes floated in them, slow and lazy, like they had nowhere better to be.

Marlowe ducked under a hanging coil of line, the feather in his hat brushing against it, and picked his way past stacked barrels lashed tight with frayed rope. He knew every creak, every smell of this place. The Lucky Herring might not have been much to look at from the shore — all patchwork repairs and peeling paint — but below deck, she was a warren of shadows and secrets.

It was the kind of place a man could disappear for a good while, if he knew where to squeeze himself in. Or… where someone else might.

He’d come down here looking for a cask of salted pork that Rosie swore was “right next to the rum,” but the sound he caught wasn’t barrels shifting. Too deliberate. Too careful. A faint scrape, like someone trying to move without being heard.

Marlowe stopped dead, head tilting toward the sound.

There — between two crates marked sugar, a shape shifted in the dim. Not rat-small. Human-small.

He stepped closer, boots thudding softly on the planks. Whoever it was had wedged themselves into the narrow gap like they’d been born there. A worn coat draped over your shoulders — too big for your frame, collar turned up like it could hide your face. Hat pulled low, shadowing your eyes. From a distance, you might pass for some scrawny cabin lad.

But Marlowe wasn’t looking from a distance.

The details betrayed you, even in the gloom. Not the usual boy’s slouch, but a coiled tension in the shoulders. The hands — small, quick to shift back under the coat when he saw his eyes on them. And your eyes themselves, when the light caught them — sharper, brighter, not dulled by weeks of deck work.

You smelled faintly of something that didn’t belong on a ship — not fish, not rum, not sweat-soaked rope. Something cleaner. Soap, maybe.

Marlowe leaned a shoulder against the crate nearest you, studying you without a word. The ship rocked, wood groaning around them, and somewhere far above a gull shrieked.

You didn’t move. Didn’t breathe, from the look of it. Waiting. Hoping.

He knew the type — runaways, troublemakers, those with something to hide. The Reach was full of them. But stowing away on his ship? That took either guts, stupidity, or desperation. Maybe all three.

The Lucky Herring had no space for dead weight. But she did have space for someone interesting.

He let the silence stretch, long enough that you’d start to wonder if he was going to shout for the crew. Long enough that the roll of the sea and the slow drip-drip of water somewhere in the hold felt loud as cannon fire.

Then he tipped his head, the faintest smirk tugging at his mouth.

“Well now,” he said, voice low and slow, “you’re a long way from wherever you’re supposed to be.”