Leo woke to darkness and the gentle rocking motion beneath him. For one terrifying moment, his heart seized in his chest, a familiar panic washing over him. Was he back in the cramped hold of a merchant vessel in Porto Veloce's harbor? Had everything been a dream?

His breath came in short, desperate gasps as he sat bolt upright, nearly tumbling from his hammock. But something was different. The air—it wasn't stale and suffocating. It didn't reek of bilge water and the sharp, sterile chemicals that had always clung to Master Valerio's clothes.

Instead, his lungs filled with the clean, sharp scent of salt and tar. Real salt air, not the manufactured perfection of Porto Veloce's harbor.

A thin slice of brilliant orange light caught his eye, cutting through a crack in the hatch above his head. Sunrise. Real sunrise over open water.

"I'm on the Crimson Sparrow," Leo whispered to the darkness, his voice breaking. "I'm free."

The words hung in the air, so enormous that they made him dizzy. He pressed his palms against his eyes, fighting back tears that threatened to spill. Six years of servitude, of constant fear and growing despair—and now this. Freedom so vast and sudden it hurt to breathe.

Leo scrambled out of his hammock, bare feet landing on wooden planks that creaked under his weight. The cargo hold was small, packed with crates and barrels secured against the ship's motion. In the dim light, his eyes searched frantically for something familiar, something to anchor him in this new reality.

There it was, propped against a stack of crates—his broom. The worn handle smooth from years of use, the bristles frayed but still serviceable. Leo grabbed it, wrapping his calloused fingers around the handle. His shoulders relaxed as the familiar weight settled in his grip.

This, he understood. A broom. A tool. A purpose.

The sea might be infinite and terrifying, the future unknown, but a deck was just a floor that needed sweeping.

Leo made his way up the narrow ladder to the main deck, broom clutched tightly in one hand. The brilliant orange sunrise nearly blinded him after the darkness of the hold. The vastness of the ocean stretching to the horizon in every direction made his stomach lurch. So much water. So much space. No land in sight.

He forced himself to breathe and ducked into the galley. The small space was warm compared to the morning air outside, filled with the scent of lamp oil and something bitter.

Raven hunched over the navigation table that dominated one side of the galley, her striking hair a chaotic tangle of red and white strands. Maps spread before her, held down by various small weights. A half-empty mug of tea sat near her elbow, gone cold hours ago from the look of it.

Dark circles shadowed her eyes, and her sharp features seemed more angular than usual in the lamplight. Her cat-like eyes kept flicking toward the hallway that led to the captain's cabin.

"Morning." Leo's voice came out small.

Raven didn't look up from her charts. "You're up early." Her voice was flat, drained of its usual sarcastic edge. She pushed a hard piece of ship's biscuit toward him without taking her eyes off the map. "Eat."

Leo took the hardtack, turning the rock-hard bread in his hands. "Thank you."

Now Raven did look up, something like surprise flickering across her face. "Don't thank me for feeding you. You're crew now. We take care of our own."

There was something fierce in the way she said it, something that made Leo stand a little straighter. Not property. Not a servant. Crew.

"Has the captain...?" Leo began.

Raven's face shut down. "Not yet." She turned back to her maps, shoulders rigid. "Those charts won't plot themselves, and we need a course that keeps us clear of both Navy and pirate territory. So unless you know how to calculate a bearing using the Southern Cross, go find something useful to do."

Leo retreated from the galley, hardtack in hand. He understood Raven's sharpness wasn't meant for him. Her eyes, so focused on the maps but constantly drawn to that empty hallway, told a different story than her words.

The deck gleamed in the morning light, wooden planks still wet with dew. The sky above stretched impossibly blue, not a single cloud breaking its perfect expanse. Leo had never seen so much sky in his life. In Porto Veloce, buildings and ships and masts had always broken up the view, hedging in the world.

Here, there was nothing but horizon.

Near the main mast, Alyssa wrestled with a thick coil of rope. Her motions were jerky and frustrated, her knuckles white around the rough hemp. The rope kept slipping from her grasp, refusing to form whatever knot she was attempting.

She wore simple sailor's trousers and a loose white shirt, far from the fine dresses Leo had seen her in at Porto Veloce. A smudge of dirt marked her cheek, and wisps of platinum blonde hair had escaped her braid to frame her face.

She looked up, catching Leo's stare. "What are you looking at?" The words snapped out with aristocratic precision, but her pale green eyes held something wild and uncertain.

"Nothing," Leo said quickly, clutching his broom tighter. "I just... I've never seen the ocean like this before."

Alyssa's face softened marginally. She glanced at the horizon, then back at the tangled rope in her hands. "Neither had I, until recently." She gave the rope a vicious tug. "This stupid knot won't hold. The captain showed me once, but I—" She broke off, her jaw tightening.

Leo watched as she tried again, pulling the rope into a loop and then threading the end through it. The knot slipped apart the moment she put pressure on it.

"Damn it!" Alyssa threw the rope down. "How hard can it be? It's just a knot!"

But Leo heard what she wasn't saying. It wasn't just a knot. It was one more thing she couldn't control in a world suddenly spinning away from her.

He thought about offering to help, but he knew nothing about sailing knots. His knowledge began and ended with sweeping. So instead, he just nodded and moved to the railing, broom still in hand, watching the water rush past the ship.

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