The corridor beyond the door was narrower than the hold had been, barely wide enough for two people abreast, lit by a single swinging lantern hung from a low beam. Zelene kept close to the wall, iron bracket still gripped tight, Finn a half-step behind her with the guard's short blade held low and ready.
They made it perhaps ten paces before the second man found them.
He came around the corner too fast for either of them to react properly — bigger than the one Zelene had struck down, faster too, and his hand closed hard around her wrist before she could bring the bracket up again, wrenching it from her grip with a twist that tore a gasp of pain from her throat.
"Lynn—" Finn moved, blade rising, but the man's other fist caught him hard across the jaw, sending him staggering back into the wall, blade clattering from his fingers.
No—
The man's grip tightened on her wrist, dragging her forward into the lantern light, and before she could pull away, his other hand closed rough around the edge of her hood and yanked it back.
Silver spilled loose around her shoulders, catching the low light in a way that made the man go suddenly, completely still.
"Well." His voice had changed entirely — the rough impatience gone, replaced by something slower, more calculating, his eyes moving over her hair like a man appraising a purse he hadn't expected to find so heavy. "Now that's not something you see twice in a lifetime."
Zelene's stomach dropped, cold and sick, some old instinct screaming at her to cover herself back up, to disappear, and finding no way to do either with his hand still locked around her wrist.
"I'm certain, I've heard about this… Evandelle… Was it?" the man murmured, almost reverent, turning her wrist slightly to catch more light against her hair. "Or close enough to it. Master's going to want to see this himself." A slow, ugly smile spread across his face. "Hair like this doesn't go in with the rest of the batch. This fetches its own price entirely. Private buyers only."
He doesn't know who I am. He only knows what I'm worth.
Somehow that was worse.
"Let… her go." Finn said, pushing himself off the wall despite the blood at his lip, voice rough but steady.
The man didn't even look at him. "Why are you even here? Well, whatever. Sit down, boy, before I decide you're not worth the trouble of keeping conscious."
Zelene twisted hard against his grip, desperation overtaking strategy, and only succeeded in making him laugh — low, unbothered, the laugh of a man who'd done this exact thing enough times to know struggling changed nothing.
"Feisty," he said. "Buyers like that too, if it's not overdone."
Think. Think—
She didn't get the chance.
A shape moved fast out of the shadow behind him — quick, precise, no wasted motion — and the man's head snapped sideways under a blow Zelene never saw fully land. He crumpled, grip finally releasing her wrist, and hit the corridor floor in a heap.
Zelene stumbled back, breath ragged, and looked up into a face she recognized with a jolt that landed somewhere between relief and horror.
Silas?
Copper hair, sharp eyes, the same easy tilt to his mouth she remembered from the market — except now that mouth was pressed into something grim, and his coat was darker, plainer than the one he'd worn in town, the kind of clothing meant to move unnoticed through exactly this sort of place.
He's here. He's actually here.
Her mind reeled, horror crashing in cold and fast behind the relief.
He's one of them. He knew this ship. He knew where to be.
"You—" Her voice came out hoarse, disbelieving, furious. "You're part of this."
Silas's expression flickered — surprise, then something almost like hurt, gone as fast as it appeared, replaced by grim urgency.
"Not the time," he said, crouching to check the fallen man's pulse with quick, efficient hands. "Cover your hair. Now. Before anyone else sees what he just saw."
"Why should I trust anything you—"
"Because I just knocked out a man twice my size to keep three separate buyers from finding out there's a bleeding silver hair loose in this corridor," Silas snapped, low and fast, already pulling her hood back up himself when her shaking hands fumbled it. "You can hate me after we're off this boat. Right now you need to move."
Finn, still holding his jaw, stared between the two of them with open, furious confusion. "Who exactly is this?"
"A complication," Silas said grimly, before Zelene could answer. "One that's about to get worse if we don't move. There are more of them between here and the deck, and now one of them's down, which means someone's going to notice."
Zelene's heart hammered, fear and fury and confusion tangled too tightly together to sort out which one to trust first.
He's not what I thought he was. Or he's exactly what I thought he was, and this is something else entirely.
She didn't have time to decide which.
"Fine," she said, voice hard despite the tremor still running through her hands. "But you're explaining everything. All of it. The second we're safe."
Something in Silas's expression shifted — grim amusement, maybe, or something closer to resignation.
"Deal," he said. "Now move."