Marta wakes to hands she does not recognize. Fingers like rough ropes, the press of a palm that owns her. The backroom is hot with bodies and the sour weight of ale. Candlelight throws angry smears across crates of cloth. A merchant’s ledger lies open on a packing table, the ink dark and certain. Someone hums, low and lazy, like a cat pleased with itself. “Quiet,” the man says. The voice is smooth as a coin. He smells of pipe smoke and something sweeter—spices from far ports, or perfume to drown a hangover. He answers to no name to Marta. There is only the hand at her breast and the pressure at her mouth. Marta’s first breath cracks out like a bell. Her fingers scrabble for the hem of her sleeve. There, in the fold of thread and sweat, is the hairpin Agatha shoved into her when Marta washed up on the Conner Road eight years ago: plain brass, bent into a question mark. Marta finds it with one motion, like a second pulse. The pin slides free. Beware the small things, Agatha said once. Small things can be weapons. He laughs—too close—and slides a palm under her chin. “New goods,” he tells the darkness. “Fresh. Quiet. With some spirit.” He thinks he’s praising product. Marta pushes. Not against the man—the man is heavy and certain—but against whatever has become of her life. She pushes against the idea that she is property