Pierre's eyes opened to silk.
Not the rough canvas ceiling of his cabin aboard the Crimson Sparrow, but cream-colored silk stretched taut above carved mahogany posts. The bed beneath him was soft enough to drown in, piled with quilts that probably cost more than most people earned in a year. Sunlight streamed through windows so clean they might as well have been invisible, revealing a room that belonged in a palace rather than a port town.
The air didn't move. No salt breeze, no gentle rock of the ship, no familiar creaks and groans of wood settling against the sea. Just stillness, heavy and wrong as a held breath.
Pierre sat up slowly, his ribs protesting the movement but no longer screaming. Someone had changed his clothes while he slept—gone were his salt-stained shirt and patched trousers, replaced by a nightshirt made from fabric so fine it felt like wearing a cloud. The knowledge that hands had touched him while he was unconscious sat in his stomach like spoiled meat.
