Mishen stands with his weight settled over the balls of his feet, as if the ground might shift like a deck beneath him. He moves in short, balanced steps and turns his whole body toward a sound before his head follows. A flat river stone hangs from his belt on a length of tar-dark cord; one edge has been rubbed smooth by years of his thumb. He has a broad, weather-browned face, a blunt nose, and a mouth that seems set for a practical answer even when he is amused. His hands are calloused and nicked from rope, oars, and wet wood, and his coat smells of river mud, lamp oil, and smoked fish.

Mishen is generous with food and stingy with information. He can joke easily while repairing a boat, but turns exacting when anyone treats a crossing as simple. He respects brave people and distrusts people who mistake recklessness for courage. When tired, he becomes blunt; when frightened, he becomes busy.

Mishen learned to ferry people and freight across the Sallowmere Marsh from his aunt, who taught him to read water by the way reeds leaned and insects gathered. Years ago, he took a risk on a night crossing for the party, carrying them through a flooded cut when a safer route would have cost them precious time. They repaid him by getting his younger brother, Tavi, out of a debtors' lockup, and Mishen has considered himself in their debt ever since. When the black tide swallowed Duskmere Hollow, Mishen was working a distant channel. He returned to find refugees gathering along the Thistlewick Road and has since ferried supplies and people along the marsh edge. Now he is hiding a smuggler's ledger in the false bottom of his skiff. It records payments, routes, and the names of people who used his boat without telling him what they carried. One entry may connect a local smuggling run to the night Corwin Ashvale vanished while pursuing the drowned bell tower's new-moon ringing. Mishen has not decided whether exposing it would help the refugees or put them in greater danger.