Vela moves with the liquid grace of someone raised on decks and in tidepools. She wears her hair in a braided crown threaded with bleached whale-bone beads and tiny vials of phosphorescent algae that glow faintly at dusk. Her skin is water-polished and freckled around the nose, and her fingers show faint webbing between the first two digits. Her left forearm bears a pale, raised sigil of the Tide Hands, cicatrized from ritual ink. When she laughs she splashes small droplets from her sleeves; when she concentrates her pupils narrow to pinpoint lights. Unexpectedly, she keeps a starched, impeccably clean handkerchief embroidered with tiny clocks in her breast pocket, a contrast to her otherwise salt-stained clothing.