Eli moves like someone still learning how to occupy a ship's rhythm. He stands with a slight forward tilt as if bracing the wind, shoulders narrow and slightly hunched from hours on watch. His sailor's cap sits at an off-kilter angle over hair that is sandy-dark and perpetually tussled. His face is fresh and almost boyish, freckled across the bridge of his nose from sun and salt; wide eyes take everything in and dart when he speaks. His clothes are unusually clean for a ship: a new-looking blue linen shirt with mended elbow patches, a patched but neatly hemmed pair of breeches, and a short, water-resistant jerkin that still smells faintly of oil instead of rot. Unexpectedly, he keeps one polished brass button pinned to his jerkin near his heart, carved with a tiny lantern emblem; it never leaves him and gleams like something too precious for a deckhand.