Leo stood at the railing, watching seabirds circle above the Crimson Sparrow's wake. The morning stretched long and empty, broken only by the creak of rigging and the occasional barked instruction between Raven and Alyssa. Both women moved with purpose but said little, their eyes constantly darting to the captain's closed door.

His hands tightened around his broom handle. Last night's storm had passed, leaving behind a tense calm that felt worse than the tempest. The ship had survived, but something was broken aboard the Crimson Sparrow—something no amount of sweeping could fix.

A strange smell cut through the salt air. Leo sniffed, turning toward the galley hatch. Smoke—not the pleasant kind that meant cooking, but the acrid bite of something burning.

He hurried below deck, broom still clutched in his hand. The galley door stood ajar, black smoke billowing out in angry puffs. Inside, Alyssa bent over the small stove, frantically waving at a cast iron pan engulfed in flames.

"Stop that!" Raven appeared behind Leo, shoving past him. "You're just feeding it air!"

Alyssa whirled around, her face smudged with soot. "I know what I'm doing!"

"Clearly not." Raven grabbed a nearby lid and slammed it over the flaming pan. The fire sputtered and died, leaving behind the stench of burnt food and failure.

Leo hovered in the doorway, uncertain whether to enter or retreat.

"That was our breakfast," Alyssa said, her voice brittle.

"That wasn't breakfast. That was a disaster." Raven lifted the lid, revealing a blackened mass that might once have been oatmeal. "Who taught you to cook? Or did you always have servants for that too, Princess?"

Alyssa's face hardened. "Don't call me that."

"Why not? You act like one. Taking what you want, ruining what you touch—"

"I'm trying!" Alyssa's voice cracked. "Unlike some people who just hide in their maps and charts."

"I'm keeping us alive," Raven hissed, leaning closer. "While you play house and burn our supplies, I'm making sure we don't sail straight into Navy waters."

"And how's that working out? Do you have any idea where we're going? Because it feels like we're just drifting!"

Raven's eyes narrowed to cat-like slits. "At least I'm not pretending everything's fine. At least I'm not knocking on his door every hour like some lovesick puppy."

"I never—"

"I've seen you. Standing there, hand raised, too scared to knock." Raven's voice dropped lower. "He's gone, Princess. He isn't him anymore."

Alyssa flinched as if slapped. For a heartbeat, Leo thought she might cry. Instead, she grabbed the burnt pan, shoved past Raven, and hurled the ruined breakfast into a bucket of seawater by the door. Without another word, she stormed out.

Raven stayed motionless, staring at the empty stove. Then, noticing Leo, she straightened. "What are you looking at?"

Leo lowered his eyes. "Nothing."

"Good. Keep it that way." She brushed past him. "Clean this mess up. It stinks in here."

Her footsteps faded up the ladder, leaving Leo alone in the smoke-filled galley.

He propped his broom against the wall and opened the small porthole, letting the worst of the smoke escape. Then he surveyed the damage: burnt oatmeal caked onto the bucket, soot covering the stove, spilled water on the floor. Not so different from the messes he'd cleaned in Porto Veloce, really.

As he worked, scrubbing the blackened pot with sand and seawater, Leo took stock of their supplies. A half-barrel of hardtack, some dried fruit, salted fish hanging in nets from the ceiling. Food enough for weeks, if properly rationed. But the galley felt cold, unused. More like a storage room than the heart of a ship.

The ship's heart was supposed to be warm. That's what his father always said when they'd sail out on the Coral's Dream. Even on the coldest mornings, his mother would have something hot waiting when they returned—a pot of fish stew, bread fresh from the oven. Something to bring life back to frozen fingers and tired bones.

Leo paused, rag in hand. The memory rose so clearly he could almost smell it: his mother's small bedroom, the window cracked despite the chill to "let the sickness out." Her thin form under threadbare blankets, breath rattling in her lungs. His father, returning from a long day at sea, hands raw and bleeding from hauling nets.

Instead of eating or resting, his father had gone straight to their tiny kitchen. Leo had watched, confused, as he carefully deboned a small fish, simmered it with seaweed and the last of their salt.

"Why are you cooking?" Leo had asked. "Mama can't eat."

His father hadn't looked up from the pot. "She might. And if she doesn't, the smell will comfort her." He'd stirred the broth slowly. "A warm stomach can fight any sickness, son. Remember that."

His mother hadn't eaten that night. Or the next. But his father had made broth every evening until the end.

Leo blinked, returning to the Crimson Sparrow's galley. He stared at his hands—small, uncallused, useless for fighting or sailing or navigation. But they knew work. They knew how to make things clean, how to tend, how to care in small ways that others might not notice.

He couldn't fix their captain, locked away with whatever darkness he'd absorbed from Valerio. He couldn't mend the rift between Raven and Alyssa. But maybe...

Leo set the clean pot on the stove and reached for the barrel of hardtack. He selected a few pieces, noting the weevils that had already begun to make homes in the hard biscuits. He brushed them away and placed the hardtack in a bowl of water to soften.

While it soaked, he took down one of the dried fish. It was tough, meant to last through long voyages, but he broke off several flakes and crushed them between his fingers. From their small store of dried fruit, he selected a wrinkled apple slice, chopping it into tiny pieces.

By the time the hardtack had softened into a porridge-like consistency, Leo had assembled his ingredients. He added the fish flakes for salt and substance, the fruit for a hint of sweetness. He lit the stove—carefully, so unlike Alyssa's impatient approach—and set the mixture to warm slowly.

As he stirred, the galley filled with a simple, honest smell. Not fancy, not perfect, but real. The smell of care.

Leo looked down the narrow corridor that led to the crew's quarters—and beyond them, to the captain's cabin with its perpetually closed door. His chest tightened. What if the captain turned him away again? What if those red-rimmed eyes stared at him with anger or, worse, no recognition at all?

He almost abandoned the idea then. But the memory of his father's steady hands preparing broth for a dying woman gave him courage.

Sometimes the offering mattered more than the outcome.

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