There were a lot of things that stood out about the man who sat in the newly vacated space. He saw over heads in a crowd like Ropati, for instance. His hair, too, jet black like his own in a sea of mostly brown. His face was obscured under the angle of his hat by the time Ropati looked directly at him.

None of those were what he noticed first. There was a brief moment where his eyes locked on the priest’s collar, as if the thing had personally choked him once. It was chased off by a wooden smile.

Ropati hoped he might be spared another lecture on the wonders of God if he stared dutifully out at the passengers disembarking, like ten times his own weight in wine was just going to magically part past all these strangers from the wrong boat.

Was he talking to him? Ropati’s glance skittered back, then away again. Ah, shit. He was talking to him.

“I do not,” Ropati answered, happy to omit that most of the time this year it was a Whitby inn he stayed at. “Do you?”