Another young girl comes into the cabin with two bowls. She silently puts the dishes by the door and leaves. Tirad wants to ask her about Narivan but she goes out before he has a chance to speak. Tirad goes to the bowls. The food is strange to him, its chunks of pink meat in a soup. The fish they usually eat have white flesh. It can’t be chicken either, unless a red fleshed chicken that he doesn’t know of. He is starving, not having eaten the whole day. He takes a chunk in his mouth. It has the taste and the texture of a fish but much more delicious, softer and with more fat. He eats the whole bowl and even some from Dalia’s dish. She is asleep now and wouldn’t eat this cooked food anyway. He needs to find her raw fish or bring some dried fish from their boat. Tirad washes his face and hands. A man comes in with slow steps. He is medium aged and looks calm and relaxed.

“Ashid said you were a couple! She never mistakes such things. She can tell in one glance when two people are in love and have slept together,” he says without an introduction. Tirad guesses that Ashid must be the old woman healer who is treating Narivan and had found out he was a Saviour Disciple upon their first encounter. He agrees with the man, nodding.

“I’m Pejhan, the chief of the eastern Parsana Ship. You do know that the Saviour guards are looking for you! The first place they will come looking would be here… The Saviour Disciples come here to hide whenever they have to escape. So far, we have given refuge to all of them in the name of the great Lady Parsana… But this time, it is different. If they come here for you, we can’t stop them. Even now, the Parsana residents can’t forgive the person who has set the Oxan harbour on fire,” the man continues. But Tirad doesn’t understand him completely. He knows that Mart must have sent troops to find him by now but what he doesn’t get is the ‘great Lady Parsana’ and the ‘Saviour Disciples escaping’. He has more questions now. He wants to speak up and tell the man he is innocent, but he knows there is no way to prove it yet and the people of the sea believe things that seem more convenient to them, and usually gossips seem easier to take in. He can go ahead and deny he is the person they think he is and say he has no idea what Pejhan is talking about it. But it is better if he stays silent for now. Anything he says might put him in more trouble.

“I can’t decide about you and I cannot judge you… It’s all in the hands of Armina now. She will tell us what to do with you,” Pejhan continues. Tirad can’t keep silent anymore. He asks who Armina is and why is she in the position to charge him with anything? He repeats Dalia’s lie of going to Oxan for the purchase of oxygen masks and denies knowing anything about the Oxan fire. He says they have just come to treat Narivan and not for any other reason. Pejhan shakes his head.