Olka Gretcher

The blonde bob, messy bangs, and glasses Olka wears when introduced are all camouflage, adopted to slip past the killers hunting her. Old photographs and Zeb's memories preserve her true look: straight black hair tied back into a low ponytail, framed by short eyebrows. Danger keeps her wardrobe rotating aboard the ship; she first appears in a dress and black heels beneath an unbuttoned white coat, changes into a red dress that evening, and adds a bow-fastened black wig before leaving the vessel.

Love for her son organizes everything Olka does. Weary of underworld bloodshed after it consumed most of her family, she willingly surrenders wealth, name, and even her face for a quiet life where Gram can grow up safe, and she projects calm for his benefit no matter how frightened she is. Her kindness predates her losses: as a girl she slipped bread to a starving street child, the act that bound Zeb to her for life. She prizes loyalty and selflessness, scolds recklessness and cowardice alike, and though no fighter, carries a quiet moral steadiness through every crisis.

Grief and pressure make her curt when Yor first meets her, but warmth resurfaces quickly. Recognizing a fellow mother behind the bodyguard, she gently probes Yor's fear of being spotted by her family, lends her clothes as a disguise so the two can walk the deck like a pair of mom friends, and parts from her with heartfelt gratitude and a promise to pray for the Forgers' happiness.

The Gretchers once ran Ostania's underworld by comparatively honorable rules, and after the Second East-West War their black market moved food to civilians who needed it. Olka grew up in that world, raised by her father alongside two brothers, later marrying and naming her newborn son Gram in her father's honor. An internal power grab then wiped out her father, brothers, and husband, handing the organization to Leonardo Hapoon, who put a price on the survivors' heads and drove mother and child into hiding.

Owing her late father a favor, Garden's Shopkeeper arranges an escape: traveling as the "Grey family" with the loyal Zeb, her papers reading Shaty Grey, Olka boards the Princess Lorelei with Yor Forger as bodyguard and Matthew McMahon supervising. The killers come in waves: a gunman posing as room service, an ambush amid a masquerade ball, the chain-wielding Barnaby, and a rooftop sniper firing under cover of the fireworks, while Zeb takes bullets on a hidden vest shielding her and Gram. She scolds him for the recklessness even as she worries. Once Yor and Matthew finish the remaining assassins, Olka embraces her bodyguard, insists that Yor hold Gram even with blood still on her hands, and departs by boat toward asylum; an illustration in Volume 9 confirms the three reach another country safely.