Auster looked at me from the corner of his eye before he nodded discreetly. I climbed to the outside of the boat and stood, balancing on the rail.
“Fable,” Hamish warned from the quarterdeck.
A smirk pulled at Willa’s mouth.
West turned, looking over his shoulder, and I met his eyes just as I let go. The sight of him disappeared as I fell, plunging into the water feetfirst. My body sank, and I let the cold wrap around me, the salt stinging my eyes.
I broke the surface to the sound of West’s rough voice. “Fable!”
I ignored him, turning away from the boat and pulling the air deep into my belly until it filled me up to my throat. I let it out in a long, measured exhale as West shouted again. “Fable!”
Two more breaths, and I dove. The cloudy blue stretched out in every direction, the sediment still settling from the churn of the storm. I kept one finger on the rope to follow it into the void, and the current pushed my hair back as I descended. I smiled, looking around me to the vast emptiness. I’d dove almost every day since I was a child. The water was more of a home than Jeval ever was.
The truth was, I liked being a dredger. In fact, I loved it.
I followed a group of parrotfish down, their violet edges rippling as they twisted and turned. The pressure pushed in around me, and I let out a stream of air as the shoal came into view below. The black rock stretched out across the white-sand seafloor in a wandering fissure. My feet landed on the ridge lightly, where the anchor was caught beneath the shelf. Far above me, the Marigold was no more than a dark spot on the surface.
I braced myself on the rock, my palms stinging, and kicked at the anchor with my heel. When it didn’t free, I pulled the chisel and mallet from my belt and got to work on the edge, crumbling the rock with every tap. Little black pieces sank to the seafloor, a dusty cloud coming up around me, and when I had a large enough crack, I set my feet on the ridge and pushed against the rope as hard as I could. The burn for air awoke softly in my chest, my fingers tingling.
It groaned before the rock gave way and the anchor snapped up, loosening the tension of the rope. I pulled in sharp jerks until the line began to move, fitting my feet onto the arms of the anchor and watching the glittering light above grow and stretch as I slowly came closer. Fish swarmed beneath the Marigold, twisted in the ribbons of seaweed trailing from the barnacles and mussels that covered the hull. I let the last of my air out just before I reached the surface and filled my lungs again with a gasp as I came up. West was still leaning over the side, his lips pressed into a hard line. As soon as he saw me, he disappeared.
Auster and Paj worked the crank, lifting the anchor up out of the water, and I reached for the ladder as they heaved it onto the deck. Willa was finishing the plug in the hull with a layer of tar, and she smiled to herself, shaking her head.
“What?” I stopped on the ladder beside her, catching my breath.
“I can’t decide if I like you or if I think you’re stupid.” She laughed.
I smiled, climbing up until I was over the rail and my feet hit the hot deck.
West was already climbing up the mainmast, that same tension running up his spine that was always there when he was angry. He wasn’t used to being disobeyed, and I wasn’t used to being told what to do.
He fit his hands and feet onto the iron rungs until he was balancing against the foot of the sail. His hands worked at the ropes, his knife in his teeth and his hair blowing across his face.
He was right—the sooner I was off this ship, the better. But I was going to walk off the Marigold not owing anything.
NINETEEN
Willa was the only one in her hammock when I came into the cabin after dark. My trunk was still flooded, but I opened the lid and dropped my belt inside anyway. Above, footsteps creaked in West’s quarters and candlelight leaked through the cracks. He hadn’t looked at me since I dove for the anchor, and maybe he wouldn’t until I was off the ship. Maybe that was best.
I climbed into my hammock, pulling a sail into my lap as we swung over the green water that filled the cabin. The tear reached diagonally across the canvas and I studied it, measuring the length of thread I would need.
“I’ve had it since I was five years old,” Willa said, and I looked up to see her holding her dagger out before her. She turned it over in her tar-stained hands. “I took it from a drunk man on Waterside who passed out in the middle of the street. Just took it right out of his belt.”
That wasn’t what I expected her to say.
“It’s not special, really. It’s just the only thing of value I have. I tried to sell it to the gambit in Dern, but West got it back for me somehow.”
I kept my eyes on the sail. “Why?”
“Because he has a really bad habit of making other people his problem.”
I pulled the needle toward me, sliding the thread through the fabric, and when I looked up, I could see what she meant. She wasn’t just talking about the dagger. She was talking about me. “Is that why you’re crewing on his ship?”
She half laughed. “Yes.”
“But Paj said you’ve been on the crew since the beginning.”
“We were on crews together growing up.” She stared up at the ceiling, the look of a memory flashing in her eyes. “When West got the Marigold, he wanted people he could trust.”
I tied off the thread, lifting the sail before me to make sure the stitch was straight. “And how did a Waterside stray become the helmsman of a ship like this?”
She shrugged. “He’s West. He knows how to get what he wants.”
“Is that what you want? To be a trader in the Narrows?”
“What I want is not to die alone,” she said, her voice suddenly small. “I didn’t really choose this life. It’s just the only one I have.”
My hand stilled on the canvas.
“As long as I’m on this crew, I won’t be alone. I think that’s a pretty good place to be when death comes knocking.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. It was sad and familiar. Much too familiar. She’d spoken aloud the one and only silent wish I had ever dared to make. And that gave it too much flesh and bone. It made it feel like a delicate, fragile thing. Something too easy to kill in this kind of life. “What happened to the Marigold’s dredger?”
“What?”
“The dredger who was on this crew. What happened to them?”
Her eyes went to the trunk against the bulkhead that had been empty when I came onto the ship. “He stole from us,” she said simply.
“But what happened to him?”
“It wasn’t like Crane, if that’s what you mean. We cut his throat before we threw him in.” The calm in her voice was unnerving.
“And the burn?”
“Yeah, that was Crane. Well, it was Zola, really.” She reached up, touching the smooth, pink skin at her jaw. “It was a few weeks ago, in Ceros.”
I wanted to say I was sorry for what happened to her. But I knew how I’d feel if someone said that to me. In some ways, being pitied was worse than being hurt. “Why’d he do it?”
“We’ve been making too much coin for his taste. He’s warned us a few times, and we didn’t listen. So, he decided to make a move.”
That was the way traders worked. Warnings followed by grand, public punishments. Whatever kept those beneath them in check.
“What are you going to do in Ceros?”
I looked at the sail in my hands, folding it neatly into a rectangle. “I told you. I’m going to find Saint and ask for a position on one of his crews.”
“No, I mean what are you going to do when he says no?”
My eyes shot up, my teeth clenching.
“Supper’s up.” Auster came into the cabin before I could answer her, pulling his jacket off and hanging it on the hook. “It’s not much, but it’s edible.”
Willa rolled out of the hammock and ducked into the passageway, and I followed, climbing the steps behind her. The main and the foremast sails were bowed
in the wind, and the black water rushed under the Marigold. We were making good time, but there was no way for them to get back on schedule. They’d lost inventory in the storm, and now they’d take even more losses in trade.
I climbed the foremast and started rigging the mended sail, securing it to the mast. It caught the wind above me as I untied the lines and pulled. The night sky was black and empty, stars cast across it in swirling sprays. There was no moon, leaving the deck of the ship dark below. I leaned into the mast, letting my weight fall into the ropes, and tipped my head back, feeling the wind rush around me.
Below, the crew was eating on the quarterdeck, hunched over bowls of porridge. Everyone except for West. He stood at the helm, almost invisible in the dark. His hands gripped the handles, the shadow of his face sharp as he looked ahead.
I tried to imagine him as a little boy—a Waterside stray. So many traders got their start that way, plucked up from the dirty streets by a crew and worked to the bone. Many found their ends on the sea, but a few rose up the ranks to take valuable positions on important ships, sailing across the Narrows and some, even into the Unnamed Sea.
When we made our stops in Ceros on Saint’s trading routes, I would watch the children on Waterside, wishing I had playmates like them. I had no idea they were starving or that most of them had no families.
Once the sail I’d repaired was stretched out beside the others, I lowered myself down the mast. West watched me walk toward him, bristling only enough for me to barely see that he was still angry.
“I don’t like not being of use,” I said, stepping in front of him so he had to look at me.
“You’re not a part of this crew.” The words stung, though I wasn’t sure why. “You’re a passenger.”
“I’ve already paid you. If I get myself killed before we get to Ceros, you’ve still got my coin.”
His eyes shifted then, running over me. There was more behind what he was saying, but I could see by the look on his face that he wasn’t going to give me anything else. There were a lot of demons on this ship, and West seemed to have the most of all.
“Is Saint’s outpost still in the Pinch?” I leaned into the post beside him.
“Yes.”
“Willa thinks he won’t take me on.”
“She’s right.”
I watched his hand slide down the handle to catch the spoke of the helm. “He took you on.”
“And it cost me.”
“What do you mean?”
He put the words together before he said them aloud. “Nothing comes free, Fable. We both know that surviving means sometimes doing things that haunt you.”
The words made me feel even more unsteady. Because he was talking about the man in the crate. But what was there to say? The man was dead. It was done. As horrified as I was by it, I understood it. And that single thought truly scared me.
“What else have you done that haunts you?” I asked, knowing he wouldn’t answer.
There was an ocean of lies dragging behind this ship. They’d killed their dredger and another helmsman’s stryker. Whatever they’d done in Sowan was spreading in rumors across the Narrows. And if that wasn’t enough, they were running side trade under the nose of their own employer. Saint.
No matter how much he may have changed in the time since I last saw him, my father was still my father. He wouldn’t hesitate to do worse to West than the crew of the Marigold had done to Crane. I didn’t want to see that happen.
I was scared for West.
I’d only ever bartered with him at the barrier islands when he came to Jeval, but it was his coin that had kept me fed, and in the two years since I first met him, he’d never failed to show. He’d saved my life more times than I could count, even if he hadn’t meant to.
When I got off the Marigold in Ceros, I’d probably never see him again. And I didn’t want to worry about what became of him.
“I don’t care what you’ve done. When I showed up on the docks at the barrier islands, you didn’t have to help me.”
“Yes, I did,” he said, his face unreadable.
The words worked their way beneath my skin. They snatched the air from my chest. And just as I was about to ask why, his eyes lifted, focusing on something in the distance. I turned, following his gaze to the horizon, where the soft orange glow of light was just coming into view.
Ceros.
And there, in the twinkling lantern light, was the only future I had waiting for me.
TWENTY
Dawn broke as we entered the harbor. I stood at the bow as Auster tied off the last bandage, watching the city come closer. For four years, I’d dreamed of the moment I would reach Ceros, and now that it was here, all I could think about was the moment I would see my father’s face. Wondering what he’d say. What he’d do.
The stone buildings crowded into one another, sprawling down the hill that led to the water. The early light reflected off the square window glass as the sun rose behind me, making the city look like it was studded with diamonds. And suspended above it all, an intricate grid of rope bridges hung, already filled with people making their way across the city.
“Keep them clean.” Auster waited for me to nod in answer before he picked up the pail at his feet and climbed the mast.
I looked down at my scraped hands, now wrapped in white linen strips. The fever and the swelling along the cuts on my shoulders had begun to fade and my lip was beginning to heal. In the end, I’d have more than one scar to remember the journey across the Narrows by.
Auster’s shadow danced on the deck as he balanced in the lines with the seabirds overhead, their wings stretched against the wind. He threw a perch into the air and one caught it in its mouth as another landed on his shoulder. I couldn’t help wondering if what my father had always said about the birds was true. If it was, maybe one of them was Crane.
The crew readied the Marigold to dock, and by the look of the other ships in the harbor, I could see that we weren’t the only ones who’d come through the storm. Split masts, torn sails, and scraped hulls marked several other vessels down the line. The dock crews would make good coin for the next week, their livelihoods often dependent on the faithful storms that plagued the Narrows.
More than half of the ships in the harbor bore Saint’s crest, and I wasn’t the least bit surprised. Even after losing the Lark, his trade had grown in the years since I last saw him. My mother had always admired that about him, the refusal to be beaten and his hunger for more. There was no telling how many ships were under his command now.
Willa crouched beside the main anchor and I took hold of the line, lifting it as she untied the knot. “What if Zola finds out what happened to Crane?”
“He knows.”
My hand tightened on the rope. It wasn’t only West I was worried about. “What will he do?”
She shrugged. “Zola’s got bigger problems.”
“Bigger than one of his crew getting murdered?”
“He got into some trouble with a big gem trader from Bastian who crippled his operation years ago. He can’t so much as swim in the waters of the Unnamed Sea without getting his throat cut, and with Saint taking control of the trade in the Narrows, he’s desperate. That’s why he’s had his eye on us. He can’t expand his trade route, so he needs to stay on top. He knows he can’t touch Saint, but he can keep smaller crews from coming up.”
The trade war between the Unnamed Sea and the Narrows was older than my father. The Narrows had always controlled the production and trade of rye, but Bastian controlled the gems. Both were needed to put coin in the pockets of the guild masters.
It was a world poised on the tip of a knife.
“What gem trader?” I asked.
“The only one that matters. The Trade Council has been holding out against giving Holland license to trade in the Narrows, but it’s only a matter of time. There will be nowhere for Zola to hide then.”
Holland had been legend long before I was born. She was the head of a Bastian e
mpire that ruled the gem trade, and Saint’s operation was a drop in the bucket compared to the power she held over the guilds. If the Trade Council ever gave her license to trade in our ports, it would wipe out every Narrows-based operation, including my father’s.
Below, fishermen were already bringing in their first catches, and the smell of seaweed was thick in the air. Auster and Willa threw the heaving lines to the men on the dock, and they pulled us in slowly as the harbor master walked toward us, a stack of parchment under his arm.
“Marigold!” he shouted, stopping at the end of the platform.
“Get West, will you?” Willa said, going for the anchor’s crank.
I looked over her shoulder to the closed door of the helmsman’s quarters. West and Hamish had been out of sight since before dawn, and I wondered if they were getting the ledgers in order for Saint. The hit on their books from the storm would come with consequences, and my father wasn’t an understanding man.
I knocked on the door and stepped back, pulling in a deep breath to put together some sort of goodbye. There’d be no more early mornings on the cliffs of Jeval, watching for the Marigold’s sails on the horizon. No more ferries on Speck’s boat with pyre heavy on my belt, and never again would I see West waiting at the end of the dock for me. My stomach wavered, making me feel sick. I didn’t like the idea of never seeing him again. And I didn’t like that I felt that way.
Footsteps sounded before the door creaked, but it was Hamish who appeared when it opened. Behind him, stacks of copper were spread over the desk, the maps rolled up tight.
“What is it?” West’s voice sounded behind me, and I turned to see him standing beneath the archway.
“Oh, I thought you were…” I looked behind him into the dark passage that led below deck. “The harbor master’s asking for you.”
He nodded, coming up the last step, and I realized he was holding my belt and jacket. He pushed them into my arms as he moved past me.
I looked down at the stitched leather of the shoulder seams, biting down on my bottom lip. He hadn’t been kidding when he said he wanted me off the ship as soon as we pulled into port. I wished it didn’t sting, but it did. I was standing in the breezeway with my heart in my throat, trying to figure out how to say goodbye, and West couldn’t wait to be rid of me.
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