“So, how does it work?” Hamish asked, turning the black opal in his hand. “Can you … talk to them?”
I realized then that he was talking to me. I’d guessed that they had their suspicions about me being a gem sage, but the question embarrassed me. “I don’t know how to explain it, it’s just something I can do.”
“Can you feel them?”
West seemed to still, as if he, too, was waiting to hear my answer.
“Kind of. It’s more like I just know them. Their colors, the way the light hits them, how they feel when I hold them in my hand.”
Hamish stared at me, clearly not satisfied.
I sighed, thinking. “It’s like Auster. With the birds. How they’re drawn to him. How he understands them.”
He nodded then, seeming to accept the explanation. But I wasn’t even sure if I understood it. If my mother hadn’t died, I would have apprenticed as a gem sage under her for many more years. With her gone, there were things I’d never learn.
“Should come in handy,” Hamish said, piling the full purses into one of the chests before he stood. “But best to keep it to yourself.” He waited for me to agree with a nod before he followed West up the stairs.
Willa picked up a small basket of raw garnet, setting it into her lap. “What’s with you and West?” She looked at me from the top of her gaze.
“What?” I frowned.
She counted out the faceted stones in silence, making a note before she set her eyes on me again. “Look, I don’t make a habit of asking questions. The less I know, the better.”
I set my hands into my lap. “Okay.”
“He’s my brother.”
I looked up at her, then, unsure of what to say. She wasn’t stupid. And there was no point in lying.
“If he’s getting himself into trouble, I want to know about it. Not because I can control him. No one tells West what to do. But because I need to be ready to protect him.”
“From what?”
Her leveled gaze held the answer. She was talking about me.
“You’re not just some Jevali dredger, Fable. You matter to someone who has made our lives very difficult. Someone who could do a lot more damage than he already has.” She handed me the garnet, and I set it into the open chest beside me. “I knew something wasn’t right the night you showed up on the dock and he agreed to give you passage.”
“He never told you who I was?”
“West doesn’t tell me things unless I need to know them.” Her irritation wasn’t hidden. “I wasn’t worried until he asked me to follow you in Ceros.”
“You don’t have anything to worry about, Willa.” The words hurt me to say, but they were true. West had made it clear that we were shipmates. Nothing more.
“I don’t?”
“I’m on the Marigold to crew.”
“No, you’re not.” She sighed, getting to her feet. “You’re on the Marigold to find a family.”
I bit down on my bottom lip, blinking before tears could gather at the corners of my eyes. Because she was right. My mother was dead. My father didn’t want me. And Clove, who’d been the closest thing to family I had other than my parents, was gone too.
“I’m leaving the Marigold,” Willa said suddenly.
My hands closed over the purse in my hands. “What?” I whispered.
“I’ll wait until things are settled and West has found a new bosun.” She said the words methodically. As if she’d recited them to herself a hundred times. “But once he’s paid Saint and set up his own trade, I’m going back to Ceros.”
“Have you told West?”
She swallowed hard. “Not yet.”
“What will you do?”
She shrugged. “Apprentice with a smith maybe? I don’t know yet.”
I leaned into the crate behind me, remembering what Willa said about not choosing this life. I wasn’t only buying West’s freedom with the Lark. I was buying hers too.
“I like you, Fable. It was my idea to bring you on, and I’m glad you’re here.” Her voice dropped low. “I’m not saying I don’t want you to love him. I’m only saying that if you get him killed, I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep myself from cutting your throat.”
THIRTY-NINE
In the pitch-black, Dern was no more than a few flickering lights on an invisible shore.
I stood out on the bow, watching it come closer as West guided the Marigold into the harbor, where a dock worker was standing with a torch to log our arrival.
Paj threw out the heaving lines, and I headed below deck to the cargo hold. The haul from the Lark was organized and stowed, every gem and precious metal and pearl accounted for in Hamish’s book. It was enough to pay West’s debt to Saint and help the Marigold settle into their own operation, maybe even one that would reach the Unnamed Sea one day.
The possibility made me feel something I rarely did. It made me hope. But it was quickly followed by the swift and brutal reality of what life as a trader was. A constant game of strategy. The never-ending maneuvering to get ahead and the insatiable hunger to want more.
More coin. More ships. More crews.
It was something that ran through my own veins. I was no different.
Soon, the sun would be rising behind the land, and I would have moved the only piece I had on the board. But taking Saint’s payoff and using it to bail out the Marigold in exchange for a place on a crew was a move even Saint would admire. That’s what I told myself, anyway.
Hamish came from the helmsman’s quarters, setting one of the purses into my hand, and I closed my fingers around the soft leather. It would be my first time trading with the crew as one of them, and I was suddenly nervous.
The others came out onto the deck with their jackets buttoned up, and Willa folded her collar down, letting the scar on her face show.
West pulled on his cap. “Paj and Fable with me in the first. Auster and Willa with Hamish in the second. Let’s go.”
Auster let the ladder down, and Paj went over. On the next ship, a woman sat on the mast, watching us. Maybe news of what happened to the Marigold in Ceros had already reached Dern. If it had, there would be more attention on us than we could afford.
“Stay away from that gem dealer.” West spoke low beside me, handing me an extra knife. I nodded, sliding the blade into my boot.
He went over the rail, and I followed as the others watched from the quarterdeck. I pulled the hood of my jacket up and shoved my hands into my pockets, staying at West’s back as he led us up the docks. The crews of the ships in the harbor were just beginning to wake, and I scanned the crests, looking for the Luna, but she wasn’t there. If Zola stayed on course after Ceros, they’d likely be in Sowan now and moving farther north before they came back to this part of the Narrows. That would give us the time we needed, but not much more.
The merchant’s house doors were already open when we came up out of the harbor, and we disappeared into the flood of people inside. The warmth of bodies broke the chill of the wind, and I dropped my hood, keeping my scarf pulled up over the bottom half of my face.
“You good?” West turned back, looking at me and then to Paj.
“I’m good.”
“Good,” Paj echoed.
“All right, one hour.”
We split into three directions, shoving into the aisles, and I moved to the southeast corner of the warehouse, meandering through the stalls. Merchants selling mullein leaves and other herbs were gathered at the end of the row, but on the other side, I spotted a case of silver. I slipped between two men to the front of the line, and a man with long red hair beneath a black knit cap looked down at me.
“What can I do for you, girl?” He tapped his hand on top of the case, his merchant’s ring clinking on the glass. The face of the onyx stone was so scratched that it hardly shined anymore.
I reached into the purse inside my pocket, finding two pieces of the sharp-cornered metal, one gold and one palladium. “Ran across a few pieces in Ceros. Not sur
e what they’re worth,” I lied, holding them out before him.
He leaned in close, fitting a rusted monocle to his eye. “May I?”
I nodded, and he picked up the lump of gold, inspecting it closely. He took the palladium next, taking longer to check it. “I’d say thirty-five coppers for the gold, fifty for the other.” He dropped them back into the palm of my hand. “Sound fair?”
“Sure.” It wasn’t a great price for such good pieces, but I was only just getting started and I couldn’t waste time haggling with him. I’d take what I could.
He counted out the coppers into a small purse and handed it to me. “So, where in Ceros did you say you—”
“Thanks.” I shouldered back into the aisle before he could finish.
I found a quartz merchant next, taking my time to peruse her stones before I plucked three from my purse. The woman’s eyes went wide when she saw the size of the bloodstone in my hand, and I bristled, wondering if I’d underestimated the merchants. Maybe we should have put smaller pieces into the purses.
She stuttered over her words as she held it to the light. “Haven’t seen one like this in quite some time.”
It took her only seconds to make a good offer, and I made the two other gems part of the deal to get rid of them faster, walking away with another ninety coppers in one trade.
I lifted myself up on my toes, looking for West’s green cap. He was bent over a table along the opposite wall of the warehouse. Paj was in the next aisle ahead of me, arguing with a sharp-eyed old lady over a piece of red tiger’s eye.
The weight of the purse grew lighter, and my pockets grew heavier as I traded the gems in pairs of two or three, saving the most conspicuous for last—the black opal.
I eyed the merchants in the stalls, looking for someone who carried rare gems and might be less curious about a girl trading such a precious stone. When I caught sight of a man with a large green beryl in his hand, I moved toward him, listening to the deal he was making. He gave a fair price without much fuss for the beryl, and when the woman trading it walked away, he dropped it into a locked chest behind him.
“Yes?” he grunted, not bothering to look up at me.
“I’ve got a black opal I’m looking to trade.” I picked up a piece of jadeite on the table and turned it over, pressing the tip of my thumb into its sharp point.
“Black opal, you say?” He set a hand on top of the case, eyeing me. “Haven’t seen a black opal in the Narrows for at least a few years.”
“It was part of an inheritance,” I answered, smiling to myself. Because it was true.
“Hmm.” He turned around, fetching a gem lamp from a case behind him and set it down on the table between us. “Let’s see, then.”
They were the tools used by the gem merchants because they couldn’t feel the stones like I could. They didn’t understand their languages of light and vibration or know how to unravel their secrets. Once, the Gem Guild had been full of gem sages. Now, most merchants were just ordinary men with fancy tools.
I took a deep breath, watching around me before I pulled it from the purse and set it on the mirrored glass. It was the largest black opal I’d ever seen, and it would take only seconds for the people around us to notice it.
He looked up at me from beneath his bushy eyebrows and I tried to smooth my expression, wondering if maybe I’d misjudged him. But he didn’t say anything as he sat on his stool and lit the candlewick.
The little flame reflected off the glass, and the light poured through the black opal, filling the entire black, inky stone and the colors suspended inside. Flecks of red, violet, and green danced like spirits in the darkness, their shapes almost seeming to writhe.
“My, my…” he murmured, turning the stone slowly so the lamp’s light illuminated his face. “Inheritance, huh?”
“That’s right.” I leaned into the table, speaking quietly.
He didn’t buy it, but he didn’t argue. He set his hand over the opal as a man passed behind me and blew out the lamp. “Two hundred and fifty coppers,” he said in a lowered voice.
“Deal.”
His eyes narrowed on me, no doubt suspicious at how quickly I’d taken the offer. He pulled a full purse from his belt and grabbed another from the locked cabinet behind him, setting both down before me. “That’s two hundred.” He snatched a smaller one from his belt. “And that’s fifty.”
I picked up all three purses and dropped them into my deep pockets. The weight felt right. Counting them would take time I didn’t have. On the other side of the warehouse, Paj and West were already waiting for me beside the door that led to the harbor.
“Don’t know what you’re up to, but you’d better be careful,” he whispered, reaching out a hand to me.
I shook it before I stepped back into the aisle and disappeared, unleashing the pent-up breath in my chest. West’s eyes found me as I neared the door, and we stepped out into the morning fog.
“All right?” West spoke over his shoulder, waiting for me to pass him.
Paj nodded. “I held back the smoky quartz when I started getting looks but sold the rest. What about you?” He looked to me.
“All gone,” I breathed.
It had worked. It had actually worked.
I smiled beneath my scarf, pulling the hood of my jacket up as the Marigold came back into view. In another day, she would be free.
FORTY
Flames flickered on the candlesticks in the breeze, the white wax dripping down and landing like raindrops on the deck between us. Auster set an entire roasted goose in the middle of our makeshift table, and Willa clapped her hands, whistling out into the night.
The crisp, golden skin still sizzled as she reached forward with a piece of torn bread, soaking it into the juices pooling in the bottom of the tray. Baked plums simmered in cinnamon honey steamed inside the bowl in front of me beside a slab of pungent cheese and a row of smoked pork pies with flaking crusts. Paj had even gone to the gambit to buy a set of hand-painted porcelain plates and real silver cutlery. Everything was laid out under the night sky that glittered with starlight above us.
The smell made my mouth water, the hollow in my stomach aching as we all watched Auster carve into the goose and set two medallions on my plate. Paj poured the rye, filling my cup until it overflowed onto the deck, and I fished two plums from the crock.
West sat beside me, tearing the round of bread and setting a piece into my hand. His fingers touched my palm and that same flash of heat reignited inside me, but he kept his eyes down, reaching across the table for the bottle of rye.
“I’d like to make a toast.” Willa raised her glass into the air, and the candlelight made it glow like an enormous, glistening emerald in her hand. “To our bad luck charm!”
I laughed as every glass raised to meet hers, and they shot down the rye in one simultaneous gulp. Willa slapped the deck beside her, her eyes watering, and I broke a piece of cheese off the hunk in my hand and threw it at her. She leaned back, catching it in her mouth, and the crew cheered.
They hovered over their plates, laughing between bites, and not ever using the finely engraved knives and spoons beside their plates. The sound of the wind grazed the drawn sails, and I looked down at my plate, picking at the buttery crust of a pie and putting a small bite into my mouth.
I wanted to stop time and stay there, with the sound of Hamish singing and the sight of Willa smiling. Auster wound his pale fingers into Paj’s before he brought his hand to his lips and kissed it. Side by side, they were coal and ash. Onyx and bone.
Willa pushed another filled glass toward me and looked up to the sail flying over the bow. The white canvas bearing the crest of the Marigold fluttered and curled in the soft wind.
“Why Marigold?” I asked, counting the points of the star. “Why is she named Marigold?”
Willa’s eyes flitted to West, who stiffened beside me. The others continued chewing, as if they didn’t hear the question.
“What do you think he’ll say?
When you pay the debt?” Hamish changed the subject, looking at West over the greasy bone clutched in his hands.
“I don’t know.” West’s voice was rough with the weariness that pulled at his face as he stared into the candle flame. The saltwater from diving in the Snare had dried in his twisting hair.
We’d pulled it off. We’d made it to the Lark and filled the coffers with coin, but he was worried.
He was probably right to be. Saint would never see it coming, and there was no telling what he’d do. The man who was always three steps ahead would lose a shadow ship and an entire crew in the span of a moment that he hadn’t predicted. And there was nothing he hated more than losing control. The only thing we could count on was the fact that Saint was a man of his word. He’d cut the Marigold loose before he broke a deal, but he wouldn’t forget. And there would be a price to pay.
West drained his glass before he stood, and I watched him disappear down the ladder to the main deck.
The sound of the crew’s voices rang out over the quiet harbor, and the lanterns on the other ships went out one by one, leaving us with only the dim glow of our little candles until their flames were extinguished in the clear melted wax. Hamish picked over the goose carcass for the last of the meat, and Willa lay back, her arms stretched out around her like she was floating on the surface of the water. She looked up to the sky, and in another moment, her eyes were closed.
Hamish threw the last bone into the tray, getting to his feet. “I’ll take first watch.”
Paj and Auster climbed up into the netting of the jib, curling up together, and I followed Hamish down the ladder. Before us, Dern was silent, the smoke from the three chimneys of the tavern catching the moonlight as it rose up into the sky.
I stopped before the archway, where the light from West’s quarters was coming through his open door. His shadow was painted onto the deck, the angles of his face touching the wood planks beside my feet. I hesitated, one hand on the opening to the passageway, before I walked with quiet steps into the breezeway and peered inside.
Fable Page 23