I stiffened, his relaxed manner making me feel as if there was some greater threat here that I couldn’t see. He was too calm. Too settled.
“This is about you.”
The prick of nerves lifted on my skin. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“I know who you are, Fable.”
The words were faint. Only an echo in the ocean of panic that writhed in my gut. I stopped breathing, a feeling like twisting rope behind my ribs. He was right. I had been stupid. Zola knew I was Saint’s daughter because his navigator was one of three people in the Narrows who knew. That couldn’t be a coincidence.
If that was true, Clove hadn’t only betrayed Saint. He’d betrayed my mother, too. And that was something I had never thought Clove capable of.
“You really do look just like her. Isolde.”
The familiarity that hung in his voice as he spoke of my mother made my stomach sour. I’d hardly believed my father when he told me that Isolde worked on the Luna’s crew before Saint took her on. She’d never told me about those days, as if the time between when she left Bastian and joined up on the Lark had never existed.
Even then, he and my father had been enemies. The war between traders was one that never ended, but Zola had finally found a weapon that could turn the tide.
“How did you know?” I asked, watching him carefully.
“Are you going to pretend like you don’t know my navigator?” He matched my icy stare. “Saint has burned a lot of bridges, Fable. Revenge is a powerful motivator.”
I pulled in a slow breath, filling my aching chest with the damp air. A small part of me had wanted him to deny it. Some fractured piece of my mind was hoping that Clove hadn’t been the one to tell him.
“If you know who I am, then you know that Saint will kill you when he finds out about this,” I said, willing the words to be true.
Zola shrugged. “He won’t be my problem for much longer.” He sounded sure. “Which brings me to why you’re here. I need your help with something.” He sat back up, reaching for the bread and tearing a piece from the loaf.
I watched him slather a thick layer of butter onto the crust. “My help?”
He nodded. “That’s right. Then you can go back to that pathetic crew or whatever hole in Ceros you were planning to make a home of.”
What was so unsettling was that it sounded as if he meant it. There wasn’t even a shadow of deceit in the way he met my eyes.
My gaze went back to the window’s closed shutters, where slices of blue sea glowed through the slats. There was a deal to be made here. He needed me. “What do you want me to do?”
“It’s nothing you can’t handle.” He peeled back the petal of an artichoke slowly before scraping the flesh between his teeth. “You’re not going to eat?”
I leveled my eyes at him. I’d have to have my toes at the edge of death to accept a meal or anything else from anyone on this ship. “Do you always feed your prisoners from your own table?”
“You’re not a prisoner, Fable. I told you. I simply need your help.”
“You just kidnapped me and tied me to the mast of your ship.”
“I thought it best to let your fire die out a little before we talked.” The smile returned to his lips and he shook his head. “Like I said, just like her.” He gave another raspy laugh before he drained his glass of rye and slammed it down. “Calla!”
Footsteps sounded outside the door before it swung back open. She stood in the passageway, waiting.
“Calla will show you to your hammock in the crew’s cabin. If you need anything, you’ll ask her.”
“A hammock?” I looked between them, confused.
“You’ll be given your duties tomorrow and you’ll be expected to meet them without question. Those who don’t work on this ship don’t eat. They don’t usually make it back to shore, either,” Zola added, a frown breaking his lips.
I couldn’t tell if that look was madness or mirth. Maybe it was both. “I want my knife back.”
“You won’t need it,” he said, his mouth full. “The crew’s been instructed to leave you alone. As long as you’re on the Luna, you’re safe.”
“I want it back,” I repeated. “And the ring you took.”
Zola seemed to consider it as he picked up the linen napkin on the table and wiped the grease from his fingers. He stood from the ornately carved chair and went to his desk against the far wall, reaching into the neck of his shirt. A moment later, a gold chain surfaced from the collar and a black iron key swung in the air before he caught it in his palm. It clicked as he fit it into the lock of the drawer and slid it open. The ring glinted on the twine as he lifted it from inside and handed it to me.
He picked up the knife next, turning it over in his hand before he held it out. “I’ve seen that blade before.”
Because it was West’s knife. He’d given it to me before we got off the Marigold in Dern to trade the haul from the Lark. I took it from Zola, the pain in my throat expanding as I rubbed my thumb down the worn handle. The feel of him appeared like a wind blowing over the decks: there one second and gone the next as it slipped over the railing and ran out to sea.
Zola took hold of the door’s handle, waiting, and I tucked the knife into my belt before I stepped out into the shadow of the passageway.
“Come on,” Calla said, irritated.
She disappeared down the stairs that led belowdecks and I hesitated before I followed, looking back to the deck for Clove. But the helm was taken by someone else. He was gone.
The steps creaked as we came down into the belly of the ship and the air grew colder in the dim glow of the lanterns lining the hallway. Unlike the Marigold, it was only the main artery in a series of passages that snaked belowdecks to different rooms and sections of the cargo hold.
I stopped short as we passed one of the open doors, where a man was crouched over a set of tools, writing in a book. Picks, mallets, chisels. My brow creased as the newly fired steel gleamed in the darkness. They were dredging tools. And behind him, the cargo was black.
My eyes narrowed as I bit the inside of my cheek. The Luna was a ship made for large inventories, but her hull was empty. And it had to have been offloaded recently. When I’d seen the ship in Ceros, she was drifting heavy. Not only was Zola headed into the Unnamed Sea, he was going in empty-handed.
The man stilled when he felt my gaze on him and he looked up, eyes like broken shards of black tourmaline. He reached for the door, swinging it closed, and I clenched my hands into fists, my palms slick. Zola was right. I had no idea what he was up to.
Calla followed the narrow hallway all the way to the end, where a doorless passage opened to a dark room. I stepped inside, one hand instinctively drifting back toward my knife. Empty hammocks swung from thick timber beams over jackets and belts hung from the hooks on the walls. In the corner of the room, a sleeping man wrapped in quilted canvas snored, one hand dangling.
“You’re here.” Calla nodded to a lower hammock on the third row.
“This is the crew’s cabin,” I said.
She stared at me.
“I’m not crew.” The indignation in my voice sharpened the words. The idea of staying with the crew put my teeth on edge. I didn’t belong here. I never would.
“You are until Zola says otherwise.” The fact seemed to infuriate her. “He’s given strict orders that you’re to be left alone. But you should know…” Her voice lowered. “We know what you bastards did to Crane. And we won’t forget it.”
It wasn’t a warning. It was a threat.
I shifted on my feet, my hand tightening around the knife. If the crew knew I had been on the Marigold when West and the others murdered Crane, then I had as many enemies on this ship as people breathing.
Calla let the unsettling silence stretch between us before she disappeared back through the open doorway. I looked around me in the dark room, letting out a shaking breath. The sound of boots pounded overhead, and the ship tilted slightly as a gust of wind
caught the sails, pulling the hammocks like needles on a compass.
The eerie quiet made me wrap my arms around myself and squeeze. I sank into one of the dark corners between trunks to get a wide view of the cabin while being hidden by the shadows. There was no getting off this ship until we made port, and there was no way to know exactly where we were headed. Or why.
That first day on the Marigold came rushing back to me, standing in the passageway with my hand pressed to the crest on the door. I had been a stranger in that place, but I’d come to belong there. And now everything within me ached for it. A flash of heat lit beneath my skin, the sting of tears gathering in my eyes. Because I’d been a fool. I’d let myself believe, even if it was just for a moment, that I was safe. That I’d found a home and a family. And in the time it took to draw a single breath, it was all torn away.
THREE
Beams of pale moonlight drifted across the wood plank floor throughout the night, creeping closer to me until the warmth of morning spilled through the deck overhead.
Zola had to have been telling the truth about the crew being ordered not to touch me. They hadn’t so much as looked in my direction as they came in and out of the cabin overnight, taking their rest hours in staggered shifts. Sometime in the dark hours I’d closed my eyes, West’s knife still clutched in my fist.
Voices in the passageway lifted me from the haze between waking and sleeping. The speed of the Luna dragged and I tensed as a blue glass bottle rolled across the floor beside me. I could feel the ship slow as I unfolded my legs and got to my feet.
The pounding of footsteps trailed above and I pressed myself to the wall, watching for any movement through the door. But there was only the sound of the wind coming down the passageway.
“Strike sails!” The booming sound of Clove’s voice made me flinch.
My stomach dropped as I watched shadows flit between the slats. We were making port.
He called out the orders one after the other, and more voices answered. When the ship groaned again, my feet slid on the damp wood and I reached out to catch myself on the bulkhead.
Either we’d picked up speed and made it out of the Narrows in a single night, or we were making a stop.
I stepped through the door, one hand to the wall as I watched the steps. Calla hadn’t told me to stay put in the cabin and Zola said I wasn’t a prisoner, but walking around the ship alone made me feel as if I were waiting for someone to stick a blade in my back.
The sunlight hit my face as I came up the stairs and I blinked furiously, trying to focus my eyes against its glare. Two crew members climbed each of the huge masts, taking up the downhauls in a locked rhythm until the sails were reefed.
I froze when I saw Clove at the helm, tucking myself into the mast’s shadow. My teeth clenched, a bitter fury covering every inch of my skin as I watched him. I had never imagined a world in which Clove could betray Saint. But the worst part was that she’d trusted him—my mother. She’d loved Clove like a brother and the thought that he could betray her was unfathomable. It was something that couldn’t exist.
Zola stood at the bow with his arms crossed over his chest, the collar of his jacket pulled up against the wind. But it was what lay beyond him that made me stop breathing altogether. I reached for the nearest railing, my mouth dropping open.
Jeval.
The island sat like a shining emerald in the brilliant blue sea. The barrier islands emerged from the churning waters below like blackened teeth, and the Luna drifted into the last bay of the crude docks as the sun peeked over the familiar rise in the distance.
The last time I’d seen the island, I’d been running for my life. I’d thrown myself at the mercy of the Marigold’s crew after four years of diving those reefs to survive. Every muscle in my body coiled tightly around my bones as we drifted closer.
A barefoot boy I recognized ran down the dock to secure the heaving lines as the Luna neared the outcropping. A deckhand climbed over the railing beside me, reaching for the ties that secured the ladder on the side of the ship, and tugged at their ends until the knots were free. It unrolled against the starboard side with a slap.
“What are we doing here?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
The man arched an eyebrow as he looked up at me, his gaze dragging over my face. But he didn’t answer. “Ryland! Wick!”
Two younger crew members came down from the quarterdeck, one tall and lanky with a fair mop of hair. The other one was broad and muscular, his dark hair shaved down to the scalp.
The deckhand dropped a crate before them and the rattle of steel made me flinch. It was filled with the dredging tools I’d seen last night. “Get these sorted.”
From the look of the belts around their waists, they were Zola’s dredgers. When he felt my attention on him, the dark-haired one looked up at me, his gaze like the hot burn of rye.
Jeval wasn’t a port. The only reason to come here was to offload small over-calculations in inventory. Maybe a crate of fresh eggs that didn’t sell in one of the port towns, or a few extra chickens the crew hadn’t eaten. And then there was pyre. But pyre wasn’t the kind of stone that attracted an outfit like Zola’s, and I’d never seen his crest on a ship here before.
If we were stopping in Jeval, Zola needed something else. Something he couldn’t get in the Narrows.
I followed the railing toward the bow, fitting myself behind the foremast so I could see the docks without being spotted by anyone who might recognize me. The other ships anchored in the meager harbor were all small vessels and, in the distance, I could see the little boats packed with bodies coming in from the island to trade, carving white trails in the water.
Only weeks ago, I would have been one of them, coming to the barrier islands when the Marigold made port to trade my pyre for coin. I woke with a pit in my stomach on those mornings, the smallest voice within me afraid that West wouldn’t be there when the mist cleared. But when I stood at the cliff overlooking the sea, the sails of the Marigold were there. They were always there.
Zola lifted a hand to clap Clove on the back before he went to the ladder and climbed down. Jeval didn’t have a harbor master, but Soren was the man to talk to when something was needed, and he already stood waiting at the mouth of the dock. His cloudy spectacles reflected the sunlight as he peered up at the Luna, and for a moment I thought his eyes landed on me.
He’d accused me of stealing on the docks more than once and he’d even made me repay a debt I didn’t owe with a week’s worth of fish. But his gaze drifted over the ship, leaving me as quickly as it had found me, and I remembered I wasn’t the girl who’d leapt for the ladder of the Marigold anymore. The one who’d begged and scraped to survive the years on Jeval so she could go searching for the man who didn’t want her. Now I was the girl who’d found her own way. And I also had something to lose.
My eyes landed on Zola as his boots hit the dock. Soren walked lazily toward the ladder, tipping his good ear up as Zola spoke. One bushy eyebrow lifted over the rim of his spectacles before he nodded.
The cargo hull was empty, so the only way Zola could be trading was in coin. But there wasn’t anything to buy on this island except fish, rope, and pyre. Nothing worth trading in the Unnamed Sea.
Soren left Zola standing at the edge of the walkway before he disappeared into the people crowded on the rickety wood planks. He shouldered back toward the other end, where the skiffs from the beach were slowing to drop barefoot dredgers to trade.
I watched Soren snake through the commotion until he disappeared behind a ship.
Around me, everyone was going about their duties, and from the look of it, not a single crew member was surprised by the stop at the dredger island. My eyes lifted to the mainmast and upper decks, where the deckhands were rolling out the storm sails. Not the ones used in the Narrows. These sails were crafted for the monster gales that haunted the Unnamed Sea.
Behind me, the water stretched out in a bottomless blue, all the way back to Dern. I knew how
to survive on Jeval. If I got off the Luna, if I found a way to … my thoughts flicked from one to the other. If the Marigold was looking for me, they’d most likely be following Zola’s route back to Sowan. Eventually, they could end up in Jeval.
But there was still a part of me that wondered if the Marigold would cut their losses. They had the haul from the Lark. They could buy out from Saint and start their own trade. An even softer whisper sounded in the back of my mind.
Maybe they wouldn’t come looking at all.
I gritted my teeth, staring at the toes of my boots. I’d sworn that I’d never come back to Jeval, but maybe now it was the only chance I had at staying in the Narrows. My hands tightened on the railing and I peered over it to the water below. If I jumped, I could make it around the barrier islands faster than anyone on this ship. I could hide in the kelp forest at the cove. Eventually, they’d give up looking for me.
When the feeling of eyes on me crept over my skin, I looked over my shoulder. Clove stood on the other side of the helm, watching me as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. It was the first time his eyes had met mine and they didn’t waver. His stormy gaze was like the pull of the deep water beneath us.
My fingers slipped from the rail and I leaned into it, staring back. He was older. There were silver strands streaking his blond beard and his skin had lost some of its warm gold color beneath the tattoos covering his arms. But this was still Clove. Still the man that had sung me the old tavern songs as I fell asleep on the Lark. The one who’d taught me to pickpocket when we made port and bought me blood oranges on the docks in Dern.
Again, he seemed to read my thoughts, and his jaw ticked.
I was glad. In that moment, I had never hated anyone as much as I hated Clove. I’d never wanted so badly to see anyone dead. The muscles in his shoulders tensed as the words flit across my mind and I imagined him in that crate that West dropped into the black sea. I imagined his deep-throated scream. And the tug at the corner of my mouth filled my eyes with tears, my busted lip stinging.
The dead look in his eyes met mine for only another moment before he went back to work, disappearing beneath the archway that led to the helmsman’s quarters.
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