The burn behind my eyes was matched by the anger still boiling in my chest. If Clove had gone against Saint, then Zola was probably right. Clove wanted revenge for something, and he was using me to get it.
Voices shouted below and I turned back to the dock, where Soren had returned with a parchment. He unrolled it before Zola and he looked it over carefully. When he was finished, he took the feathered quill from Soren’s hand and signed. Beside him, a little boy dripped a pool of wax onto its corner and Zola pressed his merchant’s ring into it before it cooled. He was making a deal.
A moment later, a string of dredgers was lining up shoulder to shoulder behind them. My brow creased as I watched Zola walk down the row slowly, inspecting each of them. He stopped when he saw one of the younger ones hide a hand behind his back. Zola reached around him and yanked it free to reveal that the fingers on the boy’s right hand were bound in a bandage.
Zola dropped it before dismissing him, and the dredger’s place was taken by another who was waiting at the edge of the dock.
It wasn’t until that moment that I realized what he was doing. We weren’t stopping at Jeval for supplies or trade. Zola wasn’t here to buy pyre. He was here for dredgers.
“Make ready!” Clove shouted.
A deckhand shoved me back from the railing. “Out of the way,” he growled.
I moved around him, trying to see. But the crew was already lifting the anchor. Calla took the steps to the quarterdeck and I followed on her heel, watching over a stack of crates as Zola came back up over the side of the ship.
The dredgers from the docks spilled onto the deck behind him and the crew of the Luna stopped their work, every eye landing on the gold-skinned creatures climbing over the railing.
That’s why Zola needed me. He was headed for a dive. But he had at least two dredgers on his crew already, and I made three. There were at least eight Jevalis boarding the Luna, with even more coming up the ladder.
In the distance, the surface of the water roughened, the waves bristling as a cold north wind swept in from the sea. It sent a chill up my spine as the heaving lines were pulled up and I turned back to the deck. The last of the dredgers came up onto the ship and I froze when the sunlight hit a face I knew. One I’d feared almost every day I was on Jeval.
Koy stood almost a head taller than the other dredgers as he took his place in the line. And when his gaze fell on me, I could see the same wide look of recognition that I knew was in my own eyes.
My voice was hoarse, hollow on a long breath. “Shit.”
FOUR
I watched him.
Koy leaned against the crates secured along the stern, his gaze set on the full sails overhead. The Luna was already drifting from the barrier islands and Jeval was growing smaller behind us. Wherever we were headed, Zola wasn’t wasting any time.
Koy didn’t look up, but I knew he could feel my eyes on him. And I wanted him to.
The last time I’d seen Koy, he was tearing down the docks in the dark, screaming my name. I could still see the way he’d looked beneath the surface of the water, blood trailing in twisting streams. I don’t know what had made me jump back in after him. I’d asked myself that question a hundred times, and I didn’t have an answer that made any kind of sense. If it were me, Koy wouldn’t have hesitated to leave me to drown.
But even if I’d hated him, there was something I had understood about Koy from the start. He was a man willing to do whatever he had to. No matter what, and at any cost. And he’d made me a promise that night I first stood on the deck of the Marigold. That if I ever came back to Jeval, he’d tie me to the reef and leave my bones to be picked clean by the creatures who lived in the deep.
My gaze dragged over his form, measuring the height and weight of him. He had the advantage over me in almost every way, but I wasn’t going to turn my back or give him a single chance to keep that promise.
I didn’t blink until Clove came up the stairs with heavy steps, running both hands through his curling hair to rake it back from his face. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to his elbows, and the familiar movement made the pain in my chest flicker back to life.
“Dredgers!” he called out.
The Jevalis lined up along the starboard side, where the dredgers from Zola’s crew, Ryland and Wick, stood waiting. The crates of tools were in their hands, and from the look on their faces, they didn’t like what was about to happen.
Koy slung his own belt over his shoulder, taking the place on the deck before Clove. That was just like Koy, finding the scariest bastard on the ship and making a point of showing them he wasn’t afraid. But when I looked up into Clove’s face, his attention was on me.
The steely glint in his eye was unwavering, making my insides feel like I was falling. “All of you,” he grunted.
I sucked in my bottom lip and bit down to keep it from trembling. In that single look, the years ticked back, making me instantly feel like I was that little girl on the Lark he’d chastised for tying a knot wrong. My expression hardened as I took a single step forward, putting me a few feet away from the end of the line.
“While you’re aboard this ship, you will not step out of line,” he crowed. “You will do as you’re told. You will keep your pockets empty.” He paused, giving each of the Jevalis a silent look before he continued. I’d seen Clove give a hundred speeches just like it on my father’s ship. It, too, was painfully familiar. “You will be given two supper rations a day while you are employed on the Luna, and you will be expected to keep your quarters clean.”
He was likely repeating the terms on the parchment in his hands—the one Zola signed with the harbor master—and there was no denying it was a generous deal. Two rations a day was decadent living for any Jevali on the deck beside me, and they’d likely be taking home more coin than most of them could earn in months.
“The first of you to break these rules will be swimming back to Jeval. Questions?”
“We stay together.” Koy was the first to speak, outlining his own terms. He was talking about their sleeping quarters and I suspected it was to ensure they didn’t become targets for the Luna’s crew. Dredgers were every man for himself on Jeval, but this was different. There was safety in numbers on this ship.
“Fine.” Clove nodded to Ryland and Wick, who looked like they were ready to pull their knives out. They stepped forward, each setting a crate down before the line. “Take what you need for a two-day dive. Consider it part of your payment.”
The dredgers lunged forward before Clove had even finished, crouching around the crates to fish out picks and press their callused fingertips to the sharp points. They rooted in the pile for chisels and eyeglasses to add to their belts, and Ryland and Wick watched, disgusted by the way they fumbled through the tools.
I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed. Koy stood back behind the others, not taking his gaze off Zola’s dredgers. When they locked eyes, the silent tension that flooded the deck was palpable. I felt a shade more invisible then, thinking that maybe the presence of the Jevali dredgers was a good thing. It took the attention off me, if only a little.
“Fable.”
I stiffened, hearing my name spoken in Clove’s voice.
He took three slow steps toward me, and I drew back, my fingers finding the handle of West’s knife.
His boots stopped before mine and I watched the easy way he looked at me. The wrinkles around his eyes were deeper, his fair lashes like threads of gold. There was a scar I’d never seen before below his ear, wrapping around his throat and disappearing into his shirt. I tried not to wonder where it came from.
“We need to worry about any of them?” His chin jerked toward the dredgers on the deck.
I glowered at him, not sure I could believe that he was actually talking to me. What’s more, he wanted information, as if we were on the same side. “I guess you’ll find out, won’t you?”
“I see.” He reached into the pocket of his vest, pulling a small purse free. “What’ll
it cost me?”
“Four years,” I answered heavily.
His brow knit in question.
I took a step toward him, and his hand tightened on the purse. “Give me back the four years I spent on that island. Then I’ll tell you which one of those dredgers is most likely to cut your throat.”
He stared at me, every thought I couldn’t hear shining in his eyes.
“Not that it would really matter.” I tipped my head to one side.
“What?”
“You never really know a person, do you?” I let my meaning fold under the words, watching him carefully. Not a single shadow passed over his face. No hint of what he was thinking.
“We’ve all got a job to do, don’t we?” was his only reply.
“You more than any of us. Navigator, informant … traitor,” I said.
“Don’t make trouble, Fay.” His voice lowered. “You do what’s asked of you and you’ll get paid like everyone else.”
“How much is Zola paying you?” I snarled.
He didn’t answer.
“What’s Zola doing in the Unnamed Sea?”
Clove stared at me until the ring of grommets singing on the ropes overhead broke the silence between us. A sail unfolded on the deck, casting Clove and me in its shadow. I looked up to where it was silhouetted against the sunlight, a black square against the blue sky.
But the crest painted on the canvas was missing the curve of the crescent moon that encircled Zola’s insignia. I squinted, trying to see it. The crisp outline of three seabirds with wings extended made a tilted triangle. It was a crest I’d never seen before.
If they were raising a new crest, it meant that Zola didn’t want to be recognized when we crossed into the waters of the Unnamed Sea.
I looked over my shoulder, but Clove was already disappearing into the helmsman’s quarters, the door slamming shut behind him. I could see the ripple of his white shirt behind the wavering glass of the window that looked out over the deck.
I bit down onto my lip again, every quiet thing within me screaming. I’d known the night the Lark sank that I’d lost my mother. But I hadn’t known I’d lost Clove, too.
FIVE
“Three reefs!” Zola’s voice rang out over the ship before he’d even made it through the archway.
He unclasped his jacket, letting it drop from his shoulders, and tossed it to one of the Waterside strays standing at the foot of the mast. His hands caught the anchored ropes stretching from the bow, and he pulled himself up into the lines, looking out over the sea.
But my eyes were on Ryland and Wick. Both stood in the row of Jevalis, every ounce of fury over the disgrace making their muscles tense. They weren’t happy Zola had taken on extra dredgers. In fact, they were seething.
“Here, here, and here.” Zola followed the line of the reef crests below with his finger, drawing them on the surface of the water.
In the distance, a crescent-shaped islet was visible, floating like a half-submerged circle.
“Fable will head the dive.”
I blinked, turning back to the deck where the dredgers’ hard gazes were set on me.
“What?” Ryland snapped, his hands dropping from where they were tucked into the crooks of his arms.
Zola ignored him, looking at the islet. The wind pulled his silver-and-black hair across his rough face as I tried to read it. He said he’d given the crew instructions to leave me alone, but he was giving them plenty of reasons to come after me.
“The fourth reef is picked clean, but there’s plenty of tourmaline, palladin, and bloodstone in the others. Probably an emerald or two.” Zola jumped back down to the deck, walking down the line of dredgers. “Your hauls will be checked when you surface. First dredger to hit twenty carats of gemstones gets a bonus of double their coin.”
Koy stood a little taller as Zola said the words. The other Jevali dredgers looked up at the helmsman with brows raised, and Wick tightened his grip on his belt, his mouth twisting up on one side.
“I need at least three hundred carats of stone. You have until sundown tomorrow.”
“What?” Koy stepped forward, his voice finding an edge.
“Ships run on schedules.” Zola looked down at him. “You have a problem with that?”
“He’s right,” I said. Koy looked surprised that I’d agreed with him, but it was true. “We would have to dive back-to-back while we had the daylight if we were going to dredge enough gems to meet that quota.”
Zola seemed to consider it before he pulled the watch from his vest. He flicked it open. “Then I think you’d better be quick about it.” He dropped the timepiece back into his pocket and looked up at me. “Now, what do you see?”
He moved over to give me a place at the rail beside him, but I didn’t move. Zola was playing a game, but I wasn’t sure if anyone on this ship knew what it was. I didn’t like that feeling. He was clearly entertained by it all, and that made me want to shove him over the side.
“What do you see?” he asked again.
I curled my hands into fists and hooked my thumbs into my belt as I looked out over the water. It was moving smoothly inside the crest of the islet, almost still enough in places to reflect the shapes of the clouds. “It looks good. No riptide that I can see, but we obviously won’t know that until we’re down there.” I eyed the water on the other side of the ridge. The shape of the crater was angled perfectly to protect the interior from the current.
He met my eyes before he stepped around me. “Then get them down there.”
The boy holding his jacket held it up for him to slide his arms back in, and then Zola was walking back across the deck without even a glance at us. The door slammed behind him, and in the next breath, the dredgers turned to me. Ryland’s face was painted red, his gaze tight.
On the other side of the main mast, Clove stood silent.
There were fourteen of us in all, so the only thing that made sense was to put four or five dredgers on each of the reefs. I took a step forward, studying the Jevalis. They were a range of sizes and length of limb, but I could tell by looking at them who were the fastest swimmers. I also would have to split up the Luna’s dredgers if I wanted to keep them from pulling anything underwater.
The smart thing to do would be to have Koy head one of the groups. Whether I liked him or not, he was one of the most skilled dredgers I’d ever seen. He knew gems, and he knew reefs. But I’d made the mistake of letting him out of my sight before and I wasn’t going to do it again.
I stopped before Ryland, lifting a chin to him and the Jevali at his side. “You two with me and Koy.”
Koy arched one eyebrow up at me, suspicious. I didn’t want to dive with him either, but as long as he was on this ship, I needed to know exactly where he was and what he was doing at all times.
I assigned the rest of them, putting together swimmers of varying body sizes in hopes that what one of them lacked, the others might make up for. When they were grouped together on the deck I turned back to the islet, unbuttoning the top of my shirt to pull it over my head. Koy’s arm brushed against mine as he came to stand beside me and I stilled, putting more space between us.
“This bastard has no idea what he’s doing,” he muttered, running his thumb over the picks at his hip and counting them silently. The ones he’d plucked from the crate were shining bright between the rusted ones he’d used on Jeval.
I didn’t answer, doing the same on my own belt. Koy and I weren’t friends. We weren’t even allies. If he was being nice, there was a reason, and one I wouldn’t like.
“What? You’re not going to talk to me?”
When I looked up into his face, I flinched at the sinister smile that stretched across his lips. “What are you doing here, Koy?”
He leaned into the rail with both hands and the muscles in his arms took shape under his skin. “I’m here to dive.”
“What else?”
“That’s it.” He shrugged.
My eyes narrowed as I studied
him. Koy had a skiff and a ferrying trade on Jeval that put coin in his pocket every single day. He was likely the wealthiest dredger on the island, and in the time I’d known him, he’d never once left Jeval. He was after something.
“Come on, Fay. We Jevalis have to stick together.” He grinned.
I squared my shoulders to him, stepping so close I had to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. “I’m not Jevali. Now, get in the water.”
“Urchins,” Wick muttered, moving around us.
Ryland followed on his heels, leaning over me as he hung his shirt on the mast. I had to step back to keep him from touching me. I knew exactly what he was doing. Even if I had the charge from Zola, he wanted me to know who held the power between us. I was no match for him. For any of them, really. And no one on this ship was going to have my back if it came to that.
I felt small beneath him, and that feeling made my stomach turn.
“Better watch yourself down there. Tides are fickle.” The look in Ryland’s eyes didn’t change as he said the words. He climbed up onto the side and jumped, holding his tools in place as he fell through the air. A moment later, Wick jumped in behind him, and they both disappeared beneath the sparkling blue.
Koy watched him surface, his face expressionless. “You’re not going to take your eyes off me, are you?” The dark humor bled into the words as he climbed up, and I followed.
I waited for him to step into the air before I sucked in a breath and jumped, crashing into the cold water beside him. The rush of bubbles raced over my skin toward the surface above and my eyes lit with the sting of salt as I turned in a circle, trying to get my bearings. The reef below snaked in a tangled labyrinth, deepening the farther it pulled from the islet in the distance.
Clusters of fish in every color swarmed the crests, catching the light with iridescent scales and rippling fins. The coral was heaped like the domes of an otherworldly palace, some of which I’d never seen before.
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