The half-dredged gem was the color of sun-dried algae baking on the beach, shining where it was exposed beneath the rock. The voice of the bloodstone was one of the first I’d learned to recognize when my mother began to teach me. Like the soft hum of a familiar tune.
She said stones like that had to be coaxed from the reef. That they wouldn’t just answer to anyone.
I took the mallet from my belt and chose the largest pick. If I wasn’t short on time, I’d be more careful, using the smallest tools to keep from damaging the edges, but Zola would have to settle for what he got.
I adjusted my angle, working at the corner with quick taps, and when the scrape of rock reverberated around me, I turned, looking up the reef. The dredger working the other end with Ryland had kicked up from an overhang, swimming to the surface.
I hit the chisel again, and the crust of basalt cracked and clouded around me as it fell to the seafloor below. I waited for it to clear before I drifted close, examining the stone’s edges. It was larger than I’d expected, the coloring pocked with a crude stripe of bright crimson.
The creak of rock sounded again, and I lifted myself up over the ridge, watching the reef. It was empty. I was only faintly aware of the tingle that crept over my numb skin, the echo of a thought in the back of my mind before the feeling of weight tugged at my hip.
I whirled, the chisel clutched in my hand like a knife before me, and my lips parted when the warmth of him bled through the water. Ryland. He yanked hard at my belt, sliding his knife between my tools and my hip, sawing. I kicked as the belt broke free and fell to the seafloor, trying to push him back. But he pinned me with one hand around my throat, holding me to the reef.
I clawed at his fingers, screaming under water, and the cutting sting of coral sliced into my leg as I thrashed. Ryland looked into my face, watching the air bubble from my lips. The sharp tinge of fear raced over my body, reawakening the cold skin and bringing the heat back into my face.
He was waiting for my lungs to empty. He was trying to drown me.
I pressed my lips together, willing my heart to slow before I burned through the last bit of my air. He had himself wedged against the rock, holding me in place with his weight. No amount of kicking was going to shift him. I searched above us for a shadow. For anyone who might be able to see. But there was only the shimmer of light on the surface.
I watched helplessly as my hold loosened on him, and a desperate cry broke in my chest. My hands couldn’t move. I could hardly even bend my fingers.
Ryland’s eyes flickered over my head to the reef. His grip clamped down harder before he suddenly let me go and kicked off the outcropping. I watched him disappear over me, and I launched myself from the rock, carving through the water as fast as I could. I kicked, watching the light on the surface spread as the darkness of my mind pushed forward.
Forty more feet.
My arms slowed, the resistance of the water heavier each time my heart beat in my chest.
Thirty feet.
A sharp jerk stopped me, throwing my arms and legs forward, and my mouth opened, letting the cold water pour down my throat.
The rope. It was still tied around my waist. Anchored to the reef below.
I screamed, panicked. The last of my air rippled up in strands of bubbles as my hands raced to the knot, pulling weakly at the tight fibers. When it wouldn’t budge, I reached around my back for my knife. But it was gone. My belt was at the foot of the ridge.
Inky darkness flooded my mind as my chest caved in, my stomach turning. I tried to shift the rope over my hips, but it was no use. Below, a dark head of hair peeked up over the reef, and Koy’s black eyes looked up at me.
Blood trailed up before me in ribbons, floating like threads of smoke, and I suddenly felt lighter. Empty. The ache in my chest disappeared, leaving my insides hollow.
There was only the heartbeat pounding in my ears as I looked down at my leg, cut in a single bloody stripe. The shadow wrapped itself around me, folding my mind within it, and when it came, I let it swallow me whole.
EIGHT
“Breathe!”
The roaring voice tore me from the deep. A sting lit on my cheek and a sound rattled in my throat.
“Breathe!”
My eyes cracked open just enough to see a man’s face before me, darkened in the shadow of the ship’s hull beside us. A face that only pulled the faintest recognition. A deckhand. His gray eyes ran over me, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t draw a breath.
His hand rose up out of the water, lifting into the air, and came down again. He slapped me across the face and my chest exploded in pain as I gasped, swallowing the air and choking on the warm seawater in my mouth. The blurry edges of my vision came together, and the world around me focused, filling me with panic. I leapt for the rope beside me, hooking my arm around it to keep me above the water.
“Get her up!” The deckhand’s voice rang painfully in my ears.
And then I was moving. The crank on the deck of the Luna screeched and clicked, pulling me up with it, and the weight of my body made me slip down the wet rope until I wrapped my legs around its length.
When I looked up, Clove was watching from the quarterdeck, and I blinked when he wavered, the world turning on its side. I coughed until my lungs ached and he came down the steps two at a time, landing on the deck beside me.
“What happened?”
But I couldn’t speak. I fell to my knees, retching the saltwater from my belly until there was nothing left. A pool of warm red crept over the wood slats, touching my hand, and I looked down to my leg, remembering the blood in the water. The gash from the coral was still bleeding.
I sat back heavily, opening the torn skin with my fingers to inspect it. It wasn’t deep enough to see bone, but it needed to be closed. Another wave of nausea washed over me and I fell back onto the hot deck, running my hands through my hair and trying to remember what had just happened.
The crew of the Luna stood around me, staring, but Ryland was nowhere to be seen, probably still cowering on the reef and waiting to find out if I was going to snitch.
Koy came over the railing a moment later, landing with two heavy feet beside the foremast.
“What happened?” Clove said again, taking a step toward him.
But Koy was looking at me, and I put together the question in his eyes. He was playing by the rules of Jeval, waiting to see what I’d say first before he answered.
“I ran out of air,” I said hoarsely. My throat was on fire. “Lost my belt and couldn’t cut myself from the line I anchored to the reef.” I glanced back to Koy.
Clove followed my gaze to him, his mustache twitching. “Who saw it?” He turned in a circle, watching the faces of the other dredgers on the deck. But no one answered.
“What do you care?” I snapped, getting back to my feet. I steadied myself against the mizzen, breathing through the urge to retch again.
The knotted rope was still heavy on my hips, the length of it trailing over the side and disappearing into the water. I pulled, winding it up until the end fell onto the deck, and I crouched to pick it up. The fibers were sliced cleanly, not frayed.
It was the work of a blade.
I stood, the rope clutched in my hand as I looked to the bow. Koy’s eyes dropped to the deck and he turned, fitting his belt back around him. The last thing I’d seen before I blacked out was his face, peering up over the reef. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that he’d cut me loose.
I snatched a knife from the belt of a dredger standing next to me and sawed at the rope around my waist. One of the strykers came up the steps from belowdecks with a tin box of needle and thread in one hand, a bottle of rye in the other.
He reached out to steady me, but I tore my arm away. “Don’t touch me,” I snarled, snatching them from his hands and pushing past him to the archway.
I could feel the stares of the crew pinned to my back as I limped down the stairs, leaning into the wall to stay on my feet. I took a lant
ern from the hook and moved down the passage until I made it to the cargo hold, the tears lighting in my eyes as soon as I was cloaked in the darkness. I sniffed, willing the pain in my chest to stay put. I wasn’t going to let them hear me cry.
My leg stung, but it was nothing a few stitches couldn’t fix, and more importantly, it wouldn’t keep me from diving. I’d seen worse.
I closed the door and sat on an empty crate, moving the lantern close to me before I uncorked the rye. I pulled a deep breath in and let it go before I poured it over the wound. A growl erupted in my throat as I clenched my teeth. The burn shot up my leg, finding my belly, and the urge to vomit returned, making me feel dizzy.
I brought the bottle to my lips and drank, welcoming the warmth in my chest. Another second or two under water, and I wouldn’t have taken another breath. I wouldn’t have woken.
The passageway outside the door was silent and dark. I stared at the ground, trying to remember what I’d seen. The only two people on that reef were Koy and Ryland. And the look in Ryland’s eyes when he wrapped his hand around my throat had been clear. He’d wanted me dead.
That meant that Koy had cut the rope. That he’d saved my life. But that couldn’t be true.
I threaded the needle with trembling hands and pinched the deepest part of the cut together. The needle went through my skin without so much as a prick, and I was grateful that I was still so cold I could barely feel it.
“Through and over. Through again.” I found my lips moving around the words silently, the tears falling from the tip of my nose as I worked.
Clove had taught me to stitch a wound when I was a girl. He’d cut himself on a grappling hook and when he caught me spying on him on the quarterdeck, he demanded that I sit and learn.
“Through again.” I whispered.
The wide cargo hold seemed to close in, making me feel small in the darkness as one crystal clear memory surfaced after the other. My father at his desk. My mother lining up the gemstones on the table before me.
Which are the fakes?
The first time I got it right, she took me to the top of the mainmast and we screamed into the wind.
I stared into the dark, watching the image of her twist in the shadows. The shape of her moved with a bend of light coming from the deck, flickering like a lantern’s flame. She was a ghost. And for a moment, I thought that maybe I was too. That I was existing in some in-between space where Isolde had been waiting for me. That maybe I hadn’t made it out of the water. That I’d died with the cold sea in my lungs.
In that moment, I wanted my mother. I wanted her the way I had as a little girl, waking from a nightmare. In all the years on Jeval and in the time since, I’d hardened the way Saint wanted me to. I’d become something not easily broken. But as I sat there stitching up my leg, a quiet cry escaping my lips, I felt young. Fragile. More than that, I felt alone.
I wiped at my slick cheek with the back of my bloodied hand and made another stitch. The creak of floorboards sounded and I raised the lantern. Beneath the closed door, the shadow of two feet broke the light. I watched the latch, waiting for it to lift, but a moment later, the shadow disappeared.
I drew a few steadying breaths, taking West’s ring into my hand and squeezing. It had been six days since the morning I climbed down the ladder of the Marigold in Dern. Five nights since I’d slept in his bed. Willa, Paj, Auster, Hamish. Their faces were illuminated hazily in my mind. They were followed by Saint’s. I swallowed, remembering him in the tavern in Dern, a teacup in his hand. I would have given anything to see him in that moment. Even if he was cold. Even if he was cruel.
I tied off the last stitch and poured the rest of the rye over the wound, inspecting my work. It wasn’t the cleanest of stitches and it would leave a nasty scar, but it would do.
I stood, dropping the bottle. It rolled across the cargo hold as I took up the lantern and walked back to the door. I lifted my chin as I pulled it open and stepped into the empty passageway. When I came back up onto the deck, the deckhand whose voice I’d woken to was watching me with wide eyes from where he stood before the helm.
I shoved the lantern into his hands. “I need a new belt.”
He looked confused.
“A belt,” I repeated, impatient.
He hesitated, looking to Clove, who was still perched on the stool, weighing stones. I could have sworn I saw him smirk before he gave the deckhand a nod.
The boy shuffled belowdecks, leaving me there shivering in the wind. Seawater still dripped from my hair, hitting the deck beside my feet. When I looked up, Koy was watching me from the bow, where he was fishing a new pick from the crate.
I stalked toward him, trying to hide the limp in my gait. “Why did you do that?”
“Do what?” He slipped the pick into his belt.
“You…” I said, my words uneven. “You cut the rope.”
Koy laughed, but it was thin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I stepped closer to him, lowering my voice. “Yes, you do.”
Koy scanned the deck around. He towered over me as he looked into my face, his black eyes meeting mine. “I didn’t cut the rope.”
He shoved past me as the boy returned with a belt full of tools. I wound it around me, fastening the buckle tightly. A hush fell over the deck as I stepped up onto the anchor crank and balanced on the side of the ship with one foot. I stood against the wind, looking down at the rippling blue below. And before I could think twice, I jumped.
NINE
The distant ring of a harbor bell found me deep beneath the surface of a dream painted with honey-gold ships, winged sails, and the sound of strung adder stones clinking in the wind.
My eyes opened to pitch black.
The crew’s cabin was silent except for the rake of snores and the creak of the trunks as the Luna slowed. My hand frantically searched for my knife as I sat up, unfolding my legs from the fabric and letting my toes touch the cool floor.
I hadn’t meant to fall asleep. I’d watched Ryland’s hammock above me in the dark until he was still, and though my eyes were heavy and my bones ached, I’d been determined to stay awake in case he decided to finish what he started.
On the other side of the cabin Koy was still sleeping, one of his hands hanging from the canvas and nearly touching the ground. I stood, breathing through the pain in my leg, and felt along the floor for my boots. When I had them on, I opened the door, slipping into the passageway.
I followed the wall with my hand until I reached the stairs, peering up to the patch of gray sky above.
Zola’s voice was already calling out orders as I stepped onto the deck. I wrapped my arms around myself when the chill in the air made me shiver. The Luna was enveloped in a bright white fog so thick I could feel the caress of it on my face.
“Slow, slow!” Voices shouted in the mist and Clove tilted his head, listening before he turned the helm just slightly.
I went to the rail, watching the swirling mist. I could hear the dockworkers, but the slip didn’t appear until we were only feet away. At least a dozen sets of hands were reaching out, ready to catch the hull before it scraped.
“There now!” the voice called again as the ship stopped, both anchors dropping into the water with a staggered smack.
Clove stepped around me to unroll the ladder and Zola appeared a moment later, his coin master on his heels.
Only the black, spindly crests of rooftops were visible, poking up out of the fog like reeds in a pond. But none of them looked familiar.
“Where are we?” I asked, waiting for Zola to look at me.
He pulled his gloves on methodically, tugging until his fingers were tight in the leather. “Sagsay Holm.”
“Sagsay Holm?” My voice rose and I squared my shoulders to him, my mouth dropping open. “You said we were going back to the Narrows.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
He leaned into the mizzen, eyeing me patiently. “I sa
id that I needed your help. And we’re not finished yet.”
“I brought up that haul in two days,” I growled. “We met the quota.”
“You brought up the haul, and now it’s time to turn it over,” he said simply.
I cursed under my breath. That’s why we were in Sagsay Holm. Turning the haul over meant commissioning a gem merchant to clean and cut the stones to get them ready for trade. “I didn’t agree to that.”
“You didn’t agree to anything. You’re on my ship and you’ll do what you’re told if you want to get back to Ceros.” He leaned in close to me, daring me to argue.
“You bastard.” I gritted my teeth, muttering.
He swung a leg over the side and caught the ladder with his boot, climbing down.
“You’re with me.” Clove’s grating voice sounded beside me.
I turned on him. “What?”
He pushed a locked chest into my hands, throwing a hand to motion to the rail. “You’re coming with me,” he said again.
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“You can stay on the ship with them if you want.” He tipped a chin up to the quarterdeck, where several members of the crew were watching me. “Your call.”
I sighed, staring into the fog. If no one was on the ship to make sure Zola’s orders were followed, there was no telling what would happen. Koy had saved my neck once, but something told me he wouldn’t do it again if it came down to him and me against an entire crew.
I could see in Clove’s eyes that he knew I didn’t have a choice. “Where are we going?”
“I need you to make sure the merchant doesn’t try to pull anything with the haul. I don’t trust these Saltbloods.”
I shook my head, smirking incredulously. He wanted a gem sage to make sure the merchants didn’t swap any stones. “I’m not my mother.” Isolde had begun to teach me the art of the gem sage before she died, but I’d needed many more years of apprenticeship if I was ever going to have her skill.
Something changed on Clove’s face then, and it made my fingers curl tighter around the handles of the heavy chest. “Better than nothing.” The tone of his voice had changed too, and I wondered if the mention of my mother had gotten beneath his skin.
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