“If she hadn’t gotten herself killed, you could ask her yourself,” he answered. “Though there’s no telling which tale she would have given you. I never should have trusted her.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Isolde didn’t just take her fate into her own hands when she left Bastian. She took mine too. Letting her onto my crew is the worst mistake I’ve ever made.”
My brow creased. Saint had said the same thing about her, but for different reasons.
“But tonight, I’m going to fix that. Thanks to you.”
There was some faint echo in the back of my mind, trying to string the words together. None of it made any sense. “How could my mother have anything to do with this?”
“Isolde is the reason Holland has had a bounty on my head all these years. She’s the reason I lost any chance I had at trading in the Unnamed Sea and the reason I haven’t been back since.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that when I helped Holland’s daughter escape Bastian, I fell out of her good graces.”
The silk of my dress pulled tight across my chest as I drew in a breath, my head swimming. “You’re lying,” I snapped.
Zola shrugged. “I don’t need you to believe me.”
I pressed a hand to my ribs, feeling as if my lungs didn’t have room behind my bones. What he was saying couldn’t be true. If Isolde was Holland’s daughter …
A group of women floated past us arm in arm, talking in hushed whispers as they made their way to the back of the room. Zola drained his glass, setting it down on the case between us and I wiped my brow with the back of my hand, feeling dizzy. Everything suddenly looked as if we were underwater. I needed air.
When I tried to step past him, he caught my arm, squeezing. “What do you think you’re doing?”
The man beside us looked over his shoulder for just a moment, his eyes landing on Zola’s grip on the sleeve of my dress. “Get your hand off me,” I growled through clenched teeth, daring him to make a scene.
I wrenched my arm free and gave the man a timid smile before I stepped into the aisle of cases, Zola’s hot stare pinned to my back. Zola was a liar. I knew that. But there was some uneasiness that had lifted within me when he’d said the words. I searched through the candlelit memories I had of my mother. Of her stories. She’d never told me anything of her parents. Nothing of her home.
But why would my mother leave this?
I looked around the room, biting down on my lip. In every direction, people laughed and talked, at ease in their fancy clothes. But no one seemed to notice how much I didn’t fit in that dress or in that room. The hall was filled with the songs of the gems, resounding so loud that it made me feel off balance. No one seemed to notice that either.
I drifted past the cases, my eyes flitting over their glass tops, and stopped short when the melody of the stone in the next case caught my ear. It was one I’d only ever heard once.
Larimar. I stilled, listening. Like the ringing call of birds or the whistle of wind in a cavern. It was one of the rarest gems in existence. And that was the point. This gala wasn’t just a party. It was a display of wealth and power.
The slide of a hand moved over my hip, hooking my waist, and my fingers immediately went for the knife inside my skirts. The cava splashed from my glass as I whirled and I pressed the tip of the knife into the crisp white shirt before me, pulled over a broad chest.
But a scent I knew poured into my lungs as I inhaled and looked up into green eyes, the glass shaking furiously in my hand.
West.
FOURTEEN
I sucked in a breath, swallowing down the cry in my throat as I stared up at him. His gold-streaked hair was combed back from his face, the color of his skin aglow in the candlelight. Even the sound of the gems quieted, snuffed out by the violent winds roaring inside of me.
West reached up between us, wrapping his hand around the handle of the knife in my hand, and I watched him swallow, his eyes changing. They were weighed down by dark circles, making him look worn and thin.
I took hold of his jacket, crumpling the fine fabric as I pulled him toward me and pressed my face to his chest. I instantly felt as if my legs would give out beneath the heavy dress. As if I were going to sink to the floor.
“Fable.” The sound of his voice summoned the pain under my ribs again, and my heartbeat kicked up, my blood running hotter in my veins.
Something in the back of my mind was whispering in warning. Telling me to look for Zola. To pick up my skirts and run. But I couldn’t move, leaning into the warmth of West, afraid that he would disappear. That I’d imagined him there.
“Are you all right?” he breathed, tilting my face up to look at him.
I nodded weakly.
He took the glass from my hand and set it onto the case beside us. “Let’s go.”
And then we were walking. The eyes in the room drifted toward us as we passed, and West’s fingers wound into mine. I let him pull me through the crowd, toward the night sky cast beyond the open doors. I didn’t care anymore about what plan Saint and Clove had. I didn’t care if Zola was watching or whether it was true what he’d said about my mother.
“The Marigold?” I whispered frantically, squeezing West’s hand so hard that my knuckles hurt.
“In the harbor,” he answered, walking faster.
“Fable!” Zola’s deep voice echoed over the sound of the chatter.
I caught sight of Clove against the far wall, Zola at his side as they both pushed through the crowd toward us. But it was the sharp, skittering sound of glass shattering that made my pulse stop in its tracks, and I froze, West’s hand slipping from mine.
A hundred thoughts erupted chaotically in my mind as my eyes landed on the vision of a woman. An old woman. Her face was stricken, her eyes wide beneath silver hair that was braided in an intricate labyrinth over the top of her head. It was studded with fanned combs of pink tourmaline that matched the rings covering her fingers. At her feet, the broken pieces of a crystal glass were scattered around her violet gown.
The deep, breathy resonance of her voice shook the room around us when she said it. “Isolde?”
West’s hand found mine again and he wrapped one arm around me, pulling me away. I stumbled beside him, looking over my shoulder to see her, my brow knitting in recognition.
The doors ahead slammed shut and men in dark blue coats filed in along the wall, calling out orders. The room filled with the sound of voices as the guests pushed back, taking West and me with them.
“You!” one of the men shouted, and it took me a moment to realize that he was talking to me.
“Shit,” West rasped behind me.
The woman turned on her heel, walking toward another set of doors that opened on the other side of the room. A hot hand grabbed me, yanking me forward and West lifted a fist into the air, swinging. When it came down, it caught the man in the jaw.
He stumbled, falling into the crowd as he pulled a short sword from his hip, and a woman screamed. More guards emerged from the crowd, surrounding us, and the candlelight gleamed on four blades all pointed at West. But their eyes were on me.
West slipped the knife from his belt, holding it at his side with a look of eerie calm. My eyes widened, watching him. It was the face I’d seen the night he threw Crane into the sea. There were four guards surrounding us, but West took a step forward. By the time he took another, he would be dead.
“Don’t.” I reached for his knife, but he moved from my reach, stepping around me. “Don’t, West!” He blinked, as if only just remembering I was there and I took hold of his jacket, pulling him back.
I pushed into his chest until he moved back against the wall. “I’ll come with you!” I said over my shoulder. “Don’t touch him.”
West grabbed my arm, squeezing, but I slipped out of his reach.
The swords pointed at us lowered a little, and the man with a bloody nose gave a nod in West’s direction. “She
wants both of you.”
I looked up to West, but he was as confused as I was. His green eyes were like glass in the dim light. Narrowed and focused.
The guard stepped back, waiting, and I pushed into the crowd with West close behind me. The room was silent as we followed the blue jackets to the open door where the woman had disappeared. A few seconds later they were closing behind us, and the distant sound of music started up again.
Lanterns washed the ceiling over us in light, illuminating more murals and carvings as our footsteps echoed in the corridor.
“What the hell is going on?” West growled behind me.
A set of huge wooden doors opened in the dark down the hall, where I could see the shape of Clove slipping into a lit room.
The guard stopped, motioning us forward before he went back the way we came, and West and I stood in the empty hall, staring at each other.
“Join us. Please,” a soft voice called from beyond the doors.
The sound of the gala bled away behind us as I let go of West’s hand and stepped inside. His shadow followed mine as he came to stand beside me, his eyes moving over everything in the room until they found Zola.
The guard shoved him forward and Zola stumbled, catching himself on the wall as the doors groaned shut behind us.
The woman in the violet gown stood beside a polished mahogany desk. Behind her, the wall was covered in gold-painted paper and the brush strokes curved and dipped, making a maze of ocean waves all the way up to the ceiling. Her frock looked like it was made of cream, rippling around her slight form until it pooled on the floor.
“I’m Holland.” She clasped her hands before her and the light caught the stones in her rings. She was looking at me.
West took a step closer to me as I stared at her, not sure what to say.
Holland’s eyes ran over my face in fascination. “You’re Fable,” she said softly.
“I am,” I answered.
In the corner, Clove had his arms crossed over his chest, leaning into the wall beside a glowing fireplace. A framed portrait was set onto the mantel and all the air seemed to leave the room as my eyes focused on a girl in a red gown, a gilded halo around her head.
It was Isolde. My mother.
“And you must be West,” Holland said, her eyes drifting up to him. “Runner of Saint’s shadow ship.”
West went still beside me. He was smart enough not to deny it, but I didn’t like the look in his eye. I was terrified that at any moment he was going to do something that put a knife to his throat.
“Yes, I know exactly who you are.” Holland answered his unspoken question. “And I know exactly what you do.”
I looked between them. How could someone like Holland know anything about West when no one in the Narrows did?
“What do you want?” West said flatly.
She smiled. “Don’t worry. We’ll get to that.”
“Holland.” Zola’s voice swallowed the silence, but he shut his mouth when Holland’s sharp eyes landed on him.
The crack in his cool facade was now a canyon. Zola didn’t have any power here and every one of us knew it. Clove was the only one who didn’t seem to be worried. I wasn’t sure if that made me afraid, or relieved.
“I don’t think you were on the invitation list for this gala, Zola.” Holland spoke, and the sound of her voice was like music. Soft and lilting.
“My apologies,” Zola answered, standing up straighter. “But I thought it was time we dealt with our business.”
“Did you?” Holland’s tone flattened, “I made it clear if you ever made port in the Unnamed Sea again, it would be the last time you made port anywhere.”
“I know we have history—”
“History?” she said.
“It’s been almost twenty years, Holland.”
I looked back to Holland, catching her eyes on me before they shot back to Zola.
He unbuttoned his jacket methodically, not taking his eyes from hers, and Holland’s guard stepped closer to him, knife drawn. Zola took hold of the lapels and pulled them open, revealing four pockets. From each one hung the strings of a leather pouch.
Holland jerked her chin at the table against the wall, and Zola set them down one at a time. She didn’t move as he poured the gemstones out onto the mirrored tray, lining them up neatly for inspection.
Zola waited, letting Holland look over the haul. “Consider it a gift.”
“You think a few hundred carats of gemstones can buy my forgiveness for what you did?” The words were so low they sent a chill into the air, despite the blazing fire.
“That’s not all I brought you.” Zola’s eyes landed on me.
I instinctively took a step backward, pressing myself against the wall as he looked at me. But Holland’s attention didn’t leave Zola. “You think this was your idea?”
Zola’s lips parted, staring at Holland. “What?”
“Pay him.” Holland’s command fell like a stone in the quiet.
The guard walked around the desk and took a silver box from the shelf. He set it onto the tray before he opened it carefully, revealing more coppers than I’d ever seen in my life. Thousands, maybe.
Clove finally moved then, stepping out of the shadows. “No need to count it,” he said. “I trust you.” He was talking to Holland.
The ice cold of the sea found me and I reached for the arm of West’s jacket, trying to ground myself. Trying to put it all together.
Clove wasn’t spying on Zola. He was delivering Zola. To Holland.
“A mother never heals from the loss of a child. It’s a wound that festers,” Holland said simply. “One that not even your death will soothe.”
Zola was already shuffling backward toward the door, his eyes wide. “I brought her back. For you.”
“And I appreciate that.” She lifted a finger into the air and the guard opened the door, where two other men were waiting.
They stepped into the room without a word, and before Zola even knew what was happening, they had him by the jacket, dragging him into the dark hallway. “Wait!” he shouted.
Clove closed the lid of the box with a snap as Zola’s screams echoed, and I realized the sound in my ears was my own breath coming in and out in panicked gusts. Zola’s voice suddenly vanished, and I heard his weight fall to the floor.
My fingers were slick around the handle of the knife inside my skirts as I stared into the dark, blinking when a trail of fresh, bright blood seeped across the white marble and into the light spilling from the room. Then there was only silence.
FIFTEEN
He was dead. Zola was dead.
I tried to fit that bit of truth together with everything that had happened over the last ten days. This was why Clove had taken the job on Zola’s crew. It was all leading to this very moment.
Zola wasn’t just a problem for Saint or West. He was a problem the Narrows needed solved. Saint planted Clove on the Luna to get him into Holland’s hands. He’d convinced Zola he could be rid of her threats once and for all. But how had he done it?
The coin she’d given Clove looked like a bounty, and my gut told me Saint’s name had stayed out of it. To Holland, Clove was just a trader from the Narrows looking to make a lot of copper.
It was brilliant, really. My father used Zola’s feud with Holland to get him to sail to his own death. And why kill a trader and risk the fallout with the Narrows Trade Council when a powerful merchant in the Unnamed Sea could do it instead?
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, my voice far away.
Clove looked at me with an expression that echoed sympathy. But he kept his mouth shut, his eyes sliding to Holland. He didn’t want her knowing more than she needed to.
Clove took orders from Saint, and Saint had a reason for everything he did. The bottom line was that even if I trusted him, Saint didn’t trust me. And why would he? I’d worked my own schemes against him to free the Marigold.
My gaze drifted back to Zola’s blood on the white mar
ble floor, and I watched the way it gleamed as the firelight moved over it. Only moments ago he’d stood next to me. I could still feel his grip on my arm, squeezing.
The deafening silence made me blink and I realized that Holland was staring at me, as if she expected me to say something. When I didn’t, she looked disappointed.
“I think that’s enough for one night, don’t you?” she said.
I wasn’t sure how to answer that. I wasn’t even sure what she was asking.
“You’ll stay here.” There was no invitation in her tone. She wasn’t asking. Her eyes were still studying me, moving over my hair, my shoulders, my feet. “We’ll talk in the morning.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but West was already speaking. “She’s not staying,” he said, clipped.
Clove picked up the box of coin lazily, tucking it under one arm. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to agree with him.”
He and West didn’t seem the slightest bit afraid of Holland, but I was terrified enough for all of us. At the lift of Holland’s finger, they’d be dragging West or Clove into the dark next.
“You’re all staying,” Holland said. “Fable’s not the only one I have business with.” But that calm in her eyes was the same one that had been there a moment ago when she’d lifted that finger.
In the hallway, I could hear something being dragged over the marble. I swallowed hard.
“I hope you’ll make yourself at home,” Holland said, reaching for the shining handle of another door. She pulled it open and a hallway lit with bright lanterns appeared.
She waited for me to walk through, but I didn’t move. I was staring at the portrait of my mother over the mantel, the firelight catching her eyes.
The rings on Holland’s fingers sparkled as she took a step toward me. The fine fabric of her dress rippled like melted silver, and the combs in her hair twinkled. I couldn’t help but think that she was like someone from one of the old tales. A specter or a sea fairy. Something not of this world.
The same had been true of my mother.
Holland reached for my hand, taking it into hers, and she held it between us, turning it so my palm faced up. Her thumbs spread over the lines there, and her hold on me tightened when she saw the tip of my scar peeking out from beneath my sleeve.
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