“She didn’t tell me a lot of things.”
“We have that in common.” Holland smiled sadly. “She was always a mystery to me. But Oskar … he understood her in a way I never could.”
If that was true, then why hadn’t she ever told me about him? The only explanation I could think of was that maybe she didn’t want to risk anyone knowing she was the daughter of the most powerful people in the Unnamed Sea. That would bring its own kind of trouble. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that the reason my mother hadn’t told me about Holland was because she didn’t want to be found. That maybe, Isolde had been afraid of her.
“I didn’t know she had a daughter until I got a message from Zola. I didn’t believe him, but then…” She drew a breath. “Then I saw you.”
I looked again to the portrait of my mother, measuring myself against it. It was like looking in a mirror, except that there was something gentle about her. Something untouched. Her eyes seemed to follow me about the room, never leaving me.
“Did she tell you where she got your name?” Holland said, breaking me from the thought.
“No. She didn’t.”
“Fable’s Skerry,” she said, walking back to the desk. She moved a pile of books, revealing a map of the Bastian coast painted onto the desktop. She ran a finger along the jagged edge of the land, dragging it into the water to what looked like a tiny island. “This was her hiding place when she wanted to get away from me.” She laughed, but it was faintly bitter. “The lighthouse on Fable’s Skerry.”
“A lighthouse?”
She nodded. “She was no more than eight or nine when she started disappearing for entire days. Then she’d reappear out of nowhere as if nothing had happened. It took almost two years for us to figure out where she was going.”
My chest felt tight, making my heart skip. I didn’t like that this woman, a stranger, knew so much about my mother. I didn’t like that she knew more than I did.
“How did she die?” Holland said suddenly, and the look in her eye turned apprehensive. As if she’d had to summon up the courage to ask.
“Storm,” I said. “She drowned in Tempest Snare.”
Holland blinked, letting out the breath she’d been holding. “I see.” There was a long silence before she spoke again. “I lost track of Isolde for years after she left Zola’s crew. I didn’t hear that she’d died on the Lark until a year ago.”
“That’s why you want Saint?”
“It’s one reason,” she corrected.
I didn’t know what she knew about Saint and Isolde, but there’d been a stone in my stomach since that morning, when she’d said his name. If Holland wanted Saint dead, it was likely that she’d get what she wanted. And that thought made me feel as if I were sinking, no air in my lungs, watching the surface light pull farther away above me.
West had made it clear that Saint would have to fend for himself, but even if she didn’t kill him, Saint would die before he let her take his trade. It didn’t matter what had happened four years ago, or that night on the Lark. It didn’t matter what had happened the day he left me on Jeval. The moment he handed me that map of the Snare, or the morning I fleeced him with my mother’s necklace. Everything focused in clear, crisp colors.
Saint was a bastard, but he was mine. He belonged to me. And even more unbelievable, I really did love him.
“I changed my mind.” I spoke before I could think better of it.
Holland arched an eyebrow as she looked up at me. “Reconsidering my offer?”
I bit down on my lip, the vision of Saint at his desk resurfacing. The hazy, dim light. The glass of rye in his hand. The smell of pipe smoke as he looked over his ledgers. I took a step toward her. “I want to make a deal.”
She leaned closer, smirking. “I’m listening.”
“I wasn’t lying when I said that Isolde never told me about the midnight. But I know you’re still looking for it.” I glanced up to the maps. “And I know I can find it.”
That made her quiet. There was a sudden stillness in her, pulling the shadows from the room into her eyes. “I’ve had crews looking for that cache for years. What makes you think you can find it?”
“Dredging isn’t the only thing my mother taught me.”
She didn’t look the least bit surprised. “So, you are a gem sage. I was wondering about that.”
“You could have just asked.”
She half-laughed. “I suppose you’re right.” She stood from the chair, coming around the corner of the desk. “You said you want to make a deal. What do you want from me?”
“Your word.” I met her eyes. “If I find the midnight for you, you leave Saint alone.”
That seemed to catch her off guard. Her eyes narrowed. “Why? What business do you have with him?”
“I owe him,” I said. “That’s all.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t care if you believe me.”
Her mouth twisted up on one side as she tapped a finger on the desk.
“I don’t want your empire, but I will find the midnight. When I do, I’ll have your word that you won’t touch Saint. Or his trade.” I held out my hand between us.
Holland stared at it, thinking. I could see her sizing me up, trying to see what I was made of. “I think perhaps Saint is more to you than I realized. I think he was more to Isolde than I realized.”
She wasn’t stupid. She was putting it together. She knew that Saint was Isolde’s helmsman, but she didn’t know he was her lover. And I wasn’t going to tell her she was right.
“Do we have a deal or not?” I lifted my hand between us.
She took it, smiling so that the candlelight flashed in her eyes. “We have a deal.”
TWENTY
Bastian was beautiful in the predawn dark.
I stood at the window with my fingertips pressed to the cold glass, watching the glimmer of streetlights below. Azimuth House sat at the top of the hill, overlooking the landscape like a sentinel, and it was fitting. Holland had her eye on everything that happened in this city. The docks. The merchants. The Trade Council. And now she had her sights set on Ceros.
It was only a matter of time before she was doing the same thing in the Narrows.
The maps from the walls in Holland’s office were rolled up tight and tied with twine on the table beside the door. She’d looked me in the eye when she gave them to me, a spark of recognition making me still. In that moment, I’d felt as if I were looking at my mother.
There was a break in the rhythm of West’s breaths and I turned from the window. He lay on top of the quilts, one arm tucked beneath a pillow, and even in the low light, I could see that the color was coming back into his cheeks.
That’s why I hadn’t woken him, I told myself. Why I’d stood in the dark silence for the last hour, waiting for him to open his eyes. But really, I was afraid.
I climbed onto the end of the bed, watching his chest rise and fall. His brows pulled together, his eyes still closed, and he sucked in a sharp breath with a jolt. His eyes fluttered open and I watched them focus frantically. He dragged his bleary gaze over the room until he spotted me. When he did, he let the breath go.
“What’s wrong?” I reached out, hooking my fingers into the crook of his arm. His skin was hot, his pulse racing.
He sat up, pushing the hair back from his face. His eyes went to the window and I realized that he was looking for the harbor. For the Marigold. “We should go. Get on the water before the sun rises.”
My heartbeat pounded in my ears as he got to his feet, my teeth clenching. “We can’t.” I folded my fingers together to keep my hands from shaking. “I can’t.”
Almost instantly, West’s face changed. He turned toward me, his back to the dark sky. “What?” The sound of his voice was deepened with sleep.
I opened my mouth, trying to find a way to say it. I’d turned the words over in my head again and again, but now they escaped me.
The look in his eye slowly trans
formed from concern to fear. “Fable.”
“I can’t go back to the Narrows with you,” I said. “Not yet.”
His face turned to stone. “What are you talking about?”
I’d known the moment I made the deal with Holland that it would cost me with West. But I had to believe that it was something I could fix.
“Last night,” I swallowed. “I made a deal with Holland. One you’re not going to like.”
The color drained from his cheeks. “What are you talking about?”
“I…” My voice wavered
“What did you do, Fable?”
“I’m going to find midnight. For Holland.”
“In exchange for what?” The words were clipped.
This was the moment I’d been dreading. That flash of fury in his eyes. The tight clench in his jaw.
I pressed my tongue to my teeth. Once I said it, there was no going back. “Saint.” I unfolded my legs, sliding from the bed, and West took a step back from me. “If I find the midnight for Holland, she’ll leave Saint alone.”
It took a moment for me to place the look on West’s face. It was disbelief. “What the hell were you thinking?”
I didn’t have an answer to that. Not one he could understand. “I have to do this, West.”
“We agreed,” he breathed. “We agreed that we’d cut ties with him.”
“I know.” I swallowed.
He turned to the window, staring out at the sea in the distance.
“It’s in Yuri’s Constellation. I can find it.”
“What if you can’t?”
“I can. I know I can.” I tried to sound sure. “I’ll take one of her crews and—” The words cut off when he turned to look at me.
West’s silent rage filled the room around us. “I’m not leaving Bastian without you.”
“I’m not asking you to stay.” I twisted my fingers into the underdress. “Take the Marigold back to Ceros and I’ll meet you.”
He took the jacket from where it was hung on the back of the chair and slipped his arms into the sleeves. “When you made that deal, you made it for both of us.”
I’d been afraid he would say that. It’s exactly what I would have said if West had done the same thing. But the crew would never agree. He’d be outvoted before he even finished telling them what I’d done. “West, I’m sorry.”
He went still, searching my eyes. “Tell me all of this has nothing to do with what I told you last night.”
“What?”
He sucked in his bottom lip. “I think you agreed to this deal because you’re not sure you want to come back to the Narrows.”
“The Narrows is my home, West. I’m telling you the truth. This is about me and Saint. Nothing else.”
He muttered something under his breath as he buttoned his collar.
“What? What are you thinking?”
“I don’t think you want to know what I’m thinking,” he said lowly.
“I do.”
He hesitated, letting a long silence stretch out between us before he finally answered, “I’m thinking that I was right.”
“Right about what?”
A bit of red bloomed beneath his skin. “When you asked me to take you onto this crew, I told you that if you had to choose between us and Saint, that you would choose him.”
My mouth dropped open, a small sound escaping my throat. “That’s not what’s happening, West.”
“Isn’t it?” His eyes were cold when they lifted to meet mine.
I recoiled, the words cutting deep.
“I’m not choosing him over you,” I said again, louder. Angrier. “If it was Willa, you’d do the same thing.”
“Saint’s not Willa,” he shot back. He was rigid, still slightly turned away from me. “He left you, Fable. When you went to him in Ceros, he didn’t want you.”
“I know,” I said weakly.
“Then why are you doing this?”
I could hardly get the words out. Looking at West in that moment, it felt as if they’d lost their meaning. “I just can’t let anything happen to him.”
West stared at me, his gaze growing colder. “Look me in the eye and tell me that we are your crew. That the Marigold is your home.”
“It is,” I said, the conviction in my voice making pain erupt in my chest. I didn’t blink, willing him to believe it.
He picked up the frock from the end of the bed and handed it to me. “Then let’s go.”
TWENTY-ONE
Lamplight still glinted on the docks, reflecting in the glass of shop windows on the hill. West stayed close to me, his long strides hitting the wood planks beside mine. He’d said almost nothing since we left Azimuth House, but the air between us rang with his silence. He was angry. Furious, even.
I couldn’t blame him. He’d left the Narrows to come find me, and I’d trapped him in Holland’s net.
Clove had been enraged when I told him, too. Mostly because he was the one who’d have to deal with my father. He followed us through the narrow streets, his precious chest of coin still pinned beneath his arm. I hadn’t seen it leave his hands since Holland gave it to him.
My stomach was in knots as we stood at the entrance to the harbor and my heart jumped into my throat when the Marigold came into view.
She was beautiful, her honey-hued wood aglow in the morning light. The sea was clear and blue behind her, and the new sails were as white as fresh cream, rolled up neatly on the masts. More than once, I’d wondered if I’d ever see her again.
That same feeling I had each time I saw her at the barrier islands—deep relief—came over me, making my bottom lip tremble. When he realized that I’d stopped, West turned back, looking up at me from the bottom of the steps. His hair caught in the wind, and he tucked it behind his ears before he pulled the cap from his pocket and tugged it on.
I took up the skirts and followed him. The docks were bustling with inventory to be logged and helmsmen waiting for their approvals from Bastian’s harbor master. He stood at the mouth of the longest slip, bent over a table of parchments as I passed. The ledger he’d shown Holland was open, recording the ships that had come in through the night. In another hour, the logs would likely be sitting on Holland’s desk.
My steps faltered when a face I recognized was lit with the glow of a barrel fire. Calla had her head wrapped in a scarf, the muscles in her arms taking shape under her skin as she pried the lid off a crate with one hand. The other was still tucked into a sling from where I’d broken her fingers.
I searched the other docks for any sign of Koy, but I didn’t see him. He and everyone else on the Luna would be looking for work like the harbor master said, scraping together what coin they could until they got onto another crew or purchased passage back to the Narrows.
Ahead, the bow of the Marigold was dark except for a single lantern that flickered with a yellow flame. A slight silhouette was painted against the sky.
Willa.
She leaned over the railing, looking down at us. Her twisted locks were pulled up on top of her head like a coil of rope. I couldn’t see her face, but I could hear the long exhale that escaped her lips as she spotted us.
The ladder unrolled a moment later, and Clove climbed up first. West held it in place for me to take hold of the rungs. When he didn’t look at me, I squared my shoulders to him, waiting. “Are we all right?” I asked.
“We’re all right,” West said, meeting my eyes. But he was still cold.
I wished he would touch me. Ground me to the dock so the feeling of the restless sea inside me would calm. But there was a distance between us that hadn’t been there before. And I wasn’t sure how to close it.
I climbed the ladder and when I reached the top, Willa was standing before the helm, staring apprehensively at Clove. But he was entirely uninterested in her, finding a crate at the bow to sit and prop up his boots.
When she looked up at me, her face was twisted up, her mouth hanging open. “What are you wearing?”
I looked down at the frock, mortified, but before I could answer, a wide smile spread her lips. The scar on her cheek glistened white. I dropped over the railing and she threw her arms around me, holding me so tight that I could hardly breathe.
She let me go, leaning back to look at me. “It’s good to see you.”
I nodded in answer, sniffling, and she grabbed my hand, squeezing it. My eyes burned at the show of affection. I’d missed her. I’d missed all of them.
Footsteps pounded below and a moment later Paj was coming up the steps, Auster behind him. He was missing his shirt, his long, shining black hair spilling over his shoulders.
“Our bad luck charm is back!” Paj called to the open door of the helmsman’s quarters as he crossed the deck toward me. “And she’s wearing a skirt!” He clapped me on the back hard, and I stumbled forward into Auster’s arms. His bare skin was warm as I pressed a flushed cheek to his chest. He smelled like saltwater and sun.
Behind him, Hamish was glowering at Clove from where he stood in the breezeway. “What is he doing here?”
“Come for a cup of tea.” Clove winked at him.
Hamish tipped his chin up at me and then at West. “You’re late. Two days late.” The set of his mouth was grim.
“Things didn’t exactly go as planned,” West muttered.
“We heard about Zola,” Paj said. “People on the docks have been talking and yesterday someone came to tear apart the Luna.”
“Bastard got what was coming to him.” Willa huffed. “Where have you been?”
“You can tell us later.” Paj started for the helmsman’s quarters. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Willa nodded, moving toward the mainmast.
“Wait.” My hands clenched into fists inside the pockets of my jacket, and when I felt West’s eyes on me, I didn’t look up. I didn’t want to see his face when I said it.
But he cut me off, stepping forward to face the crew. “There’s something we have to do before we go back to Ceros.”
“West—” I grabbed hold of his arm but he pulled away, turning to Paj.
“Set course for Yuri’s Constellation.”
Namesake Page 13