I coughed, clinging to the ledge as West came up behind me. The sound of his ragged breath filled the empty silence. I could hardly see. Only the reflection on his blond hair was visible, and I reached out, feeling for him until his hands found me.
“All right?” he panted.
I answered between breaths. “All right.”
Above us, a thin vein of moonlight was drawn in a narrow opening at the top of the cave. The space was only twelve feet wide at most, and the walls tapered as they rose to what looked like a tiny sliver thirty or forty feet above us.
I swung one leg up out of the water onto the smooth stone. My heart was a sprinting, angry thud in my chest, my throat burning all the way down to my stomach. West came up beside me, lifting himself from the water. As my eyes adjusted, the shape of him formed in the dark.
“You’re bleeding.” West’s hand reached up, and he touched my forehead gently, tilting my chin so that the light fell on my face.
I felt the slick skin where it was throbbing. When I looked at my fingers, they were covered in blood. “It’s nothing.”
The call of seabirds sounded above us, and I looked up to the slice of sky, where their shadows flitted over the opening in the earth.
I got to my feet. The cave was silent except for the sound of water dripping from my fingertips and hitting the stone and I froze when a glint of something blinked in the darkness. I waited, staring into the emptiness until I saw it again. A flash. Like the sweep of a lighthouse. I took a step toward it, reaching out before me.
My hands drifted through the diffused moonlight until I found the wall and I felt up its face until my fingertips caught the sharp, glassy points of something hidden in the shadows.
The vibration of the gemstone coursed through me.
Midnight.
West looked up, turning in a circle, where the facets of the stone winked in the shifting light above us. It was everywhere.
“This is where she found it,” I whispered, pulling the chisel from my belt.
I felt the rock before I fit the edge beneath a crease and took a hold of the mallet. It came away in a clean piece with three strikes, falling heavily into my hand. I held it in the beam of moonlight between us.
The violet inclusions danced beneath the surface, and I froze when their reflections lit the cave walls like a sky of purple stars.
The feel of my mother was close. Lurking all around us. And maybe she was. She could have dropped the stone into the sea, but she didn’t. She’d kept it even though she never came back to the skerry. And I couldn’t help but think that she’d kept it, maybe for me. That maybe she’d given me my name so that one day, I’d find it.
West took the stone from my hand, turning it so it glittered. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“No one has,” I whispered.
He looked up at me then, a question in his eyes. “What do you want to do?”
Midnight was like the dawn of a new world. It would change everything. I didn’t know if the Narrows was ready for that. I didn’t know if I was ready for that. A rueful smile broke on my lips as he set the stone back into my hand. “What if we do nothing?”
“What?”
Midnight had called my mother to it. At the right time, it had called me too. “What if we leave it here? Like she did.”
“Forever?” Beads of light moved over West’s face.
I looked around us, to the sparkling walls of the cave. “Until we need it.” And we would.
He thought about it, holding the wet hair back from his face with one hand. “We have the Lark.”
“We have the Lark,” I repeated, smiling wider. It was more than we needed to start our trade route. More than we needed to fill the hull of the Marigold with inventory, and establish a post.
West took a step toward me, and when I tipped my head back, he kissed me softly. “Back to the Narrows?”
The taste of salt lit on my tongue as I repeated the words against his lips. “Back to the Narrows.”
EPILOGUE
The masts creaked against the push of wind, the sails of the Marigold unfolding like wings.
I stood at the bow, watching the deep blue water rush beneath the ship. We were soaring over the sea so fast that when I looked up, Jeval was already upon us.
“Let’s bring her in!” West shouted from the helm. “Strike all sails!”
Paj and Auster climbed the masts, letting out the downhauls so the ship would slow, and Hamish unlocked the anchor crank.
I took the length of line at the foot of the foremast and secured it, my eyes on the barrier islands. They were like black, jagged teeth. The blue waves crashed in a spray against them, rolling in with the high winds. The docks I’d known in my time on Jeval were gone, replaced by what looked like a small harbor. Huge beams of wood rose out of the water, making twelve ship bays.
In the distance, I could see a small skiff headed toward it from shore.
West watched from the bow with his hands in his pockets. He was always that way when we made port at Jeval, his shoulders drawn up and his jaw set.
I unwound the heaving lines and came portside as the Marigold drifted closer to the rocks. A string of Jevalis were already waiting with their hands out, ready to catch her from scraping.
I balanced on the crates as she came in slow and tossed the heaving lines to the boy at the end of the dock. He secured them one at a time and Auster unrolled the ladder just as Koy appeared up the harbor with a hand in the air.
“Marigold!” Koy shouted. “I don’t have you scheduled for another week!” He glanced at the log book in his hands.
Paj gave me a knowing look from the helm. Koy was right. But West always had a reason why we needed to head back to Jeval early.
“Don’t tell me you came through that storm!” Willa’s voice called out. I searched the docks, looking for her.
West leaned over the railing, grinning when he spotted his sister, and he instantly relaxed.
But Willa was incensed, coming through the crowd of dredgers and immediately inspecting the ship. She stopped near the bow, pressing a hand to a poorly repaired breach.
West watched her glower at it. “Got a few things that need seeing to.”
“When are you going to get a new bosun?” she grumbled.
“We haven’t found one yet,” West said.
Below, Koy eyed me, and I smirked. We’d tried six different bosuns in the last eight months and West had fired every one.
I came down the ladder, stepping onto the post to jump down beside Koy. He’d hired and paid only Jevalis to rebuild the docks with his coin from the Unnamed Sea, and now he was running them as the harbor master.
A few weeks after it was finished, he asked Willa to set up shop for ship repairs. Seeing them standing on the dock, they looked as if they both belonged there. Together.
My father had sneered when I told him we were building a three-port route that ended in Jeval. But just like Koy predicted, the barrier islands were filled with ships. In another year, we’d be using our license to trade in Bastian.
No gems. No fancy silver teapots or hair combs or silk for fine frocks.
We were trading rye and mullein—goods made by the bastards of the Narrows.
The sparkle of midnight still glimmered in my dreams. So did the sound of my mother’s voice. But we hadn’t been back to Fable’s Skerry. Not yet.
West and I lay side by side on the beach in the dark, the waves touching our bare feet. The voices of the crew drifted on the wind as they drank rye around the fire, and I watched a single star trace a spark across the sky.
When I turned to look at West, that same starlight glinted in his eyes. I found his hand and held it to my cheek, remembering the first time I’d seen him on the docks. The first time I’d seen him smile. The first time I’d seen his darkness and every time he’d seen mine.
We were salt and sand and sea and storm.
We were made in the Narrows.
ACKNOWLEDGME
NTS
All my love to my own crew—Joel, Ethan, Siah, Finley, and River. Thank you for letting me live in the world of the Narrows and the Unnamed Sea while I told this story. No matter the adventure, you are always the best home to come back to.
Again, an enormous amount of gratitude to my team at Wednesday Books. Thank you to Eileen Rothschild, my incredible editor and namesake of the Roth family. Thank you to Sara Goodman, DJ DeSmyter, Alexis Neuville, Brant Janeway, Mary Moates, Tiffany Shelton, and Lisa Bonvissuto for all you do for my books. Thank you, Kerri Resnick, for yet another gorgeous cover.
Thank you to Barbara Poelle, my agent, who keeps my head on straight and my eyes on the horizon.
Thank you to my amazing, weird, hilarious family, especially my mom, who this book is dedicated to. I love you!
This book, like Fable, wouldn’t have been possible without the input of Lille Moore, who served as a consultant on all things sailing, sea, and trade. Thank you so very much for helping me build these books! Thank you also to Natalie Faria, my fearless beta reader unicorn.
To my critique partner, Kristin Dwyer, you were almost no help on this book at all because you were busy making your own dreams come true. Watching you stand on top of this mountain is a beautiful thing to behold, and I’m counting down the days until we can hold your book in our hands. Don’t forget my line break.
Thank you to my author and writing community, the ones who drag me along on this road when I’ve lost my way. And thank you to my non–book world friends who are tasked with the sometimes delicate job of making sure I stay human. I love you all.
ALSO BY ADRIENNE YOUNG
Sky in the Deep
The Girl the Sea Gave Back
Fable
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ADRIENNE YOUNG is a foodie with a deep love of history and travel and a shameless addiction to coffee. When she’s not writing, you can find her on her yoga mat, sipping wine over long dinners, or disappearing into her favorite art museums. She lives with her documentary filmmaker husband and their four little wildlings in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling Sky in the Deep duology. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Forty
Forty-One
Forty-Two
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Also by Adrienne Young
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
First published in the United States by Wednesday Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group
NAMESAKE. Copyright © 2021 by Adrienne Young. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.
www.wednesdaybooks.com
Cover design by Kerri Resnick
Cover photograph of girl by Svetlana Belyaeva; earring © hvoya / Shutterstock.com; gem © photo-world / Shutterstock.com; gold texture © Vandathai / Shutterstock.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Young, Adrienne, 1985– author.
Title: Namesake : a novel / Adrienne Young.
Description: First edition. | New York : Wednesday Books, 2021. | Series: Fable ; 2
Identifiers: LCCN 2020040972 | ISBN 9781250254399 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781250254412 (ebook)
Subjects: CYAC: Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. | Seafaring life—Fiction. | Diving—Fiction. | Treasure troves—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.Y74 Nam 2021 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020040972
eISBN 9781250254412
Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at [email protected].
First Edition: 2021
Namesake Page 26