The hammock shook above me and something hot hit my face. I flinched, reaching up to wipe it from my cheek, and another drop fell, hitting my arm. When I held my fingers to the light, I went still.
It was blood.
The hammock swung silently above me, and Clove sheathed his knife before he reached back up and heaved Ryland from inside. I watched in horror as he took him onto his shoulder and his limp hands fell beside my face, swinging.
He was dead.
I didn’t move as the sound of footsteps trailed to the door. Then he was gone, leaving the cabin quiet. As soon as the light stopped moving I sat up, staring into the black passageway, my eyes wide.
There was no sound except deep, sleeping breaths and the creak of swaying rope. The hushed hum of water against the hull. For a moment, I thought maybe I’d dreamed it. That I’d seen the work of spirits in the dark. I looked over my shoulder, searching the cabin, and froze when I saw him.
Koy was still in his hammock, his open eyes on me.
ELEVEN
I waited for the others to wake before I dared to move. I lay awake for hours in the dark, listening for the sounds of footsteps coming back down the passageway, but the ship had been quiet through the night until dawn summoned the first shift of crew.
I couldn’t feel the tiredness that had pressed down on me the day before. I could hardly even feel the pain in my leg, where my skin was puckered and red around the stitches. Ryland was dead, and the comfort of relief unraveled the tension wound around me. I wasn’t safe on the Luna, but Ryland was gone, and I didn’t think Koy would be the one to kill me in my sleep.
The real question was what had happened last night, and why.
I scanned the deck before I came up the last few steps, instinctively looking for Ryland to be sure I hadn’t dreamed it. Wick was up on the mizzen, replacing a grommet at the corner of a sail, the wind pulling his winding hair across his forehead. But there was no sign of Ryland.
At the bow, Clove was recording numbers in his log, and I studied the calm, unconcerned way he looked over the pages. It was the same look he had the night before, when I watched him take the knife to Ryland and haul his body from the cabin.
“Crew check!” the bosun called out, his voice echoing.
Everyone on deck grudgingly obeyed, leaving their work to line up against the port side. The last of the deckhands and dredgers came up from belowdecks, the sleep still dragging on their faces. I took my place at the end, watching the bosun look up from his book, marking names as he went.
“Where’s Ryland?” He set his hands on his hips, gaze trailing over each of our faces.
I caught Koy’s eyes across the deck. He didn’t flinch.
“Bastard never got back on the ship last night.” Clove grunted from behind him, his attention still on the logs.
My hands found each other behind my back, fingers tangling together. There was only one reason I could think of that Clove would go after Ryland, but it didn’t make any sense. He’d been the one to tell Zola who I was. He’d pitted me against the crew. Why would he try to protect me?
Tears welled and I tried to blink them away, wiping at the corner of my eye before one could fall. I was afraid to believe it.
I watched Wick for any sign that he was going to object, he’d probably seen the blood in Ryland’s hammock when he woke that morning. But even if he didn’t know who might have put it there, he didn’t want to cross them. He kept his mouth shut.
The bosun made another mark in his book, dismissing each of the crew, and a few minutes later everyone on the Luna was back to work.
Clove didn’t look at me as I went to the helm, his shoulders hunching as I came closer. I looked up into his face, studying the wrinkles that framed his deep-set eyes, and he glanced over my head nervously for a fraction of a moment, to the deck. He was making sure no one was watching us, and that was the only answer I needed.
He reached for the peg on the mast beside us, leaning over me. “Not here.” His voice ground, making me swallow hard.
If Clove was looking out for me, then he hadn’t turned on Saint. He hadn’t turned on me. And that could only mean one thing. Zola wasn’t the only one who was up to something.
My father was, too.
“Dredger!” The bosun shouted over the wind, his hands cupped over his mouth. “Helmsman wants to see you! Now!”
I tried to meet Clove’s eyes, but he snapped the book shut, crossing the deck. He walked through the open door to the helmsman’s quarters and I stopped before it, watching Zola. He stood at the window, his hands clasped behind his back.
Clove took a seat at the end of the table, setting one foot up on his knee and leaning back into the chair beside a basin filled with suds.
Zola looked over his shoulder to me when I didn’t move. “Well. Come in.”
I glanced between them, searching for any hint of what was coming. But Clove looked unconcerned. He’d done a good job of convincing Zola, but there had to have been a price for that trust. Clove had never been an innocent man, but I wondered what he’d done to get on this ship.
“The haul?” Zola lifted the tails of his coat to sit on the stool beside the window.
“Sorted and itemized with the letter of authenticity from the merchant in Sagsay Holm,” Clove reported, rote. “He put total worth around six thousand coppers.”
I flinched at the number. Six thousand coppers in one trade. That was the kind of sum that launched entire trade routes.
“And you checked them?” Zola looked up to me.
“Twice,” Clove answered.
But Zola was still looking at me. “I want to hear it from you. Did you check the stones?”
“Twice,” I repeated, irritated.
“The person these stones are going to will catch it if you missed anything. And I don’t think I need to tell you what will happen if she does.”
“Guess you’ll have to wait and see,” I said flatly.
“Guess we will,” Zola said. “I want you cleaned up and ready before we make port.” He motioned to the basin.
I stood up off the wall, dropping my arms. “Ready for what?”
“You’ve got business in Bastian.”
“No, I don’t. I got your haul. I checked your stones. I’ve earned my coin three times over.”
“Almost,” Zola said.
I stared at him. “I’m done playing this game. When am I going back to the Narrows?”
“Soon.”
“Give it to me in days.” My voice rose.
Zola tipped his chin up, looking down his nose at me. “Two days.”
My hands curled into fists at my sides. I let out a frustrated breath.
“I have one more thing I need you to do. After that, your fate is in your own hands.”
But I wasn’t going to rely on the Luna to get me home. I had a better chance with just about any other ship in Bastian’s harbor. I could buy passage from another helmsman and sail back to the Narrows with fewer enemies than I had here. “Give me my coin now and I’ll do whatever you want.”
“That’s fair.” Zola shrugged. “But you’re only getting half. The other half, you can have tomorrow night.”
“What’s tomorrow night?”
“It’s a surprise.” He opened the drawer of his desk and took out a purse, counting out twenty-five coins quickly. When he was finished, he set his hand on the pile and slid them over the maps toward me.
Clove got back to his feet.
“I need you dressed and down on that dock by the time Bastian is in sight.” Zola closed the drawer and stood, coming around the desk to face me.
“Boots.” Clove held out a hand, waiting.
I looked down to my feet. The leather of my boots was still scuffed and muddy from the streets of Dern. I muttered a curse, sliding my feet from each one and leaving them on the ground for him to pick up himself. The tick of a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth before he bent down to snatch them up.
Zol
a opened the door and waited for Calla to enter before he and Clove left. She had a change of clothes draped over her arms, and I glowered at the ruffled cuff of the shirt’s sleeve.
“You can’t be serious,” I hissed.
Calla tipped her head to one side impatiently.
I tugged the shirt over my head and unbuttoned my trousers before I went to the basin. My blistered knuckles stung as I slid my hands slowly into the hot water. The bubbles smelled like herbs, and I raked the water up my arms, scrubbing before I moved to my face and neck. When I was finished I went to the mirror, wiping at the places I’d missed with the corner of a cloth.
My mouth twisted as I looked at my reflection in the glass. Once, my mother might have stood before this mirror. Isolde couldn’t have been much older than me when Zola first took her on, and I wondered how long it had taken her to find out what kind of man he was. Her days on the Luna were ones she’d never told me about, and part of me didn’t want to know anything about them. In my mind, her spirit lived on the Lark. I didn’t like the idea of any piece of her being left here.
I pulled my fingers through my hair to untangle as much as I could, and wound the length of it up until I could tuck the end underneath to make a tight knot. I didn’t bother trying to tame the loose waving pieces that fell around my face. Zola may have needed someone to play the role of a Saltblood, but he’d have to settle for me.
Calla tossed the shirt onto the bed and I picked it up, examining the cloth. It wasn’t one that traders usually wore. The linen was newly spun and thin, falling down the arms softly to the wrists. The trousers, too, were new, made of a thick black wool fit with whalebone buttons. Zola had obviously been prepared when he stepped into that alley in Dern. He’d had a very detailed plan. The thought made a tingle run up my spine.
Two days, I told myself. Two days and I would be on my way back to the Marigold.
There was a knock at the door before I’d even finished tucking in the shirt, and Calla opened it to one of the Waterside strays. He held my boots in his small hands. They were cleaned and shined, the laces replaced with new ones made of a tightly knit cord. I stared down at them, and emotion curled thick in my throat, remembering the night that West had given them to me.
I’d stood in the rain at the village gambit, watching him and Willa in the alley. The light from the streetlamps carved the angles of West’s face, and his voice had changed when he said my name. That was the first time I’d seen the underneath of him, if only for a moment. And I missed him so badly I could hardly breathe.
I couldn’t help but wonder at what my father and Zola had said. That there was a darkness to West that went deeper than I’d known. A part of me didn’t want to know. To believe that it didn’t matter. Anyone who’d survived the Narrows had that same darkness. It was the only way to stay alive.
But that night in Dern, when we said we wouldn’t lie to each other, he hadn’t told me the whole truth. And I was afraid of what I might find if he did. That when I saw him again, he would look different to me. That he would look like Saint.
TWELVE
The faint flicker of sprawling lights glowed like stars on the shoreline ahead.
Bastian.
I stood at the bow of the Luna, watching the city come closer. It was a place I knew only in stories. Streets and lights and colors that formed memories that weren’t my own.
My mother had loved Bastian. The way the wet streets shone in the moonlight. The roll of buildings up the hill and the smell of the markets. But in the end, she left and she’d never gone back.
The hands of the dockworkers below slowed on their tasks as the Luna made port, and the crew pulled up her sails, stowing them neatly on the masts. She looked beautiful in the cloak of night, the dark wood gleaming and polished. But there was no amount of scrubbing or ruffled shirts that could hide where we’d come from. We were Narrows-born traders through and through and from the look of everyone in the harbor, they knew it.
Every other ship anchored in the bays looked as if they were carved from rays of daylight, crisp and clean against the wide sky. The cities of the Unnamed Sea prided themselves on their opulence, and none more than Bastian. My mother had never carried the same air, but it was still there in little things. Like the way she kept her dredging tools pristine on her belt or the way her fingernails seemed to always be clean.
There are some things that can’t be carved from a person, no matter how far from home they’ve sailed.
The harbor master appeared in the distance, followed by a throng of dockworkers trailing behind him. His severe brow made his eyes look squinted and the parchments in his hand fluttered as he waved his arms over his head. But Zola didn’t waste any time making himself at home. He didn’t even wait for approval before having the crew secure the hauling lines.
“Who’s that there?” the harbor master called out, stopping to look up and study the crest on the foresail.
Zola met Clove’s eyes before he took the ladder down, and the crew of the Luna watched over the side of the ship as he walked up the dock to meet him.
“Time to go.” Clove tucked an extra knife into his belt.
I eyed him suspiciously. He hadn’t even glanced in my direction since we’d stood in Zola’s quarters and I realized there was more to his place on the Luna than even Zola knew. But he’d given me no hint of what was going on or what part I was supposed to be playing. Everything had been on a racing clock since we’d left Dern, and I wanted to know what happened when it finally ticked down. Jeval. The dive. Sagsay Holm. Zola was meticulously making each move with careful precision. I knew it had something to do with Holland, but that’s where my revelations had stopped.
Koy watched me from the quarterdeck as I disappeared over the side of the ship. The crew had been instructed not to leave the Luna for any reason, and the Jevali dredgers didn’t seem to mind one bit. Their eyes studied the city on the hill warily, as if something about it scared them. Bastian itself was bigger than the entire island of Jeval.
Zola was still talking to the harbor master with an easy smile when Clove and I slipped around them, headed for the wide stone staircase that led to the merchant’s house. This wasn’t anything like the rusted structure the Narrows merchants traded in. It was built with clean white stone, the corners studded with ornate statues of seabirds that unfolded their wings over the street below.
I stopped when we reached the top step, and the street widened to reveal the rolling expanse of the vast city. I turned in a circle, trying to take it in, but Bastian was immense. Overwhelming. I’d never seen anything like it.
Clove disappeared around the corner of the merchant’s house as I turned back to the street. When I stepped into the alleyway, he was already waiting. He leaned against the brick, the glow of streetlamps lighting half his face. Even standing in the middle of the street, surrounded by buildings that hid most of the sky, he looked like a giant.
The harsh coldness that had been in his eyes since I first saw him on the Luna softened when he looked up at me from beneath the brim of his hat. It was a look that was so familiar that my shoulders drew down my back, the tension that had me wound tight for the last ten days uncoiling itself from me. In an instant, I felt as if I were unraveling. One side of his mustache slowly ticked up and a crooked grin illuminated his eyes with a spark.
I took the four steps between us, my boots hitting the cobblestones in an echo, and I threw my arms around him. The cry that had been trapped in my throat finally escaped, and I leaned into him, my fingers clutching his jacket. I didn’t care that it was weak. That it was an admission to how scared I was. I only wanted to feel like for a moment, I wasn’t alone.
Clove stood rigid, watching around us warily, but after a moment his huge arms came around me, squeezing. “There now, Fay,” he said, one hand rubbing my back.
I curled my arms into my chest and let him hold me tighter, closing my eyes. “Does he know where I am?” I couldn’t say my father’s name without my voice
fully giving way.
Clove pulled me back to look up at him and one rough hand brushed the tears from my flushed cheek. “He knows exactly where you are.”
If Saint was in on this, he’d known the morning I saw him in Dern. He’d sat across the table from me drinking his tea without so much as a hint about what was waiting for me in the alley.
I gritted my teeth. I was so tired of my father’s games. But the anger I felt was immediately replaced by desperation. I took hold of Clove’s jacket, pulling him toward me. “I have to get out of here. I have to get back to the Narrows.”
“You’re not going anywhere until we finish this.” Clove planted a kiss on the top of my head before he started up the street again, his hands finding his pockets.
“Finish what?” My voice rose as I followed after him. “You haven’t told me anything.”
“We’ve been working a long time for this, Fay. And we can’t finish it without you.”
I stopped in my tracks, gaping at him.
When he could no longer hear my footsteps, the gate of Clove’s stride broke and he halted, looking back.
“Tell me what’s going on or I’m bartering with the first ship down in the harbor for passage back to the Narrows,” I said, my voice tired.
He stopped beneath the faded sign of a fishmonger, sighing. “In a day’s time, you’ll know everything.”
I could see that I wasn’t going to sway him. If this was the work of my father, then there were a lot of moving pieces and I was one of them.
“You swear it?” I took a step closer, daring him to lie to me.
“I do.”
I searched his face, wanting to believe him. “On my mother’s soul?”
The words made him flinch and his lips pressed into a hard line before he answered. “I swear it.” He shook his head with an irritated smirk. “Same stubborn ass as her,” he muttered.
The collar of his jacket was pulled up around his neck and his fair hair curled out from beneath his cap. For the first time since Dern, I felt like I could exhale. He felt like home. As long as I was with Clove, he wouldn’t let anything happen to me. And the truth was, if he and my father were taking down Zola, I was in.
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