Hamish had been asleep in the crew’s cabin since the sun went down, and I wondered if it was because he was still undecided on what to do about the secret West was keeping. It would only be a matter of time before Hamish came clean.
The sound of Koy snoring lifted from the shadows at the bow. I could only see his crossed bare feet in the moonlight.
A shadow moved over the deck beside me, and I looked up to where Willa was perched high on the mainmast. She was settled in her sling, her head tipped back and looking at the stars.
I hesitated before I took hold of the pegs and climbed, rising up above the Marigold and into the rush of cold wind. It had the bite of frost in it, stinging as it slid over my skin.
Willa ignored me as I found a place to sit beside her. Her long, twisted, tawny locks were braided back from her face, making the cut of her slender face more severe.
“What do you want?” Her voice was hollow.
I wound my arm around the mast, leaning into it. “To say thank you.”
“For what?”
I followed her gaze up to the sky, where the clouds threaded together in wisps. “For coming to find me.” Emotion bent the words into different shapes.
If Willa noticed, I couldn’t tell. “A lot of good it did.”
“I didn’t ask him to do this. I was going to do it alone.”
“I don’t care, Fable,” she said. “You made all of this about you. The same as you’ve been doing all along.”
“What?” I sat up, leaning forward to look her in the eye.
“Since you first stepped foot on this ship, we’ve been doing what you want us to do. Actually, we were doing it before then, bleeding coin on our route to come to Jeval.”
“I never asked for that.”
“It doesn’t matter. West was never going to stop going to that island as long as you were there. And when you almost got yourself killed, we were on the hook, taking you across the Narrows to find Saint.”
“I—”
But she wasn’t going to let me get a word in. “When that fell apart, who came and scraped you off the floor of the tavern? Me. Who risked their necks taking you to Tempest Snare? All of us.”
“You weren’t doing me any favors with the Lark, Willa. If it weren’t for me, the Marigold would still be anchored in Ceros with no sails.”
“I wish she was!” she shouted.
It wasn’t until the moonlight caught her face again that I could see she was crying. And they weren’t the kind of tears that fell in anger. They were sad. Broken.
“If West had lost the Marigold, I would have been able to leave,” she choked. “But you saved it. And I thought again, once he was out from under Saint and he had you, that I was free. But we cross the Narrows to find you and you’re already making deals. Going your own way. Like it all meant nothing.”
My heart sank, realizing that in a way, she was right. I hadn’t considered the cost for Willa. Not once. She’d told me that she had finally found a way to leave the Marigold. That she’d found a way to be free. And I’d taken it away from her, whether I’d meant to or not.
“You didn’t tell him that you’re leaving, did you?” I asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
She sniffed. “You don’t know what he was like before. When he was working for Saint. I thought once we were done with him, that the West I knew was back. But when you disappeared in Dern, he was that person again. He … he just vanished.”
“I heard about the ships. What happened?”
“It doesn’t matter. That’s not my brother. That’s what Saint made.” She wiped her cheek. “He was willing to leave everything in the Narrows to find you. He was willing to put you before the entire crew,” she said. “What else is he willing to do for you, Fable?”
I didn’t know what she wanted me to say. I understood it. In her eyes, I’d made West into the same thing my father had. And I could hear in Willa’s voice that she wished she’d never come to the tavern that night. That she’d never told me to ask the crew to take me on.
“He was wrong in forcing the crew to come to Yuri’s Constellation,” I said. “He was just afraid.”
“You’ve given him something to be afraid of.” She finally looked at me. Her eyes met mine, and I could see a thousand words she wasn’t saying in them.
It was the truth. And this was exactly why Saint lived by his rules and why he’d taught them to me.
Below, the door to the helmsman’s quarters opened, flooding lantern light onto the deck. West came out of the breezeway, and even from high up on the mast, I could see the exhausted look on his face.
“I need to talk to you,” he called up to us before looking up to the quarterdeck. “All of you.”
Willa studied her brother before she unfolded herself from her sling and climbed down. The crew gathered around the helm quietly, all shooting glances to one another as West tucked his hair behind his ear. He was nervous.
“I need to tell you something.”
They all waited.
“When Holland came to the docks, she took the deed to the Marigold.” He said it all in one breath.
“She what?” Paj’s voice didn’t sound like his own. It was desperate.
Tears were welling in Willa’s eyes again.
“She demanded the deed and I gave it to her.”
Auster grimaced, as if the words didn’t make sense. Beside him, Hamish stared at his boots.
“When we get to Sagsay Holm, we’ll get it back from her.”
“And then what?” Paj’s deep voice echoed.
“Then we go home,” West answered.
“Just like that? As if nothing happened?”
West was silent for a long time and they waited for his answer. When I was sure he would finally speak, he turned on his heel, headed back to his quarters.
The crew stared at each other.
“So, we work for Holland now?” The edge came into Willa’s voice.
“We don’t work for her.” I ran a hand over my face.
Auster cleared his throat awkwardly. “Sure sounds like we do.”
“We’ll get it back,” I said, desperate for them to believe me. “Holland wants me, not the Marigold.”
Hamish fidgeted with the thread unraveling at the hem of his vest. “I’m tired of getting caught up in your family’s business, Fable.”
“Me too,” I muttered.
I could hear it in Willa’s words. See it on each of their faces. They’d spent years being controlled by Saint, and now Holland held the most precious thing in the world to them—their home. I hadn’t saved them with the Lark. I’d trapped them. With me.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Yuri’s Constellation was invisible in the dark. I stood on the railing at the bow of the ship, watching the moonlight on the surface of the sea. Even from above, I could feel them—the soft songs of the gemstones hidden in the reef below.
The chain of islands was famous, supplying a major portion of the stones that made up the gem trade in the Unnamed Sea and the Narrows alike. From above, their crests looked like a tangle of veins, pulsing with a steady heartbeat.
The clang of metal rang out and I turned to see Koy at the stern, slinging his belt over his shoulder. He’d slept through the hours it had taken to get to Yuri’s Constellation and the moment he woke, the crew’s eyes were on him. He pretended not to notice as he came down the steps to the main deck.
The dredging tools I’d had Hamish track down for him gleamed in his hands as he slid them into the belt one at a time. We would be dredging from sunrise to sunset, without a chance to have picks sharpened or broken mallets repaired on shore. Hamish had purchased more than enough tools to last all three of us.
Koy fit the belt around his hips and tightened the buckle absently, his eyes on the water. “Looks tame enough.”
“Yeah.” I nodded.
He was talking about the currents and I’d thought the same. The tides were meticulously documented on
the charts Holland had given us and we’d dealt with far more unpredictable water on Jeval.
“You going to tell me what I’m looking for down there?” he asked.
I’d been dreading this moment. In fact, I’d been sure that if I’d told Koy the truth at the tavern, that he wouldn’t have ever stepped foot on the Marigold. I pulled Holland’s ship logs from inside my jacket and slipped the parchment from under the leather cover.
Koy plucked it from my fingers, unfolding it. His eyes narrowed as they moved over the diagram. “Midnight.” He scoffed. “You’re even more insane than I thought.”
I ignored the insult. “Opaque black stone. Violet inclusions. That’s all you need to know.”
“Good thing you paid me in advance.” He handed me the parchment.
Auster came up from belowdecks with two steaming clay cups, and I jumped down from the railing to meet him. He set one into my hands, and the bitter scent of strong black tea rose to meet me.
I took a sip, wincing. “Better keep them coming.”
“I figured as much.” He smirked.
Paj untied one of the baskets from the railing on the quarterdeck and tossed it down to Hamish, who was stacking them. He glanced at me over his shoulder, eyeing the cup.
Of everyone on board, Paj would be the most difficult to make peace with. His love and his hate seemed to be intrinsically tied together, with little in between.
“What did Henrik mean when he said that Paj was your benefactor?” I asked, taking another sip.
Auster leaned onto the railing beside me, lowering his voice so that Paj couldn’t hear. “I met Paj down on the docks while I was working a job for Henrik. Paj was crewing as a deckhand for a mid-level trader, coming and going from Bastian nearly every week.” He swirled the tea in his cup. “Not a month had gone by before I started waiting for his ship at the harbor.” Even in the dark I could see him blushing.
“And?”
“And not long after, Paj started putting together that I worked for the Roths. When things got…” He trailed off, glancing over his shoulder again. “Henrik found out about us, and he didn’t approve. We were together for maybe a year when I almost got my throat cut stealing inventory from a rye merchant for my uncle. Paj had told me before that he wanted me to cut ties with my family, but he hadn’t drawn a line in the sand. Not until then. He came and found me one night before he left port, and he asked me to leave Bastian and the Roths behind. If I didn’t, we were done.”
“You had to choose. Between him and your family.”
“That’s right.” Auster’s eyes paled to the faintest shade of silver. “Paj heard there was a sailmaker willing to pay a lot of coin to be smuggled out of Bastian, and he took the job. Nearly got himself killed, but he pulled it off.”
“Leo?” My voice rose.
Auster smiled in answer.
Leo was the sailmaker-turned-tailor who’d set up shop in North Fyg in Ceros. He’d also been the one to save the Marigold by making us a set of sails when no one else would.
“He’d gotten into some kind of trouble with Holland and needed to disappear. Paj showed up at my door a few days later with three purses of coin and said he was leaving the Unnamed Sea and not coming back. He gave me a day to decide.”
“And you just disappeared? Without anyone knowing?”
“No one except Ezra. He was there the night I left, but he let me go. Pretended like he didn’t see me climbing out the window. If he’d told anyone I was gone, I wouldn’t have made it out of the harbor.”
So there was more to Ezra than Henrik and the Roths. “Would you ever change it? Go back and stay with your family?”
“The Roths share blood, but they’re not a family.”
I didn’t press. Something told me if I did, it would unearth whatever Auster had buried when he left Bastian behind.
“But I wouldn’t.” He leaned toward me, pressing his shoulder to mine. “You know, go back. Change it.”
I swallowed down the urge to cry. He wasn’t just talking about Paj or the Roths or Bastian. He was also talking about me. Auster had been the first one on the crew to trust me. Somehow, he still did. I shoved back into his shoulder with mine, not saying a word.
“Ready?” West’s voice sounded behind me and I turned to see him standing before the helm, both of our belts in his hands.
I handed Auster my cup before West tossed my belt into the air. I caught it, eyeing the straight line in the distance. Daylight was already swelling into the inky black sky, and in a few minutes the sun would appear like liquid gold, wavering on the seam of the horizon.
Up on the quarterdeck, Paj and Hamish were loosening the lines that secured the tender boat and dropping it into the water.
“I’ll mark, you follow,” I said, repeating the plan as I buckled my belt around me.
I’d work my way down the reefs in order, flagging areas that could hold the midnight with strips of pink silk I’d torn from Holland’s frock. West and Koy would follow, dredging. When we were finished with one reef, we’d start the next. But there were over twenty in the tangle of banks and ridges below. We’d have to get through at least six a day if we were going to finish in time to meet Holland.
“When I get to the end, I’ll double back to dredge.” I raked my hair to one side, braiding it over my shoulder and tying it off with a strip of leather.
Willa came down the steps with the oars to the tender boat. When Koy reached for them, she dropped them on the deck between them.
He grinned at her before he bent low to pick them up.
I’d been worried that problems would arise between the crew and Koy, but he looked more amused by Willa’s antics than he was annoyed. Still, I couldn’t afford for any of them to get under his skin. The last thing I needed was for him to draw his knife on someone.
Koy climbed the railing as the glow of sunlight bled up into the sky. He stood against the wind, pulling the shirt over his head before dropping it to the deck next to Willa. She stared at it, dragging her incredulous gaze up and pinning it on him.
West waited for me to climb up before he followed. We stood shoulder to shoulder, the three of us looking down at the dark water.
“Ready?” I looked to West, then Koy.
Koy answered with a nod, and West didn’t answer at all, stepping off first to drop through the air and plunge into the sea. Koy and I stepped off together and the warm wind whipped around us before we hit the water side by side.
West was coming up when I opened my eyes beneath the surface, and I blinked furiously against the sting of salt before kicking after him. Already the sky was lighter, and in minutes, we’d have enough visibility to start working the reef.
The tender boat was floating just near the stern, and as soon as the oars hit the water beside us we swam toward it, lifting ourselves over its side. The reef system grew more twisted beneath us as Koy rowed toward the island and the crew watched us silently from the portside above. These waters were too shallow for the Marigold, so they’d have to stay anchored in the deep.
When we reached the first reef on our list, West dropped anchor and jumped back out.
The water was warmer in the shallows and the buzz of gemstones was heavier. I could feel it over every inch of my skin as I took the first of a series of deep, quick breaths, working my lungs to stretch. I was already dreading the deep chill that I knew was waiting for me after hours of diving. It was the kind of cold that lingered for days.
West treaded water beside me, tipping his head back to take a last sip of air into his throat before he disappeared. I did the same, sinking into the ink-blue water after him.
Below, he was already kicking in the direction of the farthest edge of a reef that disappeared into the darkness. His hair rippled back from his face as he wove between beams of sunlight, and I let myself float down until I felt the pressure of the water rise.
The reverberation swelling around us was like the chorus of a hundred singing voices, blending in an unset
tling tone. I’d never heard it before, like the sharpest strike of metal felt deep in the bones.
This was an old reef, wrought with time, and the color of the rock bled one to the next like the haphazard patchwork of the rye fields north of Ceros.
West reached the tip of the reef and I watched his hand drift out to touch the shelf of ancient coral gently. There was evidence of dredging all along its ridges, but this reef was a monster, regenerating at a pace that made each break in the rock glow white with new growth. Fish swarmed around pointed crests, where delicate sea fans, bubble coral, and purple death anemone were scattered in brilliant shapes and colors.
Somewhere in the tangle of shoals, Isolde had found midnight.
The tips of West’s fingers grazed my arm as I sank below him to the tip of the ridge. The color of the sea bottom told me that the bedrock was limestone. Caches of calcite, fluorite, and onyx would litter the reef in pockets, and I could hear their distinct calls all around me, humming from where they lay beneath the rock.
I set my hands on the shelf before me and closed my eyes, letting a string of bubbles trail up from my lips. The place between my eyebrows pinched as I listened, sorting through the sounds one at a time until I found the deep, resonant ring of something that didn’t belong. Some sort of agate? Maybe tiger’s eye. I couldn’t tell.
My eyes opened and I swam over the ridge, trying to find it. The sound grew, more a feeling in my chest than something I could hear, and when it was so close that I felt as if it was writhing within me, I stopped, touching the bulbous piece of broken basalt that eyed me from beneath a growth of branching coral.
I pulled at a strip of pink silk from my belt and tied it loosely around the frond so that its ends rippled in the pull of the current. Koy came down beside me, getting to work. He inspected the spot before he chose a pick and a chisel. When he slid his mallet free, I kicked off, making my way farther down the reef.
West’s shadow followed mine, and when I found another suspicious cache, I stopped, fitting myself into a corner of the ridge so I could tie another marker. West watched me, taking a pick from his belt, and when I turned to start again, he caught my hand, pulling me back through the current toward him.
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