The edges of the silk kissed my feet as he looked up at me and his fingers tightened around my arm. It was the first time he’d touched me since I’d made my deal with Holland and I could see that he was waiting. For what, I didn’t know. West was adrift, lost without the anchor of the crew and the ship. The guilt of knowing I’d been a part of that made it feel as if the air in my chest was on fire.
I threaded my fingers into his and squeezed. The corners of his mouth softened and he let me go, letting the tow of water take me over the shelf, away from him. In another moment, he was gone.
I looked down as the tide carried me over the coral, watching the reef run past me until another gemstone song caught my ear. Then another. And another. And when I looked back to the end of the reef where Koy and West had been, it vanished in the murky blue. It was the color of a sleeping sea, my mother would say, because the water only ever looked like that before dawn.
The labyrinth of reefs held everything from black diamonds to the rarest of sapphires, and most of the stories my mother had told me about dredging in the Unnamed Sea were born in these waters.
This place had known my mother.
The thought made a sinking feeling drop between my ribs as I tied another strip of silk and kicked off, letting the current take me again. She’d never told a soul where she’d found the midnight. What other secrets had she left here?
TWENTY-EIGHT
“Fable.”
I was still floating in the deep, infinite blue illuminated around me. The reef stretched out below, the ripple of sunlight dancing on the surface above.
“Fable.” My name was soft on West’s gravelly voice.
The length of him pressed against me, and I felt his fingers slide through mine. The blisters on my hands stung as he pressed my knuckles to his mouth.
“Time to wake up.”
I opened my eyes just enough to see a faint light spilling through the slats of the closed window shutters of the helmsman’s quarters. I rolled beneath the quilts to face West and set my head on the crook of his shoulder, fitting my hands beneath him. They were still a bit numb, even after a few hours of sleep in the warm cabin.
The smell of him filled the room and I pulled it in on a deep, relieved breath. He’d thawed, acting more like himself than he had since we were at Azimuth House. I didn’t know if it was being back at sea or if it was the long hours spent underwater in the quiet that had done it. I didn’t care.
“Sun will be up soon,” he said, pushing the hair back from my face.
The first day of the dive had been brutal, with shifting tides that slowed our progress over the reefs. And though we’d found cache after cache, none of them had been anything close to midnight. Worse, we didn’t have time to dredge what we did find. We’d have to leave all those stones where they were buried in the rock.
I curled up closer to him, not wanting to surrender to the rising sun. I took one of his hands and held it to the beam of light. His fingers were cut up and rubbed raw from the coral. “You never told me how you learned to dredge,” I whispered.
The first time I’d seen him put on a belt was when we dredged the Lark. It was unusual for a helmsman to have ever been a dredger because it was considered one of the lowest rungs on a crew.
“I learned when I was a kid.”
“But who taught you?”
He looked as if he was trying to decide how much of the story to tell me. “No one, really. I just started following the dredgers into the water on dives and watching them work. I figured it was better than staying on the ship and giving the helmsman a reason to notice me.”
I pressed his hand to my face. Imagining him like that, so young, and being afraid to stay on the ship made my stomach turn.
“And it gave me more than one skill when I went to the next crew.”
Saint’s crew. It probably wasn’t long after he’d left me on Jeval that my father took West on. While I was finding a way to survive on that island, West was finding a way to survive on that ship. I wondered how long it had taken Saint to ask West for his first favor.
I tensed when I felt the vibration of the cot ringing in tandem with a distant rumble. West, too, went rigid, listening.
I sat up onto my elbows, staring into the dark. A few seconds later, it moaned again. The roll of thunder.
“No.” I threw the quilts back, going to the window and unlatching the shutters.
West’s footsteps hit the floor behind me, and my heart sank as the wind tore through the cabin. Sweet, drenched in the smell of wet earth. The sky was almost completely black, the sparkle of stars still lit above the ship, but there was no mistaking the scent.
It was a storm.
West stared at the sky, listening. I pushed past him, plucking my belt from where it hung beside the door, and went out onto the deck barefoot.
Paj was standing at the helm, watching the water. “Figured that would get your asses out of bed.” He grunted, flinging a hand toward the east.
I leaned over the side, cursing when I spotted what he saw. A crest of white broke on the waves as they pressed diagonally toward us, the chop on the water visible even in the low light.
“Well?” Willa appeared at the top of the steps, thumbs hooked into her tool belt.
I raked both hands into my hair, holding it back from my face as West came out of the breezeway. “We don’t have time to wait it out. We can dredge before it hits.”
Paj lifted both eyebrows. “You’re going to dredge? In this?”
West watched the clouds, thinking. “Have you ever done a dive during a storm?”
I sighed. “Once or twice.”
“And the ship?” West asked, looking to Paj and Willa.
Willa was the one to answer. “We’ll see. The winds don’t look that bad. We’re in deep enough water and we’ve dropped sails. She should be fine.”
I didn’t like that she’d said should.
West thought for another moment, his eyes going back to the sky. The dive was mine, but he was still the helmsman. The call landed with him. “What about the current?”
“It’ll get stronger,” I admitted. “I’ll know when we need to get out of the water.”
“All right.” He tugged his shirt over his head. “Then let’s get down there.”
I took the steps belowdecks, knocking hard on the door of the cabin as I pushed inside. Koy, Auster, and Hamish were still asleep in their hammocks. The snore dragging in Hamish’s throat was interrupted by the sound of the door slamming against the wall. I took Koy’s belt from where it was hung on the bulkhead and dropped it into his hammock.
He jerked awake, half-sitting up as he sucked in a breath. “What the—”
“Storm,” I said. “Get up.”
He groaned, rolling from the swinging canvas, and his feet hit the ground behind me.
Willa was grumbling to herself as I came back up to the main deck. She climbed the mainmast with a cord of rope draped over her shoulders, ready to reinforce the lines.
Koy pulled his hair into a knot, looking up at the sky.
“Scared, dredger?” Willa taunted from above.
“I’ve dredged in storms that would eat this ship alive.” Koy smiled wickedly.
We’d finished twelve of the reefs, with twenty-two left to go, and the progress would be slow going in the churn of the water. It would definitely put us behind schedule, and I wasn’t sure how we’d make it up.
A bleary-eyed Auster appeared at the top of the steps a moment later, scanning the deck.
“Tender,” Paj directed him.
He obeyed without question, jogging with heavy feet up to the quarterdeck to help West drop the small boat into the water. It drifted in the wind, pulling against the line as I balanced on the railing. I could feel every one of my muscles tightening, dreading the jump. After a full day of diving and very little rest, there wasn’t an inch of my body that wasn’t sore, and hours in the tossing water of a storm would be the worst of it.
Be
fore I could think better of it, I pressed both hands to my tools to hold them to my body and jumped. I sucked in a breath as I fell, crashing into the sea as the first of the waves rolled into the ship.
I kicked hard to draw the blood into the muscles of my stiff legs and pulled in my first breath as soon as I surfaced. West and Koy dropped in behind me, and above the crew stood at the railing, their wary eyes on the clouds in the distance. They were worried.
We climbed into the tender and West took up the oars, setting the paddles into the rings and pulling them to his chest. The wind was getting stronger by the minute and he strained against the tow of the water as I steered the rudder.
When we were in place I jumped back in, not wasting any time. The anchor fell into the water and I pressed my hands to my sore ribs as I started to fill my lungs.
“Stay on the west side of the ridge so the current doesn’t throw you into the reef,” I said between breaths. “And watch the eddies. They’ll get stronger.” I tipped my chin up to the right angle of water in the distance, where the sea was already starting to pucker. By the time the storm hit us, the eddy would be a maelstrom, pulling anything that touched it into a whirlpool.
Koy and West both nodded, working their breaths almost in tandem. My chest stung as I sucked in the last of the cold air, and I plunged below the surface.
My arms drifted up over my head as I let myself sink, reserving my strength for the current. It touched my feet first, and my hair whipped away from my face as it swept around me. The reef ran beneath us as we floated over the ridge, the pink silk flags fluttering. But the sand was already clouding the water, casting everything in a green haze that would make it difficult to see. Koy caught the edge of a rock when he reached the place he’d left off the day before, and he sank into the thick sediment, barely visible as we pulled away. West was next, kicking from the current when he spotted the next mark.
He was swallowed by the haze and when I reached the last flag I swam down, letting myself fall to the reef. The sounds of the sea had already changed, deepening with the roar of the storm that was still miles away.
I took the mallet from my belt and chose the largest chisel, tapping in swift strikes to chip the crust of coral. As soon as the rock beneath it was exposed I pressed a thumb to its edge, watching it crumble. The stone was a strange one, the feel of it thick in the water around me. If it was what I thought it was, it had been missed because of the unusual rock formation that had hidden the shape of the cache. Elestial quartz was rare and valuable, but it formed in feldspar, not basalt, which was exactly what this reef looked like. No one had come looking for elestial quartz here, and no one had stumbled upon it. And if the quartz had managed to hide, maybe midnight had too.
When I could see the faded orange face of the basalt, I dropped the chisel back into my belt and switched to a pick. It only took a few drives of the mallet before the purple gemstone appeared, but five dives later, there was no midnight to be found. I chipped the last of the feldspar from the ridge, my teeth clenched. But as the sand cleared, my hand tightened on the handle of my mallet. Nothing.
Fronds of coral swayed back and forth in the rough water, the fish swimming wayward as they pushed against the tide. The noise of the storm radiated through the sea like the drawn-out sound of thunder, disorienting me. If there was any midnight on this reef, I wasn’t going to find it like this.
I turned, letting a bubble escape my lips as I pressed my back to the rock and watched a dim spread of pale green swirling in the distance. In a few minutes we would lose what little light we had left and we’d be forced to wait out the winds.
A sharp ping shot through water and I looked up the ridge to see Koy floating over the top of the reef. He was hitting together two chisels, trying to get my attention. As soon as I caught his eyes, he sank back down and disappeared.
West rose from where he was working, swimming after him, and I followed, carving through the water with my heart hammering in my ears.
Koy’s black hair floated up in twisting strands as he hit the handle of the chisel. I came down beside West, going rigid when I saw the deep slash of red wrapped around his shoulder. It looked like he caught the corner of the reef.
I gently touched the broken skin, and he looked back at me, giving a flick of his fingers to dismiss my concern before he turned back to Koy.
His hands were working fast, and I eyed the constriction in his chest, pulling beneath the muscle. He needed to surface, and fast. He leaned back when another piece of basalt broke free and my mouth dropped open. The taste of cold and salt rolled over my tongue and I floated closer, eyeing a glossy spread of black.
West looked to me, his brow furrowed, but I couldn’t tell through the dim light what it was. I took the chisel from my belt and pushed Koy aside, signaling for him to go up for air before he blacked out. West worked at the other side and we moved the tips of our chisels closer together until the smallest corner of the stone chipped off, falling between us. West reached out, catching it in his palm and closing his fingers around it.
I rubbed the sand from my stinging eyes, my vision blurring. When a fish darted between me and the reef, I looked up. Something wasn’t right.
The water turned around us, shifting back and forth quietly. But the reef was empty, every fish and crab suddenly gone. I watched the last of them skitter away, into the murky distance.
West froze beside me, seeing the same.
It could only mean one thing.
I looked up, eyeing the surface, where the ripple of light had been just moments ago. Now, it was only black.
TWENTY-NINE
I broke through to the roar of wind, gasping, and West came up beside me as lightning tangled in the black clouds overhead.
I sucked in a breath as a wave barreled in toward us, and I sank back down before it hit. West disappeared as the water crashed and rolled above, sucking me deeper in its retreat. I kicked in the opposite direction, but another one was already coming in, slamming into the rocks ahead.
I came back up, choking on the burn of saltwater in my raw throat. Down the reef, West was swimming toward me over another wave.
“We have to get back to the ship!” I shouted, turning in a circle to search the rough water.
In the distance, Koy was pulling himself up into the tender boat. We swam toward it, diving under each time another wave crested and when we finally reached him, Koy had both oars in hand.
“Come on!” he shouted into the wind.
I held onto the edge and lifted myself inside, slipping on the wood and falling into the hull. West came up behind me, going for the rudder.
Beyond the shallows, the Marigold rocked on the swells, masts tipping back and forth as each wave slammed into the hull.
Koy dropped the paddles into the water and rowed, growling as he fought the current. The wind was too strong. The water too swift.
“We’re not going to make it!” I yelled, shivering. The rain was like glass, biting my skin as it blew in sideways.
West’s eyes were fixed on the ship. When he opened his mouth to answer, the boat suddenly stilled, the water calming. All around us, the gray sea was beginning to settle, but the clouds continued to roll overhead, like a plume of angry smoke. The hiss of my breath was the only sound. Until I saw it.
Down shore, the water was kicking up, an invisible gale racing toward us. It was dragging a wall of water behind it.
“Row!” West howled.
Koy turned the boat and headed for the beach, screaming as he jerked at the oars. But it was too late.
The wave raced toward us, its crest spilling down as it loomed over us. I watched, a gasp trapped in my throat, as it came crashing down.
“Fable!” West’s voice vanished as the water collapsed on top of us.
The boat disappeared and I was plummeted beneath the surface, dragged through the water like hands pulling me into the deep. I thrashed, fighting its strength, twisting and turning, looking for the surface.
A flashing glow appeared below me as the water let me go, and I launched myself toward it, kicking hard. It wasn’t until I got closer that I realized it wasn’t below me. It was above. The world was tossed and spinning beneath the water.
I broke the surface, screaming West’s name and a cry escaped my throat when I spotted the boat pushed up onto the shore ahead. Beside it, West was calling out to me. I frantically swam for the beach and when I felt the sand under my feet, I stood, trudging up out of the water. West caught me in his arms, dragging me from the surf.
“Where’s Koy?” I panted, looking up and down the beach.
“Here.” He waved a hand into the air. The rope to the tender was pulled over his shoulder as he hauled it higher up the beach.
I dropped to the sand when we reached the cover of the trees. “West,” I croaked, “the stone.”
“I’ve got it.” He had one hand clenched around the small purse tied to his dredging belt.
I let out a tight breath, looking past him to the Marigold. She was just a shadow in the mist. West stood at the water’s edge, watching helplessly as she tipped and swayed, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths.
The storm had come in fast. Too fast. And the winds were stronger than we’d predicted.
Another gale swept over the island, bowing the trees until their branches touched the sand. The thunderous resonance of another wind swelled, skipping over the surface of the sea, and it slammed into the ship.
The Marigold heeled, the masts reaching out over the water on the starboard side, and then suddenly she righted, snapping back up.
West took a step into the water, his eyes widening.
“What is it?” But I realized as soon as I blinked the rain from my eyes what had happened.
The Marigold was moving. Drifting.
“The anchor line,” West said, his voice almost inaudible.
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