A drop of beryl-red blood trailed down Tru’s neck, staining the collar of his clean white shirt. I watched West’s eyes. They were empty.
“So you take the ring. And we’ll take the boy,” West said. “You’ll get him back tomorrow. After the Trade Council meeting.”
“You’re not going anywhere with him,” Ezra said. His eyes jumped from West to Tru. He looked afraid, and I remembered that with the exception of Ezra, the Roths were family.
But there was something strange about him. Different from the light in Henrik or Holland or Saint’s eyes. He looked genuinely worried for the boy, and I realized that Auster was right. Ezra was cut from a different cloth. So, why was he still with the Roths?
“You saw him that night, didn’t you?” I asked, the words almost a whisper.
Ezra looked confused. “Who?”
“Auster. You saw him that night, but you pretended not to.”
The answer was in the way his eyes narrowed. Whatever his reasons, he’d let Auster disappear when he left the Roths. I could only hope that even a shadow of the same loyalty might extend to all of us.
“I’ll deliver the commission tonight.” Ezra spoke through clenched teeth. “You hurt him, or ever mention a word about this to anyone, and the cost will find you.” The threat was clear in the words. “You don’t want to step foot in Henrik’s shadow. Understand?”
“I understand.” I nodded, feeling the truth of the words cut deep. I could see that some part of him liked the mischief at play, but he wasn’t going to go down for me with Henrik or with Holland, and he wasn’t going to sacrifice the boy on their altar.
“You’ll be fine.” Now Ezra was speaking to Tru.
He pulled up the collar of his jacket before he slipped back into the shadows with the others.
The boy’s eyes widened, and he let out a terrified whimper when he realized they’d really left. I took hold of his jacket and yanked him from West’s hands, wrapping my arms around him protectively. “What the hell are you doing?”
West slipped his knife back into his belt. “We needed leverage. I took it.”
I wiped the blood from Tru’s neck with the hem of my shirt. “Come on.” I put my arm around him and started walking. “You’re okay. We’re not going to hurt you.”
He didn’t look convinced, glancing over his shoulder to the dark alley where Ezra and Murrow had disappeared.
West followed on our heels, not looking the least bit phased. This was all so simple to him. Order the crew to Yuri’s Constellation. Lie about the deed. Sign the contract with Holland. Kidnap and threaten to kill a child.
What else is he willing to do?
Willa’s words echoed in tandem with my footsteps on the cobblestones.
Auster had warned us not to trust the Roths, but I’d still put all the power into their hands. Now, West had taken some of it back.
THIRTY-SEVEN
The color Holland chose was the deepest shade of emerald, the strands of silk moving in the light like threads of green glass. It ignited a memory, like breath on embers, but I couldn’t place it.
The seamstress carefully ran her fingers over the edge of the hem, pinning it into place at my waist so the fabric draped over my legs like a sweep of wind.
My eyes kept drifting to the closed door, watching for a shadow. Holland’s seamstress was already waiting when we got back to the ship, as promised, and West had gone straight up to the quarterdeck to help Willa fit the new anchor. The crew had looked between us and Tru in question, the icy silence deafening.
I’d left the boy in the care of Hamish, who I figured was the least likely to throw him overboard.
“Almost finished,” the seamstress sang, pulling a needle from the cushion at her wrist and threading it with her teeth. She fixed the corner with three stitches and trimmed a few threads before she stood up, standing back. “Turn.” I reluctantly obeyed as her eyes scrutinized every inch of me. “All right.” She seemed satisfied, picking up the bolt of cloth and setting it onto her hip before she lugged it through the door.
I turned back to the mirror Holland’s men had hauled up onto the Marigold, running my hands over the skirt nervously. It had the look of melting butter, soft and smooth in the candlelight. But that wasn’t what made me uneasy.
I swallowed, remembering. This was the dress my mother wore in the portrait in Holland’s study. I looked just like her. I looked just like Holland. As if I belonged at a fancy gala or in the private booth at the tea house.
But the Marigold was the only place I wanted to belong.
A knock sounded on the door before the handle turned. When it opened, West stood in the breezeway. “Can I come in?”
I wrapped my arms around me self-consciously, covering the waist of the frock. “It’s your cabin.”
He stepped inside and let the jacket fall from his shoulders. He didn’t say anything as he hung it on the hook, his gaze moving over me. I didn’t like the look in his eye. I didn’t like the feeling of the space between us. But West was shut up tight. Closed off from me.
I watched him step out of his worn boots one at a time. The wind pouring into the cabin turned cold, making me shiver.
“You’re a stubborn bastard,” I said softly.
The shadow of a smirk lit on his face. “So are you.”
“You should have told me you were signing the contract.”
He swallowed. “I know.”
I picked up the skirt and stepped toward him, but he kept his eyes on the floor. He was still pulling away. “I’m not one more person you have to take care of. You have to stop doing that.”
“I don’t know how to,” he admitted.
“I know.” I crossed my arms. “But you’re going to have to figure it out. I have to be able to trust you. I have to know that even if we don’t agree, we’re doing this together.”
“We are doing it together.”
“No, we’re not. You’re trying to make decisions for me, just like Saint.”
He bristled at the words.
“When I made that deal with Holland, I did it on my own. You were never supposed to be a part of this.”
“Fable, I love you,” he breathed, still staring at my feet. “I don’t want to do any of this without you.”
The anger I’d felt was suddenly washed out by sadness. West was doing the only thing he knew how to do. “Will you look at me?”
He finally lifted his gaze.
“Would you have hurt that kid? Really?”
He bit the inside of his cheek. “I don’t think so.”
It was an honest answer, but I didn’t like it. “We said we weren’t going to do this by the rules. Remember?”
“I remember.”
“You’re not Saint. Neither am I.”
His eyes trailed over me, tightening.
“What’s wrong?”
He let out a frustrated breath. “This.” He motioned to the air between us and then to the frock. “All of it.”
I looked down at my skirts, trying not to laugh. I cocked my head to the side, narrowing my eyes playfully. “Are you trying to say you don’t like my frock?”
But he wasn’t taking the bait. “I don’t like it,” he said flatly.
“Why not?”
He raked a hand into his hair, holding it back from his face as he scrutinized the shimmering silk. His gaze was cold. “You don’t look like you. You don’t smell like you.”
I couldn’t help but smile even though I could see it annoyed him. But I loved the way he looked standing there barefoot by the window, half of his shirt untucked. It was the side of West I only got glimpses of.
I took another step toward him, the length of the skirts dragging on the floor behind me.
“I would be happy if I never saw you in one of those stupid things again,” he said, finally grinning.
“Fine.” I reached up and unhooked the buttons one at a time until it was loose enough to slide over my shoulders, and West watched as it dropped to th
e floor in a puddle of green. The underdress was almost as absurd as the frock, tied in tiny white satin ribbons that met in bows at each of my hips. “Better?”
“Better,” he conceded.
For a moment, it was as if we weren’t in Sagsay Holm. As if we’d never come to the Unnamed Sea or met Holland. But his smile fell again, like he was thinking the same thing.
I wondered if he was wishing he’d made a different decision that night at the barrier islands. I’d freed him from Saint, but I’d dragged him into the Unnamed Sea and put him at the mercy of Holland. I’d nearly lost the Marigold, and I could see what it did to him, not having any control over what was going to happen.
The shadows caught the cut of his cheeks, and for a moment he looked like a spirit. I clenched my teeth, a stone sinking in my stomach. Underneath the anger, fear was writhing. I was scared that this was just who he was. That he’d signed the contract because he wanted to be that person Saint made him.
I could love this West. The one with a dark past. But I couldn’t tie myself to him if he was walking back into it.
“I need to ask you something.”
He crossed his arms over his broad chest, as if he was bracing himself. “Okay.”
“Why did you sign the contract? Really.” I wasn’t sure how to ask it.
“Because I was afraid,” he answered instantly.
“Of what?”
“You really want to know?”
“I do.”
He blinked, quiet, and I found myself dreading what he might say. “I’m afraid that you’re going to want what she can give you. What I’ll never be able to give you.” The look of vulnerability that flashed in his eyes made me swallow hard. “I don’t want you to work for Holland because I’m afraid you won’t come back to the Narrows. To me.”
Emotion curled thick in my throat. “I don’t want what Holland has. I want you,” I said, unsteady. “She can never give me what you can give me.”
His cheeks flushed. It had cost him something to be so honest.
“I don’t want you to work for Holland, either,” I said. “I don’t want you to be that person anymore.”
“I won’t have to if tomorrow goes as planned.”
“Even if it doesn’t go as planned. I don’t want you to work for her.” I took a step toward him.
“I already signed the contract, Fable.”
“I don’t care. Promise me. Even if it means leaving the Marigold. Even if we have to start over.”
The muscle in his jaw ticked as his eyes met mine. “All right.”
“Swear it,” I said.
“I swear it.”
I let out a relieved breath, the tension coiled around me finally loosening. But West looked miserable. He rubbed his face with both hands, shifting on his feet anxiously.
I knew what that look was. It was the feeling of being trapped. Of having no way out. I knew because I felt it too. “My father said that the worst mistake he ever made was letting Isolde step foot on his ship,” I said lowly.
West looked up then, like he knew what I was about to say.
“I think maybe he hated that he loved her,” I whispered.
The room fell silent, the sounds of the sea and the village disappearing.
“Are you asking me if I feel that way?”
I nodded, instantly regretting it.
He looked as if he was measuring me. Trying to decide if he was going to answer. If he could trust me with it. “Sometimes,” he admitted.
But it wasn’t followed by the terror I had been sure would come, because West didn’t look away from me as he said the words.
“But this didn’t start that night on Jeval when you asked me for passage to Ceros. It started a long time before that. For me.”
Tears welled in my eyes as I looked up at him. “But what if—”
“Fable.” He closed the space between us, and his hands lifted to my face, his fingertips sliding into my hair. The sensation woke the heat on my skin, and I sniffed, so happy that he’d finally touched me. His mouth hovered an inch above mine. “The answer to that question is always going to be the same. It doesn’t matter what happens.” His hands tightened on me. “You and me.”
The words sounded like vows. But there was a grief that bloomed in my chest as he spoke them, like an incantation that gave flesh to bones.
My voice deepened, waiting for his mouth to touch mine. “How long can you live like that?”
His lips parted and the kiss was deep, drawing the air from the room, and the word was broken in his throat. “Forever.”
My fingers twisted in his shirt as I pulled him toward me, and in an instant the space that had stretched between us minutes ago was gone. It vanished the moment his skin touched mine. He could feel it, too. It was in the way his kiss turned hungry. The way his fingers pulled at the laces of my underdress until it was sliding over my hips.
I smiled against his mouth, my bare feet stepping over the pile of silk on the floor as he walked us to the cot. I laid back onto the quilts, pulling him with me so I could melt into the heat of him. I hooked my legs around his hips as I tugged at his shirt, finding his skin with my fingertips, and his breath shook on an exhale as he leaned all his weight into me.
West’s lips trailed down my throat until the warmth of his mouth pressed to the soft hollow below my collar bone, then to my breast. A pitiful sound crept up my throat as I arched my back, trying to get closer. When he realized what I wanted, his hands trailed up my thighs so he could take hold of my hips, and he fit me against him, groaning.
Like the flick of wind over water, it all disappeared. Holland, Saint, the Trade Council meeting, midnight, the Roths. It could be our last night on the Marigold, our last night on this crew, but whatever happened tomorrow, we were sailing into it together.
You and me.
And for the first time, I believed him.
THIRTY-EIGHT
The harbor bell echoed like a harbinger in the silence of Sagsay Holm as I stood at the window, watching the fog spill over the docks.
West tucked the wild strands of hair behind his ear. His attention was on the buttons of his jacket, but I was thinking about the way he’d looked in the candlelight the night before, warm light on bronze skin. I could still feel the sting of him on me, and the memory made my cheeks flush pink. But West didn’t look embarrassed. If anything, he looked more settled. Steadied.
I pulled in a long, slow breath, trying to calm my nerves. As if he could read my thoughts, West pressed a kiss to my temple. “You ready?”
I nodded, picking up the frock from where I’d dropped it on the floor the night before. I was ready. West had promised me that even if the Roths betrayed us, he wouldn’t honor Holland’s contract. Even if that meant leaving the Marigold behind and spending the rest of our lives in the rye fields or diving on Jeval.
Truthfully, I didn’t care anymore. I had found a family in West, and I’d learned enough from all that had happened to know that I would trade anything in the world for it.
Willa, Paj, Auster, Hamish, and Koy waited out on the deck, each of them straightening when we came out of the breezeway. Tru was at the bow, flicking a coin into the air and catching it.
I walked to the starboard railing and tossed the frock overboard. It fell through the air, green silk rippling before it landed in the slate-blue water.
West was right. Holland didn’t understand the Narrows. She thought that wealth and power could buy her way into Ceros, but she’d underestimated us. There was a lifeblood that connected the people who were born on those shores. The ones who sailed those waters. The people of the Narrows couldn’t be bought.
More than that, Holland had underestimated me.
I watched the dress sink, disappearing beneath the white foam.
It didn’t matter how much Holland tried to dress me up. I wasn’t my mother.
“You sure you don’t want us to come?” Paj asked, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of West and me going
to the Trade Council meeting alone.
“I don’t want any of you anywhere near Holland,” he answered. “No matter what happens, be ready to set sail by nightfall. And let the kid go.” He tipped his head toward Tru.
I looked to Koy, then to the others. “Even if you have to leave without us, take him home.”
Hamish nodded, but Willa’s apprehension was plain on her face as she looked between us. West gave her a reassuring look, but it didn’t seem to help. She climbed the mast without a word.
“She’s fine,” Auster said. “We’ll see you in a few hours.”
West took the ladder first, and I climbed down after him. I looked back to the Marigold one more time as we made our way up and out of the harbor, saying my own kind of goodbye.
The Council District sat at the bottom of the same hill where Wolfe & Engel was perched. It was ensconced by bronze archways adorned with scrolling vines that held the seals of the five guilds: gem and rye merchants, sailmakers, smiths, and shipwrights. The most powerful people on the water and on the land.
The pier was built with thick beams of oiled mahogany, carved with the same seals that marked the archways. West stayed close to me as I stepped into the crowd of fine frocks, pinned curls, and tailored suits headed into the district. I could spot the merchants and traders from the Narrows easily, their sea-swept hair and clothes standing out among the crisp, clean colors. They all drifted toward the enormous open doors ahead.
Holland was waiting at the entrance, her gloved hands tucked into her fur stole. When she spotted us, she frowned.
She looked sourly at my clothes as we neared her. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“No one was going to believe I was a dredger, much less a trader, in that ridiculous costume,” I muttered. “If you want to use me to bait the Narrows Trade Council, then I can’t look like a Saltblood.”
She sneered at me. She knew I was right, but she didn’t like it. “I’ll have that ship at the bottom of the sea by sundown if either of you get in the way of what I’m doing here.” Not even a hint of anger flashed in her silvery eyes. “Do you understand?”
“I understand,” I answered.
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