Willa was the only one in her hammock when I came into the cabin after dark. My trunk was still flooded, but I opened the lid and dropped my belt inside anyway. Above, footsteps creaked in West’s quarters and candlelight leaked through the cracks. He hadn’t looked at me since I dove for the anchor, and maybe he wouldn’t until I was off the ship. Maybe that was best.
I climbed into my hammock, pulling a sail into my lap as we swung over the green water that filled the cabin. The tear reached diagonally across the canvas and I studied it, measuring the length of thread I would need.
“I’ve had it since I was five years old,” Willa said, and I looked up to see her holding her dagger out before her. She turned it over in her tar-stained hands. “I took it from a drunk man on Waterside who passed out in the middle of the street. Just took it right out of his belt.”
That wasn’t what I expected her to say.
“It’s not special, really. It’s just the only thing of value I have. I tried to sell it to the gambit in Dern, but West got it back for me somehow.”
I kept my eyes on the sail. “Why?”
“Because he has a really bad habit of making other people his problem.”
I pulled the needle toward me, sliding the thread through the fabric, and when I looked up, I could see what she meant. She wasn’t just talking about the dagger. She was talking about me. “Is that why you’re crewing on his ship?”
She half laughed. “Yes.”
“But Paj said you’ve been on the crew since the beginning.”
“We were on crews together growing up.” She stared up at the ceiling, the look of a memory flashing in her eyes. “When West got the Marigold, he wanted people he could trust.”
I tied off the thread, lifting the sail before me to make sure the stitch was straight. “And how did a Waterside stray become the helmsman of a ship like this?”
She shrugged. “He’s West. He knows how to get what he wants.” “Is that what you want? To be a trader in the Narrows?”
“What I want is not to die alone,” she said, her voice suddenly small. “I didn’t really choose this life. It’s just the only one I have.”
My hand stilled on the canvas.
“As long as I’m on this crew, I won’t be alone. I think that’s a pretty good place to be when death comes knocking.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. It was sad and familiar. Much too familiar. She’d spoken aloud the one and only silent wish I had ever dared to make. And that gave it too much flesh and bone. It made it feel like a delicate, fragile thing. Something too easy to kill in this kind of life. “What happened to the Marigold’s dredger?”
“What?”
“The dredger who was on this crew. What happened to them?”
Her eyes went to the trunk against the bulkhead that had been empty when I came onto the ship. “He stole from us,” she said simply.
“But what happened to him?”
“It wasn’t like Crane, if that’s what you mean. We cut his throat before we threw him in.” The calm in her voice was unnerving.
“And the burn?”
“Yeah, that was Crane. Well, it was Zola, really.” She reached up, touching the smooth, pink skin at her jaw. “It was a few weeks ago, in Ceros.”
I wanted to say I was sorry for what happened to her. But I knew how I’d feel if someone said that to me. In some ways, being pitied was worse than being hurt. “Why’d he do it?”
“We’ve been making too much coin for his taste. He’s warned us a few times, and we didn’t listen. So, he decided to make a move.”
That was the way traders worked. Warnings followed by grand, public punishments. Whatever kept those beneath them in check.
“What are you going to do in Ceros?”
I looked at the sail in my hands, folding it neatly into a rectangle. “I told you. I’m going to find Saint and ask for a position on one of his crews.”
“No, I mean what are you going to do when he says no?” My eyes shot up, my teeth clenching.
“Supper’s up.” Auster came into the cabin before I could answer her, pulling his jacket off and hanging it on the hook. “It’s not much, but it’s edible.”
Willa rolled out of the hammock and ducked into the passageway, and I followed, climbing the steps behind her. The main and the foremast sails were bowed in the wind, and the black water rushed under the Marigold. We were making good time, but there was no way for them to get back on schedule. They’d lost inventory in the storm, and now they’d take even more losses in trade.
I climbed the foremast and started rigging the mended sail, securing it to the mast. It caught the wind above me as I untied the lines and pulled. The night sky was black and empty, stars cast across it in swirling sprays. There was no moon, leaving the deck of the ship dark below. I leaned into the mast, letting my weight fall into the ropes, and tipped my head back, feeling the wind rush around me.
Below, the crew was eating on the quarterdeck, hunched over bowls of porridge. Everyone except for West. He stood at the helm, almost invisible in the dark. His hands gripped the handles, the shadow of his face sharp as he looked ahead.
I tried to imagine him as a little boy—a Waterside stray. So many traders got their start that way, plucked up from the dirty streets by a crew and worked to the bone. Many found their ends on the sea, but a few rose up the ranks to take valuable positions on important ships, sailing across the Narrows and some, even into the Unnamed Sea.
When we made our stops in Ceros on Saint’s trading routes, I would watch the children on Waterside, wishing I had playmates like them. I had no idea they were starving or that most of them had no families.
Once the sail I’d repaired was stretched out beside the others, I lowered myself down the mast. West watched me walk toward him, bristling only enough for me to barely see that he was still angry.
“I don’t like not being of use,” I said, stepping in front of him so he had to look at me.
“You’re not a part of this crew.” The words stung, though I wasn’t sure why. “You’re a passenger.”
“I’ve already paid you. If I get myself killed before we get to Ceros, you’ve still got my coin.”
His eyes shifted then, running over me. There was more behind what he was saying, but I could see by the look on his face that he wasn’t going to give me anything else. There were a lot of demons on this ship, and West seemed to have the most of all.
“Is Saint’s outpost still in the Pinch?” I leaned into the post beside him. “Yes.”
“Willa thinks he won’t take me on.” “She’s right.”
I watched his hand slide down the handle to catch the spoke of the helm. “He took you on.”
“And it cost me.” “What do you mean?”
He put the words together before he said them aloud. “Nothing comes free, Fable. We both know that surviving means sometimes doing things that haunt you.”
The words made me feel even more unsteady. Because he was talking about the man in the crate. But what was there to say? The man was dead. It was done. As horrified as I was by it, I understood it. And that single thought truly scared me.
“What else have you done that haunts you?” I asked, knowing he wouldn’t answer.
There was an ocean of lies dragging behind this ship. They’d killed their dredger and another helmsman’s stryker. Whatever they’d done in Sowan was spreading in rumors across the Narrows. And if that wasn’t enough, they were running side trade under the nose of their own employer. Saint.
No matter how much he may have changed in the time since I last saw him, my father was still my father. He wouldn’t hesitate to do worse to West than the crew of the Marigold had done to Crane. I didn’t want to see that happen.
I was scared for West.
I’d only ever bartered with him at the barrier islands when he came to Jeval, but it was his coin that had kept me fed, and in the two years since I first met him, he’d never failed to show. He’d saved my life more times than I could count, even if he hadn’t meant to.
When I got off the Marigold in Ceros, I’d probably never see him again.
And I didn’t want to worry about what became of him.
“I don’t care what you’ve done. When I showed up on the docks at the barrier islands, you didn’t have to help me.”
“Yes, I did,” he said, his face unreadable.
The words worked their way beneath my skin. They snatched the air from my chest. And just as I was about to ask why, his eyes lifted, focusing on something in the distance. I turned, following his gaze to the horizon, where the soft orange glow of light was just coming into view.
Ceros.
And there, in the twinkling lantern light, was the only future I had waiting for me.
