I stripped the bed of its blankets as Auster and Paj carried West up the stairs of the tavern, the physician on their heels. They lowered him down and the candlelight caught his face. He was beaten badly, his face swollen and bloody, but there was no way to see how bad it was.
The physician set his bag on the floor and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt before he got to work.
“Water, cloth…” he mumbled, “better get some rye too.” Paj gave a tight nod and disappeared out the door.
“What happened?” Willa leaned over West, one hand lightly touching the open cut at his brow.
He winced, sucking in a breath as the physician pressed along his ribs with his fingertips. “Zola,” he answered. It was probably the only account he would give. “We shouldn’t have left the ship. Not after Dern.”
Willa’s eyes slid to meet mine. He hadn’t spoken a word about the
Marigold, but he must have known what happened to the sails.
Paj returned with the supplies, and West reached for the rye before Auster had even uncorked it, guzzling it down and draining the small bottle. He lay back, his chest rising and falling as he winced against the pain.
And as if he’d only just seen me, he suddenly looked up, his eyes meeting mine. “What are you doing here?”
I tried to smile, but it was weak. “Scraping you up out of alleyways.” I didn’t like seeing him covered in blood. The sight made an ache curl tight in my stomach.
Before my face betrayed me, I ducked into the hallway to watch as the physician worked by candlelight into the night.
The floor was littered with used bandages and muddy footprints, and West groaned every time the physician’s hands touched him, cursing. When he leaned in again, West shoved him back, sending the physician almost flying from his stool.
Auster laughed beside me, wiping at the smear of West’s blood painted across the tattoo of knotted snakes on his arm, but it was half-hearted. The crew had hardly been more than ten feet from West since we brought him up the stairs of the inn, and the quiet worry was carved into each of their faces.
West sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and leaning forward on his elbows so the physician could stitch up the gash on the back of his shoulder. The skin that stretched over his back and arms looked even more golden in the warm light, but it was bruised black and blue like blots of ink on cloth.
“How old were you when Saint took you on?” I whispered, stepping closer to Willa.
She let out a long breath, staring at her boots as if she was trying to decide whether to answer. “He didn’t.”
“Then how’d you end up on the Marigold?”
“That stupid bastard.” She jerked her chin toward West. “A trader took him on as a Waterside stray when he was nine years old, and a year later, he came back for me. Snuck me onto the ship in the middle of the night, and the next morning, when we were out at sea, he pretended to discover me as a stowaway.” She smiled sadly. “He convinced the helmsman to keep me on because I was small and could climb the masts faster than anyone else.”
That was what Willa had meant when she said that she hadn’t chosen this life. West had chosen it for her. “And he agreed?”
She shrugged. “He didn’t throw me over. He said I’d learn to survive or I didn’t belong on the sea.”
“Do you ever wish he hadn’t brought you onto the ship?” I whispered. “Every day,” she answered without hesitation. “But he didn’t want to
leave me in Waterside. And now I don’t want to leave him on the
Marigold.”
It was the curse that shackled anyone who loved anyone in the Narrows. Through the crack in the door, I could see West pinching his eyes closed as the physician snipped the length of thread he was stitching with.
“What’s with you and Saint, anyway?” Willa leaned in closer to me, lowering her voice.
I straightened. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, why cross the Narrows to crew for a man like that? You couldn’t have honestly thought he’d take you on.”
I stared at her, my teeth clenched. “I—”
The physician pushed through the door with his bag clutched to his chest and went down the stairs grumbling, his white shirt now stained with fresh blood. Through the door, West had one hand pressed to his side as he drained another bottle of rye.
“Get in here.” His gravelly voice drifted out into the hallway.
The crew filed into the cramped room, all looking to West. He was mostly cleaned up, but he was covered in stitches and the bruising was only getting worse. If he’d been left in the maze of Waterside another day or two, he might have taken his last breaths there.
“Tell me.” He touched the corner of his swollen lip with his knuckle. Hamish took a deep breath before he said, “The sails aren’t salvageable.
If we patch them, they’ll give in at the first storm we see. And with the inventory losses, we don’t have enough coin to get back on the water.”
West’s gaze drifted past us as he thought. “What if we borrow until Sowan?”
Hamish shook his head. “No one will lend that much.”
“Let me see.” He held out his hand, and Hamish set his book into it.
We stood silently as West flipped through the pages, his finger dragging over the numbers. When he finally closed it, he sighed. “I’ll go to Saint.”
“No.” Willa’s hands dropped to her sides suddenly. “You already owe.” “So, I’ll extend.”
“No, West,” she said again.
“You want to go back to crewing on whatever crew will take you?” he snapped.
Her eyes narrowed. “No. But at least this way, you can give him back the ship. Call it square.”
“And lose the Marigold?” He glared up at her incredulously.
“It’s better than selling the only bit of your soul you have left. It’s a debt you’ll never come out from under.”
West looked to the others. “What do you think?”
Hamish was the first to answer. “I think Willa’s right. But so are you.
Saint is the only way out of this.”
Auster and Paj nodded in agreement, avoiding Willa’s fierce gaze.
West growled as he stood, his hand returning to the dark spread of blue on his ribs.
Willa reached out to steady him. “Where are you going?”
“To the Pinch. We’ll borrow from Saint and find another way out of this mess.”
“I, uh … I don’t think you need to go to the Pinch to talk to Saint,” Auster said, his eyes going wide as he leaned into the frame of the window.
I went to stand behind him, peering over his shoulder into the street. A figure in the rich blue of a fine coat was aglow in the darkening light, a sea of people like parting waters before him.
Saint.
“Get her out of here.” West ran a hand through his wild hair, tucking it behind his ears.
Willa took hold of my arm, shoving me across the room.
“Wait!” I pushed against her, but Paj took my other arm, pulling me back into the hallway.
“You want to make this worse?” Willa spat. She opened the door of the next room and pushed me inside.
“Is that even possible?” I wrenched free of her, and Paj closed the door, leaving us alone in the dark.
Willa lit the candle on the table, and I listened to the hum of the tavern quiet just before heavy footsteps pounded up the stairs.
“Move!” Saint’s booming voice bellowed in the hallway, followed by the door slamming on its hinges.
Willa and I pressed our ears to the thin wood-plank wall between our room and West’s, and an uncomfortable silence fell, making the sound of my heartbeat ring in my ears.
“Is this what you call being a helmsman?” Saint spoke calmly, but coldly.
I moved down the wall with light steps until I found a crack where the light was spilling through. My mouth twisted to one side as West came into view. He stood tall before the window, his chin lifted despite the pain he had to be in. He looked Saint in the eye, unmoving.
“We made a deal when I gave you the Marigold.” “You didn’t give me the Marigold,” West interrupted. “What?”
“You didn’t give me the Marigold,” he repeated.
Saint stared at him. “I gave you an opportunity—the chance to be the helmsman of your own crew and grow your own trade. Instead, my ship is down in the harbor with slashed sails, and your crew is dragging you out of Waterside half-dead.”
“Zola—”
“I don’t want to talk about Zola. I want to talk about you.” Saint’s voice rose. “You have a problem with another trader, you handle it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get back on the water and find a way to fix those ledgers.” West’s gaze dropped to the floor. “I can’t.”
Saint stilled. “What?”
“I don’t have the coin for new sails. Not after the storm.”
Saint’s eyes turned to slits, his nostrils flaring. “Are you telling me you’re dead in the water?”
West gave a single nod.
“And you want me to get you new sails?” “You can add it to my debt.”
“No,” Willa whispered beside me.
A second later, Saint echoed the word. “No.” West looked up, clearly surprised by his answer.
“You don’t bring your mess to my door, and you don’t use my coin to clean it up. If you can’t fix this, you have no business sailing that ship.”
The muscles in West’s jaw clenched, but he bit back the fury that was jumping under his skin.
“I have business you’re getting in the way of.” The hem of his coat circled his boots as he turned, but he stopped, his hand on the latch of the door. “And if I find out a single soul knows about the cargo you brought back from Jeval, you’ll be finding the pieces of your crew all over this city.”
West’s hands tightened on his belt. “That’s what this is about? Her?”
The feeling of fire writhed in my chest, and I realized suddenly that I was holding my breath.
“So, this is a punishment.” West took a step toward Saint.
“Call it what you want. Your job is to do what I tell you to. You don’t make a move without my permission. If you don’t like those arrangements, there are a hundred men down on those docks who will take your place.”
“If I hadn’t taken her off Jeval, she’d be tied to the reef right now, her bones picked clean.”
“Fable can take care of herself.” Saint’s voice deepened. Willa’s face turned toward me, her eyes wide.
“Then why have I been bleeding coin going to that island every two weeks for the last two years? If something happened to her, we both know whose throat would be cut. I saved both our lives by bringing her here.”
My father gritted his teeth, the full brunt of his anger filling the silence. “I don’t want to see your face again until you’ve cleaned this up. If you don’t, it won’t be Zola coming for you. It will be me. And I won’t leave you breathing.”
The door slammed again, shaking the walls, and Saint’s footsteps moved back down the stairs. I went to the window and watched him step out into the alley. He buttoned the top of his jacket methodically before he slipped into the darkness without looking back.
Willa crossed her arms, eyeing me. “Is there something you want to tell us?”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “We need to talk.”
