West stood at the window as we came through the door, his eyes on the street.
“West…” Willa lifted a hand toward him, but he moved from her reach. “He’s not going to lend us the coin. We can use the stake.”
They all went silent, their gazes pinned on him.
“We can’t,” Auster said. “We agreed we would never use it.” “We swore,” Paj murmured behind him.
A thin silence fell between us and for the first time, I could see the faintest of cracks in the wall of this crew. “What’s the stake?” I asked.
“It’s the coin we’ve been pocketing from a side trade we’ve been running. It’s for … after.” To my surprise, Hamish was the one to answer. Maybe because it didn’t matter anymore.
“After?”
He pulled the spectacles from his face, letting them dangle from his fingers. “After we’ve bought out from Saint.”
“Only if we all agree,” West amended. “There’s enough to buy sails and cover our losses from the storm. We can get back on the sea and make the coin back.” He was trying to sound sure. “I can hire a ship to take me to the coral islands tomorrow.”
Of course. The coral islands were a cache.
Every crew had them. It was foolish to keep everything you had in one place when ships could sink and city posts could be raided while you were out to sea. Any crew with half a brain had more than one cache to spread out their coin.
“It’s taken us two years to save that much,” Willa said.
West shrugged. “It’s our only choice.”
But that wasn’t true. And if I was going to make a play for a place on the crew, now was my best chance. I reached into the opening of my jacket, finding the sea dragon with my fingertips, my stomach dropping as I opened my mouth.
“It’s not the only choice,” I said, meeting West’s eyes.
Silence fell over the room again, and my skin flushed hot as their eyes landed on me. There was no going back once I said it.
“What?” Hamish looked suspicious.
“I have another way out of this,” I said, standing up straighter. “If you want it.”
He pushed the spectacles back into place. “What do you mean?”
“Take me on as the Marigold’s dredger and I’ll get your sails,” I said, the words running together in a single breath.
“No.” West’s answer was heavy on his lips.
But Willa was curious. “And how exactly are you going to do that?” “Does it matter? I can get you the sails. Take me on as your dredger, and
I’ll get you enough copper to buy yourself out from under Saint in one trade.”
Auster stood up off the wall. “What are you talking about?” “That’s the deal.” My attention was still trained on West. “No,” he said again, this time with a flash of anger.
Willa looked between us. “Why not? If she has a way to—” “There’s no one better for this crew. I’m a skilled dredger,” I added. “No!”
I recoiled, stepping back. The others looked to one another, confused.
Willa gaped at him. “We don’t have a dredger. She says she’ll front the cost of sails and buy us out from Saint. And you say no?”
“That’s right. We’re not taking her on.” “Why not?” Willa pushed.
I gave West one last chance, letting the silence fall again. The secret burned in my throat like the rye I’d drowned in only the night before. It was something I’d never said aloud. Something I swore I’d never do. But Saint
had broken his promise to me. He’d left me the Lark, but he hadn’t given me what was mine. Not what he owed me.
Now, I would break my promise to him. “Don’t,” West whispered, reading my thoughts. “Saint is my father.”
The tension in the room pulled tighter and a chill ran over my skin. It was something I could never unsay.
“What the—” Willa gasped.
“That’s why West had the Marigold coming to Jeval every two weeks. That’s why you traded pyre with me and only me. Saint had you checking on the daughter he abandoned across the Narrows. I didn’t know you were working for him until we were in Dern.”
I could see by the looks on their faces that they knew it was true. It was too insane not to be true.
“I was part of his deal with West when he gave him the Marigold. And you were right.” I looked to Willa. “You’ve sold your soul to a man who doesn’t have one. You’ll never buy out the Marigold. He’ll always find a way to keep you owing him. That’s what he does.”
“If Saint is your father, then…” Willa’s voice trailed off.
“Isolde was my mother. That’s why I can do what I do with the gems.” “You’re a gem sage.”
I nodded.
“You’re not dredging for the Marigold.” West spoke evenly, but he looked as if he was using every ounce of energy he had left to do so. “Saint would never allow it. And even if he did, he’d cut all our throats if something happened to you. Taking you on is a death wish.”
But beside him, Auster looked amused. “What’s in it for you?”
I shifted on my feet, swallowing down the shame of it. “I don’t have anything else. Saint doesn’t want me.”
They all stared at me.
“If you take me on, I’ll get the Marigold back on the water and fill the hull with enough coin to pay every debt you have. That’s my offer.”
“How are you going to do that?” Hamish asked, careful not to look at West.
“I have something. Something no one knows about. It’s just waiting underwater for me to come get it.”
“What is it?” Paj finally spoke.
“I’m not telling you unless you agree to the deal.”
Paj sighed. “Dredging a reef isn’t going to get us out of this mess, Fable.”
“It’s not a reef. And it’s more than enough to buy you out from Saint.” A smile pulled at Willa’s mouth, her eyes sparkling.
“Leave us.” West turned back to the window. When the crew didn’t move, he shouted. “Leave us!”
The others filed out without another word. I clicked the latch closed and leaned into the door, watching him. The stitches snaked over his shoulder, breaking before they picked back up below his shoulder blade. Even like that, he was beautiful.
“How did it work?” I asked softly.
He looked out to the street, only half of his face catching the light. “How did what work?”
“You buy pyre from me on Jeval, sell it in Dern, and give Saint the profit?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t give him the profit. He didn’t want it.” “So, you kept it?”
“It’s in the cache. Every copper. The coin I gave you when we got to Ceros is part of it.”
So that’s why we stopped at the coral islands on the way to Dern. “All this time, I thought I was making my own way. I thought I’d found a way to survive,” I whispered.
“You did.”
“No, I didn’t. The only reason I didn’t starve to death on that island is because of you.” The words seemed to embarrass him. His eyes dropped to the ground between us. “You could have lied to Saint about going. He would have never known.”
“I wouldn’t do that to him.”
“But you’ll run your own side trade and pocket off his ledgers?” “That’s different,” he said simply.
“Don’t tell me you admire the man who’s got you pinned under his thumb?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” he muttered. “Are you sure about that?”
He seemed to really consider the question before he answered. “A trader picked me up out of Waterside and put me on a ship when I was nine years old. He taught me everything I know about sailing and trading, but he was a bad man. Saint bought me off that ship and put me on his. He’s a rotten bastard, but he’s the only reason I’m not scraping barnacles off hulls down on the docks or rotting at the bottom of the sea.”
I didn’t want to imagine what West meant when he said the trader was a bad man. I could see by the way he swallowed between the words that he was ashamed of it, whatever it was.
“That’s how he knew he could trust you,” I said. “He’s good at that— making sure everyone owes him just enough.”
“He’s smart.”
I shook my head. “How can you defend him after what he just did? He cut you loose.”
“Because he was right. I’m responsible for my crew and my ship. I messed up. And he didn’t cut us loose; he’s just not going to bail us out.”
I stared at him, speechless. West was actually defending him.
“You’re right—I admire him. The traders in the Unnamed Sea think the Narrows is eventually going to fall into their hands. Saint is showing them that we can stand on our own.”
I would never admit it, but there was a part of me that felt proud, even if the rest of me hated him. And I realized in that moment that West was maybe the only other person who could understand how both of those feelings could exist together.
“How long until you buy out from under him?” He didn’t answer.
“How long?”
West reached up, pressing one hand to his side again as if it hurt. I wasn’t sure how he was still standing. “Sixteen years.”
I took a step toward him, waiting for him to meet my eyes before I said it. “Sixteen years or one night?”
“What?”
“You can spend sixteen years scraping to buy yourself out from under Saint. Or you can do it in one night. With me. No more shadow-ship work. No more reporting and spying or orders like the ones you had in Sowan.”
He stiffened, and I could see the words hurt him. He didn’t want me knowing about whatever happened in Sowan.
“I can’t take you on, Fable,” he said again, running a hand through his hair and holding it back from his face.
“You think I can’t handle myself.”
“You lived on Jeval for four years. I know you can handle yourself.” “Then what is it? Saint?”
He stared at his boots, his jaw ticking. “Saint is the only operation in the Narrows running routes to the Unnamed Sea since Zola’s ships were banned. He’s the only legitimate competition for the traders in Bastian. It’s a position any trader in the Narrows would cut their own hand off for, and if anyone finds out who you are, every one of them will be looking to take leverage against Saint.”
It was a fair point. But before I could even argue, he was speaking again. “But more than that, I don’t trust you.”
“What?”
“You just tried to sway my own crew against me.” My mouth dropped open. “I—”
“You manipulated the only people I trust with my life. I depend on them.”
“You wouldn’t even hear me out. I knew that if they knew who I was, they would listen to what I had to say.”
“That’s not how a crew works.”
I let out a long breath. “Then teach me.”
West slid his hands into his pockets, falling quiet for a moment. “If it comes down to choosing us or Saint, you’ll choose Saint.”
I laughed. “Why would I? He’s never chosen me.”
“The only reason you want to crew on the Marigold is because Saint turned you away,” he tried again.
“And the only reason you’re helmsman of the Marigold is because Saint made you helmsman of his shadow ship. It doesn’t matter why we’re here, West. We’re here. I need someone to trust with my life.”
His mouth pressed into a hard line.
“You don’t trust me, but I trust you.” My voice lowered. “You have no reason to trust me.”
I crossed my arms, looking away from him. “You came back.” “What are you talking about?”
“I sat on the cliffs above the beach on Jeval every night, imagining the sails of my father’s ship on the horizon. Hoping he’d come back for me.” I paused. “He didn’t—you did.”
He looked up then, his eyes meeting mine.
“I want to dredge for the Marigold. I want to get you out from under Saint.”
He leaned into the wall behind him, scratching the scruff at his jaw. “I never should have let you onto the Marigold in the first place.”
“What does this have to do with what happened on Jeval?” “Everything.”
“You just told Saint that you gave me passage to save your own neck.” “I took you off Jeval because I didn’t want to leave you there,” he
breathed. “I couldn’t leave you there.” It was the first thing he’d said to me that had the heavy weight of truth in the words.
I tried to read him, studying the shadows that moved over his face, but only fragments of him were visible, as always. He was only pieces, never a whole.
He was quiet for a long moment before he took a step toward me. “I’ll cast my vote to bring you on as our dredger.” The heat of him coiled around me. “If you tell me that you understand something.”
“What is it?”
His eyes ran over my face. “I can’t care about anyone else, Fable.”
His meaning filled the small bit of space between us, making me feel like the walls were creeping in. Because I knew why he’d said it. It was in
the way his eyes dropped to my mouth sometimes when he looked at me. It was in the way his voice deepened just a little when he said my name. West was taking a different kind of risk by voting me onto his crew, and in this moment, he was letting me see it.
“Tell me you understand.” He held his hand out between us, waiting. This wasn’t just an admission. This was a contract.
So, I met his eyes, not a single hitch in my voice as I took his hand into mine. “I understand.”
