I raked my hair up on top of my head, tying it in a knot as Auster stacked the baskets against the railing before me.
The Lark sat only forty or so feet below, and I guessed it would take almost an entire day of diving to get what we came for. The sun was nearly overhead, and it would be impossible to navigate out of the Snare in the dark, so we had to be fast if we didn’t want to spend the night on the atoll.
Paj checked the huge iron hook on the end of the line and slung it over the side. The rope uncoiled as it fell, sinking to the seafloor and pulling taut in the water.
The familiar weight of my belt around my waist calmed my nerves. The only thing we hadn’t accounted for was the fact that in the last four years, someone else could have found the Lark.
I checked my tools, running my fingers over the picks, chisels, mallet, and hammer twice. I’d only need them if something had gotten lodged or buried from the wreck, and I hoped that wasn’t the case. I needed every minute of daylight to get the haul into the baskets and get them aboard.
The water was crystal clear, the mainmast just below the surface, and I blinked away the image of my mother on its top, watching the moon. The thought of her pulled at the pit of my stomach, the feel of her like breath on my skin. I shivered, looking back down into the water. There was something about the stillness that made it feel as if she were still down there.
West came from his quarters as Auster hauled the last basket over the side. He dropped a belt on the deck beside me, pulling his shirt over his
head. I followed the patchwork of stitching on his skin with my eyes. They added to the collection of scars that was already mapped over him.
“What are you doing?” I looked at the belt beside my bare feet, confused.
He kicked off his boots. “It’ll go faster with two.”
I glanced up to Willa and the others, but they didn’t seem the slightest bit surprised by the sight of West fitting a dredger’s belt around his waist.
“You never told me you dredge,” I said, staring at him.
“There are a lot of things I haven’t told you.” He grinned, a crooked smile turning one side of his mouth up, where a dimple appeared.
I dropped my eyes, the sudden flush in my cheeks warming my skin. I didn’t think I had ever seen him smile. Not ever. And I didn’t like the way seeing him like that made me feel. Or I did. I didn’t want to disentangle the difference between the two.
He worked the buckle of the belt absently, as if he’d done it a hundred times. I’d never heard of a helmsman who dredged. But this was no ordinary ship and no ordinary crew. It seemed there was no end to their secrets.
I held on to the rail and lifted myself up, balancing on the side of the ship to stand in the warm wind. West climbed up beside me, and I looked down into the water before us, where the ropes disappeared.
“I’d like to put forth for reconsideration by the crew, my standing as a bad luck charm.” I called out to Willa, grinning.
She laughed, leaning into the mast. “We’ll take a vote, dredger.”
I looked up to West, asking him without words if he was ready. For the
Lark. And for everything that came after.
The same smile pulled at his lips that had been there on the deck, and together, we stepped off the railing, falling through the air before we plunged into the sea. I sank, kicking against the weight of my tools until I broke the surface, West beside me.
He shook the hair back from his face, looking up to Willa and the others, who peered down at us from the Marigold.
I dragged the air in to fill the space between my ribs and pushed it back out, stretching my lungs until they stung inside me. The blood warmed in
my arms and legs, and I kept at it until I could hold the amount of breath that I would need.
West waited for me to give him a nod before he tilted his head back to take in the air, and I did the same, filling my belly first, then my chest, and taking a last hissing sip into my throat.
He disappeared beneath the surface, and I followed, sinking down after him. When I saw it, I pushed my hands out before me to hover over the view of the Lark. She sat below us, the split in the hull half buried in the pale, soft sand, and the bow of the ship pointing to the sky. But the rest of the ship looked just as I remembered it.
The Lark.
The place where my mother’s story ended. The place where mine began. West looked down at it and then up to me.
I hesitated for a moment before I dove, kicking toward the stern of the ship, and the pressure pushed in around me, my ears popping as we went deeper. The reef that encircled the wreck was alive with life, swarms of bright fish twisting around one another and scattering in every direction. We swam into a cloud of butterfly fish and the sunlight caught their iridescent scales, twinkling like stars at twilight. I stopped, reaching out to touch them with my fingertips as they skittered past.
I smiled, turning back to West. He was a drifting, golden form before the infinite blue, watching me before he reached out and did the same. They whirled around him like little sterling flames before they jutted ahead, leaving us.
We swam the rest of the way to the ship and Saint’s crest came into view, the paint depicting the white triangle sail almost completely gone. But the breaking wave was still there, brushed onto the wood in the same rich, vivid blue of his coat. I pressed my hand to it as we swam past, and when we made it to the deck, my skin went colder.
The algae-covered helm stood ahead untouched, like a ghost. I could almost see my father standing behind it, his big hands resting on the spokes. The broken mast towered overhead, and the sunlight wavered on the surface in the distance, where the Marigold’s shadow floated far above.
I pushed off, drifting toward the steps that led below deck, the beam of wood fallen from where it had hung above the passageway. We swam into the darkness, passing the doors that lined the long hallway, headed for the one that sat at the very end.
The water clouded with sediment as we reached it. I tried the door, but it was jammed, the swollen wood wedging it into the frame. West fit his back against the wall of the passageway and kicked until it gave, and it swung open before us.
Rays of sunlight cascaded through the cargo hold, emerald glowing beams illuminating stacks of toppled crates and overturned barrels. I floated over them, headed for the back corner. The lockers were still there, bolted to the wall, and I could feel them like a chorus of a thousand voices. The gems sang in a harmony that wrapped around me like the pull of wind.
I brushed away the sand until I could see my father’s crest inlayed with pearl on the black tarred wood. I chose the smallest pick from my belt at my back and felt for the keyhole in the dim light. It took only a few tries before the mechanism clicked, and I fit my fingers under the lid, looking up to West before I opened it.
Suddenly, I wished I could speak. I wished I could say something. Anything. Down here, in the deep, with the Marigold floating above, it was quiet. No Saint or Zola or Jeval. No secrets or lies or half-truths. Down here, we were only two mortals in an upside-down world.
The only world where I’d ever belonged.
West’s gaze met mine, and I blinked slowly, hoping I would remember it forever. Exactly as it was, his sun-painted hair waving in the green light and the complete quiet of the sea. I gave him a smile before I looked back to the locker, lifting its lid with a creak. But his hand came down, holding it closed.
His callused fingers slid over the wood before they wound into mine slowly, pulling my hand from the trunk. I stilled, my heartbeat breaking into an uneven gait, the feel of his touch moving up my arm and spreading like the feel of sun on my skin.
He looked at me with a hundred stories lit behind his eyes.
Then he was coming closer. The air burned hot in my chest as his hands lifted and touched my face. His fingertips slid into my hair as he pulled me toward him and before I could even think about what he was doing, his lips touched mine.
And I disappeared. I was erased.
Every day on Jeval. Every night in the belly of the Lark. It all flickered out, leaving only the hum of the deep. Leaving only me and West.
Bubbles ran up between us as I opened my mouth to taste the warmth of his, and the whole sea fell silent. It swelled. I kissed him again, hooking my fingers into his belt and trying to pull him closer. Trying to feel him in the cold water. When I opened my eyes, he was looking at me. Every speck of gold in the green glimmered, the sharp angles of his face softening.
His arms slid around me, and I folded myself into him, finding the place beneath his jaw, and he held me. So tight. Like he was keeping me from unraveling. And he was. Because that kiss broke open some dark night sky within me filled with stars and moons and flaming comets. That darkness was replaced by the blazing fire of the sun racing under my skin.
Because the most deeply buried truth, hidden beneath everything my father taught me, was that I had wanted to touch West a thousand times.
