Nine

NINE

The distant ring of a harbor bell found me deep beneath the surface of a dream painted with honey-gold ships, winged sails, and the sound of strung adder stones clinking in the wind.

My eyes opened to pitch black.

The crew’s cabin was silent except for the rake of snores and the creak of the trunks as the Luna slowed. My hand frantically searched for my knife as I sat up, unfolding my legs from the fabric and letting my toes touch the cool floor.

I hadn’t meant to fall asleep. I’d watched Ryland’s hammock above me in the dark until he was still, and though my eyes were heavy and my bones ached, I’d been determined to stay awake in case he decided to finish what he started.

On the other side of the cabin Koy was still sleeping, one of his hands hanging from the canvas and nearly touching the ground. I stood, breathing through the pain in my leg, and felt along the floor for my boots. When I had them on, I opened the door, slipping into the passageway.

I followed the wall with my hand until I reached the stairs, peering up to the patch of gray sky above.

Zola’s voice was already calling out orders as I stepped onto the deck. I wrapped my arms around myself when the chill in the air made me shiver. The Luna was enveloped in a bright white fog so thick I could feel the caress of it on my face.

“Slow, slow!” Voices shouted in the mist and Clove tilted his head, listening before he turned the helm just slightly.

I went to the rail, watching the swirling mist. I could hear the dockworkers, but the slip didn’t appear until we were only feet away. At least a dozen sets of hands were reaching out, ready to catch the hull before it scraped.

“There now!” the voice called again as the ship stopped, both anchors dropping into the water with a staggered smack.

Clove stepped around me to unroll the ladder and Zola appeared a moment later, his coin master on his heels.

Only the black, spindly crests of rooftops were visible, poking up out of the fog like reeds in a pond. But none of them looked familiar.

“Where are we?” I asked, waiting for Zola to look at me.

He pulled his gloves on methodically, tugging until his fingers were tight in the leather. “Sagsay Holm.”

“Sagsay Holm?” My voice rose and I squared my shoulders to him, my mouth dropping open. “You said we were going back to the Narrows.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.”

He leaned into the mizzen, eyeing me patiently. “I said that I needed your help. And we’re not finished yet.”

“I brought up that haul in two days,” I growled. “We met the quota.”

“You brought up the haul, and now it’s time to turn it over,” he said simply.

I cursed under my breath. That’s why we were in Sagsay Holm. Turning the haul over meant commissioning a gem merchant to clean and cut the stones to get them ready for trade. “I didn’t agree to that.”

“You didn’t agree to anything. You’re on my ship and you’ll do what you’re told if you want to get back to Ceros.” He leaned in close to me, daring me to argue.

“You bastard.” I gritted my teeth, muttering.

He swung a leg over the side and caught the ladder with his boot, climbing down.

“You’re with me.” Clove’s grating voice sounded beside me.

I turned on him. “What?”

He pushed a locked chest into my hands, throwing a hand to motion to the rail. “You’re coming with me,” he said again.

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“You can stay on the ship with them if you want.” He tipped a chin up to the quarterdeck, where several members of the crew were watching me. “Your call.”

I sighed, staring into the fog. If no one was on the ship to make sure Zola’s orders were followed, there was no telling what would happen. Koy had saved my neck once, but something told me he wouldn’t do it again if it came down to him and me against an entire crew.

I could see in Clove’s eyes that he knew I didn’t have a choice. “Where are we going?”

“I need you to make sure the merchant doesn’t try to pull anything with the haul. I don’t trust these Saltbloods.”

I shook my head, smirking incredulously. He wanted a gem sage to make sure the merchants didn’t swap any stones. “I’m not my mother.” Isolde had begun to teach me the art of the gem sage before she died, but I’d needed many more years of apprenticeship if I was ever going to have her skill.

Something changed on Clove’s face then, and it made my fingers curl tighter around the handles of the heavy chest. “Better than nothing.” The tone of his voice had changed too, and I wondered if the mention of my mother had gotten beneath his skin.

I took a chance in saying it. “You know Isolde would hate you, right?” I took a step toward him.

He didn’t blink as I looked him in the eye, but the courage I’d had flickered out the moment I invoked her name. He wasn’t the only one who wasn’t immune to Isolde’s memory. It snaked around me and squeezed.

Clove’s hands slid into the pockets of his jacket. “Get on that dock. Now.”

I looked at him for another moment before I shoved the chest back into his hands and pulled the hood of my jacket up. I said nothing as I climbed over the rail and down the ladder into a crowd of dockworkers on the slip. Zola stood at the edge before the harbor master, unfolding a parchment with the fake crest imprinted at its corner. I watched the man closely, wondering if he would catch it. Sailing under a false crest was a crime that would get you barred from stepping foot on another ship for as long as you lived.

The harbor master scribbled into his book, double checking the document before he closed it. “I don’t like unscheduled ships on this dock,” he grunted.

“We’ll be in and out. Just need a few supplies before we get to Bastian,” Zola said, his manner civil and cool.

The harbor master was ready to argue, but a moment later Zola pulled a small purse from the pocket of his jacket, holding it between them. The harbor master looked over his shoulder to the main dock before he took it without another word.

Clove landed on the dock beside me, and Zola gave him a nod before he started toward the village. I followed on Clove’s heels, weaving in and out of the hucksters and shipwrights until we made it to the street.

The cobblestones were wide and flat, unlike the round ones in Ceros, but more than that, they were clean. Not a single smear of mud or even a pile of discarded harbor supplies lay on the street, and the windows of every building sparkled.

The mist was beginning to thin in the brightening sunlight, and I looked up to the redbrick buildings as we passed. Round windows were set into their faces, reflecting Clove and me as we passed. It was a familiar scene, the two of us. One that I didn’t want to look at.

I’d heard almost nothing about the port town of Sagsay Holm except that my father had been here a few times when the Trade Council of the Narrows met with the Trade Council of the Unnamed Sea. Back then, he’d been playing hand after hand to get a license to trade in these waters. Whatever he’d done to finally make it happen probably wasn’t legal, but in the end, he’d gotten what he wanted.

Clove shouldered through the crowd and I stayed close, following in the wake of his steps. He seemed to know exactly where he was going, taking turn after turn without looking at the hand-painted signs that marked the streets and alleys. When he finally stopped, we were standing beneath a faceted, circular window. The panes were fit together like a puzzle, reflecting the deepening blue of the sky behind us.

Clove shifted the chest beneath one arm and reached up to tap the brass knocker. The sound of it echoed with a ping around us, but it was quiet behind the door, the window dark. When he knocked again, it suddenly opened.

A small woman clad in a worn leather apron stood before us. Her face was flushed red, a bit of dark hair sticking to her wide forehead. “Yes?”

“Looking to turn over,” Clove answered, not mincing words.

“All right.” She let the door swing open, pulling a stack of papers from the pocket of her apron. Her nose scrunched until her spectacles fell into place. “We’re a little tight this week.”

“I need them today.”

Her hands froze, and she looked at him over the rim of her spectacles before she laughed. “Not possible.” When he said nothing, she set one hand on her hip. “Look, we have a schedule—”

“I understand.” Clove was already reaching into his jacket. He pulled out a sizable purse, holding it out without a word. “For the trouble.” When her eyes narrowed, he pushed it toward her. “In addition to the fee, of course.”

She seemed to think about that, her mouth twisting up on one side.

It was one of many purses I’d seen him and Zola pull from their pockets, and I was beginning to wonder if Zola had wagered his entire fortune on this venture. He was clearly in a hurry, and he was willing to take chances. What required a two-day dive and a rush turnover in Sagsay Holm? He’d risen a fake crest over the Luna and whatever documents he used to make port had to be forgeries. What could possibly be worth losing his trade license?

The woman hesitated for another breath before she finally took the purse and disappeared in the doorway. Clove climbed the steps, following her inside, and I closed the door behind us.

Immediately, the hum of gemstone woke in the air. The deep reverberation of carnelian and the high-pitched song of amber. The low and steady buzz of onyx. The sounds pressed around me like the pressure of water on a dive.

She led us to a small sitting room lit only by a large window.

“Tea?” The woman pulled the apron over her head and hung it on the wall. “It’s going to be a while.”

Clove answered with a nod and she opened a sliding door, where a man was sitting at a wooden table in the workshop.

“It’s a rush.” She dropped the purse onto the wooden table and he looked up, eyeing us through the open door.

The woman leaned over the table, speaking too low for us to hear, and the man set the piece of quartz he was working on into the box in front of him. The stone in his merchant’s ring flashed. The metal was worn and scraped, which meant he’d been a merchant for some time.

I took the seat beside the cold fireplace so I had a good view of him. It wasn’t unheard of for low-level gem merchants to make swaps here and there when they cleaned and cut hauls. It was one of a few ways fakes made it into the gem trade.

He cleared the table quickly, looking us up and down. “You just come from the Narrows?”

A teapot lid clinked on the other side of the wall.

“We did,” Clove answered, clearly suspicious.

“You better not be bringing any of that trouble here,” he grunted.

“What trouble?” I asked, but Clove gave me a sharp look as if to silence me.

“That business with the burning ships,” the man said. “Was all I heard about yesterday at the merchant’s house.”

Clove’s eyes drifted back to me.

“Some trader in the Narrows is going port to port, setting fire to ships. Looking for a vessel called the Luna.”

I froze, my heart jumping up into my throat.

Saint. Or West. It had to be.

But West and the crew of the Marigold wouldn’t be able to do anything so brazen without catching the Trade Council’s retribution. If they were looking for me, they’d do it quietly. But ships burning at every port in the Narrows … that was something my father would do.

I let out a shaking breath. A timid smile lifted on my trembling lips, and I turned toward the window to brush a tear from the corner of my eye before Clove caught sight of me. He couldn’t be surprised. He knew my father better than even I did.

I hadn’t even let myself hope for it, but somehow I’d known deep down that he would come for me.

The man at the table opened the chest, and his eyes widened before he picked up the first stone—a piece of black tourmaline. He didn’t waste any time, lowering the eyeglass and getting straight to work with a fine pick.

Clove sank into a chair beside the bricked fireplace across the room, setting one foot up onto his knee. “You going to tell me what happened on that dive yesterday?”

I kept my voice low, not taking my eyes off the merchant. “You going to tell me what Saint did to make you join up with Zola?” I could feel Clove’s stare narrow on me. “That’s what happened, right? Saint betrayed you somehow and you thought you’d get revenge. No one knows Saint’s operation like you do, and no one else knows about the daughter he fathered. That makes you quite the prize for Zola.”

The woman pushed back into the sitting room with a tray of tea, setting it on the low table with a clatter. She filled Clove’s cup before she filled mine, but I only stared into it, watching the ripple of light on its surface.

“Anything else I can get you?”

Clove dismissed her with a flick of his hand, and she took the apron from the hook before making her way into the workshop. She sat across the table from the man, picking up the next stone on the pile.

“I saw Saint. In Ceros,” I said. “He told me you were gone.”

Clove brought the cup to his lips, sipping sharply.

“I thought that meant you were dead.” The words fell heavy in the silent room.

“Well, I’m not.”

I picked up the cup, following the vine of hand-painted flowers along the rim with the tip of my finger. “Can’t help but think,” I said, bringing it to my lips and meeting his eyes through the wisp of steam curling into the air between us, “you might as well be.”