Ten

TEN

The deck of the Luna was washed in lantern light by the time we made it back to the ship.

Clove had me check the gems twice before we left the merchant, putting us well after sundown. They’d done a good job in the time they’d been given, so I didn’t point out that a few of the edges and points weren’t as sharp as they should be. Gems were gems. As long as they weighed out, I couldn’t care less what they looked like.

“Make ready!” Sagsay Holm glittered behind us as Zola called out the orders and the crew snapped into rhythm, unleashing the ship from the harbor.

Three figures climbed the masts in lockstep, working the lines to bring down the sheets, and before we’d even cleared the dock, the wind filled them into perfect white arcs against the black sky. The sails on the Luna made the ones on the Marigold seem small, and as soon as I thought it, I pushed the vision of the golden ship from my mind, ignoring the feeling that writhed inside me.

When the ship made it out of the bay, Zola murmured something under his breath to his navigator, and Clove dropped his hands from the helm and followed Zola into his quarters. The door closed behind them, and I studied the string of stars lifting up over the horizon. We were bearing north, not south.

I watched the shadows slide beneath the door of the helmsman’s quarters, thinking. We were farther from the Narrows than I’d ever been. The Unnamed Sea was a thing painted in my mind by the bright colors of my mother’s stories, but like the Narrows, it was filled with cutthroat traders, devious merchants, and powerful guilds. By the time Zola finished what he was doing, he’d probably be dead. And when the price for his sins was called in, I didn’t want to be anywhere near the Luna.

I went up the steps to the quarterdeck and leaned over the stern. The ship carved a gentle wake in the sea below, folding the dark water into white foam. Calla was stowing the lines, watching me warily as she wound the ropes. When she was finished she took the steps down to the main deck, and I looked around me before I flung one leg over the rail.

The ornate carving of the Luna’s wooden hull rose and fell in sweeping waves around the window of the helmsman’s quarters. I followed its shape with the toes of my boots, sliding across the stern until I could see the light from Zola’s cabin slicing through the dark between the slats of closed shutters.

I reached up, finding the lip of the window, and held close to the ship so I could wedge myself against the wood. The candlelit room came into view, and I squinted, eyeing the mirror that hung beside the door. In its reflection I could see Clove standing beside the small wooden table in the corner, a green glass of rye clutched in his big hand.

Zola sat at the desk before him, looking over the ledgers carefully. “It’s enough.”

“How do you know?” Clove asked, his worn voice barely audible over the sound of the water rushing below.

“Because it has to be enough.”

Clove answered with a silent nod, bringing the rye to his lips. The light glinted off the glass like a stone in a gem lamp.

Zola picked up the rye bottle. “What else?”

It took me a moment to realize that Clove was hesitating, staring into the corner of the room absently before he spoke. “There was talk in the village.”

“Oh?” Zola’s tone turned up, and when I caught his reflection in the mirror again, his face was lit in sly humor.

“Word reached Sagsay Holm yesterday that someone’s going port to port in the Narrows.” He paused. “Burning ships.”

Zola paled, and I wasn’t sure why. He had to know it wasn’t safe to leave his fleet behind in the Narrows. Whatever had brought him to the Unnamed Sea had to have been worth it to him. His hand shook just enough to spill a little of the rye on the desk, but he didn’t look up.

“Your ships, I suspect,” Clove added.

My fingers clamped down harder on the sill of the window.

“Saint?”

“West,” Clove breathed.

My breath hitched, the swift flare of fear making me still. If West was burning ships in the Narrows, he was putting the Marigold and its crew at risk. He couldn’t hide something like that from the Trade Council like Saint could.

“At least six ships gone,” Clove said. “Several crew dead. Probably more by now.”

I breathed through the sting lighting my eyes. Zola said that night in his quarters that West had enough blood on his hands to paint the Marigold red. I didn’t want to believe it, but there was some small part of me that already did.

“It doesn’t matter.” Zola was doing a poor job of keeping his fury at bay. “Our future and our fortune both lie in Bastian.”

“Bastian.” My mouth moved around the word.

We weren’t headed south because we weren’t taking this haul back to the Narrows. The Luna was going to Bastian.

“I want every inch of this ship cleaned and polished before we dock, understand? Every set of hands better be working from the time the sun comes up to the moment I see land on the horizon. I’m not making port in Bastian looking like a Waterside stray,” Zola muttered, taking the rye in one shot and pouring another.

Clove looked into his glass, swirling what was left of the amber spirit. “She’ll know the moment we dock. She knows everything that happens in that harbor.”

“Good.” Zola smirked. “Then she’ll be expecting us.”

I studied Zola’s face, confused. But slowly, the pieces began to fit together, the thoughts swirling in my mind before landing.

Holland.

He wasn’t using the haul to start a new venture beyond the Narrows. Zola was paying a debt. For years, he hadn’t been able to sail these waters without getting his throat cut by Holland. He’d finally found a way to make good with her, but how? Three hundred carats of gemstone was nothing to the most powerful gem trader in the Unnamed Sea.

Zola wasn’t lying when he said that this wasn’t about me or West. It wasn’t even about Saint.

My fingers slipped on the dew-slicked frame and I caught myself on the shutter, clinging to the hull.

When I looked back up, Clove’s eyes were on the window, and I held my breath, hidden in the darkness. His eyes narrowed, as if they were pinned on mine. He was stalking across the cabin in the next moment, and I swung back, pressing myself to the carving beside the window. The shutter swung open, slamming on the wood, and I watched his hand appear on the sill, the moonlight catching the gold ring on his finger. I tried not to move, the pain in my leg throbbing as I pushed the heel of my boot into the ledge to keep myself still.

But a moment later, the shutters closed, locking in place.

He hadn’t seen me. He couldn’t have seen me. But the beat of my heart faltered, my blood running hot.

I reached up, hauling myself back to the railing, and threw myself onto the quarterdeck. I raced to the steps and swung myself over them, landing on the deck with both feet, and the stitches in my thigh pulled, stinging. The men at the helm looked up at me wide-eyed as I walked to the passageway and slipped into the darkness.

The door to the helmsman’s quarters was already opening, and I stepped around the light it painted on the deck before I made my way below. Footsteps sounded overhead as I ran down the hallway to the crew’s cabin, weaving between the hammocks until I found the third row. Ryland was asleep and I ducked under him, not bothering with my boots as I sank back into the quilted fabric of my own hammock. I pulled my knees to my chest, shaking.

The shadows in the darkened doorway moved, and I found the knife at my belt, waiting. Zola had taken great care to hide what he was doing in the Unnamed Sea, and if he thought I’d found him out, there was no way he was letting me go back to the Narrows. There was no way he was going to let me leave this ship alive.

I stared into the darkness, clutching the knife against my chest as a figure took shape beneath the bulkhead. I squinted my eyes, trying to make it out. When a beam of light flashed over a head of silvery blond hair, I swallowed to keep from crying out.

Clove. He had seen me.

His shadow moved slowly through the hammocks, his footsteps silent as he crept closer. He peered into each one before he moved on, and when he made it to the next row, I pressed a hand over my mouth, trying to stay still. If I was quick enough, I could strike first. Drive the blade of my knife up into his gut before he could get his hands on me. But the thought made my stomach roil, a single tear rolling from the corner of my eye.

He was a bastard and he was a traitor. But he was still Clove.

I swallowed down a cry as he stopped at the hammock beside mine. Another step, and his legs were next to me as he looked into Ryland’s hammock. He stopped then, and I lifted the knife, measuring the angle. If I stabbed him beneath the ribs, catching a lung, it would be enough to keep him from running after me. I hoped.

The blade shook as I lifted it, waiting for him to come low, but he wasn’t moving. The glint of a knife shone in the darkness as Clove lifted his hands, reaching into Ryland’s hammock. I went still, watching his face from below and trying not to breathe. But Clove’s eyes were expressionless, the cool set of his mouth relaxed, his eyes soft.

The hammock shook above me and something hot hit my face. I flinched, reaching up to wipe it from my cheek, and another drop fell, hitting my arm. When I held my fingers to the light, I went still.

It was blood.

The hammock swung silently above me, and Clove sheathed his knife before he reached back up and heaved Ryland from inside. I watched in horror as he took him onto his shoulder and his limp hands fell beside my face, swinging.

He was dead.

I didn’t move as the sound of footsteps trailed to the door. Then he was gone, leaving the cabin quiet. As soon as the light stopped moving I sat up, staring into the black passageway, my eyes wide.

There was no sound except deep, sleeping breaths and the creak of swaying rope. The hushed hum of water against the hull. For a moment, I thought maybe I’d dreamed it. That I’d seen the work of spirits in the dark. I looked over my shoulder, searching the cabin, and froze when I saw him.

Koy was still in his hammock, his open eyes on me.