Twenty

TWENTY

Bastian was beautiful in the predawn dark.

I stood at the window with my fingertips pressed to the cold glass, watching the glimmer of streetlights below. Azimuth House sat at the top of the hill, overlooking the landscape like a sentinel, and it was fitting. Holland had her eye on everything that happened in this city. The docks. The merchants. The Trade Council. And now she had her sights set on Ceros.

It was only a matter of time before she was doing the same thing in the Narrows.

The maps from the walls in Holland’s office were rolled up tight and tied with twine on the table beside the door. She’d looked me in the eye when she gave them to me, a spark of recognition making me still. In that moment, I’d felt as if I were looking at my mother.

There was a break in the rhythm of West’s breaths and I turned from the window. He lay on top of the quilts, one arm tucked beneath a pillow, and even in the low light, I could see that the color was coming back into his cheeks.

That’s why I hadn’t woken him, I told myself. Why I’d stood in the dark silence for the last hour, waiting for him to open his eyes. But really, I was afraid.

I climbed onto the end of the bed, watching his chest rise and fall. His brows pulled together, his eyes still closed, and he sucked in a sharp breath with a jolt. His eyes fluttered open and I watched them focus frantically. He dragged his bleary gaze over the room until he spotted me. When he did, he let the breath go.

“What’s wrong?” I reached out, hooking my fingers into the crook of his arm. His skin was hot, his pulse racing.

He sat up, pushing the hair back from his face. His eyes went to the window and I realized that he was looking for the harbor. For the Marigold. “We should go. Get on the water before the sun rises.”

My heartbeat pounded in my ears as he got to his feet, my teeth clenching. “We can’t.” I folded my fingers together to keep my hands from shaking. “I can’t.”

Almost instantly, West’s face changed. He turned toward me, his back to the dark sky. “What?” The sound of his voice was deepened with sleep.

I opened my mouth, trying to find a way to say it. I’d turned the words over in my head again and again, but now they escaped me.

The look in his eye slowly transformed from concern to fear. “Fable.”

“I can’t go back to the Narrows with you,” I said. “Not yet.”

His face turned to stone. “What are you talking about?”

I’d known the moment I made the deal with Holland that it would cost me with West. But I had to believe that it was something I could fix.

“Last night,” I swallowed. “I made a deal with Holland. One you’re not going to like.”

The color drained from his cheeks. “What are you talking about?”

“I…” My voice wavered

“What did you do, Fable?”

“I’m going to find midnight. For Holland.”

“In exchange for what?” The words were clipped.

This was the moment I’d been dreading. That flash of fury in his eyes. The tight clench in his jaw.

I pressed my tongue to my teeth. Once I said it, there was no going back. “Saint.” I unfolded my legs, sliding from the bed, and West took a step back from me. “If I find the midnight for Holland, she’ll leave Saint alone.”

It took a moment for me to place the look on West’s face. It was disbelief. “What the hell were you thinking?”

I didn’t have an answer to that. Not one he could understand. “I have to do this, West.”

“We agreed,” he breathed. “We agreed that we’d cut ties with him.”

“I know.” I swallowed.

He turned to the window, staring out at the sea in the distance.

“It’s in Yuri’s Constellation. I can find it.”

“What if you can’t?”

“I can. I know I can.” I tried to sound sure. “I’ll take one of her crews and—” The words cut off when he turned to look at me.

West’s silent rage filled the room around us. “I’m not leaving Bastian without you.”

“I’m not asking you to stay.” I twisted my fingers into the underdress. “Take the Marigold back to Ceros and I’ll meet you.”

He took the jacket from where it was hung on the back of the chair and slipped his arms into the sleeves. “When you made that deal, you made it for both of us.”

I’d been afraid he would say that. It’s exactly what I would have said if West had done the same thing. But the crew would never agree. He’d be outvoted before he even finished telling them what I’d done. “West, I’m sorry.”

He went still, searching my eyes. “Tell me all of this has nothing to do with what I told you last night.”

“What?”

He sucked in his bottom lip. “I think you agreed to this deal because you’re not sure you want to come back to the Narrows.”

“The Narrows is my home, West. I’m telling you the truth. This is about me and Saint. Nothing else.”

He muttered something under his breath as he buttoned his collar.

“What? What are you thinking?”

“I don’t think you want to know what I’m thinking,” he said lowly.

“I do.”

He hesitated, letting a long silence stretch out between us before he finally answered, “I’m thinking that I was right.”

“Right about what?”

A bit of red bloomed beneath his skin. “When you asked me to take you onto this crew, I told you that if you had to choose between us and Saint, that you would choose him.”

My mouth dropped open, a small sound escaping my throat. “That’s not what’s happening, West.”

“Isn’t it?” His eyes were cold when they lifted to meet mine.

I recoiled, the words cutting deep.

“I’m not choosing him over you,” I said again, louder. Angrier. “If it was Willa, you’d do the same thing.”

“Saint’s not Willa,” he shot back. He was rigid, still slightly turned away from me. “He left you, Fable. When you went to him in Ceros, he didn’t want you.”

“I know,” I said weakly.

“Then why are you doing this?”

I could hardly get the words out. Looking at West in that moment, it felt as if they’d lost their meaning. “I just can’t let anything happen to him.”

West stared at me, his gaze growing colder. “Look me in the eye and tell me that we are your crew. That the Marigold is your home.”

“It is,” I said, the conviction in my voice making pain erupt in my chest. I didn’t blink, willing him to believe it.

He picked up the frock from the end of the bed and handed it to me. “Then let’s go.”