Thirty-Three

THIRTY-THREE

The crew stared at me across the cabin, silent. Even Koy looked speechless.

“You’re not signing it,” Paj snapped. “We’ve been bleeding coin since we left Dern so that we could bring you back to the Narrows and do what we said we were going to do.”

“You can do it without me. This doesn’t change that,” I said.

“It changes everything,” Willa muttered. Behind the others, she was turned toward the lantern, watching its flame behind the glass. This had a different implication for her. If I wasn’t on the Marigold, it wasn’t likely that she’d leave the crew.

“If I sign the contract, we get the deed to the Marigold back. If Saint and the Roths come through, it won’t even matter. It’ll be void.”

“And if they don’t come through?” Willa asked.

“Then you sail one crew member light for the next two years. It’s not that long.” I tried to sound as if I believed it. Two years away from the Marigold, away from West, sounded like an eternity. But it was a price I’d pay if it meant having a place to come home to after my contract was up.

“Contract or not, we need to decide what our next move is. There’s still more than enough coin to get a trade route up and running out of Ceros.” Hamish set the open book down on the desk between us. Since we’d left Fable’s Skerry, he’d been running the numbers. “We don’t need a post, not right away.”

Everyone looked to West, but he was silent beside me.

Paj sighed, stepping forward to look at the ledgers. “There’s no point in getting a license from the Gem Guild if Holland is moving into the Narrows, so I say we stick with rye for the most part.”

“Always sells,” Auster agreed. “Mullein, too.”

It made sense. There wasn’t a port in the Narrows that wouldn’t take shipments of both.

“That’s what I was thinking.” Hamish nodded. “Still puts us at odds with Saint, but that’s nothing new. Three ports to start—Sowan, Ceros and Dern, in that order.”

“I don’t know if we’re welcome in Sowan anymore. Not for a while, at least,” Auster said.

Hamish glanced at West, but he said nothing. Word had probably travelled all over the Narrows by now about what West had done to the merchant in Sowan. That was a reputation that would take time to live down. But there was one place in the Narrows where reputations didn’t matter.

“What about Jeval?” I said.

In the corner of the cabin, Koy straightened, his eyes finding me.

“Jeval?” Paj was skeptical. “It’s a supply stop, not a port.”

“If trade is going to open up between the Unnamed Sea and the Narrows, then it’s only a matter of time before Jeval becomes a real port. It’s the only berth between Sagsay Holm and Dern.” I repeated the words Koy had spoken to me only the day before.

Hamish’s mouth turned down at the corners as he considered it. “There aren’t even any merchants on Jeval.”

“Not yet.” I glanced at Koy. “But if we’re trading rye and mullein, there will always be coin on Jeval for that.”

“It’s not a bad idea,” Auster said, shrugging. “West?”

He thought about it, scratching the scruff at his jaw. “I agree.”

“We’d have to find someone trustworthy to set up trade with,” Hamish murmured.

“I think I know someone.” I grinned, tipping my chin up toward Koy.

They all looked at him.

“That true?” Hamish asked.

Koy stood up off the wall, standing taller. “I think we could work something out.” He was playing it down, but I could see the glow of excitement around him.

Hamish closed the book, sitting on the corner of the desk. “So, all that’s left is to vote.” His eyes moved over each of our faces. “Fable, your vote still counts if your share is going in.”

“It is,” I said without hesitation.

“All right.” Hamish clapped his hands together in front of him. “All for using a third of the coin from the Lark’s haul to fill the hull with rye and mullein?” He looked to Willa first.

She opened her mouth to speak, but West cut her off. “She’s not voting.”

Hamish’s mouth snapped shut as he looked between them.

“The only ones voting are those putting in their share of the Lark.”

“What are you talking about?” Willa finally turned away from the lamp. Its light illuminated only half of her face.

“Willa’s share is no longer part of our ledgers,” West said, still not talking directly to her.

Willa glanced in my direction, as if waiting for me to object. “West…”

“I want you to take it,” he said. “Do whatever you want with it. Start your own operation. Buy into an apprenticeship. Whatever you want.” It looked as if it pained him to say it.

Willa’s eyes filled with tears as she looked up at him.

“Whatever’s next for us.” West swallowed. “You’re not stuck here.”

Hamish paused, awaiting Willa’s reply. But she said nothing. “All right. All voting members then, in favor of stacking our inventory with mullein and rye. Fable?”

I gave him a nod in answer. “I agree.”

Paj and Hamish echoed the same, followed by Auster. But West still stood beside me, his absent gaze on the closed ledgers.

“Has to be unanimous,” Hamish said.

West’s mind was at work. Whether he was running numbers or sorting through options, I didn’t know. But I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like what he said next. “We could use the coin to buy Fable out of the contract with Holland.”

“You’re not doing that,” I said, fixing him with my pointed stare. “That is not happening.”

The others stayed silent.

“Why not?” West asked.

“We said we were going to use the Lark’s haul to start our own trade. We’re not throwing it away on Holland.”

“It’s not exactly throwing it away,” Willa murmured.

“She’s not going to take coin. She doesn’t need copper. There’s only one thing Holland wants and we don’t have it,” I said, more irritated than I wanted to be. They cared about me. But I wasn’t going to let Holland take the chance I’d given the Marigold. The chance they’d given me.

“West, we still need your vote,” Hamish said more gently.

West finally looked at me, his eyes running over my face. “Fine.” He swallowed, stepping around me and going for the door.

“West.” Paj stopped him. “There’s still repairs to deal with.”

“We’ll deal with it in the morning.”

Paj let him go, watching him disappear into the breezeway. Willa’s mouth twisted to one side as she looked to me, and I answered her silent question with a nod before I followed him.

The night was unusually warm, the air balmy, making the deck glisten in the darkness. West’s shadow passed over my feet from the quarterdeck. He pulled a strand of frayed rope from the barrel at the stern as I came up the steps. He didn’t acknowledge me as I leaned into the railing and watched him unravel it, shredding the fibers to be used as oakum. It was becoming familiar, the way he instantly went to work on tedious tasks when he was upset.

“It’s two years,” I said, trying to be gentle with him.

He didn’t answer, sliding the tip of his knife roughly between the cords.

“Two years is nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.” He grunted, dropping another wad of rope. “We should try to buy out the contract.”

“You know that’s not going to work.”

“If you step foot on that ship, she’s never going to let you go. She’ll find a way to extend the contract. To get you under a debt. Something.”

“She’s not Saint.”

“You sure about that?” he snapped.

I bit my tongue. I wasn’t going to lie to him. The truth was that I didn’t know Holland. At times, I felt like I didn’t even really know Saint. But I couldn’t pretend that I didn’t understand what he was saying. From the moment I first saw Holland at the gala, she’d been working toward handing me that contract. She’d trapped me. And the worst part of it all was that I’d been stupid enough to fall for it.

West stopped with the rope, looking out at the water before his eyes drifted to me. “I don’t want you to sign it,” he said, his voice deep.

I stepped toward him, taking the rope from his hands and dropping it on the deck. He softened when I snaked my arms under his and wrapped them around his middle. “Saint will come through. I know it.”

He set his chin on top of my head. “And the Roths?”

“If Saint delivers, they will too.”

He fell quiet for a moment. “None of this would have happened if I hadn’t tried to get back at Zola for Willa.”

“West, this was always about Holland. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t asked you to take me across the Narrows.”

He knew it was true. But West’s nature was to take the blame. He’d had people depending on him for too long.

I tipped my head back to look up at him. “Promise me you’ll do what you have to do.”

He took a strand of my hair and let it slip through his fingers, making me shiver. Silence from West was a bad omen. He wasn’t a man of many words, but he knew what he wanted and he wasn’t afraid to take it.

“Promise me,” I said again.

He nodded reluctantly. “I will.”