Thirty-Nine

THIRTY-NINE

No one looked more shocked and outraged than Holland. She was carved from ice beside me.

“We’re due to vote on Holland’s proposal to open her route to Ceros,” the Gem Guild master from the Narrows answered. She looked almost relieved to see him.

“Ah.” Saint pulled the pipe from his pocket, rubbing the smooth chamber with his thumb, as if he was thinking about lighting it. “That won’t happen, I’m afraid.”

“I’m sorry?” The surface of Holland’s flawless calm suddenly cracked.

Saint leaned forward to meet her eyes down the line of chairs. “You won’t have that merchant’s ring on your finger much longer. It would be a shame to waste parchment on a trade license.”

Holland squared her shoulders to him, fixing Saint with her murderous gaze. “You have got to be—”

“I’d like to submit a formal charge.” Saint stood back up, taking hold of the opening of his jacket with one hand.

A streak of bright red streaked up from his collar to his chin. Blood. It looked like he’d tried to wipe it clean. And I didn’t see a wound, which meant that it wasn’t his.

“Against Holland and her licensed gem trade operation.”

“And what is the charge?” the Gem Guild master from the Unnamed Sea screeched.

“Manufacturing and trading gem fakes,” Saint answered.

A collective gasp sucked the air out of the room, and the Gem Guild master from the Unnamed Sea sprang to his feet. “Sir, I hope you understand the gravity of this accusation.”

“I do,” Saint said with feigned formality. “Holland has been systematically leaking fake gemstones into the shipments for the Narrows, and I’d like to request the revocation of her merchant’s ring, as well as her license to trade in the Unnamed Sea.”

Holland was trembling beside me, so furious she had to reach out for the railing in front of her to keep from falling. “This is ridiculous! The accusation is false!”

“I assume you have proof?” the man at the end of the table asked, looking warily to Saint.

This wasn’t just bad for the trade. It was bad for the Unnamed Sea.

“You’ve already got it.” He flung a hand lazily to the tables. “You’re holding in your hands the same fakes she’s been leaking into the Narrows.”

The man set down his teacup and it clattered against the plate sharply. He looked at it as if it had bitten him. “You’re not serious.”

“You’re insane. There isn’t a single fake in those pieces!” Holland shouted, her eyes wild. She stumbled forward, catching herself on the arm of her chair. “Check them for yourself!”

The Gem Guild master from the Unnamed Sea poured the tea from her cup onto the ground, stepping to the nearest candle and holding it to the flame.

She inspected it carefully, turning it so the light moved in the stones. “Someone get me a gem lamp. Now!”

“While we’re waiting…” Saint sat on the corner of the table, kicking his leg. “I have another charge to present as well.”

“Another,” Holland seethed.

Saint gave a nod, pulling a piece of parchment from his jacket. “Six days ago, the Luna, flagship of Zola’s Ceros-posted trade operation, made port in Bastian. It hasn’t been seen since. Nor has its helmsman.”

Holland went still.

“The next night, he was murdered at the gala at Azimuth House.”

If there was an ounce of warmth left in the room, it was gone now.

“Last I checked, conspiracy to murder a fellow trader was an offense that requires the revocation of a trade license.”

That’swhat he was doing. Covering his bases. Just in case the Roths didn’t come through and they’d put real gems in the tea sets. But Saint was taking a huge risk by making an accusation like that. There wasn’t a trader in the room that couldn’t accuse him of the same crime.

I froze, my eyes finding West in the crowd. That wasn’t true. Because Saint never did his own dirty work. He was never even present for it.

That’s why he’d had West.

“I’d like to submit the sworn statement of Zola’s navigator, who witnessed the death of his helmsman at the gala himself.”

A head of pale blond hair appeared from the crowd, and Clove stepped onto the platform. My mouth dropped open. They were going to take Holland down for the very plot they themselves orchestrated.

“Well?” the Gem Guild master from the Unnamed Sea snapped.

“It’s true,” Clove answered. “I saw it with my own eyes. Holland ordered the murder of Zola in her study. Then she pieced out and sank the Luna in Bastian’s bay.”

“He’s lying!” Holland screamed, panicked now. She shuffled down the steps to the platform, her skirts clutched and wrinkled in her hands. “They’ve worked this out together. Both of them.” Her voice disintegrated.

“No.” The word fell from my lips heavily, echoing. I’d spoken without even planning to. I was intoxicated by the show of it. By the sheer genius design of it all. “They’re not. I was there.” Holland turned to me, her eyes wide and hollow. “It’s true,” I said.

Shouting erupted as a heaving man appeared in the open doorway of the pier, a gem lamp clutched in his big hands. He hobbled up to the platform, setting it down onto the table.

The Gem Guild master from the Narrows picked up the teacup and slammed it against the table. I flinched as she hit it again, working one of the stones free. The man lit the wick in the lamp and the guild master pulled off her jacket, setting the stone onto the glass. Everyone watched in utter silence.

The gem scraped against the glass as she turned it, the hard set of her jaw tightening. “It’s true,” she confirmed. “They’re fakes.”

A roar of protest broke out, enveloping everything in the room.

“That’s impossible!” Holland cried. “The craftsman! He must have—”

“They were crafted in your warehouse, were they not?” Saint raised an eyebrow at her.

She had no way out now. She’d lose her ring for commissioning work from an unlicensed merchant if she told the truth about where they’d come from. She was trapped.

Every one of the council members stood then, their voices joining in the chaos as they yelled at one another across the platform. It was a fall that would affect the whole of the Unnamed Sea.

Holland sank to the steps of the platform, her hands shaking in her lap as the Gem Guild master marched toward her. “Your ring has been revoked. And if we don’t find Zola by the time the sun goes down, so will your license.”

Holland fumbled with the ring, pulling it free before she dropped it into his hand. “You don’t understand. They … they did this.”

He ignored her, signaling the two men waiting behind him. They stepped forward, waiting, and Holland got back to her feet, pushing past them to the doors.

The gavel struck again, calling the voices to quiet, and a flustered Rye Guild master fidgeted with it in his hands. “I’m afraid we’ll have to reconvene—”

“Not yet,” Saint interrupted, still standing in the center of the platform. “I still have new business.”

The man gaped at him. “New business? Now?”

“That’s right.” He pulled another parchment from his jacket. “I’d like to submit a request for a license to trade at the port of Bastian.” His voice echoed. “On behalf of my daughter and her ship, the Marigold.”

I stopped breathing, every drop of blood stilling in my veins.

My daughter.

I had never in my life heard him say that word.

Saint turned to look at me, his eyes meeting mine. And every face in the room blinked out into black, leaving only him. And me. And the storm of everything between us.

Maybe, I thought, he was paying what was owed. Breaking even after what I’d done for him. Maybe he was making sure that there was no debt to be laid at his feet.

But that was the license. Not the words. That wasn’t why he’d called me his daughter.

I sucked in a breath through the pain in my throat, not able to keep the tears from falling. They slid down my cheeks silently as I stared at him. And the look in his eye sparked like the strike of flint. Strong and steady and proud.

He was handing over the sharpest blade to whoever might use it against him. But more than that, he was claiming me.

“Granted.” The voice shook me from the trance, bringing me back to the room. Where every eye looked between us.

Helmsman. Dredger. Trader. Orphan. Father.

Daughter.