Fable (Fable #1)(25)

“I’m sorry.” She sighed, softening. Her hand reached out for him, but he stepped to the side, making way for her as he slid his knife back into his belt.

She looked at him for a long moment before she started back down the alleyway. It wasn’t until she was out of sight that West turned again, and when his eyes lifted, I froze. He was looking right at me, his gaze like a focused ray of light, illuminating my hiding place.

I looked over my shoulder, but there was nothing. I was completely swallowed by the dark.

“Get out here.” He spoke so low that I could barely hear him over the sounds of the soft thunder above us. “Now.”

I hesitated before stepping out from the shadow and onto the cobblestone path. A cold drop of rain hit my cheek as his eyes ran over me slowly, the tension still wound tight around the set of his shoulders.

“What are you doing out here?”

“I told you”—I met his gaze—“I didn’t pay for a prison cell. I paid for passage.”

His gaze raked over me until it stopped on my hand. The gold bracelet was tangled in my fingers, sparkling in the lamplight. “You know what would happen if a passenger I brought to this village was caught stealing?”

I did know. He’d be fined for it. His license to trade in Dern’s merchant house could even get docked, depending on the number of black marks on his record. As helmsman, he was responsible for every soul that he brought into port.

I glared at him, dropping the bracelet into my pocket. “I gave you all my copper. I can’t go into Ceros with nothing.”

West shrugged. “Then you can spend the next six months here in Dern, scraping together the coin you’ll need to pay another trader to take you on.”

My eyes widened. He was serious.

“You’ve lost your passage on the Marigold,” he said, his eyes falling to my dirty feet. “Unless you want to make a new deal.”

“What?” I hardly recognized the sound of my own voice, pulled thin by the silence.

“Passage to Ceros and thirty coppers.”

“Thirty coppers?” My eyes narrowed in suspicion. “For what?”

For just a moment, a look lit in his eyes that I had never seen on him before. The hint of some frailty beneath all of that hard-edged stone. But it disappeared as quickly as it had surfaced.

“I need a favor.”





THIRTEEN



The rain began to fall as I waited in the alley, the mist that fell over Dern pushing through the streets like the spirit of a long-dead river.

West told me to wait before disappearing down the street, and when he finally returned, he was carrying a bundle in his arms that I couldn’t make out in the dark. He shoved the heap into my hands as he reached me, and I stepped back into the moonlight, looking down at it. It was a pair of boots and a jacket.

“No one is going to trade with you, let alone speak to you, looking like that.”

I could feel the flush dance over my face. The boots weren’t new, but they may as well have been. Their leather was polished, the hooks all shining. I stared at them, suddenly feeling embarrassed.

“Put them on.”

I obeyed, pulling the boots on each foot and tying up the laces as West watched the alley around us. He pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket, leaning out to where the rainwater was falling from the corner of the rooftop above and soaking it.

He handed it to me, and when I didn’t move, he sighed. “Your face.”

“Oh.” The heat came up in my cheeks again as I took the cloth, wiping across my forehead and down my neck in long strokes.

“You should have let Auster stitch that up,” he said, tipping his chin toward the cut on my lip.

“What’s one more scar?” I muttered, irritated.

He looked as if he might say something, his lips parting just enough for me to see the edge of his teeth. But he pressed them together without a word, holding the jacket open for me. I slid my arms in before he buckled the clasps one at a time.

“Don’t go straight for the dagger, look around a little first. Ask a few questions.” He pulled the hood up over my head, brushing off the shoulders of the jacket with his hands.

“What do I trade?”

He slipped the ring from his finger, pressing it into my palm.

I lifted it before me so that the gold glowed, a string of notches winding all the way around its surface. “What if it’s not enough?”

“You’ll figure something out,” he said gruffly. “Don’t mention my name, or Willa’s. If he asks who you are, just say you’re a dredger on a small ship making port for the night.”

“All right.” I held my hand out to him.

He looked at it. “What?”

“Thirty-five coppers.”

“I said thirty.”

I shrugged. “We’re negotiating.”

He gave me a long, incredulous look as he dug into his pocket and fished the coin purse out.

I studied him as he counted them into my hands, resisting the smile that was tugging at my mouth.

But when I looked up into his face, his brow was pulled, his eyes more tired than maybe I’d ever seen them. He was anxious.

The dagger may have belonged to Willa, but it clearly meant something to West too.

I dumped the copper into my pocket and turned on my heel, walking out into the alley and straight for the gambit’s shop. The rain hit my hood in heavy drops, and I climbed the steps, knocking twice on the rusted green door.