Fable (Fable #1)(31)

“Turn around. You’ve drawn enough attention,” he said.

“He’s right,” Willa snapped, walking in step with me at my side. The length of her open jacket blew back behind her, and she pulled up the collar against the wind. “Turn around again and I’ll lock you in the cargo hold until we get to Ceros.”

But her steps faltered as she looked past me to the ship anchored at the next dock. A man in a black coat and long, dark hair streaked with silver smiled at Willa from where he leaned against the post.

“West!” he called out, waving a hand in the air.

West stopped short, every hard edge coming into the angles of his body all at once. He stood straighter, and Paj took a step closer to him. “Zola.”

I studied the man, trying to place him. I remembered the name.

“When did you take on a Jevali dredger?” He looked at me, his smile spreading wider.

West stepped off the main dock onto the walkway, and Paj followed, his fingers going to the handle of the knife in his belt.

Zola pulled the scarf from where it was wrapped over his face. His pale skin was reddened and windblown, his eyes a stormy gray. Above him, the faces of a crew peered down from the railing of a large ship. The crest on the bow was painted in white—a crescent moon encircled by three stalks of rye. It was one I recognized.

Zola wasn’t just any trader. When I’d sailed with my father, he was the largest operation in the Narrows. But in those days, he’d worn the trimmed coats and shined boots that marked the traders from the Unnamed Sea. From the look of him now, he’d come down in the world since then.

West held a hand out to him despite the tension in his shoulders pulling beneath his jacket.

Zola stared down at it for a moment before he took it. “Any chance you’ve seen my stryker?”

West cocked his head to the side in a question.

“Come on, West.” Zola’s eyes jumped back to Willa and her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

“Can’t keep track of your own crew?” she spat.

Zola laughed. “I wouldn’t want you Waterside strays to get yourself into more trouble than you can handle.”

“Crane’s probably drunk under someone’s skirts at the tavern.” West lifted his chin toward the village. “Or maybe he’s gotten himself in more trouble than he can handle.”

The smile melted from Zola’s ruddy face, then. He looked at West for a long moment before his eyes cut to me. “You any good? We’re lookin’ for a dredger on the Luna.”

West stepped to the side, blocking Zola’s view of me. “She’s not ours. She’s a passenger. That’s it.”

Zola didn’t seem satisfied with that answer, his gaze suspicious, but he dropped it anyway. “You’re looking well, Willa.”

A few laughs sounded overhead, and Willa paled beside me.

“Let me know if you see Crane. You know how hard it is to find a decent stryker.” Zola smiled.

West turned on his heel without another word, and Zola’s eyes moved from me to Willa and back again. His stare burned into my back as we walked, making our way down the ship bays to the Marigold. The rope ladder was unrolled down the side of the hull, and West climbed first, followed by Paj. When they disappeared over the railing, I turned back to Willa.

“What happened to your face?” I asked, looking her in the eye.

“What happened to your arm?” she shot back, glowering at me.

My hand went to my sleeve, pulling it down by the cuff. I’d been careful to keep it covered, but she must have seen it.

She stared at me until I took hold of the ladder, fitting my feet onto the ropes. The wind pushed back my hood as I swung over the railing, where West was already waiting, his eyes on the deck. He turned into the archway, clearly expecting me to follow him into the helmsman’s quarters.

When I hesitated, his voice sounded behind the door. “Get in here!”

I hesitated before I pushed it open and stepped inside. The shutters had been unlatched, filling the cabin with light, and he sat on the edge of the desk beside the white stone. “Close the door.”

I obeyed, leaning into it until the latch clicked into place.

“What was that?” He leveled his eyes at me.

“What?”

“With the gems.”

I shrugged. “I was doing you a favor. They were fakes.”

“I don’t need any favors.” He stood, walking toward me. “We don’t get involved in other traders’ business, Fable. Not ever. Right now, that gem dealer is going to whoever sold him those stones. He’ll tell them about the Jevali dredger on my ship that spotted fake emeralds that even he didn’t catch.”

I stared at him, unable to speak as the blood drained from my face. Because he was right. I’d made myself vulnerable without even realizing it.

“How did you do it?” He looked down at me. “How did you know they weren’t emeralds?”

If I told him the answer to that question, I risked him knowing who I was. There were only a handful of people who could do what my mother could do. The art of a gem sage was something you were born to, not just something you apprenticed for. It was a lifelong study, something that couldn’t be taught.

It was the reason Saint had taken my mother onto his crew. The specialized skill was passed through few lineages, kept secret by most sages after the gem trade expanded and it became dangerous to practice. My mother had been teaching me, the way her father taught her, before she drowned on the Lark.