Fable (Fable #1)(47)

People with skirt hems and boots painted in mud passed me, and lanterns flickered to life below as darkness swallowed Ceros one rooftop at a time. When the bridge finally came to a dead end, I found myself alone above a pocket of the city that was tucked behind Waterside. I climbed down the ladder, and my boots splashed in the muck as the last bit of orange light found its way through the crooked streets.

“You should get inside, girl,” a woman with a crimson shawl draped over her head called out to me from a cracked window.

I pulled the hood of my jacket up and kept walking.

The city was a tangle of narrow paths, buildings covering every inch of it. My mother used to say that Ceros was like the coral on the reefs, except for the noise. Living things were stuck into every crack and crevice, but underwater, there was only a deep silence that vibrated in your bones. She’d never loved this city like Saint did. The sea was where she belonged.

I pulled the necklace from my pocket and held it up so the pendant dangled in the moonlight.

I hadn’t meant to take it. Not really. But with every poisonous word that dropped from Saint’s lips, my fingers had wound tighter into its chain. Until it felt like it didn’t belong to him anymore.

I clasped the necklace around my neck and pulled at the chain with my fingers until it bit against my skin. If Isolde hadn’t drowned with the Lark, maybe we’d be walking these streets together now. We’d wander the bridges while my father inspected ledgers at his post and met with merchants at the harbor. We’d buy roasted plums at the market and find a place to watch the sun go down over the rise of land, the juice of the warm fruit sticky on our hands.

The vision was too painful to hold in my mind, like boiling water filling my skull.

“Hi there.” A man stepped into the alley, blocking my path. His eyes glinted in the lantern light, his lips spreading over missing teeth.

I looked up at him, reaching for the knife in my belt without a word.

“Where are you going?” He took a step toward me, and I slid the blade free.

“Let me pass.”

He leaned in closer, stumbling forward as he reached clumsily for my belt. Before he could right himself, I swiped up in one clean motion, catching the edge of his ear with the knife.

He threw himself backward, the drink suddenly clearing from his eyes, and I followed, taking three quick steps until his back was against the wall. I lifted the blade, setting it at the hollow of his throat and pressing down just enough to draw a single drop of blood.

He froze, straightening, and I looked him in the eye, daring him to make a move. I wanted a reason to hurt him. I wanted an excuse to lean forward until the edge of the steel sunk into his skin. It was the only thing that seemed like it may dull the sharp pain inside me. Cool the raging heat that still burned on my face.

He stepped to the side slowly, moving around me, and a string of curses trailed off into the dark as he disappeared. I stood, staring into the brick wall until the sound of glass breaking made me turn. At the end the alley, a window with one dangling shutter was lit. When the wind picked up the familiar sour scent of spilled rye, I exhaled, heading straight for the door.

I ducked into a dimly lit tavern where every bit of space was filled with people, the grime of Ceros on their skin and on their clothes. Traders. Dock workers. Ship repair crews. They were stuffed into every corner, small green glasses clutched in their hands, and the peppered smell of unwashed bodies filled the small room.

There was only one stool free at the counter between two towering men, and I lifted up on the toes of my boots and slid onto it. The barkeep tipped his chin up at me, and I reached into my belt to fish out a copper.

My hand stilled as I took the weight of the purse into my hand. It was heavier. Fuller.

I pulled at the strings, opening it, and looked inside. There were well over twenty coppers that hadn’t been there the day before. I felt down the length of my belt, trying to make sense of it until the realization hit me like the burn of a flame.

West.

The vision of him standing in the breezeway that morning resurfaced. He had filled the purse. That’s why he had my belt when he came up from the cabin.

“Well?” the barkeep huffed, his hand held out before me. I dropped a copper into his palm, cinching the purse closed before anyone could get a look at it.

I crossed my arms on the counter and laid my head down, staring at my boots.

West had known who I was all along. And he knew exactly what would happen when I went to Saint. He was looking out for me, like he had been for the last two years, buying my pyre on the barrier islands. Even if he’d done it under Saint’s order, he’d done it. But the extra copper in my purse didn’t bring me relief. It was only a reminder that none of the copper had ever been mine in the first place.

The glasses sloshed as the barkeep slammed them down before me, and he moved to the next hand raised in the air. The emerald-green glasses sparkled like jewels as I picked the first one up, breathing in the peaty smell of the rye before I took a small sip.

The scent reminded me of Saint. A little green glass sat on his desk every night in the hazy smoke of the helmsman’s quarters on the Lark, even though there wasn’t supposed to be any rye on the ship.

I wanted to hate him. I wanted to curse him.

But in the minutes that had passed since I’d walked out his door, I’d been plagued with the truth that I didn’t only hate him. I didn’t know anything about where he’d come from, but I knew it was something he didn’t like to talk about. He’d built his trade from nothing, ship by ship, and even if he’d left me and betrayed me, there was still a small part of me that loved him. And I knew why. It was Isolde.