Fable (Fable #1)(53)

“When? When did he come?”

“Last night. I told you.” She pulled her hand from Willa’s, leaning into the wall and closing her eyes.

Willa stood, her gaze moving back and forth across the floor in thought.

“Why would he come here?” I whispered.

Willa’s face reddened, and she turned away from me, pulling a quilt where it hung from a nail in the wall and spreading it over the woman.

“He’s too thin, Willa. He needs to eat,” she mumbled.

“I know, Mama.”

“You need to make sure he eats.”

“I will, Mama,” she whispered. “Go to sleep.”

Willa stepped around me, and I stared at the woman for another moment as her face grew heavy. Her small cot was old, the frame barely holding together, and the little shack was empty except for the food.

I followed Willa outside, but she stood in the alley, unmoving.

I waited for her to look at me. “What was he doing here?”

She shifted on her feet, her hands sliding into her pockets. “He looks after her.”

“Why?”

“Because no one else will.”

It hit me, then, the look on her face giving her away. “Is he … is West your brother?”

She didn’t blink. She didn’t breathe.

Never, under any circumstances, reveal what or who matters to you.

“Do the others know?” I whispered.

She dropped her eyes. They’d kept it a secret even from their own crew.

“You tell a soul and I’ll kill you,” she said, suddenly desperate. “I won’t want to, but I will.”

I nodded once. I understood this kind of secret. It was the kind of information that could take everything from you.

Willa stilled, looking over my shoulder, and I turned to see a small, barefoot boy swimming in men’s clothes standing in the path ahead. He wrung his hands nervously as he glanced over his shoulder and looked back to Willa.

As if they’d shared some secret exchange, he suddenly took off, and Willa followed, running after him. We followed the twisting trail, the boy disappearing around turns ahead of us until we came around the corner of a hovel, and he stopped, jumping up onto the edge of a crumbling rooftop, perched like a bird. He pointed to a stack of toppled crates before he lifted himself up and over the wall, and then he was gone.

We stepped into the spot of light that painted the wet ground, and I sucked in a sharp breath as Willa tore through the crates, throwing them to the ground. She froze, sinking down as an open hand fell into the sunlight.

West.





TWENTY-SEVEN



I stripped the bed of its blankets as Auster and Paj carried West up the stairs of the tavern, the physician on their heels. They lowered him down and the candlelight caught his face. He was beaten badly, his face swollen and bloody, but there was no way to see how bad it was.

The physician set his bag on the floor and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt before he got to work.

“Water, cloth…” he mumbled, “better get some rye too.”

Paj gave a tight nod and disappeared out the door.

“What happened?” Willa leaned over West, one hand lightly touching the open cut at his brow.

He winced, sucking in a breath as the physician pressed along his ribs with his fingertips. “Zola,” he answered. It was probably the only account he would give. “We shouldn’t have left the ship. Not after Dern.”

Willa’s eyes slid to meet mine. He hadn’t spoken a word about the Marigold, but he must have known what happened to the sails.

Paj returned with the supplies, and West reached for the rye before Auster had even uncorked it, guzzling it down and draining the small bottle. He lay back, his chest rising and falling as he winced against the pain.

And as if he’d only just seen me, he suddenly looked up, his eyes meeting mine. “What are you doing here?”

I tried to smile, but it was weak. “Scraping you up out of alleyways.” I didn’t like seeing him covered in blood. The sight made an ache curl tight in my stomach.

Before my face betrayed me, I ducked into the hallway to watch as the physician worked by candlelight into the night.

The floor was littered with used bandages and muddy footprints, and West groaned every time the physician’s hands touched him, cursing. When he leaned in again, West shoved him back, sending the physician almost flying from his stool.

Auster laughed beside me, wiping at the smear of West’s blood painted across the tattoo of knotted snakes on his arm, but it was half-hearted. The crew had hardly been more than ten feet from West since we brought him up the stairs of the inn, and the quiet worry was carved into each of their faces.

West sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and leaning forward on his elbows so the physician could stitch up the gash on the back of his shoulder. The skin that stretched over his back and arms looked even more golden in the warm light, but it was bruised black and blue like blots of ink on cloth.

“How old were you when Saint took you on?” I whispered, stepping closer to Willa.

She let out a long breath, staring at her boots as if she was trying to decide whether to answer. “He didn’t.”

“Then how’d you end up on the Marigold?”

“That stupid bastard.” She jerked her chin toward West. “A trader took him on as a Waterside stray when he was nine years old, and a year later, he came back for me. Snuck me onto the ship in the middle of the night, and the next morning, when we were out at sea, he pretended to discover me as a stowaway.” She smiled sadly. “He convinced the helmsman to keep me on because I was small and could climb the masts faster than anyone else.”