Fable (Fable #1)(59)

When he finally lifted his hand, the glint of copper shined between his fingers. He dropped it into the hat without a word.

His words echoed in the silence. He’d take me on. He’d take my coin to save the Marigold. But that was it.

“Get the rye, Willa.” Auster pushed the hat into my hands, and I looked down into it.

It was tradition for every member of a crew to give a copper to the newest member as a show of good faith. I’d seen my father’s crews do the same many times. But in the years since I first set foot on Jeval, I’d never been given anything. Ever. I didn’t bother trying to hold back my tears. They streamed down my face one after the other as I hugged the hat to me.

Like a weary bird flying out over the most desolate sea, I finally had a place to land.

Willa uncorked one of the ink-blue bottles from the tavern, and Paj passed out the glasses as she filled them, the overflowing rye hitting the deck at our feet. All together, we knocked them back, taking the rye in one swallow, and they erupted in cheers. I coughed against the burn in my throat, laughing.

“How much?” I asked, turning the empty glass in my hand.

“How much what?” Willa refilled her glass.

“How much coin do we need for the sails?”

Hamish looked a little surprised at the question, but he pulled the book from inside his vest. He took the lantern from the mast and set it on the deck between us, opening to the last marked page, and we all crouched down around it, our faces lit in the dim light. His handwriting scrawled across the parchment in rows with the numbers on the right side organized into sums.

“After paying the repair crew and making up the losses from the storm, we’ll need at least eight hundred coppers for the sails.”

“Eight hundred?” Paj looked skeptical.

“I’m pretty sure that’s what we’ll have to offer to get a sailmaker to do it. No one will want trouble with Zola.”

“He’s right,” West said.

The rye in my veins didn’t dull the sting of the number. I knew it would be expensive, but I hadn’t guessed the cost would be that high. I hoped my plan would still hold against it.

“Can you get it or not?” The light reflected off of Hamish’s spectacles as he looked up from the page.

“I can get it.”

Willa twisted the cork back into the bottle and set it between us. “You never said how.”

“Does it matter how?”

“Not really.” She shrugged. “But I’d like to know all the same.”

“Saint’s going to pay for the sails.”

West’s eyes snapped up to me, and Paj cleared his throat. “Saint?”

“That’s right.”

“And how are you going to get him to do that?” Willa was clearly entertained.

“I have something he wants. Something I know he’d give anything to have back.”

They didn’t ask what it was, but I could see on their faces that the idea made them nervous. Saint was already angry with them about Zola. As soon as he figured out I was playing him to repair the Marigold, he’d likely want all of our heads.

“You’re playing with fire, Fable,” Willa said, but the wicked smile on her lips reached her eyes, making them twinkle.

I could see that West was thinking the same thing, but the amusement was missing from his face. He stared into his empty cup, the light catching the green glass. The cut that ran along his forehead was hidden beneath his hair, but the entire left side of his face was still swollen, one of his eyes bloodshot.

This crew had already been in trouble when I stepped onto their ship, but I couldn’t help wondering if I was going to be the storm that finally sank them.





THIRTY



I’d broken my promise to him, but I was still living by Saint’s rules.

Dawn swelled behind the land as I stood between two buildings, watching the bridge. If I was right, Saint’s boots would be knocking on the wood planks any moment as he made his way to Griff’s tavern. When I was a girl, if we weren’t out to sea, he took tea at Griff’s every single morning before the sun rose.

I’d thought maybe Saint had changed in the years since I’d last seen him. But if he was still the same ruthless trader who cut the knees out from everyone around him so that he stood taller, then maybe he was still the same bastard who took tea at Griff’s before sunup.

The distant sound of footsteps made me look up to the only bridge that led out of the Pinch. Even though they were empty at this time of morning, Saint didn’t like to walk in the muck of the streets.

A shadowed figure moved against the dark sky, and I could tell by the way his coat rippled in the wind that it was him. I stood up off the crate I was sitting on and stepped onto the street below, following. He took the same turns he always did, heading to Waterside, and I walked with my hands tucked into my pockets, watching the shape of him slip over the buildings as he passed. That was like Saint too—casting his shadow on everything around him.

When he started down the ladder near the harbor, I pressed myself against the wall of the nearest building and waited, holding my breath. The pale light made his coat glow like the blue coral snakes that slithered over the east reef of Jeval. His boots hit the ground, and he started down the alley just as the lanterns of the city were flickering to life. The street would be busy with dock workers and bakers in a matter of minutes, the wheels of Ceros starting to turn.