Fable (Fable #1)(66)

I touched the scripted letters that ran along the edge and followed the line of the shore, remembering the feel of the parchment under my fingertips. They moved up and away from the coast and past Jeval, stopping on the thin slices of land encircling one another in the middle of the sea.

“Tempest Snare.” West leaned on the table across from me, his voice low.

Paj ran his hands over his face, sighing. “That’s where this haul is hiding? Tempest Snare?”

I nodded.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Hamish muttered. “What’s down there?”

“Gems. Metals. Coin. Everything,” I answered.

“A shipwreck.” West stared at the map.

“And how are we supposed to get to it?” Auster looked at me. “There’s a reason no one goes into the Snare. It’s a death trap.”

“Unless you know how to navigate it,” I said.

West looked up, then, both hands planted on the desk before him. “You know the way through Tempest Snare?”

I didn’t take my eyes from his as I unclasped my jacket and let it fall from my shoulders. It dropped to the floor, and I rolled up the sleeve of my shirt. The gnarled, puffed scar looked up at us, dark red in the lantern light. I set my arm on the table, lining it up over the map.

Paj pressed his fist to his mouth. “Are you telling me…?”

Hamish shook his head, unbelieving.

I pointed to the farthest right point of the scar beneath my wrist. “It’s here.”

“What is? You still haven’t told us what’s down there,” Auster said.

I swallowed hard. “The Lark.”

All at once, they collectively stepped back from the table, a hush falling over the cabin.

I put one finger on the center of the reefs and put the other in the sea above Jeval, repeating the words just as I’d heard Clove say them after the storm. “The storm that hit the Lark came from the north.” I pulled my finger down toward the reefs. “It pushed her into the reef, but then it turned.” I moved my finger that was on the reef back into the sea. “Then it shifted west. It dragged the ship here, before it sank. She’s there.” I stared at the small atoll sitting in the maze of reefs.

Hamish looked up at West over the lenses of his spectacles. “If we do this, that’s it. Our ties with Saint will be cut for good.”

“He could come after us.” Paj looked worried.

“He won’t.” I paused. “The Lark belongs to me.”

“Belongs to you? How?”

“He gave it to me.”

“He gave it to you,” Auster repeated.

“It’s my inheritance.”

They all stared at me. Everyone but West.

“It’s only forty or fifty feet down.”

West was quiet, his eyes still running over the map.

“I can get us through,” I said. “I know I can.”

“All right,” West finally said, and the others looked relieved, a nervous smile on each of their faces. “We’ll dredge the Lark and sell what we can in Dern to fill our hull with coin. Then we come back to Ceros and give it to Saint to pay for the Marigold.”

“If the sea demons don’t get us first,” Auster whispered, his smile spreading wider.

They’d crewed the ship for more than two years, but it had never been theirs. It never would be, if Saint had anything to say about it. He’d brought West on under the debt because he knew he’d never be able to pay it. He had no reason to think that he’d ever actually lose his shadow ship.

“We better get out of here before this whole damn city starts wondering what we’re up to.” Paj went for the door and Auster followed him.

“One-third,” West said, still looking at the map as the door closed.

“All right. One-third to the Marigold’s ledgers and the rest—”

“No,” he cut Hamish off, “she’ll take one-third.”

Hamish nodded.

“But why?” I asked. Taking one-third of the haul for myself meant after coin for the ledgers, only one-third would be left for the crew to split. It wasn’t fair.

“When we made the deal, you didn’t tell me it was your inheritance,” he said.

“You didn’t ask. It’s mine and I can use it however I want.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Hamish said.

“Yes, I do.”

West let out a long breath. “You may never get another chance like this again, Fable.”

“I know. That’s why I’m not going to waste it.” I hoped he could hear what I wasn’t saying. That even though I’d said I didn’t owe him, I did. And I wanted to pay him back tenfold. “Two-thirds to the Marigold’s ledgers, and we’ll split the rest between us. Evenly.” I rolled up the map and tucked it back into my jacket.

West’s eyes moved back and forth on mine, his jaw ticking like he was working up the courage to say something. But just as he opened his mouth, footsteps pounded on the deck, coming into the breezeway.

“West!” Willa appeared in the doorway, her eyes wide. “We’ve got trouble.”





THIRTY-FOUR



The six of us stood at the railing side by side, the only sound the ring of grommets sliding onto rope above us.