Fable (Fable #1)(68)

But the flash of something on shore made me look up to the shadows of Waterside, where the deep blue of a coat almost glowed in the dark.

Saint.

He leaned into the post on the street, unmoving, except for the hem of his coat blowing in the wind. I couldn’t see his face, but I could feel his eyes on me. And if he was watching, then he knew. His own copper had paid for the sails that now stretched out over the Marigold, pulling us out to sea. And it didn’t matter who I was or what had happened between us. For the first time in my life, we were on opposite sides of a line.

“Fable.” West’s voice shook me from the thought, and I blinked, finding his face before me again. Seawater still ran down his skin, his hands clamped onto the ropes below mine, where the bloodied blade of my knife caught the moonlight between us. “You all right?” he asked again.

I nodded, looking down into his face and letting the calm in his eyes steady me. That same smooth expression that was always there. Since we left Jeval, we’d come through a storm that almost swallowed us, and Zola had nearly killed him before stripping and almost sinking the Marigold. Nothing ever seemed to shake him.

“I’m fine,” I answered.

He nodded, sliding the wet knife back into my belt. “Then get your ass on the ship.”





THIRTY-FIVE



The sun shined on the sea in a slithering beam to the east like a lantern lighting our path.

I stood at the prow with Auster, rigging the crab traps into hauling baskets we could use to bring up the cargo of the Lark. I tied off a knot, watching the calm water, the sounds of sailing plucking at every memory I had from before Jeval. My father bent low over his maps, a pipe in his mouth and a rye glass in his hand. The splash of ropes and the glow of light on the shining deck.

My eyes trailed up the mast, to where my mother would be, lying back in the nets high up above the rest of us. She told stories of diving the remote reefs in the farthest reaches of the Unnamed Sea, but she’d never told me about her life in Bastian or her time crewing for Zola before she joined up with Saint. She’d never even told me what brought her to the Narrows. And since I sat across the table from Saint at Griff’s tavern, I couldn’t help wishing I’d asked more questions about her.

The first time Isolde took me diving, I was six years old. My father was waiting on the quarterdeck of the Lark when we surfaced, that rare smile reaching up one side of his face beneath his mustache. He lifted me up over the railing and took my hand, pulling me into the helmsman’s quarters where he poured me my very first glass of rye. That night, I slept in my mother’s hammock, curled against her warmth as the wind howled against the hull.

Tempest Snare was the last stretch of water before the Unnamed Sea and a favorite landing place for the storms that had made it into a graveyard. I could feel the Narrows widening around us, making the Marigold feel small in the vast sea. Soon, we would be at the edge of it, leaving us with no reachable land.

Paj appeared in the breezeway with his instruments, unpacking the octant carefully before he got to work, making notes into the open book set on the piles of rope. I watched him slide the arms until the light caught the mirror just right.

“How long?” I asked, setting the trap down at my feet.

“We should be there by morning if the wind picks back up.”

I squinted against the light to see Auster at the top of the mainmast, a cloud of seabirds flying in a circle around him as he pulled another perch from his bucket. “What’s with the birds, anyway?” I asked.

Paj lifted his eyes, a soft smile pulling at his lips before he laughed. “He likes them.”

“Looks like they like him too,” I said.

He worked a few more minutes before he opened the box and set the octant inside. “You were really on the Lark when it went down?” he asked suddenly, slipping the book back into his vest.

I nodded, looking out at the pink and purple clouds, the sun seeming to grow and swell as it began to sink down the sky. I didn’t know if they’d heard stories about that night, but I wasn’t going to be the one to tell them. It was a tale I was afraid would come alive within me if I spoke it aloud. There was a distance between the girl I was, standing on the deck of the Marigold, and the one who’d jumped from the Lark in Clove’s arms.

West came up the steps in the passageway, rolling the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows. He and Willa had been working in the hull since we left Ceros, seeing to the last of the damage from the storm that we couldn’t afford to hire repairmen for. He hadn’t said a word to me since we pushed off the dock. He hadn’t even looked in my direction.

“Let me see,” he said, coming to stand beside Paj.

Paj obeyed, taking the book back out and opening it to the last page he’d written on. West’s eyes ran over the numbers slowly, and a piece of his hair loosed itself, blowing across his face.

“Let’s drop anchor while the wind is weak. We’ll make up the time.”

Paj nodded.

“And the crates?” West asked Auster, even though it was clearly my job.

“Done,” Auster answered for me.

“Check the knots again.” And again, he didn’t meet my eyes. I gritted my teeth.

I came around the mast. “West—”

But he turned on his heel, walking across the deck to the breezeway. I followed him to the helmsman’s quarters, where he began working the compass over the map, checking Paj’s measurements against his own. His mouth twisted as he bit the inside of his cheek.