Fable (Fable #1)(70)
Willa watched me from the quarterdeck as I kicked off my boots and climbed up onto the rail, filling my chest with air. I jumped, falling into the sea with my arms up over my head and the tools clutched in my fists. The water stirred around me, and I spun, turning under the surface until I spotted West, floating near the stern in the vast blue expanse that reached out around us. Long ribbons of seaweed trailed beneath the ship and his hands stilled on the hull as I swam to him.
The hiss and snap of the mussels adhered to the ship clicked around us, and I took the place beside West, fitting the scraper against the thick crust of barnacles and hitting it with the mallet. It broke into pieces, erupting in a white cloud before drifting down into the deep below us.
He watched me work for a moment before he lifted his tools again. He wasn’t going to let me in, like the others. He’d told me as much when he agreed to vote me on. But if I was going to be on this crew, I had to find a way to make him trust me.
Even if it meant breaking another one of Saint’s rules.
Never, under any circumstances, reveal who or what matters to you.
I was taking a risk when I jumped into the water. I was showing my hand. That I didn’t just care about the Lark or joining a crew. I cared about West. And I was becoming less and less afraid of what he might do if he knew it.
THIRTY-SIX
Tempest Snare rose above the calm water like the ridged backs of submerged dragons.
Paj stood at the prow, a wide grin on his face, the early sunlight reflecting in his eyes. His calculations had been perfect, to the hour, and we’d spotted the reefs just as dawn broke on the horizon. The labyrinth sprawled out before us for miles, the water so clear that the sand on the bottom seemed to shimmer.
Willa, Auster, and Hamish stood portside, shoulder to shoulder, and silence fell over the ship, leaving the Marigold quiet. I looked up to West, standing on the quarterdeck alone. His arms were crossed, his cap pulled low over his eyes.
The same unreadable expression was cast over his face that had been there since we’d left Ceros. And it was only now that I was beginning to see beneath it.
West stood at the edge of something. In a matter of hours, everything was going to change. For him. For the crew. The day he’d come to Jeval through that storm, he hadn’t known where it would lead. He didn’t know that when he agreed to give me passage, the winds were shifting.
There was so much about this world that couldn’t be predicted. And yet, we all knew exactly how it worked. Now, West would have choices before him that maybe he thought he’d never have. And that was enough to shake even the most stone-faced in the Narrows.
Paj took the helm, turning into the wind, and the path of the Marigold angled until the sails began to flap above us. When she began to lose speed, he let the handles spin over his fingers one way and then the other so that the rudder hinged from side to side. In a matter of moments, the ship slowed to a crawl.
“What’s our way in?” Paj called out to West.
West studied the reef ahead before he looked over his shoulder at me. I climbed the steps to the quarterdeck and went to the railing, pulling the map from inside my jacket. I unrolled it before me and West took one side, holding it in place.
His eyes ran over the parchment before he pointed to the opening in the reef to our left. The ridges lifted above the surface unevenly before they disappeared, making an opening.
“Once we go in, there’s no going back. Not till we get to the atoll,” he said, almost to himself.
I followed our path on the map, understanding what he meant. There would be nowhere wide enough to turn about until we made it to the Lark. If we ran aground, we were stuck, with no way out of the Snare.
“Get up there, dredger!” Auster looked up at me from the main deck, Willa at his side.
“You ready?” West’s deep voice sounded beside me, and I looked up, meeting his eyes.
Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with the need to know he believed I could do it. That I could keep my promise. To all of them. I’d thought he didn’t trust me, but what he was doing now had required every bit of his faith. He was putting the fate of the crew and the Marigold into my hands.
“Ready,” I whispered.
He rolled up the map and followed me down the steps from the quarterdeck, and I went to the mainmast, taking hold of the pegs and pulling in a deep breath before I began the climb. My heart ticked unevenly in my chest as I rose higher into the wind.
West took the helm from Paj, looking up at me as I settled against the ropes and cast my gaze out over Tempest Snare. The last time I’d seen the Snare, it was seething with the storm that sank the Lark. Now, it was sparkling beneath a clear blue sky, as if it didn’t hold the corpses of countless ship crews beneath its surface. The blue-green waters were filled with walls of craggy reef, narrow passageways winding under its fa?ade in infinite veins. It was a maze—one that only I knew the way through.
I rolled the sleeve of my shirt up above my elbow and held my arm out before me. The scar was an almost perfect rendering of the reef’s arteries, and I marveled at Saint’s ability to compose it by memory. He had sailed these waters so many times that he didn’t need a map to cut its path into my skin.
My fingers trembled as I lifted one hand into the air. The warm wind slipped through my fingers as I measured the opening to the Snare below. “Bear starboard!”