Fable (Fable #1)(76)
I eyed the merchants in the stalls, looking for someone who carried rare gems and might be less curious about a girl trading such a precious stone. When I caught sight of a man with a large green beryl in his hand, I moved toward him, listening to the deal he was making. He gave a fair price without much fuss for the beryl, and when the woman trading it walked away, he dropped it into a locked chest behind him.
“Yes?” he grunted, not bothering to look up at me.
“I’ve got a black opal I’m looking to trade.” I picked up a piece of jadeite on the table and turned it over, pressing the tip of my thumb into its sharp point.
“Black opal, you say?” He set a hand on top of the case, eyeing me. “Haven’t seen a black opal in the Narrows for at least a few years.”
“It was part of an inheritance,” I answered, smiling to myself. Because it was true.
“Hmm.” He turned around, fetching a gem lamp from a case behind him and set it down on the table between us. “Let’s see, then.”
They were the tools used by the gem merchants because they couldn’t feel the stones like I could. They didn’t understand their languages of light and vibration or know how to unravel their secrets. Once, the Gem Guild had been full of gem sages. Now, most merchants were just ordinary men with fancy tools.
I took a deep breath, watching around me before I pulled it from the purse and set it on the mirrored glass. It was the largest black opal I’d ever seen, and it would take only seconds for the people around us to notice it.
He looked up at me from beneath his bushy eyebrows and I tried to smooth my expression, wondering if maybe I’d misjudged him. But he didn’t say anything as he sat on his stool and lit the candlewick.
The little flame reflected off the glass, and the light poured through the black opal, filling the entire black, inky stone and the colors suspended inside. Flecks of red, violet, and green danced like spirits in the darkness, their shapes almost seeming to writhe.
“My, my…” he murmured, turning the stone slowly so the lamp’s light illuminated his face. “Inheritance, huh?”
“That’s right.” I leaned into the table, speaking quietly.
He didn’t buy it, but he didn’t argue. He set his hand over the opal as a man passed behind me and blew out the lamp. “Two hundred and fifty coppers,” he said in a lowered voice.
“Deal.”
His eyes narrowed on me, no doubt suspicious at how quickly I’d taken the offer. He pulled a full purse from his belt and grabbed another from the locked cabinet behind him, setting both down before me. “That’s two hundred.” He snatched a smaller one from his belt. “And that’s fifty.”
I picked up all three purses and dropped them into my deep pockets. The weight felt right. Counting them would take time I didn’t have. On the other side of the warehouse, Paj and West were already waiting for me beside the door that led to the harbor.
“Don’t know what you’re up to, but you’d better be careful,” he whispered, reaching out a hand to me.
I shook it before I stepped back into the aisle and disappeared, unleashing the pent-up breath in my chest. West’s eyes found me as I neared the door, and we stepped out into the morning fog.
“All right?” West spoke over his shoulder, waiting for me to pass him.
Paj nodded. “I held back the smoky quartz when I started getting looks but sold the rest. What about you?” He looked to me.
“All gone,” I breathed.
It had worked. It had actually worked.
I smiled beneath my scarf, pulling the hood of my jacket up as the Marigold came back into view. In another day, she would be free.
FORTY
Flames flickered on the candlesticks in the breeze, the white wax dripping down and landing like raindrops on the deck between us. Auster set an entire roasted goose in the middle of our makeshift table, and Willa clapped her hands, whistling out into the night.
The crisp, golden skin still sizzled as she reached forward with a piece of torn bread, soaking it into the juices pooling in the bottom of the tray. Baked plums simmered in cinnamon honey steamed inside the bowl in front of me beside a slab of pungent cheese and a row of smoked pork pies with flaking crusts. Paj had even gone to the gambit to buy a set of hand-painted porcelain plates and real silver cutlery. Everything was laid out under the night sky that glittered with starlight above us.
The smell made my mouth water, the hollow in my stomach aching as we all watched Auster carve into the goose and set two medallions on my plate. Paj poured the rye, filling my cup until it overflowed onto the deck, and I fished two plums from the crock.
West sat beside me, tearing the round of bread and setting a piece into my hand. His fingers touched my palm and that same flash of heat reignited inside me, but he kept his eyes down, reaching across the table for the bottle of rye.
“I’d like to make a toast.” Willa raised her glass into the air, and the candlelight made it glow like an enormous, glistening emerald in her hand. “To our bad luck charm!”
I laughed as every glass raised to meet hers, and they shot down the rye in one simultaneous gulp. Willa slapped the deck beside her, her eyes watering, and I broke a piece of cheese off the hunk in my hand and threw it at her. She leaned back, catching it in her mouth, and the crew cheered.