Something changed on Clove’s face then, and it made my fingers curl tighter around the handles of the heavy chest. “Better than nothing.” The tone of his voice had changed too, and I wondered if the mention of my mother had gotten beneath his skin.
I took a chance in saying it. “You know Isolde would hate you, right?” I took a step toward him.
He didn’t blink as I looked him in the eye, but the courage I’d had flickered out the moment I invoked her name. He wasn’t the only one who wasn’t immune to Isolde’s memory. It snaked around me and squeezed.
Clove’s hands slid into the pockets of his jacket. “Get on that dock. Now.”
I looked at him for another moment before I shoved the chest back into his hands and pulled the hood of my jacket up. I said nothing as I climbed over the rail and down the ladder into a crowd of dockworkers on the slip. Zola stood at the edge before the harbor master, unfolding a parchment with the fake crest imprinted at its corner. I watched the man closely, wondering if he would catch it. Sailing under a false crest was a crime that would get you barred from stepping foot on another ship for as long as you lived.
The harbor master scribbled into his book, double checking the document before he closed it. “I don’t like unscheduled ships on this dock,” he grunted.
“We’ll be in and out. Just need a few supplies before we get to Bastian,” Zola said, his manner civil and cool.
The harbor master was ready to argue, but a moment later Zola pulled a small purse from the pocket of his jacket, holding it between them. The harbor master looked over his shoulder to the main dock before he took it without another word.
Clove landed on the dock beside me, and Zola gave him a nod before he started toward the village. I followed on Clove’s heels, weaving in and out of the hucksters and shipwrights until we made it to the street.
The cobblestones were wide and flat, unlike the round ones in Ceros, but more than that, they were clean. Not a single smear of mud or even a pile of discarded harbor supplies lay on the street, and the windows of every building sparkled.
The mist was beginning to thin in the brightening sunlight, and I looked up to the redbrick buildings as we passed. Round windows were set into their faces, reflecting Clove and me as we passed. It was a familiar scene, the two of us. One that I didn’t want to look at.
I’d heard almost nothing about the port town of Sagsay Holm except that my father had been here a few times when the Trade Council of the Narrows met with the Trade Council of the Unnamed Sea. Back then, he’d been playing hand after hand to get a license to trade in these waters. Whatever he’d done to finally make it happen probably wasn’t legal, but in the end, he’d gotten what he wanted.
Clove shouldered through the crowd and I stayed close, following in the wake of his steps. He seemed to know exactly where he was going, taking turn after turn without looking at the hand-painted signs that marked the streets and alleys. When he finally stopped, we were standing beneath a faceted, circular window. The panes were fit together like a puzzle, reflecting the deepening blue of the sky behind us.
Clove shifted the chest beneath one arm and reached up to tap the brass knocker. The sound of it echoed with a ping around us, but it was quiet behind the door, the window dark. When he knocked again, it suddenly opened.
A small woman clad in a worn leather apron stood before us. Her face was flushed red, a bit of dark hair sticking to her wide forehead. “Yes?”
“Looking to turn over,” Clove answered, not mincing words.
“All right.” She let the door swing open, pulling a stack of papers from the pocket of her apron. Her nose scrunched until her spectacles fell into place. “We’re a little tight this week.”
“I need them today.”
Her hands froze, and she looked at him over the rim of her spectacles before she laughed. “Not possible.” When he said nothing, she set one hand on her hip. “Look, we have a schedule—”
“I understand.” Clove was already reaching into his jacket. He pulled out a sizable purse, holding it out without a word. “For the trouble.” When her eyes narrowed, he pushed it toward her. “In addition to the fee, of course.”
She seemed to think about that, her mouth twisting up on one side.
It was one of many purses I’d seen him and Zola pull from their pockets, and I was beginning to wonder if Zola had wagered his entire fortune on this venture. He was clearly in a hurry, and he was willing to take chances. What required a two-day dive and a rush turnover in Sagsay Holm? He’d risen a fake crest over the Luna and whatever documents he used to make port had to be forgeries. What could possibly be worth losing his trade license?
The woman hesitated for another breath before she finally took the purse and disappeared in the doorway. Clove climbed the steps, following her inside, and I closed the door behind us.
Immediately, the hum of gemstone woke in the air. The deep reverberation of carnelian and the high-pitched song of amber. The low and steady buzz of onyx. The sounds pressed around me like the pressure of water on a dive.
She led us to a small sitting room lit only by a large window.
“Tea?” The woman pulled the apron over her head and hung it on the wall. “It’s going to be a while.”
Clove answered with a nod and she opened a sliding door, where a man was sitting at a wooden table in the workshop.
“It’s a rush.” She dropped the purse onto the wooden table and he looked up, eyeing us through the open door.
The woman leaned over the table, speaking too low for us to hear, and the man set the piece of quartz he was working on into the box in front of him. The stone in his merchant’s ring flashed. The metal was worn and scraped, which meant he’d been a merchant for some time.
I took the seat beside the cold fireplace so I had a good view of him. It wasn’t unheard of for low-level gem merchants to make swaps here and there when they cleaned and cut hauls. It was one of a few ways fakes made it into the gem trade.
He cleared the table quickly, looking us up and down. “You just come from the Narrows?”
A teapot lid clinked on the other side of the wall.
“We did,” Clove answered, clearly suspicious.
“You better not be bringing any of that trouble here,” he grunted.
“What trouble?” I asked, but Clove gave me a sharp look as if to silence me.
“That business with the burning ships,” the man said. “Was all I heard about yesterday at the merchant’s house.”
Clove’s eyes drifted back to me.
“Some trader in the Narrows is going port to port, setting fire to ships. Looking for a vessel called the Luna.”
I froze, my heart jumping up into my throat.
Saint. Or West. It had to be.
But West and the crew of the Marigold wouldn’t be able to do anything so brazen without catching the Trade Council’s retribution. If they were looking for me, they’d do it quietly. But ships burning at every port in the Narrows … that was something my father would do.
I let out a shaking breath. A timid smile lifted on my trembling lips, and I turned toward the window to brush a tear from the corner of my eye before Clove caught sight of me. He couldn’t be surprised. He knew my father better than even I did.
I hadn’t even let myself hope for it, but somehow I’d known deep down that he would come for me.