“Take those off.” She spat, looking at my clothes: “Now.”
My eyes trailed to the deckhands working behind her before I turned toward the bow and pulled my shirt over my head. Calla crouched beside me, rubbing the rag over a block of soap and drenching it in the bucket until it lathered. She held the cloth out to me impatiently, and I took it, ignoring the attention of the crew as I scrubbed the suds up over my arms. The dried blood turned the water pink before it rolled over my skin and dripped onto the deck at my feet.
The feel of my own skin brought back to life the memory of West in his quarters, his warmth pressing against mine. Tears smarted behind my eyes again, and I sniffed them back, trying to push the vision away before it could drown me. The smell of morning when I woke in his bed. The way his face looked in the gray light, and the feel of his breath on me.
I reached up to the hollow of my throat, remembering the ring I’d traded for at the gambit. His ring.
It was gone.
West had woken alone in his cabin. He’d probably waited at the bow, watching the harbor, and when I didn’t come, maybe he’d gone into Dern to find me.
I didn’t know if anyone had seen me dragged onto the Luna. If they had, it wasn’t likely they would ever tell a soul what they saw. For all West knew, I’d changed my mind. Paid for passage back to Ceros from some trader on the docks. But if I had, I’d have taken the coin from the haul, I reasoned, trying to carve out every other possibility except the one that I wanted to believe.
That West would look for me. That he’d come after me.
But if he did, that meant something even worse. I’d seen the shadow side of the Marigold’s helmsman, and it was dark. It was all flame and smoke.
You don’t know him.
The words Saint had spoken in the tavern that morning echoed within me.
Maybe West and the crew of the Marigold would cut their ties with Saint and with me. Set out to make their own way. Maybe I didn’t know West. Not really.
But I did know my father. And I knew what kind of games he played.
The saltwater stung against my skin as I scrubbed harder, and when I was finished, Calla was waiting with a new pair of trousers. I pulled them on and knotted the strings at the waist so they didn’t slide from my hips and she tossed me a clean shirt.
I raked my hair up into a knot as she looked me over and when she was satisfied, she turned to the passageway beneath the quarterdeck. She didn’t wait for me to follow, pushing past Clove to the helmsman’s quarters. But my steps halted when I stepped into his shadow and lifted my gaze, looking up at him through my lashes. The last bit of doubt I had that it was him disappeared as I studied his sun-leathered face. The storm of everything I wanted to say burned on my tongue and I swallowed down the desperate urge to scream.
Clove’s lips pursed beneath his mustache before he opened the log on the table beside him and ran a callused finger down the page. Maybe he was just as surprised to see me as I was to see him. Maybe we’d both been pulled into Zola’s war with West. What I couldn’t put together was how he could be here, crewing for the person my father hated more than anything.
He finished his entry and closed the book, his eyes going back to the horizon as he adjusted the wheel slightly. He was either too ashamed to look at me or afraid someone would see. I wasn’t sure which was worse. The Clove I knew would have cut Zola’s throat for putting his hands on me.
“Come on, dredger,” Calla called from the passageway, one hand holding the edge of an open door.
I let my gaze fall on Clove for the length of another breath before I followed, leaving him and the sunlight behind. I stepped into the cool dark, my boots hitting the wood planks in a steady rhythm despite the shaking that had settled in my limbs.
Behind me, the expanse of sea reached out in an endless blue. The only way off this ship was to find out what Zola wanted, but I had no cards to play. No sunken ship of gems to barter, no coin or secrets that would buy me out of the trouble I’d landed in. And even if the Marigold was coming for me, I was alone. The heaviness of the thought sank deep inside me, my fury the only thing keeping me from disappearing with it. I let it rise, filling my chest as I looked back once more to Clove.
It didn’t matter how he’d ended up on the Luna. There was no forgiveness in Saint’s heart for treachery like that. I couldn’t find any in mine, either. I had never felt so much of my father inside of me as in that moment, and instead of scaring me, it flooded me with a sense of steadying power. The tide-pull of strength anchored my feet as I remembered.
I wasn’t just some Jevali dredger or a pawn in Zola’s feud with West. I was Saint’s daughter. And before I left the Luna, every bastard on this crew was going to know it.
TWO
The door to the helmsman’s quarters was an ashen wood burned with the crest of the Luna. A crescent moon cradled by three curling stalks of rye. Calla pushed it open and the damp, stale smell of old paper and lamp oil encircled me as I followed her inside.
Dust-filled light cloaked the room in a veil, leaving its corners inked in shadow. The uneven color of the stain on the walls gave away the age of the ship. She was old and she was beautiful, the craftsmanship evident in every detail of the cabin.
The mostly empty space was only disrupted by satin-draped chairs gathered around a long table, where Zola sat at its head.
Silver trays filled with food and gilded candlesticks were neatly arranged down the center of the table. The light danced on glistening pheasant legs and roasted artichokes with blackened skins, piled haphazardly in an opulent feast.
Zola didn’t look up as he plucked a round of cheese from one of the bowls and set it onto the edge of his plate. I followed the flickering candlelight to a rusted chandelier that hung above him. It swayed on its hook over Zola’s head with a soft creak, most of the crystal baubles missing. The entire scene was a poor man’s attempt at majesty, though Zola didn’t seem embarrassed by it. That was the Narrows blood in his veins, his pride so thick he’d sooner choke on it than admit to his masquerade.
“I think I have yet to welcome you to the Luna, Fable.” Zola looked at me, his mouth set in a hard line.
I could still feel the sting on my skin where he’d had his hands around my throat only minutes ago.
“Sit.” He picked up the pearl-plated knife and fork on the table, cutting into the pheasant carefully. “And please, help yourself. You must be hungry.”
The wind coming through the open shutters caught the unrolled maps on his desk, and their worn edges fluttered to life. I glanced around the cabin, trying to find any clue to what he was up to. It was no different than any other helmsman’s quarters I’d seen. And Zola wasn’t giving anything away, watching me expectantly from over the candlesticks.
I dragged the chair at the other end of the table out roughly, letting the legs scrape against the floor, and sat down. He looked pleased, turning his attention back to his plate, and I averted my eyes when the juice of the pheasant began to pool in the center. The salty smell of the food was making the nausea wake inside me, but it was nothing to the hunger that would be in my belly after a few more days.
He stabbed a piece of meat with his fork, holding it before him as he glanced at Calla dismissively. She gave a nod before she ducked out of the quarters, closing the door behind her.