“Come on,” Calla said, irritated.
She disappeared down the stairs that led belowdecks and I hesitated before I followed, looking back to the deck for Clove. But the helm was taken by someone else. He was gone.
The steps creaked as we came down into the belly of the ship and the air grew colder in the dim glow of the lanterns lining the hallway. Unlike the Marigold, it was only the main artery in a series of passages that snaked belowdecks to different rooms and sections of the cargo hold.
I stopped short as we passed one of the open doors, where a man was crouched over a set of tools, writing in a book. Picks, mallets, chisels. My brow creased as the newly fired steel gleamed in the darkness. They were dredging tools. And behind him, the cargo was black.
My eyes narrowed as I bit the inside of my cheek. The Luna was a ship made for large inventories, but her hull was empty. And it had to have been offloaded recently. When I’d seen the ship in Ceros, she was drifting heavy. Not only was Zola headed into the Unnamed Sea, he was going in empty-handed.
The man stilled when he felt my gaze on him and he looked up, eyes like broken shards of black tourmaline. He reached for the door, swinging it closed, and I clenched my hands into fists, my palms slick. Zola was right. I had no idea what he was up to.
Calla followed the narrow hallway all the way to the end, where a doorless passage opened to a dark room. I stepped inside, one hand instinctively drifting back toward my knife. Empty hammocks swung from thick timber beams over jackets and belts hung from the hooks on the walls. In the corner of the room, a sleeping man wrapped in quilted canvas snored, one hand dangling.
“You’re here.” Calla nodded to a lower hammock on the third row.
“This is the crew’s cabin,” I said.
She stared at me.
“I’m not crew.” The indignation in my voice sharpened the words. The idea of staying with the crew put my teeth on edge. I didn’t belong here. I never would.
“You are until Zola says otherwise.” The fact seemed to infuriate her. “He’s given strict orders that you’re to be left alone. But you should know…” Her voice lowered. “We know what you bastards did to Crane. And we won’t forget it.”
It wasn’t a warning. It was a threat.
I shifted on my feet, my hand tightening around the knife. If the crew knew I had been on the Marigold when West and the others murdered Crane, then I had as many enemies on this ship as people breathing.
Calla let the unsettling silence stretch between us before she disappeared back through the open doorway. I looked around me in the dark room, letting out a shaking breath. The sound of boots pounded overhead, and the ship tilted slightly as a gust of wind caught the sails, pulling the hammocks like needles on a compass.
The eerie quiet made me wrap my arms around myself and squeeze. I sank into one of the dark corners between trunks to get a wide view of the cabin while being hidden by the shadows. There was no getting off this ship until we made port, and there was no way to know exactly where we were headed. Or why.
That first day on the Marigold came rushing back to me, standing in the passageway with my hand pressed to the crest on the door. I had been a stranger in that place, but I’d come to belong there. And now everything within me ached for it. A flash of heat lit beneath my skin, the sting of tears gathering in my eyes. Because I’d been a fool. I’d let myself believe, even if it was just for a moment, that I was safe. That I’d found a home and a family. And in the time it took to draw a single breath, it was all torn away.
THREE
Beams of pale moonlight drifted across the wood plank floor throughout the night, creeping closer to me until the warmth of morning spilled through the deck overhead.
Zola had to have been telling the truth about the crew being ordered not to touch me. They hadn’t so much as looked in my direction as they came in and out of the cabin overnight, taking their rest hours in staggered shifts. Sometime in the dark hours I’d closed my eyes, West’s knife still clutched in my fist.
Voices in the passageway lifted me from the haze between waking and sleeping. The speed of the Luna dragged and I tensed as a blue glass bottle rolled across the floor beside me. I could feel the ship slow as I unfolded my legs and got to my feet.
The pounding of footsteps trailed above and I pressed myself to the wall, watching for any movement through the door. But there was only the sound of the wind coming down the passageway.
“Strike sails!” The booming sound of Clove’s voice made me flinch.
My stomach dropped as I watched shadows flit between the slats. We were making port.
He called out the orders one after the other, and more voices answered. When the ship groaned again, my feet slid on the damp wood and I reached out to catch myself on the bulkhead.
Either we’d picked up speed and made it out of the Narrows in a single night, or we were making a stop.
I stepped through the door, one hand to the wall as I watched the steps. Calla hadn’t told me to stay put in the cabin and Zola said I wasn’t a prisoner, but walking around the ship alone made me feel as if I were waiting for someone to stick a blade in my back.
The sunlight hit my face as I came up the stairs and I blinked furiously, trying to focus my eyes against its glare. Two crew members climbed each of the huge masts, taking up the downhauls in a locked rhythm until the sails were reefed.
I froze when I saw Clove at the helm, tucking myself into the mast’s shadow. My teeth clenched, a bitter fury covering every inch of my skin as I watched him. I had never imagined a world in which Clove could betray Saint. But the worst part was that she’d trusted him—my mother. She’d loved Clove like a brother and the thought that he could betray her was unfathomable. It was something that couldn’t exist.
Zola stood at the bow with his arms crossed over his chest, the collar of his jacket pulled up against the wind. But it was what lay beyond him that made me stop breathing altogether. I reached for the nearest railing, my mouth dropping open.
Jeval.
The island sat like a shining emerald in the brilliant blue sea. The barrier islands emerged from the churning waters below like blackened teeth, and the Luna drifted into the last bay of the crude docks as the sun peeked over the familiar rise in the distance.
The last time I’d seen the island, I’d been running for my life. I’d thrown myself at the mercy of the Marigold’s crew after four years of diving those reefs to survive. Every muscle in my body coiled tightly around my bones as we drifted closer.
A barefoot boy I recognized ran down the dock to secure the heaving lines as the Luna neared the outcropping. A deckhand climbed over the railing beside me, reaching for the ties that secured the ladder on the side of the ship, and tugged at their ends until the knots were free. It unrolled against the starboard side with a slap.
“What are we doing here?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
The man arched an eyebrow as he looked up at me, his gaze dragging over my face. But he didn’t answer. “Ryland! Wick!”
Two younger crew members came down from the quarterdeck, one tall and lanky with a fair mop of hair. The other one was broad and muscular, his dark hair shaved down to the scalp.
The deckhand dropped a crate before them and the rattle of steel made me flinch. It was filled with the dredging tools I’d seen last night. “Get these sorted.”