From the look of the belts around their waists, they were Zola’s dredgers. When he felt my attention on him, the dark-haired one looked up at me, his gaze like the hot burn of rye.
Jeval wasn’t a port. The only reason to come here was to offload small over-calculations in inventory. Maybe a crate of fresh eggs that didn’t sell in one of the port towns, or a few extra chickens the crew hadn’t eaten. And then there was pyre. But pyre wasn’t the kind of stone that attracted an outfit like Zola’s, and I’d never seen his crest on a ship here before.
If we were stopping in Jeval, Zola needed something else. Something he couldn’t get in the Narrows.
I followed the railing toward the bow, fitting myself behind the foremast so I could see the docks without being spotted by anyone who might recognize me. The other ships anchored in the meager harbor were all small vessels and, in the distance, I could see the little boats packed with bodies coming in from the island to trade, carving white trails in the water.
Only weeks ago, I would have been one of them, coming to the barrier islands when the Marigold made port to trade my pyre for coin. I woke with a pit in my stomach on those mornings, the smallest voice within me afraid that West wouldn’t be there when the mist cleared. But when I stood at the cliff overlooking the sea, the sails of the Marigold were there. They were always there.
Zola lifted a hand to clap Clove on the back before he went to the ladder and climbed down. Jeval didn’t have a harbor master, but Soren was the man to talk to when something was needed, and he already stood waiting at the mouth of the dock. His cloudy spectacles reflected the sunlight as he peered up at the Luna, and for a moment I thought his eyes landed on me.
He’d accused me of stealing on the docks more than once and he’d even made me repay a debt I didn’t owe with a week’s worth of fish. But his gaze drifted over the ship, leaving me as quickly as it had found me, and I remembered I wasn’t the girl who’d leapt for the ladder of the Marigold anymore. The one who’d begged and scraped to survive the years on Jeval so she could go searching for the man who didn’t want her. Now I was the girl who’d found her own way. And I also had something to lose.
My eyes landed on Zola as his boots hit the dock. Soren walked lazily toward the ladder, tipping his good ear up as Zola spoke. One bushy eyebrow lifted over the rim of his spectacles before he nodded.
The cargo hull was empty, so the only way Zola could be trading was in coin. But there wasn’t anything to buy on this island except fish, rope, and pyre. Nothing worth trading in the Unnamed Sea.
Soren left Zola standing at the edge of the walkway before he disappeared into the people crowded on the rickety wood planks. He shouldered back toward the other end, where the skiffs from the beach were slowing to drop barefoot dredgers to trade.
I watched Soren snake through the commotion until he disappeared behind a ship.
Around me, everyone was going about their duties, and from the look of it, not a single crew member was surprised by the stop at the dredger island. My eyes lifted to the mainmast and upper decks, where the deckhands were rolling out the storm sails. Not the ones used in the Narrows. These sails were crafted for the monster gales that haunted the Unnamed Sea.
Behind me, the water stretched out in a bottomless blue, all the way back to Dern. I knew how to survive on Jeval. If I got off the Luna, if I found a way to … my thoughts flicked from one to the other. If the Marigold was looking for me, they’d most likely be following Zola’s route back to Sowan. Eventually, they could end up in Jeval.
But there was still a part of me that wondered if the Marigold would cut their losses. They had the haul from the Lark. They could buy out from Saint and start their own trade. An even softer whisper sounded in the back of my mind.
Maybe they wouldn’t come looking at all.
I gritted my teeth, staring at the toes of my boots. I’d sworn that I’d never come back to Jeval, but maybe now it was the only chance I had at staying in the Narrows. My hands tightened on the railing and I peered over it to the water below. If I jumped, I could make it around the barrier islands faster than anyone on this ship. I could hide in the kelp forest at the cove. Eventually, they’d give up looking for me.
When the feeling of eyes on me crept over my skin, I looked over my shoulder. Clove stood on the other side of the helm, watching me as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. It was the first time his eyes had met mine and they didn’t waver. His stormy gaze was like the pull of the deep water beneath us.
My fingers slipped from the rail and I leaned into it, staring back. He was older. There were silver strands streaking his blond beard and his skin had lost some of its warm gold color beneath the tattoos covering his arms. But this was still Clove. Still the man that had sung me the old tavern songs as I fell asleep on the Lark. The one who’d taught me to pickpocket when we made port and bought me blood oranges on the docks in Dern.
Again, he seemed to read my thoughts, and his jaw ticked.
I was glad. In that moment, I had never hated anyone as much as I hated Clove. I’d never wanted so badly to see anyone dead. The muscles in his shoulders tensed as the words flit across my mind and I imagined him in that crate that West dropped into the black sea. I imagined his deep-throated scream. And the tug at the corner of my mouth filled my eyes with tears, my busted lip stinging.
The dead look in his eyes met mine for only another moment before he went back to work, disappearing beneath the archway that led to the helmsman’s quarters.
The burn behind my eyes was matched by the anger still boiling in my chest. If Clove had gone against Saint, then Zola was probably right. Clove wanted revenge for something, and he was using me to get it.
Voices shouted below and I turned back to the dock, where Soren had returned with a parchment. He unrolled it before Zola and he looked it over carefully. When he was finished, he took the feathered quill from Soren’s hand and signed. Beside him, a little boy dripped a pool of wax onto its corner and Zola pressed his merchant’s ring into it before it cooled. He was making a deal.
A moment later, a string of dredgers was lining up shoulder to shoulder behind them. My brow creased as I watched Zola walk down the row slowly, inspecting each of them. He stopped when he saw one of the younger ones hide a hand behind his back. Zola reached around him and yanked it free to reveal that the fingers on the boy’s right hand were bound in a bandage.
Zola dropped it before dismissing him, and the dredger’s place was taken by another who was waiting at the edge of the dock.
It wasn’t until that moment that I realized what he was doing. We weren’t stopping at Jeval for supplies or trade. Zola wasn’t here to buy pyre. He was here for dredgers.
“Make ready!” Clove shouted.
A deckhand shoved me back from the railing. “Out of the way,” he growled.
I moved around him, trying to see. But the crew was already lifting the anchor. Calla took the steps to the quarterdeck and I followed on her heel, watching over a stack of crates as Zola came back up over the side of the ship.
The dredgers from the docks spilled onto the deck behind him and the crew of the Luna stopped their work, every eye landing on the gold-skinned creatures climbing over the railing.
That’s why Zola needed me. He was headed for a dive. But he had at least two dredgers on his crew already, and I made three. There were at least eight Jevalis boarding the Luna, with even more coming up the ladder.