Page 26 of Saint
“How the hell did you get in here?”
Her eyes went to the window on the other side of the cabin in an unspoken answer. The shutter was closed over a trail of wet footprints drying on the floor.
“It’s not all of them,” she said again, standing slowly. A belt of dredging tools was draped over the chest beside her. “I was only able to get three of the bottles.”
She stepped into the small bit of light cast through the room, her gray eyes flashing more blue. There was a flush to her skin that hadn’t been there that morning. A warmth beneath her cheeks.
“That wasn’t the deal.”
I didn’t like how she met my eyes so directly. I wasn’t used to that anymore. Everywhere we went, Clove and I were given a wide berth, but either this dredger didn’t know anything about us or she just didn’t care.
“I don’t remember making a deal,” she said. “Adealwould imply I was offered something in return.”
“Look around, dredger. I have nothing to give.”
Still, her gaze didn’t leave my face. The feel of it traveled from my eyes to my chin. “They’re good fakes. Some of the best I’ve seen.”
The words sounded like a question. But if she was hoping to find out who the maker was, she was a fool.
“I’d say thank you, but you haven’t done me any favors.” I closed the purse and tossed it onto the desk. “How exactly are you planning to pay for the ones you lost?”
“I can’t.”
“Then why are you still standing in my quarters?”
Her mouth twisted.
“Let me guess. Zola wasn’t the upstanding chap you thought he was.”
She stared at me, that deep silence returning.
“Then I’d get a new crew if I were you. And fast. I’m sure one of those Saltblood helmsmen headed back to Bastian will take you.”
She surprised me by taking a step in my direction, and the cabin immediately felt smaller around me. There was something about her that filled up the space. She was like a thick, curling smoke in the air. “I can’t,” she said again.
“Why?”
“It’s complicated.”
The harbor bell rang out in the distance, signaling a ship out of the bay, and the muscle in her jaw ticked before she reached up, opening the shutter just enough to peer out.
“He’s not going to leave. Not with his precious cargo missing,” I said. “He’ll tear this village apart until he finds you.”
Her fingers slipped from the shutter and she folded herself back into the shadow of the wall, watching me. “Maybe there will be nothing to find.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I gave you back the gems. Now I need to get out of here.”
“You said yourself that it wasn’t a deal. And you didn’t even pay in full.”
“I need to get to Ceros.”
It was only then that I could see beneath the hardness on her face. She was scared. Terrified, even. And I still had that feeling when I looked at her—like the eerie quiet that fell over a ship before lightning struck.
“Saint!” Clove’s voice sounded on the deck, making both of us still.
The dredger’s eyes widened before she pressed herself to the wall. Across the cabin, the door opened and Clove appeared in the glow of lantern light on the deck. It took him all of three seconds to read the look on my face. In the next breath, his eyes found her.
