Page 58 of Saint
“I’m not sure you—”
“It’s all right, son. Let her in,” a quiet voice came from inside.
The young man hesitated before he let the door swing open, revealing a large office lit with a circle of windows set into the high ceiling. One of the towers I’d spotted from the bridges, I presumed.
“What is it I can help you with?” The man behind the desk was already standing, abandoning his quill.
His combed hair was tucked behind one ear, his face clean-shaven over the high collar of his suit. He was an entire head taller than me, his broad shoulders nearly the width of the bookcase behind him. In the Unnamed Sea, the seats of the Trade Council were filled with some of the oldest guild members. Men and women who’d climbed the ranks to the honor of being calledmaster.But this man was younger than my own father would be if he were still alive.
The thought made me swallow hard.
“Well, you’re far from home, aren’t you?” he said, looking me over.
I still wasn’t sure exactly what it was that gave me away so quickly. The fabric of my clothes? The laces in my boots? Eventually, I’d have to figure out how to scrub myself of those clues.
“Just stopping in Ceros for the night with my crew,” I said, giving him the explanation he’d probably already come up with himself.
He gestured to the tool belt. “A dredger, I see.”
I nodded.
“And this is regarding a sale, you said?” He was politely masking his impatience now.
“I have something I’d like to offer you. A rare and valuable stone.”
He frowned. “I’m sure there are plenty of merchants down at the merchant’s house who would be interested.”
This man’s days of trading in a booth were long gone. They probably had been for some time. A single sale was a waste of his time when he likely had a whole warehouse of gems down at the water. No, this was a man who dealt in the kinds of trades that tipped power balances. That was why I was here, after all.
“This isn’t any ordinary gemstone,” I said, a pit sinking in my stomach.
That got his attention.
“All right, why don’t you take a seat?” He took a gem lamp from the shelf behind him and set it beside the small tray on the desk. “Who did you say you crew for?”
“TheReverence,” I said, giving him the first name that flitted through my mind. It was a small vessel out of Nimsmire that I wasn’t even sure held a license to trade in Ceros, but by the time he checked it out, I’d be gone.
I reached into my pocket, finding the little purse and pulling it free. The midnight sang inside, the feel of it pulsating between my fingers. I’d had that song with me so long now that it would strange to be without it.
“Well, let’s see it, then,” he said, tugging on the glittering gold chain around his neck until the monocle fell from his vest pocket. He fit it to his eye.
I pulled open the purse strings and the light coming through the window glinted on the smooth face of the stone inside. The sound of the midnight grew louder in my ears, humming in my blood.
My mother was right. Itwouldchange everything. Just not in the way she thought.
“I’m afraid I’m in a bit of a hurry, dear.”
The stone rolled into my hand and the man’s eyes narrowed, curiosity pursing his lips. If he was experienced enough to be the Gem Guild master, it would take him all of three seconds to realize this wasn’t onyx or obsidian. There was a strange nature to the black color. A sheer, liquid-like quality.
I let the midnight move under the light until flashes of violet ignited beneath the gem’s surface. But when I looked up to meet the guild master’s eyes, my vision was pulled to the shelf fixed to the wall behind him.
I don’t know what it was that snagged my attention.Maybe the shift of a bending shadow or the sparkle of the crystal glasses. But when my eyes fixed on something I recognized, a sick, horrifying feeling bloomed deep in my gut.
An open wooden box displaying a quill was set into the glass case. And fit into the gold nib was a single black-tipped feather. The feather of a whistling swan.
A sharp prick ran over my skin as the guild master’s voice sounded again. But I couldn’t hear him anymore. My mother’s presence was suddenly filling the room, swirling in the air around us. I could smell the sweet scent that she dabbed at her wrists. Hear the tinkling of the jewels around her neck.
I’d thought I’d gone as far from her as I could. That I’d traveled the sea to find the place she didn’t exist. But this man sitting in the chamber of the Narrows Trade Council was just another hand of Holland.
