Page 59 of Saint
I’d known long before I learned the truth about my father that the people who’d been gifted that quill were special to my mother. They weren’t just associates or business partners. They were loyal. Devoted to her. And the rumors about what they’d done in her name were the most wicked of her sins.
There was no shortage of her stewards in the Unnamed Sea, so why wouldn’t she have them in the Narrows too? It made sense. All part of her plan. Only, I’d been too foolish to see it.
“I’m… I’m sorry.” I stood, hand clamping so hard over the stone that the pain of it shot up my wrist to my elbow. “I have to go.”
The Gem Guild master got to his feet, catching the monocle in his palm. “I’m sorry?”
I took a step backward toward the door, and then another. “I—”
But the words disintegrated before they could take shape and then I was in the hallway. Walking. I stuffed the midnight back into the purse, pulling my hood up and sliding the tool belt from my shoulder so I could roll it up tightly and stuff it into my jacket. When I heard footsteps behind me, I picked up my pace.
“Wait!” a voice echoed.
The portraits of the gem merchants flitted past me on either side and I paced toward the light at the end of the hallway, their eyes bearing down on me.
“I said wait!”
I glanced back at the door of the Gem Guild master’s office. He was already flanked by two traders in green jackets, their gold buttons shining as they started toward me.
I pushed into the door to the street with both hands, letting it swing out, and as soon as my feet hit the cobblestones, I was running. The door flew open again behind me and the two traders were running now, the Gem Guild master on their heels.
The market ahead was already filling with a crowd and I looked for an opening, slipping into the stream of people. Voices and boots folded around me, letting me disappear, and when I heard the sound of a creaky wheel, I followed it until I spotted a cart. It came to a stop on the side of the street and I snaked my way toward it, not daring to look back. I came around the railing to lift myself in the bed, then slid myself backward until I was wedged between two barrels thatsmelled like salted fish. I pressed my body between them, making myself as small as possible.
“Where the hell did she go?” A gruff voice sounded on the other side of the barrel and I filled my lungs with air, holding it.
The corner of a green jacket flashed past the cart, and then another.
“Get down to the harbor. Find her.” The Gem Guild master’s smooth tone was easy to pick out. So close I could reach out and touch him. “Now.”
The cart jerked forward, moving again, and I let out the breath I was holding. A single hot tear slipped down my cheek and I curled tighter into myself as my hand found the stone in my pocket. The pain in my throat grew until I couldn’t swallow. Until my teeth were clenched so tight that my jaw ached.
My father’s face found me, his kind eyes moving left to right over his parchment as he sat quietly at his candlelit desk. His fingers tapping at the corner. His gray-streaked hair like threads of silver.
But the vision was replaced by the looming ghost of Holland. Like everything else. It wasn’t just that my mother’s shadow stretched all the way to the Narrows or that she’d followed me in an endless stream of memories. Her blood ran in my veins. And no matter how far I ran, I realized, I’d never, ever be rid of her.
22SAINT
Griff’s Tavern sat on the steepest slope of the city, its windows overlooking the harbor. But as my eyes scanned the crests on the sails of the ships that were docked there, I could only think about the day when none of them would be from the Unnamed Sea.
There were many who thought the idea of the Narrows standing on its own was nothing more than a fantasy. But that was before the streets of Ceros stretched long, following the jagged shore, and the number of piers on the water multiplied. Before we had a Trade Council of our own and merchants to contend with the ones in Bastian. I could feel it changing. Like the patterns that shifted with every wave that broke on the sand.
Maybe I’d never see it in my lifetime, but maybe I would. Either way, today was where it would truly begin.
“Ready?”
Clove’s voice made me blink, coming back to myself, and I turned to see him standing in the doorway. He’d shaved his face, making him look a little like his age for once. We were still young, I remembered. But I hadn’t felt that way in a long time.
I nodded, grabbing my jacket from the chair beside the bed and stepping over Nash. He was tucked against the wall at the foot of the two beds, still snoring.
Isolde hadn’t showed, and I hadn’t expected her to. When we came up from the tavern late last night, a part of me had fleetingly remembered how she’d been curled up in the shadows of my quarters the day I found her on theRiven.But as my eyes followed the candlelight sweeping the room, illuminating its shadows, she wasn’t there.
My mind would stop drifting to her, I told myself. I would forget the way I’d felt when I’d looked into her eyes in the alley in Dern or when I touched her without thinking on theRiven.These things would fade. Drift into the past. No matter how untrue, it was easy to believe when a whole future stretched before me.
The tavern was empty when we came down the creaking steps, but Griff was already at work behind the bar, scrubbing the glasses he’d soon be filling with ale and rye. Morning light pooled on the wood floor, finding the shadows of the empty room, but the embers in the fireplace were still glowing. The sharp scent of woodsmoke was powerful enough to mask the stale, sweet stench of spilled rye.
“Tea?” Griff croaked, hands covered in a froth of whitesuds. His round middle was cinched by the tie of his apron, his bald head missing the hat he usually wore.
He still looked at Clove and me like the kids our fathers had dragged in behind them, and that was likely why he kept giving us a room even when we couldn’t pay for it. But I kept the best of the rye set aside for him every time we picked up from Emilia, the way my father would have wanted.
