Page 23 of Saint
“Maybe I am.”
“I doubt that.” She glanced down the passageway. “If you’re wanting to be cut in, you can forget it. I have enough hands begging for coin.”
“I don’t care about what you’re skimming. I care how you’re doing it. What does he pick up in Bastian?”
“Metals, mostly. Silver-cast tea sets, gold-plated cutlery, stuff like that. Things the guild members in Ceros request to make them feel like their tin scales are a little shinier.”
“What about silks?”
“For the Narrows?” She half laughed, plucking the coin from my fingers. “No. No silks.”
I leaned into the doorframe, my eyes moving over the contents of the cargo hold behind her. It wasn’t even half full, but what was there was contained within barrels and crates. I didn’t see the seal of Nimsmire stamped on any of them.
“Do you ever stop in Nimsmire?”
Her eyebrow arched up as she crossed her arms over her chest and I sighed, pulling out another coin.
“No. Never been that far north.” She took it. “Any other questions you’d like to bleed copper for?”
Zola clearly had powerful friends in Ceros if he’d gotten away with unsanctioned trade for this long. If he was running under-the-table trades for guild members, that would explain it. It was the same in Bastian. The merchants who made and upheld the laws were the first to break them, and maybe the new Trade Council of the Narrows was no different. They also had something to prove.
There was more going on here than Zola had let on. I was sure of that. I started back up the passageway, stopping short when Yasmin’s words finally settled in the back of my mind.
I turned to face her again. “What did you mean…another?”
Yasmin’s irritation was at the surface now. “What?”
“You said I was justanotherSaltblood brat.”
“Yeah?”
“What did you mean by that? Have you had others on theLunabefore?”
“Sure. A few times.”
It wasn’t until that moment that I could see the threads coming together. I took a step in her direction. “Where do they come from?”
She shrugged. “Bastian. We usually pick up at least one stray there.”
“And then?”
“And then they get off in Ceros.”
There was numb feeling hovering beneath the surface of my thoughts. A coldness blooming inside of me. Zola wasn’t running errands for guild members. He was selling to them. He was going to Bastian to courier gem sages.
That was what Simon had meant the night I knocked on his door, when he said that fate was smiling on him. I was an entire crate of coin that would make it back to his coffers.
My eyes followed the beam of light coming from the stairs that led to the deck, where it was pooling on the floor. Zola was building a fortune. There was no telling how many gem sages he’d handed over in Ceros.
I reached inside my shirt, pulling at the chain around my neck until it was over my head. Yasmin’s eyes narrowed on me as I untied the small leather purse from its length and stuffed it into the pocket of my jacket. The gold chain glistened, tangled in my fingers as I made a fist.
She studied my face. “That’s a lot more than a coin’s worth.”
“It’s yours if you get me into the helmsman’s quarters. Worth at least sixty-five coppers. Maybe seventy.”
Yasmin dropped the adze into the loop on her belt, takingthe chain from me. She ran the links through her fingertips, inspecting them. “You have a death wish?”
“Maybe.”
