Page 24 of Saint
A smile broke on her lips as she plucked a hooked pick from the back of her belt. “You get caught and I’ll deny I helped you. And there isn’t a bastard on this ship who won’t back me on that.”
I nodded. “Understood.”
She looked up and down the passageway, sighing. “All right. Come on.”
I followed her back up the steps, keeping a few paces behind her when we came up onto the deck. Burke was still at the bow, taking wind measurements before he finalized the course, and any minute, Zola would be climbing the ladder and the deckhands would be raising anchor. I had minutes. Seconds, maybe.
Darin was on the upper deck loosening the lines of the main sail as we passed beneath him and Yasmin caught his eyes, gesturing to Burke. He looked at her with a question he didn’t ask aloud before he nodded and immediately retied the rope and made his way down the mast to the deck. When he placed himself before the helm, I realized he was keeping watch. They’d probably done this dozens of times.
Yasmin took hold of the long blond braid over her shoulder and let it fall to her waist as she pressed herself into the opening of the door. I gave her my back, keeping an eye on the opening of the passageway, and I tightened the dredging belt around my waist, tugging at the knot. The sound of metal scraping the wood sounded for a moment before it fell quiet again. Thehinges creaked softly and then she was walking past me, bumping my shoulder with hers. She didn’t look back as she took the steps belowdecks and disappeared again.
I wet my lips, swallowing hard before I stepped backward toward the door. I didn’t breathe as my hand reached for the handle, and a chill crept up my spine. The door swung open and I slipped inside, letting it close with a soft click.
The crate of rye I’d seen in the tavern was behind the desk, and to anyone else it would look like something Zola had picked up as his personal supply. It was only twelve unmarked bottles, but even from across the room, I could feel the buzz of the red beryl dancing over my skin.
I pulled the knife from my belt and touched each bottle with my fingertips, lifting the ones that reverberated with gemstone and setting them on the floor beside me. There were four in all. I picked up the first one, cutting at the fresh wax in an arc until I could pry it up. Then I wedged the cork free before starting on the next. When I had them all opened, I searched the room for the chamber pot. Every cabin had one, and Zola’s was tucked beneath his bed. To my luck, it had recently been cleaned.
I tipped the first bottle over my cupped hand, pouring slowly. The cold amber liquid ran through my trembling fingers and when the first stone landed in my palm, I exhaled. One after the other, they came tumbling out until the facets of twelve stones cast a spray of red glitter over the ceiling and the walls around me. I picked up the next bottle, doing the same.
The rye sloshed in the chamber pot when another waverocked the ship, and as I picked up the third bottle, Burke’s gruff voice rang out.
“Raise anchor!”
I jolted, dropping the bottle, and it rolled across the floorboards beneath the bed, spilling as it went. If Burke was raising the anchor, he’d spotted Zola. The ship was about to leave.
I cursed, scrambling after the bottle and when I got back up on my knees, I poured it out faster. Too fast. One of the gems fell through my fingers. I abandoned the last bottle, slipping it back into the crate.
More orders were called out and the footsteps of the crew beat on the upper deck as I pushed the chamber pot back to its place and got to my feet. I pulled the leather purse from my pocket and opened it, my heart racing as I dumped the red beryl inside with the midnight. As soon as it was cinched closed, I bolted toward the window.
The shadows of bodies on the ship moved over the green water below and I climbed up, swinging my legs through the opening. Behind me, the iron door handle lifted, and I clasped my fingers around the purse tightly before I jumped.
I fell through the air, hitting the rough water and plunging beneath its surface. A flurry of white bubbles rushed up around me, tracing over my feet, my legs, my hands, my hair. I let the weight of my belt pull me deep, and the belly of the ship grew smaller overhead as the first bit of air slipped through my lips. I dropped more than twenty-five feet before my feet touched the soft, sandy bottom, making pain swell in my ears until the ache filled my skull.
I waited, watching the surface above. The sound of the red beryl amplified in the water around me, along with the other stone in my purse, and my fingers curled tighter around it as I pressed it to my chest.
It had begun with gems, I thought, my knuckles throbbing the tighter my fingers curled. And it didn’t matter how far from my mother I sailed. It would end with them too.
10SAINT
“She’s not coming.”
Clove stood at the foremast behind me, leaning into it with one shoulder. His eyes were fixed on the harbor’s entrance, where the trickle of people leaving the merchant’s house was thinning by the minute.
I looked down at my watch again before studying the water below. The orange light was skipping over the surface and the shadows of the crews up on the ships moved over the docks. It was nearly sundown and the dredger hadn’t shown, just like Clove said she wouldn’t.
“Then why aren’t they leaving?” I said, thinking aloud.
I turned to glance at theLuna,floating a few slips down. According to Gerik, Zola had been scheduled to set sail well before nightfall, but the sails were still rolled up tight and the anchor hadn’t been raised.
Clove uncrossed his arms, coming to stand beside me. His silence had been growing heavier by the hour and though it was like him to worry, this was different. This time, we weren’t just gambling with theAsteror a trade license. We were gambling with our lives.
“I cut the crew by more than half. Kept Julian and Mateo,” he said. “We need to get on the water if we don’t want to pay for another night to dock.”
The crew, we could do without, for a while, anyway. We couldn’t afford to feed them and we didn’t need more eyes on us than was necessary. Not when we had Nash locked in the belly of the ship.
“Managed to convince some dockworkers to mix up some of the inventory coming out of the merchant’s house. Wool was the best I could do.”
“All right,” I murmured, eyes still fixed on theLuna.
