Page 2 of Saint
I finally let go of my skirts, wiping my slick palms against the smooth fabric. “You’re Simon?”
“I am.” The man’s voice was measured, as unreadable as his face, but I saw his gaze pause on the pearl-and-sapphire earrings that still hung from my ears.
“My name is—”
“I know who you are,” he interrupted. “The question is, what are you doing here?”
I hadn’t planned to give him my real name, but the fact that he knew my face woke a sinking feeling in the center of my chest. I’d been raised among the likes of the guild, but I’d lived most of my days with my mother’s ship crews. This man was neither. And I was sure I’d never seen him before.
“I was told you can get me out of the city,” I said.
His hands moved from the parchment, folding it on the table before him, and his attention drifted back to the girl in the doorway. It was only a moment before it found me again.
“If you want to leave Bastian, all you have to do is walk down to the harbor and pay for passage.”
“No. I can’t.” I swallowed, thinking of Holland. She saw every manifest. Every inventory list. The harbor master himself answered to her. “I need to… disappear.”
Simon finally stood, letting the stool scrape against the uneven floor behind him. The sound made me shift on my feet. When he came around the table to face me, I took an involuntary step backward.
“To where?”
“Ceros,” I answered, hands twisting into the fabric of my skirts again.
It would take no time at all for Holland to find me in Nimsmire or Sagsay Holm. There wasn’t a single port in the Unnamed Sea she didn’t have eyes on. And if I was going to cut her the only place she could feel, I had to get to the Narrows.
“Who sent you here?” he asked.
“The helmsman of theCraven.”
Simon seemed to consider that a moment. He paced the floor, arms crossed over his chest, but beside me, the girl looked wary. They weren’t fools. If they knew who I was then they knew who I was running from, and no one in their right mind would go against my mother. But this man and Holland were probably already on opposite sides of a line.
“Won’t take her long to look through the passenger lists,” he thought aloud, and I was grateful he didn’t call Holland by name. “And there’s only one way to leave Bastian—the sea.”
“A crew, then,” I said.
“Crew?” One of his eyebrows lifted. “You want to crew on a ship headed to the Narrows?”
“If you know who I am, then you know I’m a dredger.”
He stopped his pacing then, staring at me. Holland’s dredger daughter was a source of entertainment for the guilds. Freediving the coral reefs that snaked through the Unnamed Sea to excavate gemstone wasn’t exactly a refined trade. But it wasn’t just the dredging my mother used me for, and that was the reason her empire had stretched the entire coast of the Unnamed Sea. In a way, I’d raised and fed the dragon that had all but devoured me.
My father hadn’t been so lucky. He’d had the sense to keep my gift as a gem sage a family matter. It was only in the last few years that it had become all but impossible to do. And his worry for me had eventually become his end.
“Put me on a crew. As long as they’re going to Ceros, I don’t care which one.”
I had no intention of diving for anyone ever again. Not unless it was my own pockets I was filling with coin. But I needed a ship. One my mother wouldn’t look twice at.
Simon’s head tilted to one side, considering it. “Not the worst idea.” He pulled a fresh sheet of parchment from the stack on the table. “There’s a ship in the harbor that’s scheduled to leave at dawn. It’s called theLuna.”
I exhaled, so heavy with relief that I felt as if I might fall through the floor.
He kept his back to me and took his time, dipping the quill into the inkpot between lines of words and sanding the ink. When he was finished, he folded the parchmentcarefully and sealed it with a deep violet wax the color of opaque amethyst.
“You’re sure?” The girl’s quiet voice was heavy as she eyed Simon. I’d almost forgotten she was standing there.
He answered with only a brief glance in her direction before he gestured to me.
“Those should do it.”
