Page 31 of Saint
“What did you do to end up on this death wish of a ship?”
The question was coming from Nash, who’d had the knife in his hand only moments ago. He leaned into the railing, arms crossed over his chest as he watched me.
My grip tightened on my own knife as I squared my shoulders to him. “Just needed passage,” I answered.
But he wasn’t buying it. He smirked, the tilt of his lips changing his face. The fury that had been there a momentago was only a simmer now. He’d accepted his fate. “Sure. And I just needed a change of scenery.”
I couldn’t tell now if he was the kind of person who would hold a blade to the deckhand’s face for show, or if he’d meant it. He gave me his back, turning out to the water, and the wind pushed his curling hair to one side. His clothes weren’t ones that I’d seen helmsmen and their crews wear. He looked more like a tradesman.
“Dredger!”
The helmsman’s voice sounded in the passageway and my eyes trailed to the open door of his quarters across the deck.
I followed the sound, letting my shoulder touch the wall and leaning forward just enough to see through the crack above the door’s hinge before my shadow crossed the threshold. He stood behind the desk, pulling a fresh shirt over his head before he rolled up each of the sleeves.
When he was finished, he retied the bandage that was wrapped around his hand.
“You going to just stand out there?”
His eyes suddenly flicked up, finding mine through the crack in the door, and I lifted my chin as I pushed the door all the way open. His gaze traveled from my boots to the top of my head, as if he was trying to measure me against the girl he’d found in his quarters the night before.
The corners of the small room were now visible in the daylight. It was bare and simple, stocked with only the most necessary items, including my dredging belt that he’d draped over the chair beside the desk. But it was the string of adderstones in the window that held my attention. A superstition that I recognized from the old sea myths.
He picked up the quill on the desk and returned it to its inkpot. It was fit with a worn little heron feather that needed replacing and the sight of it was a reminder that here, I was still safely hidden away from my mother’s eye. From her whistling swan feather quills and the fools who did her bidding.
He stared at me for a moment before he reached into the drawer for the purse of gems and carefully dumped them into a wooden tray, pushing them toward me.
I stared at him.
“Well?” he said, the word heavy and impatient.
“Well what?”
“What do we have here?”
I hesitated before I took a step forward and lowered myself to the stool across from him. My fingers hovered over the stones before I gently sifted the real red beryl from the others, pushing them to one side of the tray.
“Which are the fakes?”
I placed a finger in front of the larger group. In all, there were eleven real gems and twenty-four fakes.
He scratched at the scruff on his jaw, eyeing them. He was unreadable, his face like stone as he picked up the quill. He dipped it in the inkpot before opening the ledger and turning the page. “I didn’t do myself any favors by leaving Dern with you. Is there anything I should know before I arrive in Sowan with you on my ship?”
If he only knew just how important that question was.There was plenty for him to know. Zola wouldn’t be the only one looking for me or what I held in my pocket. But he was already keeping the most precious of my secrets.
I pulled my gaze from the red beryl, finding his face again. The straight line of his thick, dark brows made his blue eyes look like polished sea glass.
“I’m just a dredger.”
“I think we’ve established that you’re not just a dredger. And if you want to keep anyone else from finding out, you’d better be more careful. I marked you as a gem sage almost the second I met you.”
He fell quiet, studying me again. The calm in his face was unsettling, but most unnerving was the fact that I believed him. I’d felt it in the tavern that night, the way he’d looked right into me.
The expression in his eyes shifted so slightly I thought maybe I imagined it, but it ignited a warmth in the air that hadn’t been there moments ago.
NowIwas studyinghim.
“What?” he asked, as if trying to unearth my thoughts.
