Page 34 of Saint
I nodded, studying the crates of wool as the men lifted the first one on its side, sliding it onto the wheeled platform. We’d scraped Dern’s port seal from the wood, but it wouldn’t take much for someone to put together that the crates were stolen. I could only hope that Clove found a merchant who needed a deal.
“Go,” Clove pressed. “I’ve got it.”
I hooked one hand into the strap of the map case stretching across my chest and reluctantly turned on my heel, leaving him behind. If anyone could get out of a scrape, it was Clove. But he was also very good at getting into them.
Isolde followed as I started up the dock and her boots were beside mine in seconds as she put herself between me and the railing, keeping her head down.
From the corner of my eye, I could see her instinctivelyreach for her pocket, hand curling around whatever was there. But it was the way she walked that caught my attention. It wasn’t just the fact that she was closer to me than she’d been since Dern, when I’d pulled her into the alley. It was the way she kept one shoulder turned away from the docks, her eyes cast down. Like she didn’t want to be seen.
My gaze drifted over the ships to our right. Sowan was a much bigger harbor than Dern and there were ships from every port in the Narrows and several from the Unnamed Sea. I wondered, not for the first time, what exactly Isolde had left behind there.
The winding road that snaked through the village was crowded with doors open to the cool breeze coming in from the water and the stream of people coming and going from the harbor. I followed it up until the cobblestone path narrowed and curved into a broken vein of shops. Lander’s was the only one that was shut up tight, the windows dark.
I stopped in front of the door, lifting a fist to tap the round beveled glass with my knuckles.
“This is it?” Isolde looked skeptical.
“Not impressed?” I muttered.
I’d never been to the Unnamed Sea, but if their traders had taught me anything, it was that they prized presentation over everything else. Usually, it was just a shell of pretense that got them what they wanted. People in the Narrows were used to bending beneath them.
“You can wait out here if you’re worried about getting your hands dirty.”
I didn’t know why I’d said it. Lander didn’t need, nor did he deserve my defense, but the look on her face stoked a fire in me. I wouldn’t let her look down on him either.
“That’s not what I meant,” she whispered.
I turned to look at her. “Then whatdidyou mean?”
Her chin tipped up so she could meet my eyes, and she didn’t shrink beneath me. She squared her shoulders, licking her lips before her mouth opened to speak. But before the words left her tongue, the door opened.
Lander stood on the other side, a glazed look in his eye and his shirt only half buttoned. He hadn’t even bothered to comb his hair.
“You’re late,” he said flatly.
Isolde’s eyes slid to me, an almost-smirk on her lips, as if the picture of the man before us had been exactly the point she was trying to make.
I ignored the jab. Lander disappeared inside without extending an invitation for us to follow, and Isolde stared into the empty doorway before I stepped over the threshold. She stuck close as I pushed into the shop, one eye on the window that looked out over the street. She still had that look in her eyes. Like she was waiting for a face she knew to appear there.
“Who’s this?” Lander followed her with a suspicious, unfocused gaze.
“My new dredger,” I answered, lifting the strap of the map case over my head and setting it on the counter. I pulled the purse of stones from inside my jacket.
Isolde’s eyes cut to me again, but this time, a tension hung in the air. She didn’t like being claimed, I realized.
“Not every day you find crew so nice to look at.” Lander pulled the scale onto the counter. Beside it, the tray and the ledger were already waiting.
When he looked up, catching sight of my face, he gave a nervous laugh. “Come on. Just a bit of fun.”
Beside me, Isolde wasn’t laughing. But she didn’t look surprised either.
“All right, what have we got?” He set both hands on the counter, waiting.
I could smell the rye on his breath. The slick look of his skin and damp hair at his temples gave him away for a night of drinking at the tavern. I’d found Lander in this state more and more lately, and there were hardly any signs of business in his shop. The shelves were dusty, the candles unburned. My guess was he was spending all his coin on drink, and if that was the case, he was becoming unreliable. I couldn’t have that.
“Red beryl.” I let the purse fall open and the stones came tumbling out onto the tray, their facets like glistening drops of blood in the pale light.
The corners of Lander’s mouth turned down, his chin jutting out. He was impressed. And he should have been. They were the most valuable gems we’d ever moved. The fact that we were missing half of them was something he would have no way of knowing, and that worked in my favor. The arrangement was to pay the standard rate of a gem by carat, and it was as simple as that.
