Page 41 of Saint
“When can I put my name on it?” she asked, lifting an eyebrow.
“Soon.”
I handed her the cup and she stood there, waiting. “You know, you usually pay me before you eat at my table.” Her eyes dropped to the swell of coin purses in my jacket. “You going to tell me what’s wrong or should I just assume the worst?”
I drew in a deep breath, running one hand through my hair. I’d dreaded this exact moment since I lost the gems because I could feel the sand shifting beneath us. If we were going to have goods to trade on theAsterand keep our route, we needed Emilia. But Clove was right. She wouldn’t like being put in this position.
“We’re short on this run,” I said, trying to smooth out the edges of the words so that they didn’t carry the scrape I felt as they climbed up my throat.
“What do you meanshort?”
“It happens sometimes.” I looked over her head, to the barrels.
But Emilia wasn’t buying into my calm. “Tell me.”
It had taken six months to convince her to partner with us, but Clove and I hadn’t shared everything with her about our work. She didn’t know about Henrik or the fakes. If she did, she would have never agreed to sell us the rye. Emilia knew exactly what we needed her to. That was all.
“Just a bad trade,” I said, giving her at least part of the truth.
“You really expect me to believe this has nothing to do with that girl?”
I studied her. “What?”
“After two years of dragging the rattiest crews I’ve ever seen across the Narrows, you show up here with a girl who looks like she was grown in a glasshouse and for the first time, you have no coin. I’m thinking those two things aren’t a coincidence.”
I leaned into the barrel beside us. I wasn’t going to lie to her. She was too smart for that. But I also wasn’t sure just how much trouble the dredger had landed me in and I wasn’t going to pretend I did.
“What’s really going on, Elias?”
I sighed, the weight of that name making it hard to look at her. She was one of the few people I’d known before it was erased. “We need crates to sell in Ceros and Dern, but I can’t pay you for it. Not yet.”
“Rye you can’t pay for,” she clarified. “That’s all you need, huh?”
I nodded.
Emilia scoffed.
“You know we’ll pay you.”
“I don’t know anything.” Her tone shifted, her green eyes darkening. “I made a deal with you, Saint. When no one else would. You wouldn’t be on the water right now if it weren’t for me.”
“I know that.”
“And if you can’t keep your end of that deal, then I’m not going to keep mine.”
I straightened, waiting for her to finish the threat. It wasn’t a veiled one. I’d been the one to put those ideas into her head about selling the rye, but now, she had the means to do it without me. She knew that the moment traders started getting their licenses in the Narrows, they would line up outside her door. For the first time, she had the upper hand between us, and she wanted me to know she would use it.
“The minute we start doing each other favors, we’re done for. You know that, don’t you?” she said.
I did. I could feel her patience wearing thin. It had been for a long time. And she was right.
“The next time I see you, I’ll have the license.”
“Like I haven’t heard that a hundred times.”
“I mean it.” I sounded desperate now, younger.
For the first time in a long time, I could feel that hardness cracking around me. Emilia had it too. We’d needed it. But now we were both just trying to keep our heads above water in a rising sea. The Narrows was changing and we both wanted our stake.
