Page 42 of Saint
Her expression softened and she sighed, reaching up to hook her fingers in my folded arms. “We’re friends, Saint. A rare thing in a world like this one. That’s the only reason I’m going to pretend that when you take that rye, you’ve paid for it.”
An ache rose in my throat. I was ashamed of how relieved the words made me.
“Figure I owe you for one thing or another.”
We’d known each other for nearly three years, and in that time, wehadbecome friends. But we’d been other things to each other too. After Hazel’s father, Victor, died, I’d spent more than one night in Emilia’s bed, and the ghost of it was in the way she touched me now. But we’d never had anything more than loneliness between us.
“And Perrie?” I asked, shooting a glance toward the open door of the barn.
“He doesn’t need to know. No one does.”
I nodded.
“But this is the only time, Saint.”
I didn’t miss that she’d stopped calling me Elias. That was what had gotten her into this mess in the first place.
We took the path back down to the house, the stones now invisible in the dark. The stars were stretched across the moonless sky over the lantern light of the cottages on the hill. Emilia pulled the pipe from her vest and filled it with mullein, lighting it in an amber glow and the air filled with the sweet smell of the smoke.
“It’s not just for me, you know,” she said, her face half lit by the candlelight coming through the window. Her gazemoved down the table, landing on Hazel. She was sitting in my empty seat, finishing my bowl of stew. “It’s for her.”
I knew what she meant. Copper was protection. Emilia had managed to keep her father’s farm going after he was gone. Even after she’d lost Victor. The croft was turning out grain at a rate that it never had before, and the truth was, she was good at this. But if she wanted the kind of power that would make people afraid to cross her, she needed more than Saltblood traders vying for her harvest.
Across the table, Isolde was the only thing in the house that didn’t belong. She didn’t look like she belonged anywhere, really. There was a carefulness to the way she spoke and moved, like she had learned to walk on glass. But she wasn’t afraid. I was still trying to figure out what exactly that meant.
She set her elbows on the table, taking small bites of the stew and wiping the corner of her mouth with the linen napkin in her lap. It was those little things that gave away that she was a Saltblood. It was also clear she knew how to do a job. She acted like a well-bred girl, but in her two days on theRiven,she’d shown she could crew like anyone else. As far as I could tell, she was a highborn gem sage turned dredger who’d maybe fallen from grace. But nothing about that made any sense.
“Promise me your trouble won’t come to my door.” Emilia said suddenly.
I turned my face, finding her eyes in the dark. There was no humor in them now. No sly meaning. She was asking, as a friend.
“I promise.”
16ISOLDE
Emilia knotted the leads around the driver’s bench before she jumped down from the cart, landing a head shorter than Saint on the ground. Her hair was barely bound up by the wrap around her head, making her look even more like Hazel than she had the night before.
I’d noticed almost right away that Saint seemed antsy on land, and so was I. I’d spent the dark hours on solid ground for the first time since I’d left Bastian, and already, we were headed back out to sea.
Tansy had had to scoop Hazel up to keep her from stowing away on the cart as we pulled away from the stone crofter’s cottage at daybreak. The little girl was a gem sage, that much I knew. But I’d lain awake in the night, Saint’s deep, even breaths only feet away as I watched the starlight paint the air a silvery blue, wondering what would become of her.The sages in Bastian had all gone, along with their apprentices, and there were people in every port with theories about where. With no one to teach her, I doubted she’d ever learn to use the gift, and maybe that was a good thing.
Hazel had been born into a different world than me or my father. She was probably safer on the rye croft than she would be anywhere else.
The rye jostled in the crates as Clove and Perrie unloaded the last of them, and the men from the docks were already hauling them to theRivendown the harbor. But as Emilia watched them, there was a wariness in her eyes.
Saint watched her over the back of the cart for a long moment. Whatever had transpired between them last night, it had changed the feel of the house and altered the easy way they were with each other. He’d been different when he returned from the barn. Quieter, if that was possible. But there was something lighter about him too.
I slid the crock of stew Tansy had given us from the back of the cart and propped it on my hip when Saint gave Emilia a nod as goodbye. She watched him go, taking the steps down into the harbor, but she caught me by the arm before I could follow him.
She reached for my hand, turning it palm up to the sky and brushing a thumb over the lines that covered the rough skin. Along the base of each finger, the pad of my thumb, years-old callouses had been formed by my work on the reefs.
Satisfied, Emilia let me go, pulling her arms back into her cloak. “Keep an eye on those two, dredger.”
I smirked, expecting her to do the same, but she didn’t.This girl who seemed all wit and cutting tongue wasn’t joking. She was serious.
“I mean it.” She took a step closer.
The way she looked at me was with the protective eye of a mother or a sister. This wasn’t a selfish merchant’s concern for the trader carrying her goods or a backhanded way of looking out for herself. She cared about them—Saint and Clove.
