Page 72 of Saint
She fell quiet as I fit the key into the lock and let the door swing open before us. The bare flat was dark, the storm clouds rolling in over the city and snuffing out the sunlight. The sound of the rain dripping came down the stairs from the broken windows on the second floor.
I waited for her to step inside before I followed, locking the door behind us.
The flat was part of a trade we’d made when we first leftCragsmouth, and one day it would serve as the post for our trading outfit, away from the prying eyes of the merchants and the Saltbloods. No one came to the Pinch unless they had to, and the copper we pressed into palms on these streets ensured that anyone who did come looking wouldn’t find this place.
I opened my jacket, letting the air cool my damp skin. It wasn’t just the humid rain making me sweat. It was Isolde. That softness that had been there between us that morning was gone now, making me feel like there was a rope tightening around my chest. I’d been the worst kind of fool. And now I was going to pay for it.
I sat on the ledge of the window, crossing one foot over the other before I finally let my eyes land on her. The night before, I hadn’t been able to stop myself from touching her, but now I was afraid to even think it.
She stood across the dusty room with her hands tucked into the pockets of her jacket, her newly cut hair falling in a diagonal line around her face. In the shadows it almost looked like the deepest shade of brown, but when the light touched it, it glowed like garnet.
“You need to start talking,” I said coldly. “Now.”
“I should have told you,” she said, the words stumbling into one another. “I know I should have told you.”
“Yes, you should have.” My words grated, but they didn’t sound nearly as angry as I felt. I was even more furious with myself than I was with her. “I wouldn’t have let you on theRivenif I’d known you had a contract.”
“Is that true?” she asked.
I let out a long breath, pinching the bridge of my nose. There was a headache gathering between my eyes. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I hope so.”
If this was as simple as a crew contract, there would be no question. No hesitation. The laws that governed the Trade Council were clear, and anyone who wanted to keep their license would obey them. But this girl was anything but simple. She was a gem sage. The daughter of a powerful merchant. And she’d given Zola the one thing that ensured he could control her.
“Zola wasn’t bluffing. He’ll report the broken contract to the Trade Council because he knows you won’t tell them who you really are. And no matter where we make port next, there will be a summons waiting.”
“So what are we going to do? Just hide here?”
“You have a better idea?” I snapped. “They can’t deliver a summons to us if they don’t know where we are. Leaving port will only mean we’re stranded out there on the water.”
She pushed the wet hair back from her face, pressing her palms to her reddened cheeks.
“As soon as I show my face, that summons will find me. And when I go to the Trade Council, they’ll demand consequences for poaching you from Zola. Everything I’ve done, everything I’ve worked for”—my voice rose—“will be for nothing.”
“Then I’ll go to them myself. Tell them what Zola was going to do. I’ll tell them he’s running gem sages and—”
“If you do that, you’ll just put blood in the water. You think he’s the only trader smuggling gem sages? You mightas well go to the merchant’s house and put yourself on an auction block.”
“Either the Council upholds the law, or they don’t. Which is it?”
I let out a heavy breath. “There’s a difference between what happens in the Trade Council Chamber and what happens behind closed doors. Guild masters live by their own rules.”
She threw her hands up. “What does that even mean? You just make them up as you go?”
You.That was what this was about. The Narrows. Us. The people who lived in this backwater.
I stood up off the window. “Don’t do that. Don’t act like where you come from is any better.”
“I’m not.”
“The Unnamed Sea has its own poison. They’re the ones who made us into this.”
“Into what?”
I shook my head. “You don’t understand.”
“Then help me to!”
“You can’t!” I nearly laughed. “You’ll never understand how things work here because you’re notoneof us! You’re one of them. All you know how to do istake.”
