“They’re not. I was there.” Holland turned to me, her eyes wide and hollow. “It’s true,” I said.
Shouting erupted as a heaving man appeared in the open doorway of the pier, a gem lamp clutched in his big hands. He hobbled up to the platform, setting it down onto the table.
The Gem Guild master from the Narrows picked up the teacup and slammed it against the table. I flinched as she hit it again, working one of the stones free. The man lit the wick in the lamp and the guild master pulled off her jacket, setting the stone onto the glass. Everyone watched in utter silence.
The gem scraped against the glass as she turned it, the hard set of her jaw tightening. “It’s true,” she confirmed. “They’re fakes.”
A roar of protest broke out, enveloping everything in the room.
“That’s impossible!” Holland cried. “The craftsman! He must have—”
“They were crafted in your warehouse, were they not?” Saint raised an eyebrow at her.
She had no way out now. She’d lose her ring for commissioning work from an unlicensed merchant if she told the truth about where they’d come from. She was trapped.
Every one of the council members stood then, their voices joining in the chaos as they yelled at one another across the platform. It was a fall that would affect the whole of the Unnamed Sea.
Holland sank to the steps of the platform, her hands shaking in her lap as the Gem Guild master marched toward her. “Your ring has been revoked. And if we don’t find Zola by the time the sun goes down, so will your license.”
Holland fumbled with the ring, pulling it free before she dropped it into his hand. “You don’t understand. They … they did this.”
He ignored her, signaling the two men waiting behind him. They stepped forward, waiting, and Holland got back to her feet, pushing past them to the doors.
The gavel struck again, calling the voices to quiet, and a flustered Rye Guild master fidgeted with it in his hands. “I’m afraid we’ll have to reconvene—”
“Not yet,” Saint interrupted, still standing in the center of the platform. “I still have new business.”
The man gaped at him. “New business? Now?”
“That’s right.” He pulled another parchment from his jacket. “I’d like to submit a request for a license to trade at the port of Bastian.” His voice echoed. “On behalf of my daughter and her ship, the Marigold.”
I stopped breathing, every drop of blood stilling in my veins.
My daughter.
I had never in my life heard him say that word.
Saint turned to look at me, his eyes meeting mine. And every face in the room blinked out into black, leaving only him. And me. And the storm of everything between us.
Maybe, I thought, he was paying what was owed. Breaking even after what I’d done for him. Maybe he was making sure that there was no debt to be laid at his feet.
But that was the license. Not the words. That wasn’t why he’d called me his daughter.
I sucked in a breath through the pain in my throat, not able to keep the tears from falling. They slid down my cheeks silently as I stared at him. And the look in his eye sparked like the strike of flint. Strong and steady and proud.
He was handing over the sharpest blade to whoever might use it against him. But more than that, he was claiming me.
“Granted.” The voice shook me from the trance, bringing me back to the room. Where every eye looked between us.
Helmsman. Dredger. Trader. Orphan. Father.
Daughter.
FORTY
The sea looked different that morning.
I stood at the end of the street, looking out over the harbor of Sagsay Holm. It was still dark, but I could see the dance of blue shifting on the waves.
The Seadragon was missing from the docks. A man on a sling hung over the side of another ship, scraping Holland’s crest from its hull. As the news reached the other ports of the Unnamed Sea, it would disappear. As if all those years and gems and ships had never existed. But there would be a vacuum left behind when Holland was gone. One that would have far-reaching consequences.
The silhouette of a long coat appeared on the cobblestones beside my shadow. I watched it move in the wind for a moment before I turned to look at him.
Saint was clean-shaven, his blue eyes bright over high cheekbones. “Tea?”
I smiled. “Sure.”
We walked shoulder to shoulder down the middle of the street, our boots hitting the