until we were only feet away. At least a dozen sets of hands were reaching out, ready to catch the hull before it scraped.
“There now!” the voice called again as the ship stopped, both anchors dropping into the water with a staggered smack.
Clove stepped around me to unroll the ladder and Zola appeared a moment later, his coin master on his heels.
Only the black, spindly crests of rooftops were visible, poking up out of the fog like reeds in a pond. But none of them looked familiar.
“Where are we?” I asked, waiting for Zola to look at me.
He pulled his gloves on methodically, tugging until his fingers were tight in the leather. “Sagsay Holm.”
“Sagsay Holm?” My voice rose and I squared my shoulders to him, my mouth dropping open. “You said we were going back to the Narrows.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
He leaned into the mizzen, eyeing me patiently. “I said that I needed your help. And we’re not finished yet.”
“I brought up that haul in two days,” I growled. “We met the quota.”
“You brought up the haul, and now it’s time to turn it over,” he said simply.
I cursed under my breath. That’s why we were in Sagsay Holm. Turning the haul over meant commissioning a gem merchant to clean and cut the stones to get them ready for trade. “I didn’t agree to that.”
“You didn’t agree to anything. You’re on my ship and you’ll do what you’re told if you want to get back to Ceros.” He leaned in close to me, daring me to argue.
“You bastard.” I gritted my teeth, muttering.
He swung a leg over the side and caught the ladder with his boot, climbing down.
“You’re with me.” Clove’s grating voice sounded beside me.
I turned on him. “What?”
He pushed a locked chest into my hands, throwing a hand to motion to the rail. “You’re coming with me,” he said again.
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“You can stay on the ship with them if you want.” He tipped a chin up to the quarterdeck, where several members of the crew were watching me. “Your call.”
I sighed, staring into the fog. If no one was on the ship to make sure Zola’s orders were followed, there was no telling what would happen. Koy had saved my neck once, but something told me he wouldn’t do it again if it came down to him and me against an entire crew.
I could see in Clove’s eyes that he knew I didn’t have a choice. “Where are we going?”
“I need you to make sure the merchant doesn’t try to pull anything with the haul. I don’t trust these Saltbloods.”
I shook my head, smirking incredulously. He wanted a gem sage to make sure the merchants didn’t swap any stones. “I’m not my mother.” Isolde had begun to teach me the art of the gem sage before she died, but I’d needed many more years of apprenticeship if I was ever going to have her skill.
Something changed on Clove’s face then, and it made my fingers curl tighter around the handles of the heavy chest. “Better than nothing.” The tone of his voice had changed too, and I wondered if the mention of my mother had gotten beneath his skin.
I took a chance in saying it. “You know Isolde would hate you, right?” I took a step toward him.
He didn’t blink as I looked him in the eye, but the courage I’d had flickered out the moment I invoked her name. He wasn’t the only one who wasn’t immune to Isolde’s memory. It snaked around me and squeezed.
Clove’s hands slid into the pockets of his jacket. “Get on that dock. Now.”
I looked at him for another moment before I shoved the chest back into his hands and pulled the hood of my jacket up. I said nothing as I climbed over the rail and down the ladder into a crowd of dockworkers on the slip. Zola stood at the edge before the harbor master, unfolding a parchment with the fake crest imprinted at its corner. I watched the man closely, wondering if he would catch it. Sailing under a false crest was a crime that would get you barred from stepping foot on another ship for as long as you lived.
The harbor master scribbled into his book, double checking the document before he closed it. “I don’t like unscheduled ships on this dock,” he grunted.
“We’ll be in and out. Just need a few supplies before we get to Bastian,” Zola said, his manner civil