The blade shook as I lifted it, waiting for him to come low, but he wasn’t moving. The glint of a knife shone in the darkness as Clove lifted his hands, reaching into Ryland’s hammock. I went still, watching his face from below and trying not to breathe. But Clove’s eyes were expressionless, the cool set of his mouth relaxed, his eyes soft.
The hammock shook above me and something hot hit my face. I flinched, reaching up to wipe it from my cheek, and another drop fell, hitting my arm. When I held my fingers to the light, I went still.
It was blood.
The hammock swung silently above me, and Clove sheathed his knife before he reached back up and heaved Ryland from inside. I watched in horror as he took him onto his shoulder and his limp hands fell beside my face, swinging.
He was dead.
I didn’t move as the sound of footsteps trailed to the door. Then he was gone, leaving the cabin quiet. As soon as the light stopped moving I sat up, staring into the black passageway, my eyes wide.
There was no sound except deep, sleeping breaths and the creak of swaying rope. The hushed hum of water against the hull. For a moment, I thought maybe I’d dreamed it. That I’d seen the work of spirits in the dark. I looked over my shoulder, searching the cabin, and froze when I saw him.
Koy was still in his hammock, his open eyes on me.
ELEVEN
I waited for the others to wake before I dared to move. I lay awake for hours in the dark, listening for the sounds of footsteps coming back down the passageway, but the ship had been quiet through the night until dawn summoned the first shift of crew.
I couldn’t feel the tiredness that had pressed down on me the day before. I could hardly even feel the pain in my leg, where my skin was puckered and red around the stitches. Ryland was dead, and the comfort of relief unraveled the tension wound around me. I wasn’t safe on the Luna, but Ryland was gone, and I didn’t think Koy would be the one to kill me in my sleep.
The real question was what had happened last night, and why.
I scanned the deck before I came up the last few steps, instinctively looking for Ryland to be sure I hadn’t dreamed it. Wick was up on the mizzen, replacing a grommet at the corner of a sail, the wind pulling his winding hair across his forehead. But there was no sign of Ryland.
At the bow, Clove was recording numbers in his log, and I studied the calm, unconcerned way he looked over the pages. It was the same look he had the night before, when I watched him take the knife to Ryland and haul his body from the cabin.
“Crew check!” the bosun called out, his voice echoing.
Everyone on deck grudgingly obeyed, leaving their work to line up against the port side. The last of the deckhands and dredgers came up from belowdecks, the sleep still dragging on their faces. I took my place at the end, watching the bosun look up from his book, marking names as he went.
“Where’s Ryland?” He set his hands on his hips, gaze trailing over each of our faces.
I caught Koy’s eyes across the deck. He didn’t flinch.
“Bastard never got back on the ship last night.” Clove grunted from behind him, his attention still on the logs.
My hands found each other behind my back, fingers tangling together. There was only one reason I could think of that Clove would go after Ryland, but it didn’t make any sense. He’d been the one to tell Zola who I was. He’d pitted me against the crew. Why would he try to protect me?
Tears welled and I tried to blink them away, wiping at the corner of my eye before one could fall. I was afraid to believe it.
I watched Wick for any sign that he was going to object, he’d probably seen the blood in Ryland’s hammock when he woke that morning. But even if he didn’t know who might have put it there, he didn’t want to cross them. He kept his mouth shut.
The bosun made another mark in his book, dismissing each of the crew, and a few minutes later everyone on the Luna was back to work.
Clove didn’t look at me as I went to the helm, his shoulders hunching as I came closer. I looked