poured into my lungs, and I wrapped my arms around myself, eyeing the string of adder stones hanging in the window.
“What was that?” I said.
West pulled a green rye glass from the drawer of his desk and reached up to the bulkhead, feeling down the length of it. The hem of his shirt came up, showing a sliver of bronze skin, and I bit the inside of my cheek.
His hand finally hit what he was looking for and pulled an amber bottle from the rafter. He uncorked it, filling the glass. “I’ve been having this dream,” he said. “Since Dern.”
I watched him pick up the glass and the uncomfortable silence stretched between us.
He shot the rye, swallowing hard. “About that night that we killed Crane.” He held the glass out to me.
I took it, wondering if that’s why he’d woken with a start this morning in Azimuth House.
He picked up the bottle, refilling the glass. “We’re standing on the deck in the moonlight and I pry up the lid of the crate.” He set the rye onto the desk, his jaw clenching. “But Crane’s not in it. You are.”
The cold pricked my skin, making me shiver, and the rye shook in the glass. I brought it to my lips and tipped my head back, draining it.
“You’re angry at me. Not them.”
He didn’t deny it.
“You can’t make them go to Yuri’s Constellation.”
“Yes, I can,” he said firmly. “I’m the helmsman of this ship. My name is on the deed.”
“That’s not how this crew works, West.”
He looked past me to the dark window. “It is now.”
The ache in my throat made it hard to swallow. He’d made up his mind the moment I told him about my deal with Holland. Nothing I said was going to change it now. “This isn’t right. You should take the Marigold back to the Narrows.”
“I’m not taking the Marigold anywhere unless you’re on it,” he said, and it looked as if he hated the words.
This is what he was talking about when he said we were cursed. West was willing to defy the crew if it meant he didn’t have to leave me in the Unnamed Sea. He was already paying the price for that day in Tempest Snare and that night in his cabin, when he told me he loved me.
We’d both be paying as long as we lived.
TWENTY-TWO
“He’s got ’em!”
Hamish’s voice calling from the window made me drop the quill on the table. I slid out of the booth and went to the doors of the tavern, propped open to the street. Paj was walking up the cobblestones with three rolled parchments under his arm, his collar pulled up against the bitter wind. He shoved past a group of men headed for the merchant’s house, almost knocking one of them over.
Clove had volunteered to be the one to go to the mapmaker, not trusting Paj to do it. He hadn’t hidden the fact that he didn’t think our navigator could get the Marigold to Yuri’s Constellation and back again. But I’d had other errands for Clove.
I looked out to the street again, watching for any sign of him. He was late.
I slid my hands into the pockets of the new trousers Willa had begrudgingly gone to buy for me. It felt good to be out of that ridiculous frock and back in a pair of boots.
Paj was barreling through the doors a moment later. He made his way to the booth where we’d set up and dropped the maps haphazardly on the table. He didn’t bother looking at me. In fact, none of them had so much as glanced in my direction all day.
West ignored Paj’s display of indignation, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt. “All right. What have we got?”
“Look for yourself,” Paj grunted.
“Paj,” Auster warned, raising an eyebrow.
Beside him, Willa looked as if she approved of Paj’s protest. She huffed, stirring another cube of sugar into her cold tea.
Paj relented under Auster’s reproach, opening the maps on top of the ship log Holland had given me. “The midnight was found in Yuri’s Constellation. It had to be. According to the logs, Holland’s crew had been dredging the islands for over a month when Isolde found it, and they continued in that spot for weeks after.” He set a finger on the broken cluster of land masses. “Since then, Holland’s crew has dredged the hell out of those reefs. First from the north, working their way south. Then from the south, working