the best training there was, and by the time we were fourteen or fifteen, he was making the best silver pieces in Bastian. But Henrik couldn’t sell them.”
“Why not?”
“For years, the Roth family was the single largest producer of fake gems from the Unnamed Sea to the Narrows. The trade had made them rich, but it also cost them any chance they had at getting a merchant’s ring from the Gem Guild. It’s illegal for anyone to do business with them.”
That hadn’t stopped Holland from giving Henrik a commission, and I understood why. The sketches Ezra had shown Holland looked like something out of a myth. Only someone truly gifted would be able to cast a piece like that.
“So he’s using Ezra to get a ring.”
Auster nodded. “That’s what he wants, but he’s never going to get it. The Roths’ reputation is known at every port in the Unnamed Sea. No one’s ever going to trust Henrik, much less give him their business.”
“Holland did.”
“But she’ll never tell anyone who made it. Ezra will never get the credit for whatever she commissioned. Neither will Henrik.”
If Auster was right, then Henrik was a man trying to legitimize himself.
I tapped my fingers on the table. “Do you think they’d help us?”
“They don’t help anyone. They help themselves.”
“Unless there’s something in it for them.” I thought aloud. I leaned back into the booth, thinking. I didn’t know exactly what Holland had planned for the Narrows, but West had been right about her. She couldn’t be trusted. And I had a feeling that she was waiting to make her move. “Will you take us to him?” I asked.
Auster looked as if he couldn’t believe what I’d just said. “You don’t want to get tangled up with them, Fable. I’m serious.”
“Will you do it or not?”
Auster met my eyes for a long moment before he shook his head, letting out a heavy breath. “Paj isn’t going to like this.”
TWENTY-FOUR
“Crazy bastards.” Paj had been cursing from the moment we left the harbor, and it had taken all of Auster’s will to ignore him as we walked into Lower Vale.
When I asked Auster to take us to the Roths, I hadn’t expected him to agree.
Auster didn’t say exactly how he’d escaped his family when he and Paj left Bastian, and I didn’t ask. But it was clear that it was a past Paj didn’t want to revisit. He forbade Auster from taking us to Lower Vale, and only relented when he realized that Auster would go without him.
Now Paj had another reason to be angry, and I was more convinced by the minute that the break among us might be too great to be repaired. I hadn’t meant to pull them into Holland’s war on the Narrows, but West had made sure of it when he commanded them to Yuri’s Constellation. The only thing to do now was to see the plan through and hope we could salvage what was left of the crew after.
If Bastian had a slum, Lower Vale was it, though it was nothing to the stench and filth of The Pinch or Waterside in Ceros. Even the pigeons perched on the rooftops looked cleaner than the ones in the Narrows.
West walked shoulder to shoulder with Auster, shooting a warning look to the people on the street around us who were staring. They watched Auster as he passed, whispering to each other, and I didn’t know if it was because they recognized him or if it was because he was so striking. Auster had taken care with himself when he got ready in the crew’s cabin, brushing through his thick, dark hair until it lay over his shoulder like melted obsidian. His shirt, too, was clean and pressed. He was always beautiful, even after days at sea with no washing. But this Auster was magnificent. He was breathtaking.
Paj looked different too. There was an emptiness in his eyes that I hadn’t seen since the day he dared me to fetch a coin from the sea bottom at the coral islands. “I still think this is a bad idea,” he grunted.
That pushed Auster over the edge. He suddenly turned on his heel and Paj almost slammed into him as he came to an abrupt stop.
Auster looked up into Paj’s face, his mouth set in a straight line. “Are you finished?”
“No, actually, I’m not,” Paj growled. “Am I the only one who remembers what it took for us to leave these people behind? I nearly died cutting