this moment. In fact, I’d been sure that if I’d told Koy the truth at the tavern, that he wouldn’t have ever stepped foot on the Marigold. I pulled Holland’s ship logs from inside my jacket and slipped the parchment from under the leather cover.
Koy plucked it from my fingers, unfolding it. His eyes narrowed as they moved over the diagram. “Midnight.” He scoffed. “You’re even more insane than I thought.”
I ignored the insult. “Opaque black stone. Violet inclusions. That’s all you need to know.”
“Good thing you paid me in advance.” He handed me the parchment.
Auster came up from belowdecks with two steaming clay cups, and I jumped down from the railing to meet him. He set one into my hands, and the bitter scent of strong black tea rose to meet me.
I took a sip, wincing. “Better keep them coming.”
“I figured as much.” He smirked.
Paj untied one of the baskets from the railing on the quarterdeck and tossed it down to Hamish, who was stacking them. He glanced at me over his shoulder, eyeing the cup.
Of everyone on board, Paj would be the most difficult to make peace with. His love and his hate seemed to be intrinsically tied together, with little in between.
“What did Henrik mean when he said that Paj was your benefactor?” I asked, taking another sip.
Auster leaned onto the railing beside me, lowering his voice so that Paj couldn’t hear. “I met Paj down on the docks while I was working a job for Henrik. Paj was crewing as a deckhand for a mid-level trader, coming and going from Bastian nearly every week.” He swirled the tea in his cup. “Not a month had gone by before I started waiting for his ship at the harbor.” Even in the dark I could see him blushing.
“And?”
“And not long after, Paj started putting together that I worked for the Roths. When things got…” He trailed off, glancing over his shoulder again. “Henrik found out about us, and he didn’t approve. We were together for maybe a year when I almost got my throat cut stealing inventory from a rye merchant for my uncle. Paj had told me before that he wanted me to cut ties with my family, but he hadn’t drawn a line in the sand. Not until then. He came and found me one night before he left port, and he asked me to leave Bastian and the Roths behind. If I didn’t, we were done.”
“You had to choose. Between him and your family.”
“That’s right.” Auster’s eyes paled to the faintest shade of silver. “Paj heard there was a sailmaker willing to pay a lot of coin to be smuggled out of Bastian, and he took the job. Nearly got himself killed, but he pulled it off.”
“Leo?” My voice rose.
Auster smiled in answer.
Leo was the sailmaker-turned-tailor who’d set up shop in North Fyg in Ceros. He’d also been the one to save the Marigold by making us a set of sails when no one else would.
“He’d gotten into some kind of trouble with Holland and needed to disappear. Paj showed up at my door a few days later with three purses of coin and said he was leaving the Unnamed Sea and not coming back. He gave me a day to decide.”
“And you just disappeared? Without anyone knowing?”
“No one except Ezra. He was there the night I left, but he let me go. Pretended like he didn’t see me climbing out the window. If he’d told anyone I was gone, I wouldn’t have made it out of the harbor.”
So there was more to Ezra than Henrik and the Roths. “Would you ever change it? Go back and stay with your family?”
“The Roths share blood, but they’re not a family.”
I didn’t press. Something told me if I did, it would unearth whatever Auster had buried when he left Bastian behind.
“But I wouldn’t.” He leaned toward me, pressing his shoulder to mine. “You know, go back. Change it.”
I swallowed down the urge to cry. He wasn’t just talking about Paj or the Roths or Bastian. He was also talking about me. Auster had been the first one on the crew to trust me. Somehow, he still did. I shoved back into his shoulder with mine, not saying a word.
“Ready?” West’s voice sounded behind me and I turned to see him standing before the helm, both of our belts in his hands.
I handed Auster my cup before West tossed my belt into the air. I caught it, eyeing