“I never asked for that.”

“It doesn’t matter. West was never going to stop going to that island as long as you were there. And when you almost got yourself killed, we were on the hook, taking you across the Narrows to find Saint.”

“I—”

But she wasn’t going to let me get a word in. “When that fell apart, who came and scraped you off the floor of the tavern? Me. Who risked their necks taking you to Tempest Snare? All of us.”

“You weren’t doing me any favors with the Lark, Willa. If it weren’t for me, the Marigold would still be anchored in Ceros with no sails.”

“I wish she was!” she shouted.

It wasn’t until the moonlight caught her face again that I could see she was crying. And they weren’t the kind of tears that fell in anger. They were sad. Broken.

“If West had lost the Marigold, I would have been able to leave,” she choked. “But you saved it. And I thought again, once he was out from under Saint and he had you, that I was free. But we cross the Narrows to find you and you’re already making deals. Going your own way. Like it all meant nothing.”

My heart sank, realizing that in a way, she was right. I hadn’t considered the cost for Willa. Not once. She’d told me that she had finally found a way to leave the Marigold. That she’d found a way to be free. And I’d taken it away from her, whether I’d meant to or not.

“You didn’t tell him that you’re leaving, did you?” I asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

She sniffed. “You don’t know what he was like before. When he was working for Saint. I thought once we were done with him, that the West I knew was back. But when you disappeared in Dern, he was that person again. He … he just vanished.”

“I heard about the ships. What happened?”

“It doesn’t matter. That’s not my brother. That’s what Saint made.” She wiped her cheek. “He was willing to leave everything in the Narrows to find you. He was willing to put you before the entire crew,” she said. “What else is he willing to do for you, Fable?”

I didn’t know what she wanted me to say. I understood it. In her eyes, I’d made West into the same thing my father had. And I could hear in Willa’s voice that she wished she’d never come to the tavern that night. That she’d never told me to ask the crew to take me on.

“He was wrong in forcing the crew to come to Yuri’s Constellation,” I said. “He was just afraid.”