Three figures climbed the masts in lockstep, working the lines to bring down the sheets, and before we’d even cleared the dock, the wind filled them into perfect white arcs against the black sky. The sails on the Luna made the ones on the Marigold seem small, and as soon as I thought it, I pushed the vision of the golden ship from my mind, ignoring the feeling that writhed inside me.

When the ship made it out of the bay, Zola murmured something under his breath to his navigator, and Clove dropped his hands from the helm and followed Zola into his quarters. The door closed behind them, and I studied the string of stars lifting up over the horizon. We were bearing north, not south.

I watched the shadows slide beneath the door of the helmsman’s quarters, thinking. We were farther from the Narrows than I’d ever been. The Unnamed Sea was a thing painted in my mind by the bright colors of my mother’s stories, but like the Narrows, it was filled with cutthroat traders, devious merchants, and powerful guilds. By the time Zola finished what he was doing, he’d probably be dead. And when the price for his sins was called in, I didn’t want to be anywhere near the Luna.

I went up the steps to the quarterdeck and leaned over the stern. The ship carved a gentle wake in the sea below, folding the dark water into white foam. Calla was stowing the lines, watching me warily as she wound the ropes. When she was finished she took the steps down to the main deck, and I looked around me before I flung one leg over the rail.

The ornate carving of the Luna’s wooden hull rose and fell in sweeping waves around the window of the helmsman’s quarters. I followed its shape with the toes of my boots, sliding across the stern until I could see the light from Zola’s cabin slicing through the dark between the slats of closed shutters.

I reached up, finding the lip of the window, and held close to the ship so I could wedge myself against the wood. The candlelit room came into view, and I squinted, eyeing the mirror that hung beside the door. In its reflection I could see Clove standing beside the small wooden table in the corner, a green glass of rye clutched in his big hand.

Zola sat at the desk before him, looking over the ledgers carefully. “It’s enough.”

“How do you know?” Clove asked, his worn voice barely audible over the sound of the water rushing below.

“Because it has to be enough.”

Clove answered with a silent nod, bringing the rye to his lips. The light glinted off the glass like a stone in a gem lamp.

Zola picked up the rye bottle. “What else?”