It took me a moment to realize that Clove was hesitating, staring into the corner of the room absently before he spoke. “There was talk in the village.”

“Oh?” Zola’s tone turned up, and when I caught his reflection in the mirror again, his face was lit in sly humor.

“Word reached Sagsay Holm yesterday that someone’s going port to port in the Narrows.” He paused. “Burning ships.”

Zola paled, and I wasn’t sure why. He had to know it wasn’t safe to leave his fleet behind in the Narrows. Whatever had brought him to the Unnamed Sea had to have been worth it to him. His hand shook just enough to spill a little of the rye on the desk, but he didn’t look up.

“Your ships, I suspect,” Clove added.

My fingers clamped down harder on the sill of the window.

“Saint?”

“West,” Clove breathed.

My breath hitched, the swift flare of fear making me still. If West was burning ships in the Narrows, he was putting the Marigold and its crew at risk. He couldn’t hide something like that from the Trade Council like Saint could.

“At least six ships gone,” Clove said. “Several crew dead. Probably more by now.”

I breathed through the sting lighting my eyes. Zola said that night in his quarters that West had enough blood on his hands to paint the Marigold red. I didn’t want to believe it, but there was some small part of me that already did.

“It doesn’t matter.” Zola was doing a poor job of keeping his fury at bay. “Our future and our fortune both lie in Bastian.”

“Bastian.” My mouth moved around the word.

We weren’t headed south because we weren’t taking this haul back to the Narrows. The Luna was going to Bastian.

“I want every inch of this ship cleaned and polished before we dock, understand? Every set of hands better be working from the time the sun comes up to the moment I see land on the horizon. I’m not making port in Bastian looking like a Waterside stray,” Zola muttered, taking the rye in one shot and pouring another.

Clove looked into his glass, swirling what was left of the amber spirit. “She’ll know the moment we dock. She knows everything that happens in that harbor.”

“Good.” Zola smirked. “Then she’ll be expecting us.”

I studied Zola’s face, confused. But slowly, the pieces began to fit together, the thoughts swirling in my mind before landing.

Holland.

He wasn’t using the haul to start a new venture beyond the Narrows. Zola was paying a debt. For years, he hadn’t been able to sail these waters without getting his throat cut by Holland. He’d finally found a way to make good with her, but how? Three hundred carats of gemstone was nothing to the most powerful gem trader in the Unnamed Sea.