That West would look for me. That he’d come after me.

But if he did, that meant something even worse. I’d seen the shadow side of the Marigold’s helmsman, and it was dark. It was all flame and smoke.

You don’t know him.

The words Saint had spoken in the tavern that morning echoed within me.

Maybe West and the crew of the Marigold would cut their ties with Saint and with me. Set out to make their own way. Maybe I didn’t know West. Not really.

But I did know my father. And I knew what kind of games he played.

The saltwater stung against my skin as I scrubbed harder, and when I was finished, Calla was waiting with a new pair of trousers. I pulled them on and knotted the strings at the waist so they didn’t slide from my hips and she tossed me a clean shirt.

I raked my hair up into a knot as she looked me over and when she was satisfied, she turned to the passageway beneath the quarterdeck. She didn’t wait for me to follow, pushing past Clove to the helmsman’s quarters. But my steps halted when I stepped into his shadow and lifted my gaze, looking up at him through my lashes. The last bit of doubt I had that it was him disappeared as I studied his sun-leathered face. The storm of everything I wanted to say burned on my tongue and I swallowed down the desperate urge to scream.

Clove’s lips pursed beneath his mustache before he opened the log on the table beside him and ran a callused finger down the page. Maybe he was just as surprised to see me as I was to see him. Maybe we’d both been pulled into Zola’s war with West. What I couldn’t put together was how he could be here, crewing for the person my father hated more than anything.

He finished his entry and closed the book, his eyes going back to the horizon as he adjusted the wheel slightly. He was either too ashamed to look at me or afraid someone would see. I wasn’t sure which was worse. The Clove I knew would have cut Zola’s throat for putting his hands on me.

“Come on, dredger,” Calla called from the passageway, one hand holding the edge of an open door.

I let my gaze fall on Clove for the length of another breath before I followed, leaving him and the sunlight behind. I stepped into the cool dark, my boots hitting the wood planks in a steady rhythm despite the shaking that had settled in my limbs.