I was struck by the ease with which we’d slid into the old rhythms between us when only hours ago I’d been ready to kill him. Growing up, there wasn’t a day I wasn’t stuck to his side on the ship or at port. Looking at him now, I felt like I was ten years old again. And that feeling made me miss my mother.

“What happened between Zola and Isolde?” I asked softly, not sure I really wanted the answer.

Clove sat up straighter, pulling at the collar of his shirt. “What do you mean?”

“Saint told me they had history. What kind of history?”

He gave away more than he knew when he wouldn’t meet my gaze. “I think you should talk to Saint about that.”

“I’m asking you.”

He rubbed his hands over his face, letting out a long breath. When he leaned back into the chair, he looked at me for a long moment. “Zola had just established trade in Bastian when he met Isolde. She was trading at the merchant’s house, and I guess she saw a way out.”

“Out of what?”

“Whatever she was running from.” He clenched his jaw. “She struck a deal with Zola and took a place on his crew as one of his dredgers. But he wanted more from her than her skill with the gems. I don’t know what happened between them, but whatever it was, it was bad enough for her to pay him everything she’d saved to get off the Luna.”

I cringed, trying not to imagine what it could have been. “And then she met Saint.”

“Then she met Saint,” he repeated. “And everything changed.”

“How did she get him to take her on?”

“I don’t think he really had a choice. He was ruined for Isolde the first day she sat down beside him at Griff’s tavern.”

Griff’s. I couldn’t help but grin at that.

“They were friends. And then they were more,” he said, his eyes drifting like he was lost in thought. “And then there was you.”

I smiled sadly. The earliest memories I had were of both of them—Saint and Isolde. And they were cast in warm, golden light. Untouched by everything that came after. They’d found each other.

I took West’s ring from where it hung around my neck, holding it before me. I’d felt that way when he kissed me in Tempest Snare. Like we were a world of our own. We had been, in that moment.

If the rumors in Sagsay Holm were true, West was ready to give up the Marigold and everything else. I had to finish what my father started if I was going to keep that from happening.

“He couldn’t have planned this,” I said, almost to myself.

“What?”