It was brilliant, really. My father used Zola’s feud with Holland to get him to sail to his own death. And why kill a trader and risk the fallout with the Narrows Trade Council when a powerful merchant in the Unnamed Sea could do it instead?

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, my voice far away.

Clove looked at me with an expression that echoed sympathy. But he kept his mouth shut, his eyes sliding to Holland. He didn’t want her knowing more than she needed to.

Clove took orders from Saint, and Saint had a reason for everything he did. The bottom line was that even if I trusted him, Saint didn’t trust me. And why would he? I’d worked my own schemes against him to free the Marigold.

My gaze drifted back to Zola’s blood on the white marble floor, and I watched the way it gleamed as the firelight moved over it. Only moments ago he’d stood next to me. I could still feel his grip on my arm, squeezing.

The deafening silence made me blink and I realized that Holland was staring at me, as if she expected me to say something. When I didn’t, she looked disappointed.

“I think that’s enough for one night, don’t you?” she said.

I wasn’t sure how to answer that. I wasn’t even sure what she was asking.

“You’ll stay here.” There was no invitation in her tone. She wasn’t asking. Her eyes were still studying me, moving over my hair, my shoulders, my feet. “We’ll talk in the morning.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but West was already speaking. “She’s not staying,” he said, clipped.

Clove picked up the box of coin lazily, tucking it under one arm. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to agree with him.”

He and West didn’t seem the slightest bit afraid of Holland, but I was terrified enough for all of us. At the lift of Holland’s finger, they’d be dragging West or Clove into the dark next.

“You’re all staying,” Holland said. “Fable’s not the only one I have business with.” But that calm in her eyes was the same one that had been there a moment ago when she’d lifted that finger.

In the hallway, I could hear something being dragged over the marble. I swallowed hard.

“I hope you’ll make yourself at home,” Holland said, reaching for the shining handle of another door. She pulled it open and a hallway lit with bright lanterns appeared.

She waited for me to walk through, but I didn’t move. I was staring at the portrait of my mother over the mantel, the firelight catching her eyes.