He sucked in his bottom lip. “I think you agreed to this deal because you’re not sure you want to come back to the Narrows.”

“The Narrows is my home, West. I’m telling you the truth. This is about me and Saint. Nothing else.”

He muttered something under his breath as he buttoned his collar.

“What? What are you thinking?”

“I don’t think you want to know what I’m thinking,” he said lowly.

“I do.”

He hesitated, letting a long silence stretch out between us before he finally answered, “I’m thinking that I was right.”

“Right about what?”

A bit of red bloomed beneath his skin. “When you asked me to take you onto this crew, I told you that if you had to choose between us and Saint, that you would choose him.”

My mouth dropped open, a small sound escaping my throat. “That’s not what’s happening, West.”

“Isn’t it?” His eyes were cold when they lifted to meet mine.

I recoiled, the words cutting deep.

“I’m not choosing him over you,” I said again, louder. Angrier. “If it was Willa, you’d do the same thing.”

“Saint’s not Willa,” he shot back. He was rigid, still slightly turned away from me. “He left you, Fable. When you went to him in Ceros, he didn’t want you.”

“I know,” I said weakly.

“Then why are you doing this?”

I could hardly get the words out. Looking at West in that moment, it felt as if they’d lost their meaning. “I just can’t let anything happen to him.”

West stared at me, his gaze growing colder. “Look me in the eye and tell me that we are your crew. That the Marigold is your home.”

“It is,” I said, the conviction in my voice making pain erupt in my chest. I didn’t blink, willing him to believe it.

He picked up the frock from the end of the bed and handed it to me. “Then let’s go.”

TWENTY-ONE

Lamplight still glinted on the docks, reflecting in the glass of shop windows on the hill. West stayed close to me, his long strides hitting the wood planks beside mine. He’d said almost nothing since we left Azimuth House, but the air between us rang with his silence. He was angry. Furious, even.

I couldn’t blame him. He’d left the Narrows to come find me, and I’d trapped him in Holland’s net.

Clove had been enraged when I told him, too. Mostly because he was the one who’d have to deal with my father. He followed us through the narrow streets, his precious chest of coin still pinned beneath his arm. I hadn’t seen it leave his hands since Holland gave it to him.