Page 2 of Drift: Willa & Koy

I smirked. He had a knack for conjuring up old sea tales about a rusted piece of metal from a famed ship or a mythical creature who’d lost a tooth. There was at least one bastard a day who gave in to temptation and bought whatever he was selling.

“Anything else of note?” I asked.

His bottom lip jutted out as he thought. “Other than the number of times I’ve heard your name mentioned in somewhat unsavory conversation?”

“Yes,” I exhaled, “other than that.”

“Then, no. Nothing of note.”

I scanned the docks, eyes flitting from one sun-leathered body to the next. I hadn’t been able to win the Jevalis over, but that didn’t stop them from making coin on the docks I’d helped to build. If it weren’t for me and my copper, the island would still be living off of its dwindling caches of pyre.

My eyes stopped on a face I recognized. Bruin.

He stood at the corner of bay three, hands tucked into his pockets as he watched a cluster of the brig’s crew coming down the docks. There was something about that look in his eye that made me follow his gaze. He was looking past the deckhands, to a woman with a coil of rope slung over her shoulder. She fell into step behind the crew, catching up in just a few seconds, and then Bruin was moving, folding himself into the crowd from the opposite direction.

As soon as he was weaving in and out of them, the woman lurched forward, tripping and throwing her arms out to catch herself on the man in front of her. Not just any man. The stryker of theIris. He went toppling down and then Bruin was hoisting him up, back onto his feet. A string of words I couldn’t hear passed between them as he brushed off the man’s jacket and clapped him on the back. But the shine of gold clutched in his hand made me grit my teeth.

“Shit,” I muttered, taking off in their direction.

The crew was already at the end of the docks, heading up the steps that led to the tavern by the time Bruin tucked that gold into his pocket.

I was only steps away when a hand caught me by the shoulder, twisting me around. Koy had hold of my vest, his attention on the end of the docks as he led me in the opposite direction.

“Don’t even think about it.” His voice was low, but his face was cast in a calm, unbothered expression.

I shrugged him off, whirling to face him. “I just watched Bruin pickpocket theIris’s stryker.”

If Koy was surprised, he didn’t show it. There wasn’t the slightest shift in the way he looked down at me. He was a whole head taller, maybe more, and his once long black hair was now cut almost to the scalp. Beneath one arm, he was carrying a crate filled with messages that had come in on one of the ships.

“Did you hear what I just said?”

He looked bored. “I did.”

“How long do you think it’s going to take him to realize his pocket watch is gone?” I flung a hand into the air.

“People are pickpocketed at every port, Willa.”

“We’renot every port. Every trader in the Narrows already thinks this island is nothing but a squatting place for thieves. If we want ships to keep docking here, to pick us up on their routes, we can’t play into that story.”

His eyes lifted over my head, to the bays behind me. “Doesn’t look like it’s keeping them away.”

“Do you see a single crest from the Unnamed Sea in this harbor? It’s not enough to plug holes for low-level traders. If we want Jeval to become a real port, we need the Saltbloods,” I said, exasperated. “If we don’t have their coin, then we don’t have inventory. We don’t have merchants or piers. We’ll never have a drydock—”

Koy sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between his eyes. “If I have to hear about this drydock one more time,” he muttered.

“I’m telling you we need one. Only two other ports in the Narrows have them and we’re the last stop before Sagsay Holm.”

“There are about a hundred other things we need before that, Willa.”

“We have a whole island just waiting to become a port city, Koy. And it’s never going to happen if Jeval’s reputation doesn’t change.”

“I told you. You have to pick your battles with them. We were living a life here long before you arrived, and things aren’t going to change overnight.”

“It’s been almost a year, and I didn’t justarrivehere. I didn’t wash up on that beach one day—you and I have a business agreement. We’re partners.”

“I know.” His tone changed, softening. “I know that.”

We’d had this conversation more times than I could count, and I knew that he agreed with me. Koy was the first person to see the potential of this place, but he was still stuck between the boy who’d grown up surviving here and the man he was trying to become—harbor master of the port of Jeval.

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