Page 3 of Drift: Willa & Koy

“I know it’s not your strong suit, but you need to be patient,” he said. “This is going to take time.”

I glared at him. That, he wasn’t wrong about. I’d never been good at waiting for anything, and it had gotten me into trouble more than once. But I also didn’t want to fail at what we were doing here. In five years’ time, we could be the first port of call for the ships from the Unnamed Sea who were coming to trade in the Narrows. The first gateway. That wasn’t nothing.

His gaze went behind me and I looked back to see Ailee. She ducked under elbows, turning sideways to wedge herself between the crush of people. She still had my toolbelt draped over her shoulders like a sash, a new, full bag of shot plugs in one hand, my adze cradled protectively in the other.

“What is she still doing here?” Koy sighed.

“I told you, she’s my apprentice.”

He rolled his eyes. “And which one of us is paying to feed her?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “I am.”

“Good.”

He started back up the docks and I watched him go. Ailee cowered a little as she passed him, getting impossibly smaller until he was out of sight. When she reached me, she was already rattling off the orders for the next ship on the docket.

“Bay nine, the little sloop with the red mainsail. Helmsman says the bilge pump is shot.” She let the toolbelt slide from her shoulders into my hands.

I fastened it around me. “Please tell me it’s not made of bronze.”

“Wood.” She smiled.

“What else?”

“Should have time for the schooner in bay one. I told him he’d have to wait until morning, just in case.”

I nodded. “All right. Let’s go.”

“Oh!” She reached into her jacket pocket, pulling out a wad of cloth. “Here.”

She set the small bundle into my hand and I unwrapped it to see a small hunk of cheese cut from the round in my post and an apple. I looked up at her.

“Haven’t seen you eat today,” she said, eyes bright.

The first time I saw her, I’d seen my brother. She was skin and bones, climbing down the ladder of a ship with a rusted scraper clenched in her teeth. For a month, each time that ship docked in our harbor, she climbed out like a rat to clean the hull before scuttling back in. It was a job for a grown deckhand, not an eleven-year-old girl, much less one that looked like she hadn’t seen sunlight in weeks.

I knew what it looked like when a waterside stray was being starved in the belly of a ship, because I’d seen those signs in West. Every few weeks, he made port in Ceros long enough to give me and our mother a few coppers he’d earned, and each time he showed up, he was sicker. Weaker. That all changed the day he came home and said that he’d taken a place on a crew for a trader named Saint—the best and worst thing that ever happened to him. To us.

The irony wasn’t lost on me. I’d left theMarigoldand West to finally sever the binds that kept us beholden to each other. Yet, here I was, tying myself to the first person I saw who reminded me of him.

I looked down at the apple and cheese in my hands.

The day I offered to wave the ship repair fees in exchange for that helmsman to leave Ailee behind in Jeval, I’d known, deep down, what I was doing. There was part of me that needed someone to take care of. But worse than that, there was also a part that needed someone to take care ofme.

TWO

Speck’s tavern wasn’t really a tavern at all. Not yet anyway.

The only part of the harbor that sat between the barrier islands and the beach was a series of narrow planks that stretched out over the water. They led to one place—a crude structure that was still mid-build, with a palm thatch roof and no walls to speak of. It didn’t have the dark, lamplit glow of the taverns in the other port cities, but that seemed prudent given the track record of the Jevalis. Even in the wild, somewhat lawless waters of the Narrows, there were certain rules. But here, people took what they wanted, and I preferred to feel like I could keep my eye on them, even if that was just a lie I told myself.

I followed the planks, my back aching from the work on the bilge pump. Ailee had been right. I’d had time for the schooner, too, which meant more copper before sundown. It also meant I’d need a glass of rye to curb the pain that settled between my shoulder blades. Otherwise, I’d never sleep.

The tavern was also the only place on the island that could pass as an inn. Four shanties had been constructed at the end of four separate docks and at high tide, especially on windy days, the water rose close enough to sometimes slosh in through the open door. It was a luxury Koy had fought me on, and the fact that they hadn’t gotten much use yet only served to prove his point. The other dredgers who’d formed a kind of council agreed with him. The only purpose they really served was to oppose me, though they’d also been useful in organizing building crews for the docks. Still, the shanties had been a strike against me that even I couldn’t argue with.

The chairs and tables were mostly full beneath the canopy, and a few peals of laughter carried away on the wind. I was beginning to recognize faces among the ship crews, and that was a very good sign. Helmsmen were coming back, even when they weren’t made destitute by a storm or a cargo hold of beetles ruining their grain stores.

“There she is.” Speck stopped wiping the wood counter when he caught sight of me.

---