Page 73 of A Promise of Peridot
“We seem rich to you?”
I shook my head and hoped that was the least offensive way to answer.
“Mainly spirits. Sometimes furs and pelts to the colder regions.”
A man in front of us with a knotted white beard scoffed. “That’s why we’re still working in our old age.”
“Settle down, Gage.”
“There are more lucrative endeavors is all I’m saying.”
“It’s all you’re ever saying.”
I tilted my head. “Like what?”
“Nothing you should worry your pretty little head over.”
Gage barked another laugh at his captain. “You afraid the lass’ll faint? Or squeal?”
All eyes fell to me, and a prickly sweat broke out across my back. There were only a few exports I could think of that would produce anything close to asqueal. I braced myself, even as I said, “Try me.”
Studs leaned in close, his breath hot and stale on the shell of my ear even in the jungle humidity, and said, “You ever heard of Faerie lighte?”
Horror swamped me. “No.”
“Course you haven’t. It’s not your fault. They don’t teach it in the fair lady classes I reckon you took.”
“What is it?” I asked, finding my voice as we climbed over the wide roots of a kapok tree.
“Type of witch called a Fae. Their power isn’t magic, but something they can pour right out like you and I piss. Sells for more coin than you could dream of in Smuggler’s Beach. Even more in the black markets of Rose and Garnet.”
Hadn’t Kane told me about this? The memories were fuzzy andsaturated with spirit, but I remembered him explaining it to me once, in his wine cellar.
“It could be bottled and sold, used to fuel anything. It could heal, build, destroy.”
“But you don’t sell it, even though Gage wants you to?”
“Doesn’t seem right. Like selling blood. Men have to live by some kind of code, don’t they?”
“How do those that do even get it? From the witches called the Fae?”
“Curious little badger, aren’t you?” Studs said, mussing my hair roughly. “There are other men that hunt the Fae down. It’s a specific skill, the harvesting. And a perilous one. Those Fae are powerful things.”
Whatever harvesting was, it didn’t sound pleasant. My veins itched at the mental image of having my lighte drawn out of me against my will.
“So why don’t they—the harvesters—just sell the lighte themselves? Keep all the profits?”
Studs made a clucking noise and I noticed a sparkle of silver there, embedded in his tongue. “You have to beknownhere in Smuggler’s Beach. Any old harvester can’t just walk up and sell their wares. Too many try to sell fake goods. My pop was a runner and seafarer, and his pop before him. I’ve built a booming business for myself with this crew. We run a tight ship—get it?”
My answering laugh was surprisingly genuine. “Well, then, thank you again, for changing your schedule to accommodate me.”
“It’s no trouble at all. I like to take the slower route when I can. Spend another day in the jungle, in Frog Eye. Who knows how many days any of us got left? I like to look at the iguanas and things. See the pretty women. Drink the ale.”
“Why do you say that? Because Peridot is more dangerous now, you fear for your life?”
Studs’s laugh was a hard braying noise. “Stones, no. In our line of work, it’s always one wrong step and you’re missing an appendage.”
“And yet, you could be doing anything else, and you choose to smuggle. Because it was your father’s business?”
