Namesake (Fable, #2)

by Adrienne Young

And now everything within me ached for it. A flash of heat lit beneath my skin, the sting of tears gathering in my eyes. Because I’d been a fool. I’d let myself believe, even if it was just for a moment, that I was safe. That I’d found a home and a family. And in the time it took to draw a single breath, it was all torn away.

But when I stood at the cliff overlooking the sea, the sails of the Marigold were there. They were always there.

Now I was the girl who’d found her own way. And I also had something to lose.

There are some things that can’t be carved from a person, no matter how far from home they’ve sailed.

I don’t know what that makes me. His words whispered back to life in my mind as I touched his face and his arms tightened around me. But I didn’t feel afraid of him the way I thought I would. I felt safe. I didn’t know if I could love someone like my father, but I did. With a love that was deep and pleading. With a love that was terrifying. And I didn’t know what that made me.

“Are you telling me we don’t have a say in this?” “No. That’s not what he’s saying,” I said. “That’s exactly what I’m saying,” West interrupted.

“You’ve given him something to be afraid of.” She finally looked at me. Her eyes met mine, and I could see a thousand words she wasn’t saying in them. It was the truth. And this was exactly why Saint lived by his rules and why he’d taught them to me.

I couldn’t ignore the nagging feeling that I wasn’t going to find it in Yuri’s Constellation. That it was no accident that Holland’s crews hadn’t run across a single piece of midnight in the years since Isolde brought it up from the depths.

“I left you there because I have never loved anything in my life like I love you. Not Isolde. Not the trade. Nothing.”

“I didn’t plan to be a father. I didn’t want to be one. But the first time I held you in my hands, you were so small. I had never been so terrified of anything in my life. I feel like I’ve barely slept since the night you were born.”

It was one long series of tragically beautiful knots that bound us together.