Namesake (Fable, #2)

by Adrienne Young

I wasn’t just some Jevali dredger or a pawn in Zola’s feud with West. I was Saint’s daughter. And before I left the Luna, every bastard on this crew was going to know it.

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

“You look nervous.” I folded my hands together behind my back, letting my head tip to one side. He gave me a weak smile. “Do I?” “Actually, you look terrified,” I said sweetly.

“I’m saying that when I helped Holland’s daughter escape Bastian, I fell out of her good graces.”

But a scent I knew poured into my lungs as I inhaled and looked up into green eyes, the glass shaking furiously in my hand. West.

“Isolde isn’t the only name we aren’t allowed to say.”

“I don’t want you to work for Holland because I’m afraid you won’t come back to the Narrows. To me.”

There was a lifeblood that connected the people who were born on those shores. The ones who sailed those waters. The people of the Narrows couldn’t be bought.

“I’d like to submit a request for a license to trade at the port of Bastian.” His voice echoed. “On behalf of my daughter and her ship, the Marigold.”

I didn’t miss that he said her name. I didn’t miss the way it sounded on his voice. Like prayer. It threaded through my heart, the stitches pulling tight.

“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.”

The first time I’d seen his darkness and every time he’d seen mine. We were salt and sand and sea and storm. We were made in the Narrows.