“I remember,” Reynald told me. “Trust me.”
“Question.” Lute raised his hand. “Why are we going through all this trouble for some overpriced salt?”
Because the fate of the kingdom depended on it. “Get me that barrel and I will explain everything,” I said.
CHAPTER15
PLANTER14
Ileaned on the wall of Spotter’s Rampart. Behind me lay the city, shrouded in darkness. In front of me most of the harbor was dark, too, except for this stretch of the Combs. Large barrels dotted the wharf and the Yolentas’ pier, blazing with orange flames. Each barrel came with a polished metal circle affixed to the rim. It jutted straight up, like a wheel on a cart, reflecting the light from the fires and illuminating a chunk of the pier like a streetlamp.
A huge ship floated at the end of the pier, its carved hull wide, almost bloated compared to the graceful, leaner waverunner moored at the next dock. The waverunners were built for speed, while the Yolentas’ trade vessels were meant to carry as much cargo as safely possible.
At the end of the pier, a small harbor crane swung back and forth. On board the ship, dim shapes loaded barrels onto the crane platform. Once full, the crane swung to the pier, and a couple of burly workers heaved the barrels onto handcarts.
A line of dockworkers moved along the pier, carting barrels to the warehouse and returning to the ship with the empty carts, like worker ants marching from the anthill to a picnic and back again. One of these workers was Will, but from this distance I couldn’t tell where he was. They were all large men, pushing identical handcarts, and the orange glow reduced them to dark silhouettes.
Next to me, Shana peered at the line of dockworkers. We waited side by side, wrapped in our cloaks.
A gust of wind swirled around me, flinging cold marine air in my face. I shivered.
“I need to make you a shawl,” Shana murmured.
“It’s almost summer.”
“Yes, and if I start now, it will be done by the fall.”
“We’ll have to live that long.”
“That’s your job. Keep us breathing.”
The human conveyor belt below kept moving. The person behind this scheme was very careful. The first and last batches of barrels, twenty-five each, would contain only pink salt. We needed to target the barrels in the middle batch, roughly a hundred of them, marked with a small triangle burned into the lid. The burn mark was so small, only someone looking for it would notice it. There wasn’t a lot of light on that pier. The easiest way to find it was by feel.
Nothing would happen until Will put one of those barrels into his cart.
I pulled Everard’s den out of my sleeve pocket, rubbed it between my fingers for luck, and put it back. Please let it go well . . .
“It will be fine,” Shana murmured next to me. “My boys have done far worse. The stories I could tell.”
“I’m worried about the kids.”
“Clover and Kaiden can handle themselves. They know their parts. They’ve practiced.”
Reynald was a big believer in “practice makes better.” Kaiden had spent the last two days sprinting through our courtyard and chucking various objects into empty baskets and barrels, while Reynald and Gort took turns supervising. Those two would have made excellent high school football coaches. Gort especially.
I had spent the last two days stressing out and making a large batch of soap. Yesterday we had strapped a tray to Lute and sent him, some sample bars, and his winning smile toward the market. He came back in half an hour without the soap but a noma and a half richer. I didn’t dare to sell more until we registered our shop, but it was a good sign, and Clover stopped sweating bullets over our production costs.
The kids were down on the wharf, waiting. Reynald was down there somewhere, too, hiding in the alley to our right, ready to step in if things went badly. Gort was farther east, waiting in one of the plazas with Honey and a leased horse cart. If everything went well in the next few minutes, we’d be loading one of the marked barrels into it.
I needed things to go well. So much was riding on it. I needed a win in the worst way. If this went to plan, I would have Reynald’s confidence, and eighty people wouldn’t have to die.
A dockworker passed by the farthest barrel, right by the ship’s gangplank, and stumbled.
“That’s my boy,” Shana murmured.
The signal. Will had found a mark on his barrel.
I picked up the lantern resting by my feet. Shana grabbed a long pole, and we hung the lantern on its end. We waited. We had to time it just right.
