She leans in, her apron brushing against my dress as her brown eyes fill with defiance. “Who said anything about stowaways?”
For a moment, I just stare at her, not understanding. But then, her gaze falls down to the coin again. “Like I said, take your token, girl.”
My fingers are a little shaky as I reach over and pick it up. It’s not the first time I’ve been tipped, but I’ve left every single coin behind. I’ve been too ashamed, too loath to touch them. But when Natia reaches into the pocket of her dress and pulls out a small patchwork pouch, I already know what’s inside.
“This isn’t for Zakir West, you hear? These are yours. It’s up to you how you use them.” She tips her head toward the harbor again. “I hear the ships with the blue sails and yellow suns are from Second Kingdom where it doesn’t rain for weeks on end, and the hot desert sand is as fine as powder.”
Just the idea of being dry and warm in a desert instead of constantly soggy from the cold port rain makes me shiver.
“But that’s not something a given-up girl thinks about, I guess,” Natia finishes with a shrug. “Is that what you are? A given-up girl?”
I swallow hard, my eyes flitting back and forth between her and the trio of ships with the yellow sails floating in the distance.
This thing she’s suggesting, this hope of escape, it’s what I’ve been aching for. And yet, if I were caught, if I failed…
Tears spring to my eyes, and my body trembles. Zakir wouldn’t just punish me, he might actually kill me if I tried to get away. Or he’d give me to Barden East once and for all, and then I’d wish I were dead.
“I can’t.”
“You could,” the old woman retorts, glaring at me with her hands on her hips and a scowl beneath her thickly arched brows. “That’s your fear talking, and it’s a weakness that you have to shove down before it towers over you.”
She’s right, I am weak. Her “given-up” nickname isn’t far off.
I’m weak and I’m alone, and in only six weeks, I’ve gotten the look of someone who’s caved in on herself. There’s just hollow spaces filled with broken walls and ragged pains, too much heaped in to ever be cleared out.
I hate that my bottom lip quivers, hate how small I feel. “I don’t know if I can. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to try.”
Natia doesn’t soften, doesn’t give me a kindly pat on the shoulder or tell me it’s all going to be okay. Instead, she shoves the pouch of coins at my chest so hard that it makes me stumble back a step as I quickly catch it.
“Either do it or don’t. Makes no difference to me,” she says matter-of-factly. “Though, it seems to me that trying and failing is better than giving up.” Her eyes scour mine like a soundless lecture. “Shove down weakness, and strength will rise. You can’t be strong without conquering those weaknesses first. That’s what I think, anyway.”
A chill travels down my spine as my fingers clutch onto the pouch, the edges of dirty money digging against my hold.
“Now go on and get out of here. I have customers waiting downstairs, and I still have to air this room out and get new bedding on. I can’t be wagging jaws all hours of the day when there’s work to do.” Giving one last stern look at me, Natia crosses the room and grabs the pile of soiled linens in her capable hands. Then she leaves without another word, while my ears pound with everything she already said.
I stare and stare at the pouch of coins in my hand, wondering if I dare, wondering how much it would cost me to bribe a captain for passage. I loosen the ties and dip my fingers in, pulling out a single golden coin, the sides worn and grimy.
I twirl it around, asking myself if I really have it in me to try. Maybe Natia is right. Maybe it is better to try and fail than to be the given-up girl.
At hearing a sound in the hall, I quickly drop the coin back in and cinch the pouch tight before I bury it in my pocket for safekeeping. But…is it enough? Do I need more?
As I hurry out of the room, my skin pinches and jumps again, but this time, it isn’t on my back.
It’s on my fingertips.
I’m plucked out of the memory when my bedroom door slams closed.
My eyes fly over to where Midas stands, and I immediately tense up. The anger on his tanned face makes his handsomeness drain away, replaced with something ugly, something that makes my stomach ache. My mind falters for a moment under his glare. It’s muscle memory, or maybe mind memory—something that makes me almost revert to old behaviors. The urge to placate, to please, is strong.