Fable

West pointedly ignores Fable after she dives for the anchor. Willa tells Fable that she’s had her dagger since she stole it from an intoxicated man when she was five years old. She claims that West has “a really bad habit of making other people his problem” (160), which is why he got her dagger back and gave her a place on his crew. Willa says that her only wish is not to die alone, and Fable understands that all too well. Zola had Crane brand Willa because he felt that the Marigold was intruding on his profits.

Later, Fable watches West steer the ship and wonders if his childhood in Ceros’s Waterside was anything like the hungry orphans she saw on her visits to the city with her father. She explains that she needs to keep busy and feel useful, but West argues that she’s not part of his crew. He doesn’t think that Saint will hire her, and he warns that working for Saint comes at a cost: “We both know that surviving means sometimes doing things that haunt you” (164). Despite the secrets and lies between them, Fable feels loyalty and concern for West because he saved her life and because she knows her father is a dangerous man.