23Lena didn’t go to Edwin’s room the next morning after she’d slipped into a pale blue sundress and tugged on Jace’s old boots. The inn was more crowded than usual—common for a Sunday, Mrs. Wyatt remarked, so there would be more meals to serve, more dishes to clean, more chores to do.
Extra chairs were crushed around the dining tables, filled with rowdy sailors. They smashed food into their mouths and argued over gambling debts. Occasionally, one would cause Lena to jump as he slammed down his mug of ale—a crude show of satisfaction, Mrs. Wyatt reassured.
Lena did her best to ignore the commotion, though it was shockingly uncouth. Much as she tried, she couldn’t quite close her ears to the mainstays of the morning’s conversation: record-breaking hauls of fish, shifts in the weather, and
