"You are Liar Noland's descendant?"
Lucien heard the words come out of his mouth and immediately understood they were the wrong ones. He had said it the way the book had said it, without thinking, and the book had been written by people who had already decided what they believed.
Cricket's expression closed over like a shutter. He turned and walked away without a word.
"Wait." Lucien caught his wrist before he had taken three steps. Cricket stopped but did not turn around. Lucien let go of his wrist and came around to face him properly, which required Cricket to either look at him or make a deliberate effort not to, and he chose to look.
"I am sorry," Lucien said. "That was a poor choice of words, and I did not mean it the way it sounded. I read that book when I was young, and the title is what stayed with me. That was my mistake." He paused. "I do not think what is written in that book is the whole truth. A man does not go to his execution still telling the same story unless he believes it completely. Liars tend to find a way out before that point."
Cricket looked at him for a long moment, weighing the apology with the seriousness of someone who had received many insincere ones and had learned to tell the difference. Some of the tension went out of his shoulders.
"Are you new here? I have never seen you around."
"I arrived today," Lucien said. "I am looking for an old man named Cael. My father sent me to find him, but everyone I have asked has told me the same thing, that he does not like visitors and that I should leave. Do you know where he lives?"
Cricket's expression changed in the way that expressions change when someone has just been asked the right question at the right time. He straightened up slightly on the wall.
"Old man Cael. Yes, I know him." He said it with the quiet confidence of someone who understood that this information had value and was deciding how to spend it. "Everything you heard is true. He does not see people and he lives alone up on his hill. But if you tell me why you want to meet him, I will take you there. The old man might turn away most visitors, but not me."
"I do not actually know why," Lucien said. "My father told me to find him and tell him to repay the favour he owes. That is all I was given."
Cricket considered this with genuine interest. "The old man owes your father a favour," he repeated slowly. "That is strange. From what I know, he hates being in debt to anyone. What does your father do?"
"He builds ships," Lucien said. "Nothing beyond that."
"An ordinary shipbuilder made Cael owe him a favour," Cricket said, mostly to himself, turning it over with the expression of someone who found the puzzle genuinely enjoyable. Then he shrugged and dropped off the wall. "Alright. Come with me. I will take you to him." He started walking without waiting to see if Lucien would follow.
Lucien followed.
"Who is he, exactly?" he asked, falling into step beside him. "Everyone in that pub reacted like I had said something dangerous just by asking his name. Either respectful or frightened, nothing in between."
Cricket walked with the easy confidence of someone on familiar ground. "Old man Cael was a Marine. Not an ordinary one either. He was a Captain who trained at Marineford when he was young, came up from this island originally, and went a long way before he came back. The story I heard is that he had a serious falling out with someone there, someone significant, and one day he simply left. Came back here, bought the house on the hill, and that was the end of it." He paused. "The people who are frightened? Most of them made the mistake of bothering him at some point in the past and found out the hard way that retiring does not mean weakening. The people who are respectful just have more sense."
"And which category do you fall into?" Lucien asked.
"Neither," Cricket said, with the uncomplicated certainty of someone who had never had cause to doubt it. "He respects me. Or rather, he respects my ancestor, which amounts to the same thing when it comes to how he treats me." He glanced sideways. "Noland was a Marine before he left to become an explorer. Cael considers that worth something. He has no patience for most things but he has patience for Noland's family, which means he has patience for me."
"Your ancestor has both his positives and negatives here, doesn't he," Lucien said.
Cricket smiled at that, briefly and without irony. "It has its moments," he said.
Here is the refined section followed by the continuation into Cael's house:
"You genuinely do not think he was lying," Lucien said. It was not quite a question. "Even here, surrounded by people who have decided otherwise."
Cricket stopped walking. When he turned around his expression had shifted into something more serious than anything he had shown since they met, the easy manner set aside entirely.
"I believe him," he said. "I think everything he said was true. There is a city of gold out there somewhere, and I am going to find it. Whatever it takes, however long it takes. I will go out there and I will find it."
He said it the way people say things they have been carrying for a long time and have stopped needing anyone else to confirm. Not a boast. Just a fact he had already settled with himself.
Lucien looked at him for a moment. He thought about the book, the execution block, the king who had crossed dangerous water and found a jungle. He thought about what it cost a person to keep believing something that everyone around them had decided was foolish.
"I think you will," he said.
Cricket held his gaze for a moment, as though checking whether the words were genuine. Apparently satisfied, he turned and kept walking.