Ravage the Dark: 2 (Scavenge the Stars)

by Tara Sim

  It wasn’t just the new walls, or the transition from the ship’s hard pallet to the softer yet lumpier mattress—there were new smells, new sounds. His senses were momentarily overrun by the mustiness of the place, the creaking of floorboards from other tenants.

  Cayo sat up and found Avi still asleep in the narrow bed across the room, the sheets pulled up to his chin and his black hair tousled.

  “This is how it’s going to work,” Avi had said last night. “You’re going to face the wall, I’m going to take off my binder and it’s going to feel great, and you’re not going to turn around until I’m done. After that, I don’t care what you do. You can walk around stark naked if it pleases you.”

  Cayo had obediently turned to the wall while Avi changed. “I won’t be walking around naked, trust me.”

  “Thank the gods for small miracles.”

  There were no windows in the bedroom, so Cayo fumbled in the dark to get out of bed and slip back into his trousers. He picked up his shoes and crept into the main room, not wanting to wake anyone on his way out.

  But someone was already awake. Amaya sat at the stained table, a chipped ceramic mug before her. She looked up, startled, and he couldn’t help but stare back. Thin golden light shone through the window, striping the table and the left side of Amaya’s face.

  “Oh,” she said. A simple word, but the way it was said was far from simple. “What are you doing up so early?”

  Cayo cleared his throat and began to put on his socks, wobbling slightly as he tried to balance on one foot. “I’m going to go check on Soria, to see how her first night in the hospital went.”

  “At this hour?” She glanced at the window, the sunlight shifting to the right side of her face. It turned her brown eyes from hickory to cinnamon. “I doubt Mother Hilas will let you through the doors yet. Also, maybe you should sit down while you do that.”

  Cayo was attempting to shove on one of his shoes while still standing. It was going poorly. But the alternative was to sit with Amaya at the table, and that felt like territory that should remain unexplored.

  Maybe you should make the effort to find out, Soria had told him when he’d complained about not knowing who Amaya was anymore.

  Sighing, Cayo gave up and pulled out a chair to sit across from her, lacing up his shoe. “What are you doing up so early?”

  “Having tea.” Amaya frowned at the steaming mug. “Or what passes for tea here.”

  “How did you find tea?”

  She gestured to the shelf above the potbellied stove, which held some dusty boxes and jars. “There was a canister of it. It’s stale, though. And tastes like dirt.” Amaya cupped her hands around the mug to warm them. “But it’s better than nothing.”

  Cayo would have killed for Narin, his family’s footman, to bustle through the door with a proper tea tray. To savor the aromatic steam and maybe even nibble on a seed biscuit. He nearly said so out loud, then realized Amaya was no longer the countess. She would think him spoiled, unused to life’s demands and the sacrifices they required.

  And the worst part was that she would be right.

  He tugged on his other shoe. Amaya watched him, her gaze steadier and calmer than he expected.

  “I doubt the hospital will be open to visitors yet,” she said. “We might as well use the time for something productive.”

  “What, like sharing stale tea?”

  “Yes.” Amaya lifted an eyebrow. “I can even teach you how to make it.”

  Cayo flushed. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—admit that he didn’t know how to make his own tea. But Amaya took pity on him and got up before he could answer, taking down a second chipped mug and filling it with hot tea from a battered kettle.

  “I expect you to do it on your own next time,” she said, setting the mug before him. “You’ll have all sorts of peasant tricks to learn now, Lord Mercado.”

  Cayo bristled. Where did she get off with that cold tone when she was the one who had betrayed him?

  “Don’t call me that,” he growled. “And don’t treat me like I’m some… some mindless dandy.”

  “I know you’re not a mindless dandy.” She sat back down, her voice and expression solemn. “But your life has been turned upside down, and I know what that’s like. So.” She wrapped her hands around her mug again. “Ask your questions.”

  Cayo took a deep breath and sipped at his tea, wincing at the heat and the muddy taste. He had a sudden flashback to the two of them at Laelia’s Teahouse in Moray, he as Lord Mercado and she as Countess Yamaa, dressed in decadence and surrounded by extravagance. Now they were sipping substandard dirt water at a lopsided table.

  “I guess I just have one question,” he said at last. “Who are you?”

  It caught her off guard. She sat back in her chair, the beam of sunlight slipping from her face as if she were taking off a mask.

  “I’m not sure if I have a good answer for you,” she admitted. “Since I’m still figuring it out myself.”

  “Try.”

  So she did. She told him about living in Moray as a girl, her Rehanese mother and her Kharian father, how the latter had taken out a loan from Kamon Mercado that he couldn’t repay. How her father had been killed for collecting blackmail on Mercado. How her mother had tried to have Amaya smuggled out of the city before Mercado could use her to open her father’s Widow Vault, where he stored his blackmail, and how she had been sold to the Brackish instead.

  Cayo listened in silence as she described those seven years of her life. She hadn’t been Amaya then—she had been Silverfish, a Water Bug, an indentured child determined to pay off her family’s debt. She had met Remy, and the other children she had later freed, and had had to bend to the whims of the violent Captain Zharo.

  “You killed him,” Cayo said, the first time he’d interrupted.

  Amaya’s face hardened. It sent a small shiver through his body, and he wondered if he was catching a glimpse of Silverfish.

  “I wish I had,” she whispered. “I was going to. But Liesl did it for me. She said I wasn’t ready to know what it felt like.” Her hands moved restlessly on the tabletop, picking up and setting down her mug. “He abused children, Cayo.”

  He ducked his head. “I know.” If he was being honest, he was glad the man was dead. The thought of Zharo lifting one of those ringed hands to a small child, let alone Amaya, was enough to make his gut boil.

  “But I have killed,” Amaya went on. “I stabbed Melchor, the man who sold me to the Brackish. I thought it would make me feel better.” She paused. “It did, in some ways. But it wasn’t enough.”

  Cayo glanced at the knife tattoo on her wrist. “Is this a habit of yours? Stabbing people?”

  “Why? Afraid you’re on my list?”

  “Am I?”

  Amaya studied him, and the silence that brewed between them was enough to get his heart pounding again.

  “Not anymore,” she said eventually.

  Cayo copied her by wrapping his hands around his mug, letting the heat bite his palms. “My father is, though.”

  “Yes. He ruined my family.”

  “He ruined his own family.” Cayo glared at his reflection in the bark-colored tea. “He ruined everything. And then he turned around and told me it was all my fault. But… he’s still my father. If you try to kill him, I’m going to try to stop you.”

  Amaya nodded, as if expecting it. “The situation is different now. I’m not working under Boon’s orders.” His jaw briefly clenched at the man’s name. “But I still don’t know what I’ll do if I encounter Kamon Mercado again.”

  He supposed that was fair. Frankly, he had no idea what he was going to do, either.

  “Have I answered your question?” she asked.

  Silverfish. Countess Yamaa. Amaya. Three girls in one, and yet somehow, they were all her. He could see it in how she held herself, how she regarded him, how she interacted with the world around her.

  “Yes,” he said, scooting his chair back. “But I don’t kn
ow how to feel about it. About… you.”

  Was that hurt flashing across her face, or had he imagined it? He turned to the door before he could find out, unable to trust himself with the answer. Unable to trust himself alone with her a moment longer.

  The sun had risen higher by the time Cayo walked down the street, passing the tattered facades of tenement buildings. This district of the city seemed largely residential, bordering on a slum, but the farther he walked the more the city broadened before him. People hurried past on their way to jobs; he spotted a boy with a chimney sweeper over his shoulder, a woman carrying a large basket of oranges, and a man opening up a hat shop.

  There was an older man sitting in a low chair by the street corner, a pile of papers stacked beside him and tied up with twine. He called out phrases that Cayo at first found odd, then realized were news headlines.

  “Prince of Moray dead of ash fever!” he yelled, first in Soléne, then Rehanese, then Circíran, the common language of the Sun Empire. “Former colony state in mourning! Cases of the fever spreading into Rhinar and Gregan! The emperor reluctant to call for a state of emergency!”

  Cayo’s chest tightened until he was far from the man’s cries. Somehow having the latest news yelled at him only made it seem that much worse. He lost himself in the growing crowd, passing under stone archways and following the stamped iron street signs as he navigated the city. The sound of spoken Soléne was everywhere, foreign and startling and making him miss home.

  He was so used to Moray’s organized layout that he couldn’t make sense of the winding streets that bled into one another. Cayo grew more and more flustered as he walked in a large circle, cursing under his breath. He even tried to ask someone for directions, dusting off his Soléne as best he could, but the response was too fast for him to make out properly.

  Trudging through the streets, he finally caught the scent of incense and followed it to the hospital. Soria was sitting up in bed, in the middle of brushing her hair. Her skin looked soft and flushed, as if she’d just had a bath. The boy she shared a room with was asleep.

  “There you are,” she said as her eyes lit up. They were clearer than yesterday.

  “Here I am.” He sat in the chair beside her bed. “How have they been treating you so far? Were you all right during the night?”

  “She did just fine.”

  Cayo turned to find Mother Hilas entering the room, Remy at her heels.

  “Did my sister have any more coughing fits? Tea usually helps—”

  “I appreciate your eagerness, young man, but we are trained professionals.” Still, Mother Hilas smiled at him. “Actually, we come bearing good news.”

  “I reported to my superiors last night,” Remy explained. “I came to tell Mother Hilas that our science officers are working with the local alchemists to make a medicine that should hopefully counter the fever.”

  “It’s not a guaranteed cure,” Mother Hilas said, first meeting Soria’s gaze and then Cayo’s. “But it’s all we have at the moment. We can include your sister in the new experimental treatment, if you wish.”

  Cayo turned to Soria. Although he wanted to say yes, he knew his sister should be the one to decide. She bit her lip, then nodded.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’d like to be included.”

  “Very well. However…” Mother Hilas hesitated. “I’m afraid the experimental treatment is going to be costly. In order to procure everything we need, we’ll need another payment from you, Mr. Lin.”

  Cayo’s mouth dried. For a second he was back in Moray, in the Slum King’s office, pleading for money for Soria’s medicine. Needing to do whatever it took to save her.

  But the Slum King didn’t reign here. He was going to have to obtain the money some other way.

  For the first time in his life, Cayo Mercado was going to have to find a job.

  When Trickster lies, the tree’s fruit tastes sweeter.

  —KHARIAN SAYING

  An experimental treatment?” Amaya repeated. “Will it be safe?”

  Remy shrugged. Everyone was seated at the apartment table except Cayo, who was still at the hospital with Soria.

  “As safe as they can make it, I’m sure,” he said. “I have no clue how that all works. I’m just good at following orders.”

  “You said the substance coating the discs is alchemical,” Liesl said. “Did they determine what it is? If it’s the cause of the fever?”

  “They’ve isolated it as the cause, yes. And you won’t guess what they discovered.” Remy sat forward, hands clasped together on the tabletop. “The gold plating on the coins? It comes from a type of sea creature. Brinies.”

  Amaya frowned. “Those scallop-like things?”

  “That’s them. You remember how I said I grabbed some papers from your father’s Vault before Mercado burned it all? They mentioned brinies and where to find them, but I had no idea how that could be important until the science officers returned with their findings. Once the brinies begin to die, they start to molt, and the result is the gold-like material that’s been grafted onto the discs. The moltings just flake right off their bodies. Unfortunately, once they begin the slow process of dying, they turn extremely poisonous. They think the moltings transmit some sort of disease that brinies carry naturally.”

  Amaya recalled hearing about a group of dinner guests who were poisoned by a batch of brinies gone bad. She also recalled washing up on that atoll where Boon had found her, how the rocks had been studded with brinies.

  “Too much contact with the moltings on the coins results in the fever, but they still don’t know if contact with an infected person raises the risk of catching it yourself.” Remy sighed and sat back. “Cayo might be at risk because of Soria, but I’m honestly more worried about you, Amaya. You were around Boon’s gold for a long time.”

  What he didn’t know was that she frequently checked her body for any signs of gray. So far, nothing. “I think I’m in the clear. Something would have manifested by now, right?”

  “You have no symptoms,” Liesl agreed. “And neither do the three of us. It’s a good thing those chests were kept below the estate. But we’ll need to keep being careful.”

  Amaya had told Cicada, one of the older Water Bugs, to take that fake money and use it to get the other Bugs home. She winced, wondering if she had made everything worse, if she had handed him a death sentence.

  But she hadn’t known then. All she’d wanted was for the children to return to their homes, to finally end this horrible chapter of their lives. She thought of Beetle—Fera—and wondered if she had reunited with the parents who had sold her.

  “Now that we actually know what’s causing it, we’re hoping the medics can work with the alchemists to figure out a cure,” Remy said. “But it’ll take some trial and error. Hence the experimental treatment.”

  “Do you think Boon knew it would cause the fever?” Deadshot asked.

  “If he did, he didn’t say anything about it to me,” Avi mumbled darkly. “Why couldn’t he have at least told us it was fake?”

  “He wanted to spread it among the wealthy in Moray,” Liesl said. “Some form of payback for what they did to him. Guess he didn’t know that Mercado and the Slum King were simultaneously getting their own cache into the casinos. I doubt they knew about its link to the fever, or else they wouldn’t have hoarded so much of it. Thanks to them, it passed through the hands of the poorer citizens, who have far fewer resources to fall back on.”

  Her voice was controlled yet tight with anger, eyes pinched with the same guilt that dug its claws into Amaya’s shoulders. Deadshot took Liesl’s hand in silent reassurance, but Amaya had no one to offer her the same.

  Until she looked up and saw Remy shake his head at her, eyes soft with understanding. This isn’t your fault, his look told her. She released a tense breath, thankful, but no amount of empathy could relieve her of the burden of Boon’s duplicity.

  “Most of the counterfeit coins had been making the rounds in Moray and
in the Rain Empire before Boon’s gold showed up,” Remy told them. “He certainly didn’t help matters, but he’s not the only one to blame. We need to find out who the Benefactor related to Mercado is and take them into custody.”

  “We also need to find a way to take the counterfeits out of circulation,” Amaya added.

  “That’ll bankrupt multiple countries,” Avi said. “And with tensions high between the empires right now, that would be a disaster, to put it lightly.” He got up and stretched, some of his joints popping. “Well, you all have fun with scheming. I’m going to do something productive and get a better layout of the city. If we’re going to be here for a while, we need to figure out where to go if our covers are blown.”

  “About that.” Liesl turned to Amaya. “I have an errand, and I’d like you to come with me.”

  Amaya tried to not let her surprise show; Liesl usually carried out errands on her own or with Deadshot. She had never included Amaya in her plotting back in Moray, simply assuring her that things would get done. Did that mean Liesl was beginning to see her more as an equal, someone who could follow in her footsteps?

  Amaya fought down an excited smile. “Sure. Of course.”

  “I’ll go with Avi,” Deadshot said. “I’ll stake out some escape routes, just in case.”

  As Liesl gave her a goodbye kiss, Remy pulled Amaya to one side.

  “I haven’t told my superior officers about you,” he mumbled. “They were so happy with the files I brought back that they haven’t asked me for more information yet. There’s no need to tell them you’re here—you won’t be questioned by anyone.”

  A knot she didn’t know she was carrying loosened in her chest. “Thank you, Remy.”

  “To be honest, they were surprised I managed to bring back anything at all. I was the initial scout, but now that we have more information they’ll be sending more officers to investigate.”

  Worry immediately rose within her. “They’re not going to send you again, are they?” She didn’t like the thought of being separated from him so soon after their reunion.