by Tara Sim
“If you don’t even know the basics of alchemy, I doubt you can help.” Florimond turned back to his experiment. “But I’ll let you know. You can go for the day. Your payment is under the counter.”
Not a whole lot of information to bring back to the others, but it was a start. At least he now knew that Florimond was one of the alchemists working on a cure, not the cause.
Which left them to figure out who in this city was funded by Deirdre.
With his full day’s wages in his pocket, Cayo made his way back to the hospital to pay the administrator. Although the first treatment hadn’t yet reversed the effects of ash fever on his sister, and although Florimond said they were still far from a cure, he couldn’t help but feel the first blossoming of hope like the gradual crawl from winter to spring.
Then a whistle pierced the air.
Cayo looked over his shoulder. The three pickpockets were following him like wolves on the scent of blood, smiling eagerly.
His stomach sank. They had marked him as an easy hit, someone they could repeatedly target without repercussions. No, it was more than that—this had become a game for them, one where they always won and he always lost.
Cayo hoped the few people on the street would provide a buffer between him and the thieves. But as he picked up the pace, he realized he couldn’t lead them to the hospital or the apartment—if they knew his regular route, it would just provide them with more opportunities to jump him in the future. And if he ducked into a shop to avoid them, they would simply wait for him to come back out before resuming the hunt.
He had to confront them—and make sure it was the last time.
Cayo turned into a narrow alley. Their footfalls rang behind him, quickening their pace to match his. Cayo’s heart hammered as he navigated the streets, searching desperately for a place where he could make his stand.
He finally came across a small four-way intersection that joined two alleys together, forming a little square. There was a toy horse leaning against the side of a building, as well as some gnawed-on chicken bones. Cayo put his back to the wall and waited.
They each came out of a different alley. The short boy looked surprised to see him standing there, but it was quickly replaced with a hungry grin.
“Look, he’s gettin’ smarter,” the boy said. “He knows to get it over with.”
“Aww, but I liked it when he fought back,” the girl pouted.
“We could make it more fun,” the tall boy suggested. “Three rounds, best two outta three wins?”
“Oh, I like that!”
“There won’t be any more rounds,” Cayo said, his voice firm. “I’m not going to be your plaything any longer.”
“Oof!” The short boy pretended to stagger back as if from a blow, holding up his hands. “Such mean words from such a pretty face! Makes me wanna teach you a lesson.”
“Teach ’im,” the girl growled with excitement, eyes shining as she bounced on the balls of her feet. “And lemme watch.”
The three of them stalked closer. Cayo took a deep breath, then reached behind him.
Drawing out his pistol, he cocked the hammer back with a thumb and aimed it at the short boy’s chest. “Stay back.”
The thieves froze. For once, Cayo saw genuine fear in their eyes.
“Hey,” said the short boy. “Hey now, that’s cheatin’.”
“And ganging up on me three to one is fair, is it?” Cayo countered. “You’re not taking any more of my money. In fact, I’d say you owe me money.”
The pickpockets glanced at one another, silently weighing their options. The girl shifted on her feet. “We got nothin’ today. You were gonna be our only mark.”
“Then it seems we’re at an impasse. I suggest you leave.”
The short boy scowled and moved closer, but Cayo aimed the pistol higher, at his head. The boy stopped in his tracks.
“I said leave,” Cayo repeated.
The short boy spat on the ground between him and Cayo. “Keep your damn money, then. Let’s go.”
The three pickpockets skulked away, throwing Cayo dirty looks over their shoulders. He stayed in place, barely daring to move until he could no longer hear their footsteps. Then he let out a long, relieved breath and leaned over to rest his hands on his knees.
“I did it,” he muttered to himself, laughing slightly. “I did it!”
Although he felt a twinge of guilt for aiming the gun at them, hope rose higher in him with every step he took toward the hospital, Jazelle once again snugly hidden under his jacket. He had fended off his attackers on his own. He had been able to walk away with money for Soria.
Maybe this was what happy felt like.
Cayo bounded up the stairs of the hospital, his body light and running on the high of adrenaline. He passed Soria’s room on the way to the administrator’s office, digging into his pocket for the money that was owed.
He knocked on the door before opening it all the way—and froze.
Instead of the administrator, Mother Hilas sat slumped at the man’s desk, staring blankly at the wall. At the sound of his knock, her dark, deadened eyes lifted to meet his.
“What…” Cayo walked inside, looking around as if he could find any clue as to what was happening. “Is something wrong? Where’s the administrator?”
Mother Hilas stared at him. To his silent horror, tears began to run down her face.
“Gone,” the woman whispered, her voice ragged. “He’s gone.”
Cayo’s heart beat low and hard, a sickening rhythm. “What do you mean, gone? Did he get the fever?”
“No.” Mother Hilas took a shuddering breath, covering her face with her hands. “He… He took everything. All the money patients spent for the experimental treatment… all the medicine… He took it and fled. The reason why the patients haven’t been getting better is because he switched the treatment with a placebo. No doubt he’s planning on selling the real thing through some backchannel market for three times the amount.”
The world turned hazy and dark. Cayo collapsed into the nearest chair, struggling to pull air into his lungs.
“But… But there is a treatment,” he said slowly, his words distant, insubstantial. “They can make a new batch.”
“Yes. But the patients who were already paying for it…” Mother Hilas wiped at her eyes even as a small sob escaped her. “All that money, wasted, and for nothing. It’ll be more expensive to make a new batch, and now most of them can’t afford the real thing.”
Which meant he wouldn’t be able to afford it, either.
The song he’d sung all his life was that so long as he had enough money, he could solve any problem. A quick exchange of coins, and doors would open for him. The world would bend itself over backward just to keep that flow of currency coming.
He was beginning to see more and more that money didn’t solve problems—it created them. So long as it existed, greed would always run the world.
The medicine was gone. Soria wasn’t going to get any better unless he found a way to pay for new doses of medicine. But he doubted Victor or Florimond would pay him anything more than what he was already making, and even though the other night had been successful, he wasn’t about to become a thief.
Making an honest wage hadn’t been enough. And in a city full of the struggling poor and the thriving rich, it was all too clear to him now that playing by his old rules wouldn’t work. Those rules had been written by people like his former self, people in power who only wanted personal gain.
You should visit the Casino District, Jasper had said. I’m sure they’re looking for young, attractive dealers.
Cayo gritted his teeth and tried to drive the words away. If he couldn’t throw money at his problems, he had to do whatever he could to help the alchemists, help Florimond, with the cure.
If there was even one to be found.
NIHA: Do not forget the relief that laughter brings.
ARME: And if the laughter will not come?
NIHA: The
n you must forge joy in whatever way you can.
—THE LADY OF HIRAI, A PLAY FROM REHAN
When she had been training in Viariche, Amaya had often seen Boon drunk. At first she had let it go—he was a slob of a man whose life was far from easy—but eventually it started to nip at her.
They had been walking back to the Brackish one night when Amaya’s patience snapped. She’d wanted to go back to the apartment she shared with the other girls, but Boon was too far gone to make the walk on his own. With his luck, he’d burst into the nearest guard station and serenade them with a ballad of his misdeeds.
So Amaya walked beside him as he stumbled and shuffled, alternating between curses and giggles. She wasn’t sure she had ever seen him so far gone.
It scared her.
Boon had scratched at his black beard and squinted at her. “Wasser problem?”
Amaya’s gaze had been focused on the bumpy road leading to the docks. “What?”
“Your face,” he’d grumbled, gesturing to his own countenance, his brown skin already creased with wrinkles. Then he’d cackled, his breath reeking of alcohol. “Used to know a woman’d scowled like that.”
He’d put a hand on her shoulder, jostling it in what she could only describe as a fond gesture. But there was no way a man like Boon held any softness for girls like her. Or anyone, for that matter.
“Why do you do it?” She had blurted it out before she could stop herself, but his inebriation had made her bolder, hoping he wouldn’t remember it come morning. “All this drinking, stumbling around in gutters.”
Boon had scoffed. “Think I like gutters?”
“You certainly like alcohol.”
“Aye.” He’d lifted a hand as if expecting to find a bottle there, then scoffed when it turned out to be empty. “Helps the mind, y’know?”
“No, I don’t know.”
“’S like a… balm. Now that’s an odd word, huh? Balm.” He stretched the word out consonant by consonant. “There’s things I’d rather not think, yeah? But when the mind’s addled, no problem.” He’d pressed a finger to his temple. “No problem.”
Amaya still didn’t understand, and she didn’t think she ever would. There were times Cicada would sneak her sips of lupseh on the Brackish, and she had enjoyed those, the pleasant warmth in her belly and the way it helped ease the soreness of her body.
But this excess was different. It was medicine for a sick man who knew he was never getting better so long as he kept taking it.
They’d arrived at the Brackish, and Amaya had waited for him to walk up the gangplank. But Boon had just stood there a moment, swaying slightly. Finally, he’d turned and gripped her chin, startling her.
“Whatever ’comes of you, don’t be like me.” His voice had been low, plaintive. “Not this. This…” He indicated himself: his soiled shirt, his ratty jacket, his bloodshot eyes. “Whatever this is.”
Amaya had stared at him, unsure where this was coming from. “I won’t. Trust me.”
He’d chuckled and patted her cheek. “Aye. Much smarter’n me, aren’t you?” He would have normally said it as a taunt. Instead, he’d sounded sincere. Proud, almost.
Amaya had stepped back from him, feeling strange. “Go to bed, old man.”
Boon had made a shooing motion at her before navigating the gangplank. Amaya had walked back to the apartment, rubbing her chin.
He’d given her a warning she hadn’t needed. But she couldn’t help wondering if there was something else to it, if he’d had some inkling of what would befall her in the next few months. If he had known, even then, that she would go against his plans, repaying one betrayal with another.
“Do you realize how many disturbance reports there are in Baleine?” Remy asked around a yawn. It was early morning, the sky a pale gold. The sun, newly risen, was the only thing keeping Amaya from shuddering on the wooden bench where they sat outside a tea shop.
A thin, greasy sheet of brown paper sat between them, bearing a solitary pastry they were slowly working through. It was flaky and buttery, and completely covered with sugar and slivered almonds. She was trying very hard not to inhale the entire thing, considering Remy had bought it for them and deserved at least a few bites.
She had desperately needed to get out of the apartment. Cayo’s presence was like a low hanging fog, permeating and suffocating. He was understandably on edge after learning the hospital administrator had run off with the medicine—no doubt to peddle and make himself a small fortune—and that paired with Liesl’s desperation made for a heavy atmosphere.
Not that she wasn’t empathetic. If she could, she would track down the fake administrator and turn him into a pincushion, returning the medicine that Soria needed. But he was long gone, and they had to focus on what was feasible with the knowledge they currently had.
“We just need one that matches Boon’s description,” Amaya said as she twisted a bit of the flaky bread away and popped it into her mouth. “If we can find a report that matches his description, maybe we can find him. He did all sorts of reckless things in Viariche when we were there. One time I had to save him from a woman with a gun.”
“Was he flirting with her?”
“No, he was trying to steal her gun.”
When she had told the story to Liesl afterward, they had shared a laugh. But now as she thought back to those days, she could feel her heart hardening. It was easy to consider Boon pathetic, unreliable, foolish—but what lurked beneath was a mind far craftier than he ever let on.
“All right.” Remy sighed, pushing the rest of the pastry her way. “I’ll see what I can dig up. Don’t expect to hear from me for a century. Or at least, not until we deal with the Ghost Ship.”
She was halfway to shoving the pastry into her mouth when she stopped. “The what?”
“There’s a ship anchored out in the harbor. It just showed up overnight.” Remy shrugged, too sleepy to be properly curious. “There’s no sign of anyone on board, but we can’t lead it to the docks in case there’s something dangerous inside. So it has to stay out in the harbor until the navy can dismantle it. But of course, we need the order cleared first, and there’s a bunch of paperwork.…”
“Why would someone just abandon their ship in the harbor?”
“Probably desperate to get into the city. They’ve doubled down on the quarantine, sending entire crews away.” Remy shook his head. “But leaving your ship in the harbor and swimming the rest of the way to Baleine? That’s ridiculous. Surely they could have thought of something better.”
Amaya plucked an almond sliver from the pastry and chewed on it, staring at the small brown birds hopping around them, hoping for crumbs. “Thank you, Remy.”
“For what?”
“Everything. For getting us into the city. For helping us. For breakfast.” She laid her hand on top of his. “Just… thank you. I don’t know how we could do any of this without you.”
He looked genuinely startled before passing it off with a grin, squeezing her hand in his. “Hey, of course. I know you’d do the same for me.”
“I would. I would decimate an entire city for you.”
“Please don’t do that.”
Amaya spent the rest of the day in a strange mood. She felt restless and tired at the same time, her body crying for action even as her mind cried for calm. It didn’t help that whenever her mind wandered, it inevitably returned to Basque’s manor, to the feel of her teeth on Cayo’s skin. She groaned in mortification every time.
She was brought out of her listlessness when Deadshot and Avi returned from their day of investigating Robin Deirdre. Liesl sat at the table, muttering and scratching out words as she worked on Basque’s code. She had been like this all day, only surfacing to ask if Amaya was dying due to all her pained groaning. The girl had barely eaten or drunk anything, so fixated on the code that everything else became inconsequential, even gathering information on Deirdre.
When Deadshot placed a hand on her shoulder, Liesl startled.
“What? Yes?” Liesl blinked at them through fingerprint-smudged glasses.
“We found out the Deirdre family’s been part of Chalier’s nobility for a long time,” Avi said. “They rose in power when one of their heirs married into royalty, back when Chalier was still an independent nation.”
“But then the empire came along and made the royal family obsolete,” Deadshot added.
Avi clucked his tongue. “It’s likely her family is doing all they can to get back to the top. Investing in the alchemists and using them for warfare seems like the most direct route into the emperor’s pocket.”
“But since the empire abolished the Chalier royal family, that would have been a heavy blow to the Deirdres,” Deadshot pointed out. “Why would Robin Deirdre be working so hard to help them?”
“Better to have allies than enemies?” Avi shrugged.
“That also doesn’t explain why she’s focusing on spreading the counterfeits here in the Rain Empire.”
Liesl listened but didn’t offer comment. She only nodded and turned back to Basque’s code, making Deadshot frown.
But Amaya understood. If she had a sister who’d been taken from her, she would be working just as hard to get her back.
In some ways, that was what Boon was to her now: a smaller target she had to strike down before aiming at their true objective. If Liesl’s guess was right and he was somewhere in this city, she would find him.
As Liesl poured over Basque’s code, Amaya returned to the bedroom and lifted her mattress, pulling out her father’s notes. She read them as best she could—he had used his own shorthand in many places—but again and again she came back to that one passage.
My greatest treasures in this life lie with my wife and my daughter.
She rubbed a thumb against her mother’s jade ring. Why write something so sentimental among all these letters and records? Had he hoped for her or her mother to find it one day?
A knock on the bedroom door made her look up. To her surprise, Avi slunk in, looking exhausted after another day of snooping.
