by Tara Sim
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” she spat. “You don’t get to blame this on me. This is your fault, and you have to own up to it.”
“This was your idea in the first place! This is your fault, but you’re too damn proud to see it. You can’t even see how the rest of it is your fault, too.”
“What?”
“If you…” He tried to swallow, tried to get his breathing under control. “If you hadn’t brought that counterfeit money into the city for your petty revenge, maybe Soria wouldn’t be sick in the first place. How many cases of ash fever happened because of you? How many have died because of you?”
Amaya staggered back. Her eyes were wide and haunted, her face wan. It broke something inside him, but there was another piece of him already broken far beyond repair.
“Your father—”
“He’s not the only one responsible,” Cayo said. “And you know it. You’re no stranger to pain, to death.” He gestured to the blood on her sleeve. “All of this…” He laughed mirthlessly, flinging his arms out. “The world will be in ruins, and you helped bring it about. You let Boon pull your puppet strings, and now—”
“Stop it,” Amaya growled.
“Maybe your mother knew,” Cayo said. Nausea and vindictive pleasure roiled in his gut, returning all her verbal blows with interest. “Maybe your mother knew you would be nothing but trouble. Maybe she did sell you, if you were just as selfish then as you are—”
He didn’t get to finish as her fist flew into his jaw. His head snapped to the side as he stumbled backward, pain exploding up the side of his skull. Amaya stood before him with hands clenched tight, panting.
He tested his jaw, wincing. “What, don’t like it when I make implications about your family? Wonder how that feels.”
Amaya yelled and charged at him again, sending him to the ground. The wind was knocked out of him as she drove her hand back for another punch, smacking him soundly on the side of his head. Cayo snarled and bucked her off him, remembering Liesl’s training as he crawled onto his hands and knees, the alley swaying dizzyingly around him.
Amaya rushed him, and he grabbed her legs to take her down. He tried to pin her, but she was stronger and faster and more sober. She kicked him in the chest, and he was sent sprawling, coughing and sucking in air.
He made it to his knees before she grabbed a fistful of his hair and tugged his head back, pain alighting across his scalp. But that was nothing compared to the feeling of her knife pressed to the skin of his throat.
They both froze, their uneven breaths echoing off the brick walls. Amaya stared down at him, furious and vengeful, driving the tip of her knife in just enough to make a drop of blood roll down to his collarbone.
Her fingers tightened in his hair. He let out a quiet sound of pain, and her pupils dilated. Her eyes flicked down to his lips, as if she were suppressing some vulgar impulse, fighting against yet another mistake.
Even now, with anger sweeping through him and her blade pricking his skin, he wanted nothing so much as to crash their mouths together. To feel the heat of her lips and the thrumming of her heart, to know what it was to hate and love all at once.
He wanted her. He hated her, and he wanted her, and he didn’t deserve her.
Finally, she released him. Cayo stayed on his knees as she backed away, knife glinting in her hand. Shaking her head in disgust, she turned and left him there.
He didn’t blame her. He would have done the same.
But he wished she had just done the easy thing and killed him instead.
What we search for is knowledge—the formulas and equations to craft what others debase to spells. What if an elixir of life is possible? What if gold can be fabricated, instead of mined? There is no limit to what is possible.
—WRITINGS OF ALCHEMIST BERNARD WILKES
Amaya didn’t see Cayo when he came back to the apartment, or the day after. They only crossed paths when Avi made dinner and they both emerged from their rooms. She heard Cayo’s small intake of breath as if to speak, but she left before he could. She couldn’t even look at him. She was afraid of what she would do if she did, if she would resume their scuffle or slap him or simply feel nothing at all.
No—that was the problem, wasn’t it? Where Cayo was concerned, she felt entirely too much.
Besides, she wanted to stay with her anger a little longer. She had a right to it.
And she wanted to ignore the guilt scratching up against her insides, telling her she had every reason to apologize, too.
She went by Boon’s ramshackle hut again, wanting… well, she didn’t know. She doubted there could be anything resembling closure between them. But at the least he could tell her what those papers from his Vault meant, what other secrets her mother had been keeping.
But the hut was empty. He was already gone again.
How was she supposed to contain the entirety of this truth within her? How was she supposed to go on living, talking, breathing, when the man who had created her was slowly dying somewhere in the city?
Amaya stopped by the hospital to check on Soria. The nurses somehow looked even more haggard than before, their hands shaking and their eyes deadened, as if none of them had gotten a single hour of rest in the last few days. Amaya slowed, wanting to ask what she could do, how she could help. But she lingered for too long, and one of the nurses snapped at her to move along.
Soria was lying on her side, weakly moving her pillow around to get comfortable. Amaya hurried to help her.
“Thanks,” Soria whispered. She was pale and shivering today, despite the warmth coming off her body. Amaya grabbed the folded blanket at the end of the bed and covered her with it. “They said I have to keep changing positions. Don’t want to get bedsores.”
“Do you want to get up and walk around a little?”
Soria coughed into the pillow and shook her head. “Mother Hilas made me do that this morning. I’m exhausted.”
She looked it, too. Amaya couldn’t help the impulse to reach out and brush her hair back. Soria smiled slightly.
“You’re surprisingly gentle for someone who gave my brother that bruise.”
Amaya winced. “I—”
“It’s all right. He already explained it.” Soria’s eyes fluttered closed. “If I wasn’t in this bed, I’d be locking the two of you in a room until you came to your senses.”
Amaya snorted softly. “It doesn’t really work like that.”
“No? It usually works in books.”
Soria’s voice was getting hoarser, her words slurred. Amaya’s chest tightened as she thought of the nurses downstairs, the patients like Soria who had been cheated out of medicine. She wished she could be surprised that someone had been selfish enough to steal their treatments and their payments, but she wasn’t. Seven years with Captain Zharo had taught her exactly what sort of greed people were capable of in even the most trying times.
“You don’t have to stay,” Soria whispered, her eyes still closed, her breathing beginning to even out. “I know it’s boring.…”
“I’ll stay,” Amaya said.
She watched the girl fall asleep and sat by her side for the entire two hours the hospital allowed her.
Liesl found her in the tenement’s washroom later, a sad affair of broken tile darkened with mold. There were buckets for washing clothes and bodies, and a pump that delivered water from the bottom level. It always came out frigid and smelling sulfuric.
Amaya shivered as she scrubbed at her jacket, trying to get the bloodstains off. She hadn’t even noticed she’d cut herself until Liesl had washed and bandaged her wrist. Amaya’s hands were already numb and wrinkled, so she welcomed Liesl’s appearance as an excuse to take a break.
“The boy looked rather banged up the other night,” Liesl said casually, leaning against the doorframe. “Should I ask?”
“No.”
“I’m assuming he deserved it?”
Amaya’s mind was quick to say yes, but her gu
t clenched. She had abandoned him because of her desire for vengeance. Because of that, everything had spiraled downward, leading them back to who they were at their core: Silverfish and Lord Mercado.
He had messed up. But so had she.
Instead of answering, Amaya sat back on her heels and rubbed her hands together to get some feeling back in them. “Are you worried about Adrienne?”
Liesl smirked at the deliberate subject change. “She’s strong, and she’s smart, and she’s not alone.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“You didn’t answer mine.” Liesl walked inside, crossing her arms. “She’ll be all right. Jas will help her with whatever she needs.”
“Did you know that he…?”
“Oh, there will certainly be an interrogation once I meet back up with them. But never mind about all that. There’s an errand you need to run.”
“What sort of errand?”
“We still have to look into the name Julien Caver gave us. Trevan Nicodeme. Cayo told me about what you two did, how you found the name of a den he likes to frequent.”
Despite everything, Amaya’s face warmed. She knew she should have gone to Liesl right away with the information, but that was when Liesl had been obsessed with Basque’s code.
“What else did he tell you?” Amaya asked.
“Everything about the tournament.” Liesl shook her head. “You two really should have cleared this with me beforehand.”
“You couldn’t have gone,” Amaya pointed out. “In case someone recognized you.”
Liesl briefly clenched her jaw. “Still. I could have told him what to say, what to do. And now he has no money to help Soria.…” She sighed, taking off her glasses to clean them on her skirt. “In either case, he got something, small though it is. Deirdre tells others she’s loyal to the Rain Empire, but her comment about disliking Wayan Gohmer’s political inclinations doesn’t match up with that. Gohmer is an imperialist through and through.”
“What does that mean, then?”
“She could be working both sides. It’s hard to say until we look into it more.” Replacing her glasses, Liesl nodded to Amaya’s jacket. “In the meantime, we have another lead to follow. Make sure that’s dry by tonight.”
Amaya and Avi crouched on a roof overlooking a side street of the Casino District, Amaya’s shoulder pressed against the balustrade. The stone was cold, but her back was beginning to hurt from keeping the same position for an hour now.
Liesl had given them their assignments: Deadshot was stationed outside the Deirdre manor to watch for suspicious activity, Liesl had gone in search of information regarding Deirdre’s allies, and Avi and Amaya were meant to track down Trevan Nicodeme.
Amaya knew she was supposed to be watching the street outside the building they thought Nicodeme was in, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the way Boon had looked up at her as she’d pressed that knife to his throat, somber and heartbroken when he had no right to be. He had abandoned her. Molded her into a person she didn’t want to become. Betrayed her. He deserved to be eaten up by the fever.
Didn’t he?
“Counterfeit for your thoughts?” Avi asked.
“Not funny.”
“It’s a little funny.” Avi grinned. “C’mon, what were you thinking about? The little lordling?”
“No.” Amaya refocused on the street below, lit erratically with sputtering lanterns. A few people mingled outside a rundown card den called the Crown and Barrel, smoking what smelled like jaaga. The door to the den was open, filling the night with the sounds of clinking glass and boisterous laughter.
“I was thinking about Boon,” Amaya said softly. “And how much I wish I could go back and do things differently.”
Avi instantly sobered. “Such as?”
“Like how it would have been nice to push him into the harbor while he was drunk and watch him drown.”
“Remind me to never piss you off.” Avi stretched, relieving cramped muscles. “I get it, though. I knew Boon dabbled in alchemy, but I didn’t know he’d used it to make all that gold. Or what the consequences would end up being.”
“How did you know about Boon learning alchemy? He never talked about it.”
Avi didn’t answer right away. He rubbed a spot above his hip.
“He mentioned it a few times in passing,” the man said eventually. “That’s how I came to learn about his involvement with… your mother.”
The truth banged its fists against her chest, wailing to be let out. To have someone, just one person, understand the churning grief inside her.
But before she could say a single word, Avi perked up. Amaya followed his gaze to the figure of a man leaving the den. He had a potbelly and a head of thick hair leading down to two wide, curly muttonchops, and the chain of a pocket watch glinted in the lantern light.
“I believe that is our man,” Avi whispered. “All right, Trevan, let’s see where you go.…”
Trevan Nicodeme tottered down the street, away from the Casino District. Amaya recognized the gait of one who’d nursed a few drinks, but there was something else in his posture that hinted at anger, the way his fingers curled and his shoulders rose up toward his ears.
She and Avi tailed him, plotting a course across the rooftops to avoid being spotted. They used crow-stepped gables and the ridges of jutting windows to make their way from one building to the next. Amaya leaped onto a roof and nearly lost her footing, her boot scraping as she regained her balance. Trevan didn’t notice, mumbling to himself as he wove through the dim streets.
Their mark led them toward a shopping district, then turned sharply onto a crossway street. As he tripped up to a strange-looking shop, Amaya and Avi dropped onto a balcony and watched from above.
Trevan pounded a fist against the door. “I need more!” he yelled in Soléne. “Hey!”
The door whisked open, revealing a furious man in his late midyears. “Stop shouting! Do you want all of Baleine to hear you?”
“Need more,” Trevan said again, thrusting his hand out with the palm facing upward. “I was on a streak and ran out.”
“I don’t have any more at the moment. You’ll have to come back later in the week.”
“I said I’m on a streak—”
“I don’t give a damn if you’re on a streak. I have no more, and that’s that.”
Trevan let out a flurry of curses that Amaya couldn’t translate and spat at the man’s feet before stalking down the street. The man in the doorway shook his head and closed the door, the windows turning dark a moment later.
Amaya’s eyes traveled up to the symbol above the door: a star within a circle.
“This must be one of the places the counterfeits get distributed,” Avi whispered. “Wonder if this is one of Deirdre’s. Let’s go back and report.”
While they told Liesl what they’d overheard, Cayo wandered into the main room. Amaya did all she could to avoid his gaze.
“Was there a specific name on the shop?” Liesl asked.
“Not that we could see.”
“No matter. Just point it out on the map.”
When Avi marked the alchemist’s shop on the map of Baleine they kept on the table, Cayo wandered closer with a bewildered frown.
“That can’t be right,” Cayo said.
Liesl pierced him with a sharp stare. “What do you mean?”
“That’s Florimond’s shop.” He placed a shaking finger over the mark, horror etched across his face. “That’s where I work.”
They couldn’t wait for Cayo to find evidence, not knowing how long it might take. The only thing to do was break in themselves that night.
Avi elected to stay behind, claiming he didn’t feel well.
“Do you want one of us to stay with you?” Liesl asked, worry in her voice.
Avi shook his head and cleared his throat. “Just a stomachache. Nothing I can’t handle on my own.”
Cayo bit his lip, and Amaya wondered if he would volunteer t
o stay back with Avi. But he remained silent, surprising her. She allowed herself a brief glance at his face, lingering on the bruise on his jaw before turning away.
She couldn’t let her focus stray. There would be time for words later.
The night was cold, hugging in on all sides. Amaya’s sleeve had dried, but she kept checking it anyway, making sure the bloodstain was gone. Cayo hadn’t even asked where the blood had come from. Was he that used to seeing her covered in others’ blood? Was this what she was to him, a girl who spoke violence like a language?
Focus, she chided herself, waiting crouched beside Liesl as Deadshot gave the all clear. Liesl crossed the street first, making quick work of the shop’s lock before the door silently swung open. Cayo had warned Liesl that Florimond lived upstairs and that they had to be quiet.
“You never saw anything suspicious in the shop?” Liesl had drilled him earlier.
“I know he keeps letters locked up, but I’ve never been able to get to them,” Cayo had said defensively. “I can’t exactly snoop while he’s a foot away from me.”
“He never said anything strange? Met with anyone who seemed odd?”
“Not really. He said he was working on a cure for the fever. Deirdre isn’t his patron—I made sure to ask him. I thought…” He’d let out a strained breath, wilting like a flower without water. “I suppose it doesn’t matter what I thought.”
Liesl now gave them the all clear signal. They carefully made their way into the shop, through the tables of wares on display, using only the moonlight through the windows. Amaya had no clue what to make of what she saw, baubles and metals and jars of substances that reminded her of her father’s stories about Kharian witches.
“Dried salamander legs and bat eyes,” her father would growl in a scary voice, making claws with his hands as Amaya giggled. “They’d toss ’em all together and make a poison so strong it could kill a god.”
