by Tara Sim
“Of course I don’t mind.”
Fera had begun to sniffle, rubbing at her eyes. To Amaya’s surprise, Cayo crouched beside the girl and took a copper coin from his pocket. He held it up to catch her attention, then rolled the coin across the backs of his knuckles in one fluid motion. Fera stared as he walked the coin back and forth, then flipped it into the air with his thumb. He caught it, turned his hand over, and opened it to reveal that the coin was gone.
The girl gasped and grabbed his hand with both of hers. “Where did it go?”
“I can’t tell you. It’s magic.” He winked at her, and Fera giggled. Amaya smiled even as her chest tightened painfully, wondering if Cayo used to do this for Soria.
But the sight of the coin also caused a sinking in her gut. Standing, Amaya turned to Cicada and lowered her voice.
“Boon’s coins,” she said. “Did you use it to send the children home?”
To her immense relief, he shook his head. “Didn’t want to get in trouble or make a trail. We ended up tossing all the coins into the sea.”
Amaya gripped his shoulder, weak with gratitude. When she had told him to use that fake gold, she hadn’t known it was the cause of ash fever. “Then what did you use for money?”
“We sold all the countess’s fancy dresses and jewelry and shoes. And the estate.” He grinned. “Got a real nice sum for it, too. Trouble is we can’t do much with it until this fever goes packing and we can leave.”
“That’s why we’re here,” Amaya said. “To hopefully find a cure.”
“And find Boon,” Liesl added.
“Boon?” Cicada’s expression darkened. “The man who attacked the estate? We know where he is.”
Amaya’s heart tripped. “You do? How?”
Cicada glanced between them, a little uneasy. “He came by the Brackish and snuck on board a couple of days ago, but we drove him away. Matthieu followed him back to his hideout near the edge of the city, in the Shanty Sector.”
“So he is in the city,” Cayo growled. He met Amaya’s gaze, the hardened look on his face no doubt a mirror to her own. “Let’s go find him.”
Amaya’s fingers rested on the hilt of her knife. A knife that Boon had given her. A knife she had nearly driven across her father’s neck.
She thought of Nian’s and Cricket’s bodies, the plague of the fever spreading through Moray and Baleine, Soria’s ashes.
Boon would need to pay… but first, she had to speak with him again. One last time.
But even as they turned back toward the gangplank, Remy stood in their way.
“Have you forgotten the main reason we’re here?” he asked. “Going after Boon now will be too risky. Our main focus should be breaking into the Vault and finding out if Amaya’s mother hid any notes about the counterfeits. We’re looking for a cure, not revenge.”
“Why not both?” Liesl demanded.
“Both sounds good,” Deadshot agreed, hand on her pistol.
Remy sighed. “We can discuss it later. Right now, we need to get into the city and start planning.”
Amaya nodded to Cicada and the other Bugs. “I’ll be back to check on you in a few days. Stay out of the city, all right?”
Fera hugged her again, and the others waved goodbye. As Amaya walked down the gangplank, she stared at the ship where she’d spent seven miserable years, finding it grossly unfair that the other Bugs had been forced to hide here. Although it had been renovated, there was no scourging those memories from their minds.
Something caught her eye, and she stopped. She walked back up the gangplank and leaned forward, bracing her hand on the hull as water sloshed below her.
Beside a porthole halfway down the ship was a faint engraving. The Water Bugs had only ever been allowed off the ship when they needed to dive, so she had never had much of an opportunity to study the outside the same way as the inside.
The more she stared, the more she realized it looked familiar: a circle with a diamond surrounded by ivy. Where had she seen it before?
Liesl called her name, and it clicked—the Silver Star. Liesl’s sister had been on a debtor ship with this same engraving on the side. André Basque’s debtor ship.
Everything was hopelessly twisted together, and she was no closer to unraveling the truth. Amaya had spent the entire voyage hoping her mother didn’t have a Vault, that she hadn’t lied to her daughter. But now she hoped the opposite was true, only so they could finally get the answers they were owed.
The Business Sector is where weak men go to feel important. They have so little else in their lives that the mere sight of gold-veined marble and the whisper of investment is enough to feed their ambition for days at a time.
—A COMPLETE GUIDE TO MORAY’S SECTORS
We’re not splitting up,” Liesl said.
Cayo had had a feeling she would say that. “Do you want help or not?”
“We have no idea who this contact of yours is. For all we know, they could expose our true purpose here.”
“Or she can give us access to the Widow Vaults.”
Cayo knew it was risky to return to Nawarak. To walk into the Port’s Authority as if no time at all had passed since he’d last been there, when he had turned in his own father. He had gone to the Vice Sector after, unable to come to terms with what he had done, needing to numb himself. The next morning, Boon had taken him and Soria hostage.
He couldn’t dwell on it now. The body count from ash fever was climbing, and they had to do something.
Liesl crossed her arms and stared him down. The five of them were in a ramshackle inn, the cheapest—and sleaziest—place they could find to lay low. Amaya was idly twirling a knife in her hands, Remy pacing, Deadshot leaning by the window to keep an eye on the street. Cayo found himself missing Avi’s casual smirk.
“How many infected people do you think we passed on our way here?” Cayo demanded. Although they had seen sick people in the streets of Baleine, it hadn’t fully prepared him for the sight of Moray. There were corpses huddled at the bases of walls, men in masks and gloves gathering them onto carts to burn their bodies. The sound of coughing seemed to be everywhere, and tattered white mourning flags waved from countless windows—not just for the prince, but for loved ones. The city was quieter than Cayo had ever heard it.
“This contact,” Amaya said. “Is it Romara?”
The suspicion in her voice made him bristle. “No. I’m not going to her for help. She always has her own agenda.”
“Then who is it?” Liesl demanded.
He sighed and raked a hand through his hair. “A family friend in the Port’s Authority.” Liesl opened her mouth, but he quickly spoke over her. “I won’t tell her about any of you. I just need to know if she can get us access to the Vaults. It’s worth trying, isn’t it?”
“He’s right,” Remy said. “If there’s any lead we can use, we ought to use it.”
“How close of a friend is she?” Liesl asked.
Cayo shrugged. “Her mother was my mother’s best friend. We grew up together.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re close.”
“Just let the boy try,” Deadshot spoke up, surprising him. Cayo nodded to her in gratitude, and she winked.
Liesl threw up her hands. “Fine. But if you’re arrested or the Port’s Authority comes to collect our Landless heads, it’ll be on you.”
“Noted.” Cayo stood and hesitated as he reached for his pack. He should leave it here, but…
“We’ll watch over her,” Amaya said quietly.
Their eyes connected, hers dark and steady. Something invisible stretched between them, a line pulled taut. He had held her on the ship, kissed her, but this was even more intimate—it was the beginning of trust, of handing over the last bit of himself that remained unbroken.
Cayo nodded and headed for the door, unable to say anything to her. He was afraid of what might come out if he tried.
The air smelled damp and musty, as if the city badly needed a wash. As
Cayo roamed the streets he kept his eyes down, acutely aware of the shape of the pistol at his hip. Before, when his family had been wealthy and he had been able to wear finer clothes, he would notice people eyeing him as if determining whether or not he was worthy of robbing. Now he blended in with the rest of them, another citizen who had had too much taken away.
Was his father still in their manor? Did he stand at the top of the hill and look down at the diseased city he had helped ruin?
The Business Sector wasn’t as crowded as Cayo was used to seeing it. People seemed to spend as little time on the streets as they could, rushing into or out of buildings or their carriages, covering their lower faces with masks and sleeves. He followed their example and slipped into the offices of the Port’s Authority, the golden letters above the doors dull in the overcast light.
The wooden benches on either side of the receiving hall were full. Cayo spotted crying children, hollow-looking women, terrified men. Crime had likely gone up while the fever spread, thieves preying on unattended shops and abandoned homes.
“Fill out your name and take a seat,” drawled the young man at the front desk, flipping a page of his book.
“I’m not here to report an incident,” Cayo said. He was bemused by the sound of his own voice, the confidence that apparently came from having nothing left to lose. “I’m here to see Petty Officer Nawarak.”
The young man looked up, blinking wearily. “You mean Lieutenant Nawarak?”
Cayo frowned in surprise. “I suppose I do. Tell her Cayo Mer… tell her Cayo wants to talk to her.” He couldn’t risk using his family name here, not when it was the equivalent of a red flag.
The clerk entered the offices and came back a moment later, gesturing for Cayo to walk through the doors. Usually the officers of the Port’s Authority made all sorts of racket back here, but the din was more subdued today, the drone of a busy yet tired hive.
Nawarak waited for him at her desk. Her bluish-black hair was done up in a braid, and she wore a jerkin of boiled leather under the open jacket of her uniform. She crossed her arms and looked him up and down, a scowl on her round face.
“You disappear without a trace, and now you’re back looking like a veritable urchin,” she said. “Where in the hells did you go, Cayo? I went up to your family’s manor and no one was there. Where’s your father? How’s Soria doing?”
He took in a breath to speak, but how could he tell her about all that had happened? Instead, he sat in the chair before her, bracing his elbows on his knees.
“I can’t tell you,” he said. “Not yet.”
“What? Why?”
Because it was too much. Because it didn’t matter. Because saying the words Soria is dead out loud would make it irrevocably true, like casting an unbreakable curse.
“You got a promotion,” he said, deflecting her questions. “Congratulations, Lieutenant.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re acting strange. But thank you, I guess.”
He glanced at the breast of her jacket, the silver bars denoting her new rank. “Is it because you’ve been working on the counterfeit case?” She had been on a task force until the threat of ash fever had reared its head.
“Not exactly. Although that’s certainly been an interesting turn of events.”
“I don’t think interesting is the word I’d use. Have there been any more developments?”
“Most of it’s coming from the casinos, which isn’t a surprise. It spread through the lower classes like wildfire. We actually just got another report from the Rain Empire the other day.” She leaned her arms on her desk. “They say the coating on the counterfeits contains some sort of virus? I don’t know, I don’t have the mind for science. But the report said the coating can stay on people’s skin for hours. If they come into contact with others with that shit still on them…”
Cayo swore under his breath. “So that’s how it spread so much.” It was all too easy to see the chain of infection now, the exchanging of coins between hands, the barest touch from one person to another.
His gaze went back to her silver bands. “If you’re not on the counterfeit case anymore, then how exactly did this promotion come about?”
“What, don’t think I have my merits?” She drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair—a tell. “You know we’ve got dirty officers, right?”
“Sure. What does that have to do with your promotion?”
“Because I caught the majority of them.” She flashed him a grin. “Those officers were on the Slum King’s payroll, did you know that? Double-crossing bastards. Triple-crossing even, considering some of them went behind Salvador’s back, too. He wasn’t too happy about that.”
“How in the hells did you manage that?”
Nawarak lowered her voice. “Let’s just say I have a contact who’s very… influential.”
Cold swept over him at the implication. He dug his fingers into his thigh, thinking of Jun Salvador, the Slum King, scheming behind his desk at the Scarlet Arc. How easy it would be for him to put someone as ambitious as Nawarak into his pocket for insurance.
He couldn’t ask her for help with the Vaults. She was compromised.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded as Cayo stood. “Cayo—”
He turned and fled. This entire city was rotten, molding from the inside out. Even the people with the best of intentions became corrupted by the merest whisper of power, of money.
God and her stars, he had been one of them.
He slipped into an alleyway and caught his breath, choking on the fumes of stale vomit. He couldn’t go back to Nawarak, and he couldn’t go back to the others and admit he’d failed. Again.
They had to find some way into those Vaults.
Cayo cursed and held his head in his hands, his heart speeding up the way it always did before he made a terrible decision. But what other choice did he have now?
Fighting against the tide of his better judgment, he turned like a compass pointing true north, following the well-worn path back to the Vice Sector.
Cayo expected to find Diamond Street emptier and quieter than it usually was, especially considering the curfew the authorities had put in place here. He did not expect to find it bustling with activity and merriment, as if the horror of the rest of the city were a door that could be easily closed and locked.
It wasn’t even fully dark and the lanterns were already lit, hanging like fat, glowing apples above their heads. He stared at the people drinking and dancing and laughing as if nothing could touch them. Some chased one another with playful screams, and couples kissed in the open without shame. One girl even took off her top and spun it in the air above her head while others cheered and threw coins at her.
If anything, ash fever had turned the Vice Sector even more depraved.
Cayo numbly walked through it all, absorbed by the noise and the raucous movements around him. Someone tried to put a necklace of seashells around his neck, but he batted their arms away with a snarl.
“Just trying to give you a protective spell,” slurred the young man as he bent to retrieve the necklace. “Asshole.”
Cayo kept his head down until he found himself on the Gauntlet, the string of casinos and dens reserved for the more serious gamblers. The Slum King owned the biggest one: the Scarlet Arc, a beacon for felons and con artists who eventually became nothing more than lapdogs for Salvador.
He had never wanted to come here again. Had nightmares about walking through those red-painted doors and seeing the Slum King’s scarred face. Salvador usually held a jar in those nightmares, Bas’s eyes staring accusingly at him from within.
Cayo had turned in his father, exposing Mercado’s dealings with the Slum King. If he were caught here, the Slum King would do a lot worse than pluck out his eyeballs.
He lingered outside the doors, and it was only then he noticed that the sign above him no longer read the Scarlet Arc.
The Black Lily? He frowned at the name; it didn’t sound like the Slum King’s style.
Keeping a hand on Jazelle, he carefully slipped inside.
At first he thought he had the wrong place. Everything was… dark. No longer the malignant, dripping red of the Arc, but painted top to bottom with flat, oppressive black. Silver lanterns hung from the ceiling in a pale imitation of stars, and the walls sported strange, unnerving paintings of abstract shapes and haunting beasts.
The Slum King’s regular crowd wasn’t here. In their place was younger, fresher meat, gathered around the bar and the dice tables and even dancing to the music of a four-piece band in the corner. Cayo wandered farther inside, confusion overcoming his trepidation. Had Salvador decided to switch things up? Or had he moved the Arc and left this one for the newer recruits?
“Excuse me!”
Someone ran into him from behind, making him stumble. A bag fell from the person’s arms, scattering the floor with mushrooms.
The young man cursed, crashed to his knees, and began shoving the mushrooms back into the bag. “Now I’ll have to give these an extra hard scrubbing! She’ll be so upset I’m late again.…”
“Uh.” Cayo looked around, wondering if someone, anyone, could tell him what exactly was going on. “What is this place?”
The young man blinked up at him. He was roughly Cayo’s age, perhaps a little older, with a swoop of black hair and eyes so dark they appeared just as black in the dim lighting. His nose was crooked in an otherwise disturbingly symmetrical face.
“If you have to ask, perhaps you shouldn’t be here.” The young man hugged the bag of mushrooms to his chest, blowing a stray lock of hair off his face. “Now please get out of my way before I lose my job. Again.”
“I—”
The young man hurried away, but Cayo gave chase. “I thought this was the Scarlet Arc. Does the Slum King still own it? Where is he?”
“Oh, you definitely shouldn’t be here,” the young man said, throwing him a wide-eyed look over his shoulder before disappearing through a door.
