by Tara Sim
Cayo sighed and pushed in after him. “I’m looking for someone. Can you help me find her?”
They had entered a kitchen, the counters covered with crates of food. The young man set down his bag of mushrooms and turned to a knife block, pulling out a blade and twirling it expertly in his fingers. Cayo smartly took a step back.
“I should be asking you for help preparing these mushroom dumplings,” the young man said. “Say, you’re not the new recruit, are you?”
“What? No.” This was clearly a dead end; he would have to try elsewhere. “Never mind.”
“Just as well,” the young man sang, beginning to snap the stems off the mushrooms. “Her Majesty’ll be in a right fit if she doesn’t get her dumplings in time.”
Cayo froze. Turned back around. “Her… Majesty?”
The young man paused with his knife in the air, gaping at him. “Have you not yet paid your respects to the Slum Queen?”
“The Slu—” It was like a blow to the head, making him sway. He barely even heard the door open behind him.
“I thought I heard yapping back here,” said a slick, familiar voice that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
She wore a form-fitting dress of black silk and lace, her arms sheathed in elbow-length gloves. A fat opal sat at her throat, a sibling to the gems glittering at her earlobes. Her lips were painted black, the kohl tracing her eyes so thick it likened itself to war paint.
Romara’s grin was the promise of a dagger in the dark, silent and purposeful. “Welcome home, puppy.”
Your world and mine were built with different tools. I do not know if a land exists on which we may stand side by side.
—INTERCEPTED LETTER FROM AN ANONYMOUS LADY OF MORAY
Cayo was taking too long.
Remy had gone out to find something in the way of food, but Amaya wasn’t hungry. She kept walking around their small room, the old floor creaking beneath her weight as she opened empty drawers and inspected the sparse furniture.
“That’s the fourth time you’ve checked the window,” Liesl said.
“Like you’re one to talk,” Amaya shot back. “You didn’t want him going in the first place.”
What if he had sought out Romara? What if he’d run into the Slum King?
What if he had gone to find his father?
“Where are you going?” Liesl demanded as she headed for the door.
“I don’t know,” Amaya said. “Anywhere that isn’t this room.”
It was too small, too crowded for her right now. Remy would be agitated to find her missing, but he would just have to accept that this was her city and she was entitled to some freedom within it.
Amaya padded down the street, wondering if she could follow Cayo, wondering where he was most likely to go.
You need to trust me, Remy had told her back in Baleine. But his face was replaced with Cayo’s in her mind, the somber look he’d given her just before he left. The expression he’d worn after they had kissed, awe mixed with doubt.
Amaya traced the shape of her lips. What was so tempting about them? What was it about his touch that sparked something awake inside her?
She couldn’t think about this now.
She stopped in the middle of the street. The lanterns here hadn’t been lit; there was no point, abandoned as it was. The last time she had been in Moray, she had been Countess Yamaa, powerful with wealth and rage. But both of those had dried up. She felt empty, aimless, her insides scraped raw.
Amaya gazed at the jade ring on her finger.
I didn’t want you to find out. I didn’t want you to see who I’d become.
A bitter heat crackled in her chest. Standing in a city devastated by the greed of men, she came to a swift decision and turned in the direction of the Shanty Sector.
She was owed an explanation. She was owed far more than that, more than Boon could ever afford.
Amaya followed the street signs, hollowed out by purpose. She passed through a residential district, the buildings gradually changing to gable-and-hip roofs with curling eaves in the Rehanese style, statuettes of the star saints looming over doors for prosperity and protection. There were mourning flags strung along the street; ash fever had visited this place as well.
Your fault, she seethed as she kept her eyes forward, a hand on her knife hilt. This is all your fault.
She had never been to this sector before, and it was difficult to make out what it looked like in the darkness. The buildings she passed were peeling and cracked, with broken windows like eyeless sockets and doors sitting off their hinges. The distant sound of coughing echoed down alleyways, and the few people she saw were like wraiths, quiet and vacant.
She searched up and down the streets, keeping an eye out for a familiar head twitch, the bark of a laugh, a curse. There was no sign of him. As the night crawled on and her stomach writhed with nerves, she realized there was one other place she had yet to check.
So she turned in the only direction that made sense. She turned toward home.
It didn’t belong to her; it never had. But she and her parents had lived there, and they had been happy for a time. That was all that mattered.
She found Guen Street and hesitated. The last time she had come here, she had been surrounded by ghosts. Visions of her mother’s smile, echoes of her father’s gruff laugh. It had been so long that she couldn’t exactly recall what they had looked like, just a vague impression she could point out in a mirror. There, her mother’s chin. There, her father’s nose.
Could she still find pieces of herself in Boon?
She could see it up ahead—the red door, the broken owl statuette on the roof. The place where she had fallen and scraped her knee. The wall her mother had leaned against while talking to the neighbors.
And the figure of her father sitting where she had sat not too long ago, a bottle in his lap and his eyes closed against the starlight.
Amaya sat a good few feet away from him. They were quiet for several moments, only the sound of his labored, wet breaths between them.
“How did you get out of Baleine?” she demanded at last. “Or get into Moray, for that matter?”
Her father cracked open one bloodshot eye. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” He coughed, not bothering to hide it in his sleeve.
“What are you doing here?”
“Saw some folks sniffin’ out my place in Baleine. Figured it was time to get going before I lost my head. What’re you doing here?”
The questions she hadn’t been able to ask him last time rose like a swell, the first warning of a storm. Amaya swallowed and looked away.
“My mother,” she said softly. “She was in on it, too, wasn’t she? The counterfeiting?”
Boon stiffened. Glanced at the ring on her finger.
“Rin and I…” He exhaled shakily, rubbed a hand over his weary, craggy face. “Once I started gettin’ into alchemy, she took up an interest, too. We did research together. Did a couple of experiments. Had a feeling she was planning something on her own, but she wouldn’t tell me what.” The hand that bore the tremor lifted, then fell. “Never got to find out. But the discovery of the brinies… the counterfeits… that was all me.”
A knot in Amaya’s chest released. The situation was far from good—her father was a criminal, a murderer, worse—but at least he hadn’t roped her mother into his deeds.
She took out the papers she had carried from Baleine and tossed them onto his lap. He peered blearily down at them.
“Mercado raided your Vault,” she said. “But you probably already knew that.”
“Aye.” Boon squinted at his own words in the dim moonlight. “Burned all the evidence. I take it this’s the only thing left?”
She nodded, her skin feeling too tight for her body. Sitting beside her father after all these years, discussing matters of crime and alchemy so calmly, casually, was almost enough to make her start laughing at the ridiculousness of it.
“That last line,” she said.
“What does it mean?”
Boon handed the papers back to her. “Since you’ve come back here, I’m guessin’ you already know what it means.”
“So it’s true. My mother had a Vault, too.”
He nodded, just a slight dip of his chin. “She told me she was gonna open one.”
“What’s inside?” She realized she was sitting up straighter, leaning toward him.
“No clue. Couldn’t open it without revealing who I am.”
She deflated again. If her mother hadn’t been a part of the counterfeit scheme after all, did that mean there was no cure waiting for them inside her Vault?
Even if that were the case, she knew they had to look regardless. Her mother wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of obtaining a Vault if there wasn’t something extremely valuable to place inside.
“Surprised the little fop isn’t with you,” Boon murmured, taking a sip from his bottle.
“That little fop’s sister died,” she whispered.
Boon paused with the bottle halfway to his mouth. He stared at her and saw the truth in how she pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling.
“Shit,” he said. “Mercado basically killed his own daughter. I knew the family was cracked, but…”
“Really? That’s all you have to say? As if your counterfeit scheme didn’t have a part to play in all this!”
“It was Mercado’s coins what poisoned her,” Boon replied fairly. “I’m sorry to hear of it, but I’m not at fault for that.”
“What about the rest of it?” She threw her arm out to the side, indicating the ruined city around them.
He took a deep breath that ended in a deep, rattling cough. “I had my part to play. I won’t deny it. Suppose you think this is justice, huh?” He lifted his wrist, the one where she knew a splotch of gray was spreading.
She didn’t think it was justice. She didn’t know what to think—how to process the churning of her stomach, the way her eyes stung at the reminder of all the unfair ways in which the world worked.
If she were a different person, she would have turned to the man beside her and wrapped her arms around him and told him what he needed to hear. But the pain written in her bones spoke of a grief too deep to mend with words alone, the years of abandonment, loneliness, and desperation whittling away her capacity for forgiveness. Even for herself.
Especially for herself.
It was no one’s fault and everyone’s fault, and she sat at the heart of it like a lodestone surrounded by sharpened metal.
Amaya stood, her legs and heart aching. Boon looked up at her in surprise, and in that moment she saw the pieces she had taken from him—the thick eyebrows, the slant of his nose.
She had to get back. She had to discard these small pieces, leaving them in the gutters and the alleyways until she could emerge as someone new, someone who didn’t understand betrayal and the way it felt to have love and hatred tangled together in her throat.
“Amaya,” Boon said, struggling to get to his feet. “Wait—”
She didn’t wait. She hurried away, ignoring her father’s frantic calls at her back.
What is a queen, really, but a woman who refuses to be controlled?
—EMPRESS CAMILA OF THE SUN EMPIRE
Romara had fashioned herself a throne.
She had completely stripped her father’s old office of its desk and bookshelves and crowded it with chaises and rugs and pillows for her subjects to recline on. There were a few lazing about inside who immediately jumped to their feet when Romara strode in.
“All hail the Slum Queen!” one shouted drunkenly as the others laughed. Romara patted them on the cheek and continued on to a raised dais against the far wall, atop which sat an elaborately sculpted chair painted black with red velvet cushioning.
“Like what I’ve done with the place?” she asked. Cayo couldn’t help but stare at his surroundings, remembering what the room had been before. Remembering the jar containing Bas’s eyes. “It used to be so dingy when my father owned it. I think I’ve made quite the improvement.”
Cayo had no idea where to begin. His entire world had been flipped upside down in a mere matter of weeks, and this certainly wasn’t helping. Romara, seeing his struggle, reached up to a golden rope dangling beside her “throne.” When she pulled it, a bell sounded somewhere in the casino, and a few seconds later the young man who had run into Cayo rushed inside.
“Yes, Your Majesty?” he panted. He was wearing an apron dusted with flour.
“Jacques, please fetch another chair for my friend.”
“Right away, Your Majesty!”
The young man, Jacques, took off. Cayo raised an eyebrow at Romara.
“Don’t you think this”—Cayo gestured to the chair and the bell pull—“is a bit much?”
“I’m going to tell you a little secret, Cayo.” Romara crossed her legs, revealing a slim ankle. “I’ve been planning for this day since I was ten years old. I kept notes of how I would run the place once my father was out of the picture. I spared no expense to realize every detail.”
“Ten-year-old Cayo wanted to be a pirate, but you don’t see me plundering ships.”
“Oh? Then what have you been doing out on the sea?”
He would have taken a step back if it didn’t mean falling off the dais. “How did you know?”
“Please. I can smell the salt on you.”
Jacques rushed back in, panting as he hoisted a similar chair up beside Romara’s. There were flour fingerprints all over it. When Romara cleared her throat, Jacques quickly used his sleeve to wipe them off.
“Good boy,” Romara purred. “Now where are those dumplings you promised?”
“Coming right up!”
“What’s that all about?” Cayo asked as the young man retreated to the kitchens.
“One of my more… overzealous followers.”
Cayo carefully sat in the chair beside her. “Why keep him around?”
“He’s loyal. Unlike some.” Romara leaned an elbow on the arm of her chair, resting her chin on the backs of her fingers as she gave him a slow smile. “So. What exactly has my ex-fiancé been up to, hmm?”
A sudden wave of uncertainty gripped him. What was he doing here? Why had he decided that Romara, of all people, would be willing to help him?
But he had no other choice—or at least, none that he could see. He had to bring back the old Cayo, the one who knew what to say, how to appease her.
“I’m far more curious to know how this happened.” He indicated the casino beyond the door. “The Black Lily? What happened to the Scarlet Arc?”
Romara scoffed and leaned back. “A relic from my father’s time. It was outdated, ready to be turned into something new.”
“Like the title of Slum King?”
She peered at him from the corner of her eye and grinned. “Don’t tell me you’re not relieved my father isn’t here. That I’m the one calling the shots instead.”
It galled him that she was right. “But where is he? What happened?” He doubted Salvador would simply hand over his entire empire to Romara.
“I tried to make him see reason,” she said with a sigh. “What with the whole counterfeit fiasco, his followers were getting antsy, frightened. Some of them caught the fever. Some of them died. They began to turn on him, one by one.” She tapped her chin with a finger, the nail filed to a sharp point, painted black. “I may have convinced some of them to mutiny.”
“You…” Cayo gripped the armrests of the chair. “You deposed your father.”
“That’s certainly a nicer way of saying it. Wish I could’ve stomped him out of existence, but the man’s like a cockroach.” Romara smiled as one of her followers approached, a girl holding a cigarillo with a smoking end. Judging by the smell, it was jaaga. Romara took it and allowed the girl to kiss a ring on her hand, which she did giddily before returning to her friends, giggling.
Romara took a deep inhale and breathed out smoke. “Old ways have a hab
it of dying out, Cayo. The people were hungry for something new. They wanted fresh blood, and I’m here to give it to them.”
“They adore you.” Cayo watched as the girl who’d given Romara the cigarillo kept glancing up at the dais. Romara winked at her. Blushing, the girl looked away with a fresh peal of giggles.
“Because I give them what they want,” Romara said, handing him the cigarillo. He silently declined. “My father was selective with his jobs, his resources, but I won’t be. Everyone has a fair chance until they mess up.”
“And if they mess up?”
She grinned, smoke purling from the corners of her mouth. “Follow me.”
Reluctantly, he followed her out the door and across the casino. The rattling of dice passed through him like bone striking bone, the feathery shuffle of cards running down his spine like a whisper.
He yearned, but the yearning was weak and half-formed, not so much a compulsion than an idle thought. A dream he could hardly remember. It would be easy, too easy, to sit at one of these tables and play, to forget about why he was here and what had led him to this moment.
But what good would it do? It would change nothing, only prolong the pain until it ripped him apart like a wild animal let off its leash.
Romara led him down a short flight of steps to the basement. When she opened the door, a wave of cooler air rushed out carrying the scent of sweat and old blood.
Cayo had never been down here when he had worked for the Slum King. The others had said it was merely a cellar where he kept his alcohols and spirits, but that was far from what it was being used for now.
There were bodies strung up along the stone walls. Their hands were tied above their heads in chains as they were forced to stand, unable to rest their full weight on the ground lest they put unbearable strain on their wrists or risk dislocating their shoulders. All of them were weak and shaking, a few of the men shirtless and bleeding from shallow cuts.
“Romara, what in the hells?” Cayo’s stomach clenched at the sight of them, at their pleading groans.
“These are the people who deserve punishment, Cayo.” Romara walked up to a man in his midyears, taking a stiletto knife from her thigh holster and pressing it against his stomach until he winced. “This one was still loyal to my father. I caught him sneaking into my room to garrote me in the middle of the night.” She backed off, leaving a thin trickle of blood on the man’s stomach. “That one over there? Tried to cheat me out of thousands of senas—real ones, not counterfeit. That woman at the end? Put poison in my food. She didn’t bet on me knowing exactly what hemlock tastes like.”
