Scavenge the Stars

by Tara Sim

  The reef was crawling with cleverly camouflaged rockfish. One bite from them could send someone into shock. Under the waves, that was a death sentence.

  Roach was already hauling her back up. Her lungs were starved, so she reluctantly followed until they broke the surface.

  “Damn it.” Roach slicked back his wet hair, water sliding down his face. “Those rockfish weren’t there last time I dove.”

  “So we just avoid them,” Silverfish said. “We can be careful.”

  “It’s too risky.”

  Silverfish closed her eyes tight. This was their last diving stop until they reached Moray; she couldn’t afford to let the opportunity go.

  Protector and Punisher, she thought, beginning the familiar prayer to the Kharian gods her father had called upon his whole life, Trickster and Temptress, Lord of Earth and Lady of Sky, clear my eyes and clear my mind, for I know not what I do.

  “Sil,” Roach warned. “I know that look. That’s your I’m-reckoning-with-the-gods look.”

  She opened her eyes and grinned. “Last one down gets to shuck.”

  And with that, she took another breath and plunged back into the water.

  Kicking her legs hard and fast, she descended to the reef. It was difficult to see them, but the slightest motion gave the rockfish away. They blended so well with the rock that she had to make several second and third guesses as to where the rest of the school was hiding.

  Ignoring the strain of her heart, Silverfish reached for a small yet easily accessible oyster. She pried it off the reef and tucked it into the small pouch wrapped low around her hips. A dark shape beside her made her start, but it was only Roach. He shot her a reproachful look before he began to carefully harvest.

  The sea was alive around her, full of motion and shadow, from swaying kelp to the flash of small fish darting by. She wasn’t fooled; she knew all too well the hidden dangers around her, the potential for death amid all this life. She kept an eye out for brinies, a type of poisonous mollusk, as well as a small breed of jellyfish found in these waters that, with one sting, could paralyze someone for up to five hours. One of the Bugs had drowned that way last year.

  As she reached for the meatier-looking oysters, the rock beside them shifted. Not a rock at all—a rockfish, motionless among the coral.

  Silverfish jerked back, heart pounding. Damn it.

  But these were the biggest oysters she’d found. She had to take the chance.

  With her chest tight and vision beginning to darken, Silverfish’s hand hovered over the oysters. The rockfish was still; she couldn’t even make out its eyes. Was it better to do it fast or slow? What would provoke it less?

  The rockfish shifted again. Fast, then.

  She grabbed the oysters and pried them off, one in each hand.

  The rockfish struck.

  Crying out soundlessly, Silverfish spun away as she clutched the oysters to her chest. Roach was there in an instant to pull her back to the surface.

  “Fool!” he panted as soon as they could gulp down air. “Did it bite? Are you hurt?”

  Silverfish moved her left hand and hissed. There was a slender red line on the side of her palm that was rapidly swelling. It felt like fire. “It didn’t bite, but it grazed me.”

  “We need to get you back before the effects take hold.”

  She nodded and clumsily pushed the oysters into her pouch with her right hand, her left already too numb to use. A graze like this wasn’t fatal, but the numbness would spread, putting her out of commission for at least a few hours.

  Swimming back to shore was difficult. Roach took hold of her waist as Silverfish paddled with her right arm, and together they were able to crawl onto the beach. She tumbled to the sand, breathing heavily.

  “I’ll get the other Bugs to help carry you,” Roach said. Silverfish used her right hand to grab his wrist before he could stand.

  “Wait,” she wheezed. “Shuck them. Please. Before the captain sees.”

  Roach hesitated, but the desperation in her eyes was enough to convince him. He opened her pouch and took out the five oysters she had managed to harvest, going back to his discarded clothes to find a shucker.

  “If your lungs seize up, you only have yourself to blame,” he grumbled as he sat and began to open each oyster. He showed her their insides as he worked. She grunted in both pain and frustration when she saw only small, standard pearls in two of them, and bared her teeth when the next two had no pearls at all.

  Then Roach paused, gazing down at the fifth and largest oyster. He met Silverfish’s frantic gaze, a grim smile on his lips.

  “Congratulations,” he said, raising the oyster for her to see.

  And inside: the price of four weeks of debt.

  With the help of Roach and some of the other Bugs, Silverfish made it back on board the Brackish, ignoring Captain Zharo’s taunts the entire time.

  “Too eager for those pearls, Silverfish?” he’d rumbled as they rowed back to the ship. “Can’t imagine why.” He laughed at his own wit, the same grating, coarse laugh that always pulled her shoulders up to her ears. “Don’t think this lets you off easy. You best be recovered by your next shift, else I’ll add another week or two to the board.”

  Just wait, you bastard, she’d thought, touching the round, smooth pearl hidden in her pocket.

  After a couple of hours in her hammock and partially recovering feeling in her left side, she was able to shuffle into the galley later that night, where Cicada was on duty. He grinned at her from behind the grimy counter, a pot of something boiling behind him on the stove.

  “Glad to see you up,” Cicada said as he roughly chopped some withered onions. His long black hair was rolled into locs, and tattoos of white dots studded his dark brown face in half-moons under his eyes. “Rumors going about saying you was a goner.”

  “It’s only a scratch,” she muttered, showing him her bandaged hand. It was still throbbing, but at least she could move it. “I need to feed my charge.”

  “Sure thing. But first…” He poured her a glass of what looked to be heavily diluted lupseh, a popular type of alcohol found in the Lede Islands. How he’d managed to get it, let alone sneak it on board, she had no idea. He pushed the glass toward her with a wink. “Don’t tell Cap.”

  “Cade, you’re beautiful.” She downed the drink in three sips, shivering in delight as her head went pleasantly hazy. He also gave her a plate of what he called braised lamb shank with onions, but what she knew was actually rehydrated jerky with the last of the shriveled, rotten batch of onions.

  She fixed a plate for Boon and went down to the holding cells, where she found him pacing restlessly. There were no portholes down here, and she had to light a couple of torches. He noticed her bandaged hand as she fumbled with the flint.

  “You injured?”

  “It’s nothing.” She shoved the plate through the inch between the bars and the floor. He immediately fell on his ass to start shoveling old, weevil-infested rice pottage in his mouth. Big drops of it fell on his pants and shirt, but he didn’t seem to care. “It was worth it.”

  Still chewing, he looked up with bits of rice stuck around his mouth. “Oh?”

  She looked at him closely. There was an expression on his face she couldn’t interpret. It made her uncomfortable, and she shifted on her feet. Silverfish reached into her pocket, where the pearl rested. She rolled it between her fingers, its shape like a promise against her skin, before she drew it out for Boon to see.

  “Absolutely worth it,” she said.

  Boon eyed the pearl with a distinctly unimpressed expression. “You kidding? I have ones the size of my balls, and you come here flaunting that?”

  Flushing, Silverfish stuffed the pearl away. “Right, your so-called wealth.”

  “What’re you calling so-called?” He gave her a small grin, devious and somehow boyish. She thought she spotted a weevil stuck between his teeth. “I could lead you to treasure, girl. More than you could possibly imagine.” />
  “I have no need for imaginary treasure,” she told him. “Tomorrow morning, when we dock in Moray, I leave this ship for good.”

  Saying it out loud was like opening a window that had been boarded shut. The force of her yearning made her shake where she stood. Tomorrow, she would return to Moray. She would finally see her mother.

  Tomorrow, she would become Amaya.

  Boon’s eyes widened. “You…” He stood, hands tightly gripping the bars. “Wait. You gotta help me escape first. I can’t be seen in Moray.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

  “Let’s just say that if the captain of this here vessel don’t sell me to some other debtor ship first, I’m more likely than not to find a dagger through my heart, you understand?”

  Though everything about him screamed liar, Silverfish knew the laws about how close a Landless could get to port were strict—and she’d heard stories of what happened when those laws were disobeyed. The Port’s Authority didn’t hesitate to hang those who thought to try to sneak ashore, dangling their corpses on the seawall by the harbor.

  Silverfish hesitated. It was her fault he was on this ship in the first place. Whatever happened to him in Moray would be her fault, too. She couldn’t become Amaya with that debt hovering over her.

  She was sick of debt, sick of owing more than she was willing to give.

  Glancing at the dark stairs, she reached into her pouch and pulled out her shucking knife. It was small yet sharp, and—as she’d learned from experience—perfect for picking locks.

  She dropped it to the floor while keeping her eyes averted, then kicked it under the bars.

  “I can’t help you,” she said with a furtive glance, expecting him to understand.

  Boon didn’t make a move to pick up the shucker, but he smiled.

  As she turned toward the stairs, his voice followed her.

  “If you change your mind about the treasure,” he said to her back, “you only have until tomorrow morning. The tides are in our favor. When the water turns orange, remember to swim down.”

  She looked over her shoulder. He was sitting in the corner of his cell, keeping his gaze on the ceiling while one foot tapped a nervous rhythm on the warped floor. The shucker was nowhere to be seen.

  Captain Zharo’s eyes nearly fell out of his head when she placed the pearl on his desk, right in the middle of his ledger.

  It was fat and lovely, its gray sheen catching the lantern light. Slowly, he picked it up in his dirt-smudged fingers and turned it this way and that. It was like watching a bear handle a teacup.

  “I think this more than pays for the torn net,” Silverfish said, trying hard not to grin. “And my remaining debt.”

  Zharo opened his mouth, closed it, and checked the ledger. He squinted up at her, and the fear she had felt earlier while talking to Boon about her father began to crawl its way back through her. She couldn’t explain it other than a vague sense of unease—that she was somehow overlooking something.

  “It’s enough,” the captain grunted.

  Silverfish exhaled shakily. Relief, warm and golden, threaded through her veins, holding hands with that ever-present fear.

  “I can leave tomorrow?” she breathed.

  After a pause, Zharo nodded. Silverfish dismissed herself and walked unsteadily down the corridor, unable to stifle her grin any longer.

  Tomorrow, Silverfish would die, and Amaya would go home.

  Try not to wander into Moray’s Vice Sector at night, unless you desire to leave broke and beaten and betrayed before daybreak.

  —A COMPLETE GUIDE TO MORAY’S SECTORS

  The soft chime of champagne glasses sounded almost musical in the din of the festivities. Cayo would have preferred the rattling of dice or the feathery shuffling of cards.

  But that was the old Cayo. Here was the new Cayo: Tidy, well-dressed, well-mannered. Stuffed into a suit that was far too hot and had a collar so tight it made him want to cough. A respectable merchant’s son, or at least playing the part of one.

  Except he wasn’t here on respectable business.

  Rolling his shoulders back in a vain attempt to ease the soreness out of them, he plucked a flute of champagne off a serving tray and wandered through the partygoers, keeping an eye out for his mark. He forced himself to put on his best smile, the one that showed off the dimple in his left cheek and made girls and boys stammer and blush. A few acquaintances returned his smile, but he merely lifted his glass in greeting as he retreated farther to the edges of the crowd.

  High-society parties were usually arranged well in advance, giving the wealthier citizens of Moray enough time to choose the perfect outfit, hairstyle, and arm companion to show off. Contrary to tradition, news of this gala had blown through the streets only a week ago, making everyone scramble for new jewelry and shoes at a speed Cayo hadn’t believed possible of the Moray gentry.

  Normally, a faux pas of this magnitude would have been greeted with a great deal of harrumphing if not outright societal exile, but it was excused for one simple reason: The party was hosted by Countess Yamaa.

  The countess had swept into Moray on her massive purple sails just a couple of weeks ago—the same day Soria had collapsed—and no one could speak of anything else. No one knew who she was, or where she had come from, or why she was here—the mystery had become its own kind of calling card. The only thing the citizens of Moray knew about her was the only thing that mattered: that she had more wealth than god herself had stars.

  Would be nice to have some of that, he thought bitterly as he took in the frivolity around him.

  Not to be outdone by the last of Moray’s great parties, where Duke Irai had commissioned a yacht solely for the purpose of a water gala, Countess Yamaa had situated them in a massive greenhouse floating on a man-made island off the coast of Moray. The glass panels of the house were welded together using beams of silver-studded iron, and beyond the glow of the lanterns inside, the nighttime sky showered the partygoers with starlight. Massive ferns and flower bushes had been arranged throughout the greenhouse, as well as trees bearing small crystal chandeliers in place of fruit. Parrots and songbirds flitted among the branches, making several ladies duck and cover their heads for fear of droppings.

  A year ago, Cayo would have been ready to charm the countess until she fell into his arms, just because he could. Today, Cayo was going to confront her about where she could and couldn’t dock her ship. He pressed the cool surface of his glass to his hot forehead. His family couldn’t afford any chink in the armor of his father’s business. Not when the price of Soria’s medicine was so steep.

  “Cayo!”

  He turned toward the sound of his name. The Akara twins, Chailai and Bero, were sitting at a round table lit by a lantern in the shape of a ship. The table was already strewn with empty glasses and cards.

  “We haven’t seen you in forever!” Chailai cried. The bird ornament in her hair jangled as she moved.

  “We had bets going,” said Bero. “On whether you were dead or not.”

  Cayo gestured at himself. “Still here.”

  “Then you’re likely begging for a Scatterjack rematch,” Bero said, grinning tauntingly over his cards. “Come on, I have a good streak going.”

  It was obviously the beginning of one of their typical nights: enough drink to fell an elephant, followed by visiting the casinos in Moray’s Vice Sector. The twins—as well as Sébastien and their friend Tomjen—had done it enough times for it to evolve from indulgence to habit.

  But they hadn’t drained their fortunes. The twins and Tomjen were old money; their parents were swimming in wealth and had enough sense to pay off the right people to cover up stories of their children’s excesses. The Mercados were only a single generation in—Cayo’s father had built their fortune from practically nothing—and had not yet picked up the same tricks.

  Cayo hesitated. His fingertips buzzed with the urge to feel those cards in his hands, to down the drink he held and join his friends.
To not have a single care in the world, so long as he was feeling good. There were so many things he longed to put out of his mind. His father. Soria. Sébastien.

  Where was Bas? A tremor of worry ran through Cayo, but he shook it off. Bas had been in trouble at the tables plenty of times before—they all had. He’d see his way out somehow. Cayo had already done what he could.

  He gripped the champagne flute almost hard enough to break it. He still remembered nights in the casinos like a fever dream, the heat and thrill of the risk, the hum of alcohol in his bloodstream, the high of reward, the low of losing.

  Heart racing, he gave his friends an apologetic smile and shrugged, motioning that someone was seeking his attention. He only just registered their disappointed faces before turning toward the back of the greenhouse. He dumped his champagne into a potted plant along the way. Soria would be proud of him.

  But thinking of his sister only brought more guilt, despite the fact that she was the one who had convinced him to come to this party in the first place.

  “I’d love to give the countess a piece of my mind,” he’d told her earlier that evening when she asked if he would go. “I want to see the look on her face when I ask for a reimbursement for the dock switch.”

  “I see Father’s teaching you well. You should go, then.”

  He had looked at her sitting against the pillows of her bed, noting the circles under her eyes and the shallow way her chest moved when she breathed. For a moment, she’d reminded him of their mother in her final days: the way her face had grown gaunt and pale, how she could barely keep her eyes open. The memory of climbing onto his mother’s bed to lie beside her was as fresh as a new wound, even though it had been years since she’d passed. He could still hear his mother’s labored humming as her trembling fingers threaded through his hair, feel how his tears had left a cold, wet patch on her nightgown.

  Soria read his worry easily.

  “I’ll be perfectly fine here,” she had said, patting his hand as if he were the sick one. “Father is home tonight, and Miss Lawan will be with me.”