Scavenge the Stars

by Tara Sim

  “No,” she decided, bringing her gaze back to Liesl. “Send the next one in.”

  When Liesl left, Amaya nervously plucked at the cream fabric of her Rehanese wrap dress. It had a high collar that felt constricting against her throat whenever she swallowed.

  If Boon were here, she had no doubt he could have gotten an answer by now. After all, what it did cost men like these to lie to a frilled-up countess? If she had been conducting these interviews as Silverfish, she could have just cut straight to the matter using the tactics she’d learned from observing Zharo for seven years.

  Amaya shook her head. Zharo was dead. So was Silverfish.

  Instead, she would use what she had learned from Boon in the months before coming to Moray.

  “Manipulation is about more than just lies and tricks,” Boon had once said as they strolled down a narrow cobblestone street in Viariche one evening. He had often kept to the ship, but sometimes meandered the outermost quarters of the city during dusk and dawn and the dark cover of night. “It’s about really gettin’ into the act, to the point where you almost believe the things you’re saying.”

  Boon had pointed out a woman down the street. The woman had been standing before the window display of a haberdashery, despite the hat of rich felt and ribbon atop her curls.

  “Go get me that hat,” Boon had ordered.

  “Huh? Why?”

  Boon had clicked his tongue a few times. “’Cause then I’ll have something nice to wear while I dine with the queen,” he’d growled. “Just go talk that lady outta her hat.”

  “But I don’t know how to do that!”

  He’d sighed and straightened his new jacket, thankfully not yet torn or stained, the buttons gleaming silver in the gloaming. “Fine, then. Watch me.”

  So she had tucked herself into a stone niche and observed as Boon made his casual way over to the woman. He stood a distance from her at first, hands in his pockets, shoulders relaxed, as his gaze roamed the wares on display.

  “That one would look great on you,” he said eventually, indicating the hat the woman pined over. The woman had a hand curled wistfully at her throat, but at Boon’s voice—less harsh than it normally was; Amaya supposed that was acting—she started and dropped it to her side.

  “Oh,” the woman had said in a throaty accent, “do you—you think?”

  “Absolutely. I got an eye for this stuff.” Boon had flashed her a wide smile that nearly bowled Amaya over with the level of charm behind it. Where had this man come from? Where was the disgusting, eccentric Landless rogue she had come to know?

  The woman flushed and ducked her head. She touched her hat uncertainly.

  “I bet you deserve to do somethin’ nice for yourself,” Boon had said, practically a croon as he edged a little closer to the woman. Amaya had tensed, as if watching a shark approach a seal. “Buy yourself a little present.”

  “I don’t know…” the woman had murmured.

  “C’mon, there’s no harm in it. In fact, I’ll help—why don’tcha give me the hat you have on now? Then you’ll have an excuse to get that one.” He’d winked. Boon had actually winked.

  The woman had blushed harder with a giggle. Amaya had rolled her eyes; how did people give in to their baser urges so quickly? Still, it was effective, since the woman slowly removed her felt hat with its shiny ribbon and shyly presented it to Boon.

  “There, y’see?” he said with another damn wink. “Now go treat yourself.”

  He had come back to where Amaya had been watching and plopped the hat on his head once the woman was in the shop. “Easy,” he’d said, offering her his arm. “Now let’s find you a young chump to dupe. It’ll be good practice for the Mercado lad.”

  But Cayo Mercado was not the person she was dealing with today. Liesl brought in the next debt collector, who eyed Deadshot as he passed her. Deadshot’s hand strayed toward one of her pistols, but a warning quirk of Amaya’s eyebrow made her drop it.

  He was taller than Vedasto, and thinner, though he had formed a small gut that came from frequent drinking. His brown eyes were bloodshot, but he was mostly clean shaven, his brown hair swept away from his face in a queue.

  Amaya forced herself to put on the bland smile of the countess as Liesl directed him to sit on the chaise opposite from Amaya’s chair. Like Boon, she had a part to play. She had to believe it if she wanted the man before her to believe it as well.

  “Good day, Mr. Melchor,” Countess Yamaa said.

  “Suppose it is,” he said with a barely concealed leer at Liesl, who had gone to stand attentively at the drink cart. Unlike her lover, Liesl was good at schooling her emotions so her disgust didn’t show. “Especially if I get money out of it.”

  “Then we both want the same thing. For if you meet my requirements for this job, it’s yours. You just need to answer a few questions first.”

  “Sure.” He leaned back with his arms and legs spread wide, as if determined to take up as much room as humanly possible. “Got the time.”

  Amaya swallowed her grimace. “I’m so glad.”

  The interview went on as it had for the others. Christano Melchor had worked as a debt collector for twenty years; he had been recommended by a friend who had worked for Mercado; he had semiretired a mere six months ago and was now only looking to take on commissions.

  Remembering the name that had been written next to his on Zharo’s list, Amaya fought not to follow Deadshot’s example and reach for the knife hidden behind her. Fera. She must have been Melchor’s last job before his retirement from the debt collectors. She tried to imagine his wide, scarred hands on Fera’s small shoulders and felt a shiver of revulsion and fury go through her.

  “These all seem like serviceable answers, Mr. Melchor,” she said. “But I do have one last question for you. Lord Mercado gave me your name personally, as he knows I’m searching for someone with just the right set of talents to get the job done. Someone who will do whatever it takes to track people down. I’ve conduced some research on your past jobs but noticed that one wasn’t documented. It was a job relating to a family named Chandra. Do you recall it?”

  Melchor tipped his head back, dangling from his fingers the now empty glass of lupseh that Liesl had given to him during the interview. “Chandra…it does ring a bell.”

  Amaya straightened in her seat. “Does it?”

  “Yeah. Chandra. The job was to bring a Kharian brat to one of the debtor ships, but I can’t remember which one.” He brought his head back up and shrugged. “S’all I recall of it.”

  Her heart beat a fierce tattoo in her chest. She felt Liesl’s gaze on her, urging her on.

  “Do you remember who hired you for that specific job, and why?” she asked, hoping her voice didn’t betray the weight of her question. “Did…Did Mercado have anything to do with it?”

  After all, if her father couldn’t pay back his loan, it made sense that Mercado would force his only child onto a debtor ship.

  “Mercado?” Melchor gave a half grin, revealing stained teeth. “Nah, he didn’t hire me for that. This wasn’t a traditional job.”

  “Wh—” Amaya reined in her surprise before it could show, before her act could unravel around her. Instead, she focused everything on tilting her head to one side in curiosity. “But I thought you were a debt collector?”

  “Sure, but I took commissions on the side. We all did.”

  “Then who hired you?”

  “The same sorta folk who always end up making these commissions. It was the girl’s own mother.”

  A coldness sank to the center of Amaya’s chest and spread outward in numbing veins, erasing all feeling in her body as her mind went blank.

  Staring at Melchor’s face, she began to think about that hazy day, about the man who had pushed her toward the dock with a grating laugh and his breath smelling like alcohol.

  She couldn’t tell how long she sat there—a second, a decade. She could barely process Liesl approaching the debt collector and saying that
the interview was over, that he would be contacted should the countess decide to hire him for the job.

  Amaya was staring at the rug when Liesl’s freshly shined shoes appeared before her. The young woman knelt down to peer into her eyes.

  “Are you all right?” Liesl asked carefully. Deadshot stood behind her, looking on in worry.

  Amaya merely stared at them, lips parted. That numbness had pervaded her so thoroughly that she was sure she would never move again.

  “He…” It was a monumental effort to speak. “He was lying.”

  Liesl exchanged a look with Deadshot. “I’m very skilled at detecting liars, and he seemed to be telling the truth. Or at least, the truth as he knows it.”

  “It…can’t be true. It can’t. It doesn’t make sense.”

  Her voice was rising, climbing into hysteria. Amaya took a deep breath, then another. Deadshot poured her a glass of lupseh, but Amaya merely cradled it between cold hands.

  “Let’s go over the facts,” Liesl said, standing and brushing out the skirt of her dress. “We know that it was a commission and didn’t go through the proper channels. Easy enough to double-check, if the statute of limitations on the debt collectors’ data is up. We know that Melchor was the one who…took you,” she said delicately. “Maybe we can use his name to—”

  “He’s wrong!” Amaya pushed herself out of the chair, the coldness giving way to fiery heat. “He’s lying, and I don’t know why! Maybe he was told to keep the job secret for some reason.”

  “Ama—”

  “My mother would never sell me!”

  “I didn’t say she did, but—”

  Amaya screamed in helpless rage and threw the glass of lupseh at the wall, reveling in the destruction, the crash, the shards that flew toward them. One nicked her on the ankle, a glorious pinpoint of pain.

  Breathing hard, she looked over her shoulder, through the fallen strands of her hair. “Get out.”

  Liesl hesitated, but Deadshot touched her arm and the two of them walked out of the sitting room, closing the doors gently behind them.

  Amaya collapsed to the floor in a pool of silk, shaking and nauseated. She stared at the shattered glass, the lupseh soaking into the rug like spilled blood.

  It was the girl’s own mother.

  He was wrong. Mercado was behind all of this—the sale, the lies, the deceit—and once she knew exactly how, she would break his world apart.

  “Lady,” said the magician from the clouds, “I saw you descend from the stars, and it was my wish to follow.”

  —“NERALIA OF THE CLOUDS,” AN ORAL STORY ORIGINATING FROM THE LEDE ISLANDS

  Cayo slipped on gravelly dirt and cursed. At this rate, he was going to scuff his shoes beyond repair. Grabbing hold of the steadiest rock, he swung down past a patch of shale, inching closer to the grass and scrub that lined the steep incline.

  It didn’t help that the sun kept a beady eye on him as it sank toward the horizon, making him sweat under his collar. It cast the rocks and succulents around him in a gentle shade of pink that reminded him of the morning Sébastien had left Moray.

  Was Bas doing all right? When would he reach Soliere? Would he send word back to Philip, at least, that he had arrived safely?

  The counterfeit coin and the key to the Slum King’s office jostled together in Cayo’s pocket as he climbed closer to level ground. Mercado Manor loomed above him, gleaming in the late afternoon light. The manor sat on a hill overlooking the bay and had the luxury of no neighbors due to the low cliffs hugging the shoreline. He had come this way not for exercise, but because he didn’t want his father to know where he was going—which meant sneaking past the carriage driver and not using the main path leading to the manor.

  He was going to break into Salvador’s office and find the evidence he needed to prove the Slum King was behind the counterfeit. He was going to make him pay for what he’d done to Bas.

  And he was going to get money for Soria’s medicine.

  The biggest hurdle would be Romara. That is, not getting stabbed by her once she realized who must have taken her copy of the office key last night.

  Cayo paused to swallow the nervous laughter creeping up his throat. The protagonists in the adventure novels he read made it look so easy—confronting the villain, saving the day, evading death. They always had some idea of what they were doing. Cayo, staring down the imposing barrel of a harebrained scheme, envied them and their predetermined fates.

  Panting lightly, he finally reached the bottom of the incline and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He needed to start taking the carriage less often, build up some endurance. He set off toward the city, knowing that by the time he reached the Vice Sector it would be dark enough to sneak around undetected.

  He admired the view of the Southerly Sea beyond the bay as he walked. His mother would often sit at one of the manor’s balconies and watch the water for hours at a time, sometimes with a smile, sometimes with an expression that had been too complicated for Cayo to understand back then. Sometimes he would sit in her lap and watch the sea with her, or carry a book outside for her to read to him over the gentle roar of the waves.

  Fresh ocean air is the best remedy for any ailment, his mother would say. He wished that were actually true. That it had been enough to heal her lungs, strengthen her body, force her heart to keep pumping.

  Cayo was so wrapped up in his nostalgia that he almost didn’t notice the figure standing on the edge of the nearest cliff. When he did, he slowed to a stop, caught off guard by their presence. They stood beside a pile of discarded clothes, their gaze fixed on the wide curve of the ocean.

  Before Cayo could call out and ask if they were all right, the figure lifted their arms and jumped.

  “No!” Cayo hurried to the cliff, yanking off his jacket and hopping on one foot and then the other as he pulled off his shoes. “Hold on, please don’t die!”

  He only had a fraction of a second to realize the discarded clothes were a finely tailored dress and a shift before he leaped in after. The fall was short, and as soon as he hit the water he arced back up to the surface and looked around frantically, shaking wet hair out of his face.

  “Hello?” he called. “Are you all right?”

  “What in Trickster’s name are you doing?”

  Cayo spun around in the water and came face-to-face with Countess Yamaa.

  Her hair was unbound and hung in damp strands. Her dark eyes were wide and wild, staring at him as if he were a ghoul who had crawled out of the hells.

  Cayo only noticed then that they hadn’t dived straight into the sea. The cliff face overlooked an inlet that extended like a small arm into a deep, secluded pool of seawater. He blinked in consternation at the rocky walls around them, kicking his legs to keep himself afloat.

  “Uh,” he said, forgetting every single word in any comprehensible language. “Ah…”

  “Did you follow me here?” the countess demanded, her tone sharp. “If you touch me, I will drown you.”

  “Wha—I—No! I’m not—I wasn’t—I thought you were jumping! I was going to save you!”

  Yamaa’s eyes were still spooked, but at this her eyebrows climbed toward her hairline. “You were going to what?”

  Cayo’s heart was finally settling down, his mind racing to catch up with the situation at hand. “You…You weren’t jumping to…?” He looked around at the secluded inlet again. “Did you come here to swim?”

  The countess flushed. Cayo’s own face was a miniature inferno, and he briefly toyed with the idea of letting her drown him after all.

  “Answer me, Lord Mercado,” the countess said, a warning woven around the word lord. “Did you follow me here?”

  “No! I was on my way into the city when I saw you jump.”

  “What were you doing by the cliffs?”

  “I…” He thought of the coin and the key he had abandoned up above in his jacket pocket. “I was taking the long way around. Our manor is just up that way.” He lifted a hand fro
m the water to point, bobbing a bit as he lost his balance.

  Yamaa stared at him a moment longer, as if assessing whether he was telling the truth. Finally, she sighed and said, “Yes, I come here to swim. Usually alone.”

  And his so-called heroism had ruined that. Swimming into the bay and getting washed out to sea was beginning to sound like an excellent way to escape this situation.

  “How did you even know about this place?” he asked, a little breathless from the constant effort to stay afloat. “I mean…you’re a countess. You have a pool in your gardens. Why come all the way out here?”

  “So that no one can disturb me.” The iron still hadn’t left her voice. “I’m sure you would understand the desire, considering you were taking the ‘long way around.’”

  He grimaced. “I may know something about it, yes.”

  Spotting a group of rocks nearby, Cayo swam up to them. The water was somewhat cold in the shade, but it felt good against his skin, and the rock he heaved himself onto was sunbaked and warm.

  “I’m sorry I disturbed you,” he said, wringing out his shirt.

  Yamaa sighed again and followed him. Although the simple act of treading water had left him out of breath, she seemed completely unaffected. He watched the graceful way she moved, remembering when she dived to save her servant at the garden party. Did she use to swim wherever she came from? Had her family’s manor also sat by the ocean?

  She lifted herself onto the rock near his, dripping water everywhere. She was only in her underthings, and Cayo’s face heated again as he briefly glanced at the curves of her thighs and hips. But she didn’t seem to care about modesty or covering herself around him. She merely squeezed excess water from her long black hair as she studied him with narrowed eyes.

  “Do you often go about trying to save young women?” she jabbed.

  Cayo let out an embarrassed laugh. “Not usually. I’ll admit that I’m surprised to see you here, though. Alone.” After all, she had brought a servant with her at their meeting at the teahouse.

  “You’re not the only one who likes to sneak around.”

  “I wasn’t—” He cleared his throat. “I’m not sneaking. Just taking a walk. Sometimes I prefer it over taking the carriage.”