Ravage the Dark: 2 (Scavenge the Stars)

by Tara Sim

  “I thought for sure it was the right uniform,” Liesl growled as she knelt and stripped down one of the guards. “Sorry, Remy.”

  “No matter.” Remy quickly shed the uniform to replace it with the new one. It was too big for him in the shoulder, and he had to roll the sleeves up. “Cayo, you take the other.”

  Cayo started. “Why me?”

  “It looks like it’ll fit you.”

  Despite the nausea in her stomach and the storm in her head, Amaya still felt her skin prickle as Cayo began to unbutton his shirt. She turned around as the rustling of his clothes echoed against the alley walls.

  The guards seemed to have settled back at their stations in the front, calling an all clear.

  “All right,” Liesl whispered once he was done. “Let’s move.”

  Liesl jiggered the lock on the nearest administrative building and gestured everyone through. It smelled like parchment and ink as they quickly ascended the stairs and found themselves on the roof, a good four feet away from the Widow Vaults’ marble balustrade.

  Deadshot made the leap first, landing gracefully. She peered down to check that the guards below hadn’t heard anything, then signaled the rest of them to join her. Liesl jumped after, stumbling a bit as she landed. Remy jumped next, then Cayo, after taking a deep breath and a running start. When Cayo landed, he wobbled and nearly fell to his knees, but Remy caught him.

  Amaya again had that dream-like sensation where everything was fuzzy and made no sense. It took her a moment to realize she was just standing there while everyone else motioned for her to jump across. With a jolt, she took a few steps back before running and leaping.

  She drew up too short, her foot landing on the railing of the balustrade. She gasped loudly and slipped, and would have fallen and cracked open her skull if Remy and Cayo hadn’t reached for her at the same time, each of them grabbing an arm and hauling her up.

  “What was that?” came the voice of a guard below.

  “Something’s going on. Go make a perimeter check.”

  Amaya’s heart beat a frantic rhythm as she caught her breath. Liesl shot her a disbelieving look, as if to ask, What’s wrong with you tonight?

  “Sorry,” she breathed.

  They crept through the rounded windows beneath the marble lantern towers, entering into a short, empty colonnade. Liesl waited for the guards to complete their perimeter check before she tapped her foot on the roof panel. Deadshot lifted it, stifling a grunt at how heavy it was, stone dust falling like a snow flurry as she set it down as carefully as she could. One by one, they hung off the lip before dropping inside, onto a wooden landing overlooking the ground floor.

  Amaya briefly returned to the night when she and Remy had infiltrated the currency exchange offices in Baleine. He must have as well, because he gave her a quick grimace.

  But unlike that night, there were no trips or traps to outmaneuver. As they crept along the second-story landing, they soon saw why: There were guards inside the building as well. There were two sitting at a desk playing a card game as they carried out a murmured conversation. Along the far wall, through a window lit with yellow light, two employees were hunched over their desks working late into the night.

  “Damn it,” Liesl muttered. “The one thing blueprints can’t tell you.”

  “What do we do?” Amaya whispered.

  “Let me think. In the meantime…” She pointed to a room up ahead. “Records in there. Remy and Amaya, go.”

  Cayo tried to follow, but Liesl wagged her finger at him and pointed to the end of the landing for him to keep an eye on the guards. He scowled but did as he was told.

  Liesl used her lock picks on the door, going as slow as she dared. A faint click sounded from the lock and they tensed, but the guards didn’t hear it over their conversation. Once the door was open, Amaya and Remy slipped through.

  “Cr-, Ci-, Ca-…” Remy whispered as he scanned a shelf of ledgers. “Ch-, here we are.” He wormed a record out and flipped through the pages. There were no windows, so Amaya fumbled in her pocket and took out the few matches they had stolen from the inn.

  She struck one, and the tongue of flame it produced danced between her fingers. Remy turned the pages quickly, then went back a couple and stabbed the page with his finger.

  “Chandra,” he whispered, his finger sliding down the page as he read. “Arun Chandra has a record here. And so does Rin Chandra.”

  “That’s her,” Amaya said, voice shaking.

  “She purchased the Vault the same year we were sold to the Brackish.” They exchanged a meaningful glance. “Vault number fifty-seven.”

  The match’s flame kissed her fingers with a sudden, bright pain. Amaya hissed and dropped it. Remy snuffed it out with his heel, then pocketed it.

  “Are you all right?” he demanded, but she knew he wasn’t talking about the fire. “If you’re too distracted—”

  “I’m fine.” She led the way back out once they had replaced the records, closing the door softly behind them. They told Liesl the Vault number, and the girl took a moment to think back to the blueprints before nodding.

  “I know where it is,” she whispered. “But first we’ll have to get past these fools.”

  She pointed down to the guards, who occasionally raised their heads to check on the employees. Deadshot touched her pistol and raised her eyebrows, but Liesl shook her head. The less evidence that they had been here, the better.

  Remy leaned over and whispered in Cayo’s ear. Cayo grimaced but nodded. The two of them went down the stairs to the bottom floor, looking out of place yet trying their best to seem like they belonged here this late at night. Amaya couldn’t help but think how odd it was to see Cayo in a uniform, stiff and austere against such an expressive face.

  “Gentlemen,” Remy said with that disarming smile of his. “We’re to relieve you for the night.”

  The guards jerked in surprise, glancing from Remy to Cayo to the stairs. Liesl pulled Deadshot and Amaya down.

  “Where did you…?” One of the guards shook his head, setting down his cards. “It’s only midnight. There’s no shift switch for at least another hour.”

  “Sorry. They told us twelve.” Remy shrugged, affecting casualness despite the sweat glinting at his temples. “Simple mistake.”

  The guards were tense, their shoulders stiff and eyes pinched. Amaya’s hand drifted to the knife up her sleeve, ready to throw it, to leap down from the banister—

  “You really want to stay here when you could be getting a drink at the Shy Clam?” Cayo blurted. “They close in about an hour.”

  One of the guards hummed in his throat. “Always wanted to go there, but they close right when our shifts end.”

  “Well, don’t let us stop you,” Remy said. “We’ll watch over the candle burners.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of the lit office.

  The guards hesitated before finally scraping their chair legs back.

  “Get the Salted Oyster,” Cayo told them. “Nice and strong.”

  “Will do. Be sure to lock up after the clerks are done.”

  They all waited in tense silence until the two guards left. Cayo let out a shuddering breath and wiped his forehead.

  “Good thinking.” Liesl patted Cayo’s shoulder. “Now we only have to get past these clerks and find the code to the Vault.”

  “Yes, very simple,” Remy muttered. “Should we tell them to head out?”

  “We might need one of them to access the codes for us,” Liesl said. “Get in and distract them. Leave the rest to us.”

  Amaya worried out a knife as Remy took the lead again, he and Cayo entering the office while the others crouched under the window.

  “Afraid you need to pack up for the night,” Remy said.

  There was a rustle from beyond the door. “What? Why?”

  “Security measures. There were a couple of suspicious noises outside, so they want to evacuate just in case.”

  More rustling, the dry whisper of paper. A
maya tried to keep her breathing quiet as the clerks grumbled and yawned. Cayo’s shadow fidgeted.

  As soon as the first clerk crossed the threshold, Deadshot moved like a whip and grabbed them from behind, slapping a hand over their mouth before they could scream.

  “No sudden movements,” Liesl ordered the other one, who stood gaping with wide red-rimmed eyes as Deadshot pressed her pistol to the clerk’s temple. “We only want one piece of information. You give it to us, we’ll let you go.”

  The other clerk twitched suddenly. Amaya acted without thinking, throwing her knife into the clerk’s shoulder. The woman screamed and Remy grabbed her, hand over her mouth. A small bottle fell from the woman’s hand, and Cayo picked it up with narrowed eyes.

  It had to be poison. No doubt those who worked here had been trained to protect the Vaults at whatever cost—the finest riches of Moray were more important than their very lives.

  Cayo briefly met Amaya’s gaze. She wondered if he, too, were thinking about the way Florimond had tipped a bottle of mercury down his throat.

  “There’s no need for that,” Liesl said, nice and calm. “Just give us the code to Vault fifty-seven, and we’ll let you go.”

  The woman was crying, trying to shake her head around Remy’s hold. The clerk with Deadshot’s pistol trained on them—who wore a pin in the shape of a diamond on their lapel, signifying their pronouns—took a trembling breath.

  “I know the code,” they whispered. “Just… leave her alone. Please.”

  Liesl nodded to Remy, who guided the woman back to her desk and ripped a swath of fabric from his uniform to tie her to the chair. She was outright weeping now, blood spilling down her front, and Amaya avoided her glaring eyes as she carefully retrieved her knife and wrapped a tourniquet around the woman’s shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” Amaya whispered. She knew it wouldn’t do any good.

  Remy stuffed another wad of fabric into the woman’s mouth and closed the office door behind them. The remaining clerk was pushed gently toward the stairs leading down to the Vaults, Deadshot’s pistol trained on their back.

  Amaya remembered going down these steps. She had run down here after finding out her father had a Vault and that Mercado had seized control of it and all the incriminating blackmail within. She could almost sense that other Amaya walking alongside her, the ghost of a girl who didn’t know who she was, who had been lied to, manipulated, kept in the dark.

  In some ways, she was still that girl.

  “Amaya.” Cayo was beside her. The heat of his hand hovered above her back, close to touching but keeping his distance. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  Nothing was all right. She wanted to smash down the walls. She wanted to tear out of her own traitorous skin. She wanted to tell Cayo everything.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  They followed the clerk down corridors lined with Vault doors painted gold. After a while, the doors became dingier, the golden paint discarded to display only simple metallic doors.

  The cheaper Vaults, Amaya guessed, if any Vaults could truly be called cheap. The ones kept in the back, smaller and uglier and easier to afford. This, at least, did not surprise her.

  They stopped at number fifty-seven, the number inscribed on a plaque above the door. The locking mechanism was connected to two dials, one on either side.

  “A dual combination lock,” Liesl murmured. “Interesting.” The clerk was guided to one of the dials, and Liesl made for the other.

  Then she paused. “You should be the one to do it,” she said to Amaya.

  Amaya just stood there, staring at the other dial. A few simple turns, and that door would open, and there would be no going back.

  “Amaya,” Liesl whispered.

  She clenched her jaw, welcoming the ache in her teeth. It helped her focus. She took a step forward and placed her hand on the dial, the numbers already blurring in her vision.

  The clerk gave the code slowly, both of them turning the dials in synchronicity. Amaya tried her best to exist outside her body as she turned the knob, hearing the clicks and catches, until finally the tumblers inside gave way.

  The last secret, she hoped. The last time she had to confront the terrible legacy her parents had burdened her with.

  She heaved open the door. The air inside the Vault was stale and musty; it hadn’t been opened in years. The smell, strangely, reminded Amaya of being on the Brackish, and nausea rushed through her.

  There was a sconce on the wall with an unlit torch. Liesl took one of Amaya’s matches and lit it, casting the small room in a pale orange glow. Amaya held her breath as she finally looked around, expecting piles of fake gold, or perhaps an alchemy laboratory like Florimond’s, or a chest filled with schematics and plans.

  Instead, there was a large pile of cloth.

  And that was it.

  Everyone was silent as they stared at it, confusion giving way to incredulity. Liesl picked up a handful of the cloth—it was thick and tan, like canvas—and even shook it out, but there were no secrets to reveal. Nothing written or sewn into fabric, no papers hidden within its folds. Just neat, even rows of thick white thread, stitching the cloth together into a shape they couldn’t fathom.

  No experiments. No clues.

  No cure.

  “This doesn’t make sense.” Cayo crouched and touched the fabric. “Why would she spend so much money just to store away some cloth?” He looked up at Amaya. “Do you know?”

  She shook her head, silent. Trying desperately to suppress the horrible ache in her chest.

  Liesl made a poor attempt to mask her disappointment. “Well. Let’s take it with us anyway, just in case.”

  As Liesl folded the cloth and put as much of it as she could into the pack they’d brought, Remy came to stand beside Amaya.

  “Maybe it had some sort of value to her,” he said. “Maybe, I don’t know, she wanted to make something for you?”

  Amaya appreciated what he was trying to do, but at the same time she wanted to push him and everyone else away. To just sit in this room her mother had once stepped foot in. To wait for understanding to crash down on her.

  She slowly raked her eyes around the Vault, as if her mother had scrawled some note for her on the stone.

  She didn’t find a note, but she did notice a small, rectangular shape leaning against the wall near the door. She picked it up and turned it over.

  Three smiling faces stared back up at her. A painted portrait of a bygone family.

  Amaya’s hands tightened against the canvas. She remembered this. She had been five years old, and her mother had insisted the three of them go to the Arts Sector for a festival. Her father had been reluctant, but eventually they’d all been coaxed out the door—mostly with the bribe of festival food.

  While they were there, her mother had spotted an artist taking commissions. She had been so excited despite her father’s grumbling. Amaya had been fussy, squirming on her father’s lap and asking for more fried sugar buns. The artist had been patient and quick, and her mother had fawned over the portrait for days afterward, proudly displaying it in their home.

  Amaya’s gaze caressed the shape of her mother’s smiling face. She looked so startlingly young that Amaya realized for the first time that she had no idea how old her mother had been. She was holding a five-year-old Amaya’s hand, her former self soft with baby fat, her mouth hanging open in an excited child’s grin.

  And her father. He had worn his hair a little long then, his chin sporting a short, well-trimmed beard. He didn’t look as young as her mother, but he was certainly younger in this, his face not yet lined with crags and ridges. His smile was calmer, smaller, but there was still something in the way his eyes crinkled that proved he had been happy despite his complaints about having to sit still for the artist.

  The longer she stared, she more she saw the man who would one day become Boon. They had the same dark eyes, the same broad forehead, the same solid frame.

  He was
her father. And despite everything, she loved him still.

  Amaya’s shoulder hit the wall as she pressed the portrait to her chest, closing her eyes as they watered. She bared her teeth against the pain clawing up her throat, her back jerking with the effort to not let her despair overwhelm her.

  It had been so easy, once, to look up at the sky and believe the stars shone for her. That nothing bad could ever happen and that love would always save her.

  But stars were cold and distant things, and love was too abstract to ever hold on to.

  “Amaya?” Cayo’s voice, his presence warm at her back.

  Half of her wanted him closer, and the other half wanted him to look away, to let her be. She didn’t want to be alone, and yet that was all she craved. Just a moment, her and her family, in the only way they could be reunited.

  Before he could say anything else, a shout rang down the hall.

  “Here!” yelled the clerk, struggling against Deadshot’s grip. “In here!”

  Amaya spun away from the wall and lifted the portrait just in time. A bullet embedded itself into the wood and canvas, peeking through the space between her mother and father.

  She tossed the portrait to the side as the two card-playing guards from earlier came at them. Deadshot was faster, taking one out with a bullet to the leg while Remy grabbed the other in a headlock. With both guards down, they wasted no time fleeing the Vault, leaving the rattled clerk behind.

  “I didn’t even hear them,” Liesl panted as they ran for the stairs. “They knew something was wrong, I could tell—”

  “Save your breath,” Deadshot snapped as another guard hurried down the corridor. She barely paused to aim as she got him in the shoulder, making him stagger and fall.

  At the stairs, Liesl shoved the pack at Amaya. Its sides bulged from the cloth that had been stuffed inside.

  “You should be the one to hold on to it,” Liesl said as Deadshot and Remy ran up the stairs to check if the floor was clear.

  “But—”

  “We don’t know why it was in there, but it’s your mother’s, right? That means it has value, even if it’s a value only you can see.”