by Tara Sim
But his sister’s ghost was still with him. She put her hands on his shoulders, pressed her forehead to the space between his shoulder blades, where her ashes rested. A silent plea.
Tears ran down his face, but Cayo didn’t lower the gun. “Why did you do it?”
Kamon sat up with a wince. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
Kamon breathed out, resigned. “Gaining status… doesn’t come easily. I wanted a better life than my parents had, scrimping and scraping by. They spat at even the mention of the gentry, but I was smart enough to know it was the only way out. I became a merchant. I made the right connections. But it wasn’t enough. Not for me.”
His father stared out the wide window beside them, at the sea’s endless horizon. “I broke the rules. I traded with the Rain Empire. Brought illegal goods to Moray. I infiltrated waterways that belong exclusively to Sun Empire. I built a small empire of my own, enough to give out loans with interest rates that would fill my pockets. Our pockets. It still wasn’t enough.”
Cayo shook his head, wondering how he could still be so surprised at the depths of his father’s greed. He had always thought he and Soria were lucky to live the life they’d had, cushioned and gilded, hiding the rot underneath.
Do what has to be done, his father had been fond of telling him.
“And then came Arun Chandra.” Kamon’s upper lip curled, a flicker of emotion finally crossing his face. “He took out a loan from me for his pearl business. A ship, perhaps—I can’t quite remember. He was late making payments, and I was about to double the interest when all of a sudden it was paid in full.”
But Amaya had told him what had happened to her father—or at least, what she thought had happened—and it involved Arun Chandra not being able to pay off the loan in time, digging himself further and further into debt.
“I’d never had a client pay in full like that before,” Kamon went on, ignoring the gun Cayo kept trained on him. “So of course I was suspicious. After a while, I realized how he’d done it. The gold was fake. He had crafted an alchemical counterfeit.”
So Boon had been the one to start all of this. “And you somehow ended up with the recipe?”
“He evaded me for a long time, gathered all sorts of incriminating evidence to use against me. But in the end, the debt collectors got him before he could unleash it. So I gave him a choice: the recipe for the counterfeits and Landless status, or a hanging. He chose wisely. Or so I thought. Should have just lobbed his head off then and there.”
That, at least, Cayo had to agree with. “Then you used the recipe to create your own counterfeit.”
“At first. But I was also in debt to my contact in the Rain Empire. They supplied me loans, ships, illegal goods. I tried to use the counterfeits to pay it all back, but I was found out. And my contact wanted the recipe.”
Cayo’s mind raced back to infiltrating Florimond’s shop, the letters in that wooden box. Even half a room away, Cayo had recognized his father’s handwriting. “The alchemists made the counterfeit coins. And then it was sent to you to distribute.”
Kamon’s eyebrows lowered in surprise. “Yes.”
“Why would you do that?”
Kamon sighed. He looked older than Cayo had ever seen him. “Because money and power are the same thing, Cayo. And we needed more and more of it. This manor… most of my ships… I had my own debts to pay, and this was the only way to pay them. It was either do as I was told or have all my secrets exposed.”
Cayo’s hand tightened on the gun. “By the Benefactor, you mean. Who is it? Who’s been sending you the counterfeits?”
Kamon laughed hollowly. “I wish I knew.”
“How can you not know?”
“They always kept their identity a secret. Didn’t want their name to be known in Moray, in case anything were to happen with the Sun Empire. The less of a trail, the better. I only communicated with an alchemist named Florimond, a sort of middle man between us.”
“Shit.” Cayo turned away from him at last. If they couldn’t expose the Benefactor, the counterfeits would continue to spread. Moray was a hair’s breadth away from falling into one of the empire’s hands. If the Rain Empire claimed the city state, it would doom them all to war.
“There’s only one person who might know who the Benefactor is,” Kamon said behind him. Cayo turned back, waiting, and his father smiled mirthlessly. “Arun Chandra. He dug up mounds of blackmail on me. If he was able to figure it out…”
Amaya said she’d seen Boon in Baleine; he could have investigated Deirdre on his own. Boon might be able to tell them for sure if she was the Benefactor.
And Romara was set on making an example out of him, just like those poor bastards in her dungeon.
The gun was heavy in Cayo’s hand. He lifted it again, wondering what he would feel if he pulled the trigger, if some of the pain would ease once his father was taken out of this world.
Do what has to be done.
But he already knew the answer. If there was anything he had learned from Amaya, it was that vengeance was an empty, hollow thing. If he allowed himself to give in to it, he would be no better than Boon and his father.
Soria had always wanted him to be better. So he would be better.
Cayo lowered the gun. Kamon visibly relaxed, and it flooded Cayo with shame.
Turning to the door, he expected his father to call him back, or perhaps even say he was sorry. But he did none of those things.
So Cayo left him there, in the wreckage of all he had built—and all he had lost.
There was only one place Cayo could think of that Amaya would go.
The gangplank of the Brackish had been pulled up, so Cayo stood on the dock and called out as dawn infused the sky with a light, pearlescent gray. A moment later, the young man named Cicada looked down from the railing, locs spilling over his shoulders.
“Coin trick boy,” he greeted.
“Is Amaya with you?”
Cicada studied him a moment, considering. “Why do you want to know?”
“I have news she’ll want to hear.” When Cicada didn’t move, Cayo sighed in vexation. “It’s urgent.”
“Oh, well, if it’s urgent.”
Cicada left the railing with a smirk. Cayo paced the dock, clenching and unclenching his hands for what seemed like an hour. Finally, the gangplank was rolled out and he hurried onto the deck.
Amaya and a couple of the other children stood there waiting. Amaya had her arms crossed, expression carefully blank. The little girl beside her grinned when she saw him.
“Can you do another trick?” she demanded.
“Maybe later.” Cayo approached Amaya. “We need to talk.”
“Whatever you need to say, you can say it here.”
Cayo took a deep breath, trying to ignore the others’ curious eyes. “I found my father,” he said softly. “He doesn’t know who the Benefactor is either, but there’s a good chance that someone in this city does.”
“Who?”
“Boon.”
He saw it click, saw it in the way her spine straightened and her arms lowered.
“I spoke to him,” she said slowly. “Here in Moray. But I left before… He was calling me back, but…” She rubbed a hand over her mouth, cursing softly.
“I’m sorry for not telling you the truth about Romara,” Cayo said, holding out his hand. The other children watched on, fascinated. “That you felt as if you couldn’t tell me about your father. I don’t know if I can promise to never lie again, though I can do my damn best to try. And to do whatever I can to help you get him back.”
Amaya stared at him, stared at his hand. A chasm had opened up between them, widening more and more with pain and rage and loss. The bridge across was only half-constructed, unsteady. He wouldn’t blame her for abandoning it.
But she didn’t turn away. She reached across and grasped his hand, their palms pressing together.
“Let’s go pay our respects to the Slum
Queen,” Amaya said.
Although the people cheered, Trickster knew his time was drawing short. He felt always the watchful eye of Protector on him, counting his every step, his every cheat, his every lie. It would not be long now until the gods turned, forcing him, at long last, to stay quiet and still.
—KHARIAN MYTH
Do you really think Boon can say for sure if Deirdre is the Benefactor?” Amaya asked, watching as Cayo rolled a coin between his knuckles. Fera watched on with round eyes. The three of them were sitting against the railing of the Brackish, waiting for evening to fall. One of the Bugs, Matthieu, had stolen into the city to keep an eye on the Black Lily in case Romara did anything rash with her new prisoner.
“I don’t know, but finding out what he knows might be our last shot,” he said. “If he was able to dig up all that evidence against my father, I’m sure he could have done the same against the Benefactor.” He extended his hand to Fera, giving her the small coin he had taken with him from the Rain Empire. “Do this.” He showed her how to hold it between her thumb and pointer finger, how to roll her hand just so. She tried to copy the movement, tongue poking out in concentration, but the coin clattered to the deck.
“That’s all right,” Cayo said when she made a dejected sound. “It took me lots of practice, too.”
Amaya watched them silently. She wanted to be mad still, considering what Cayo had done, but her anger was burning off like morning fog. They had both lied. They had both been betrayed. They both had fathers who had shaped them into who they were.
Running footsteps came up the gangplank before Matthieu barged onto the deck.
“You better go,” he panted. “There’s somethin’ brewing in the Vice Sector.”
Amaya glanced at the darkening sky and shared a look with Cayo.
“Wait here,” Amaya told Cicada when he moved to join them. “The others need someone to watch over them.” Cicada reluctantly nodded before Amaya and Cayo crept into the city.
The Port’s Authority had issued a mandatory curfew, and those who were still out and about were beginning to hurry home. Amaya kept checking the points where she kept her knives: sleeve, hip, boots. Cayo similarly kept his hand on his pistol, gaze burning.
She wondered if he had fired any bullets yet. As if he had heard the thought, Cayo said, “I couldn’t do it.”
“Do what?”
“Shoot him.” Cayo clenched and unclenched his hand. “My father. I was ready to. I wanted to. But I couldn’t.”
Amaya thought back to her knife pressed against Boon’s throat.
“Why not?” she asked softly. The streets around them were dim and dark, the people no more than shadows. It made her feel as if she and Cayo were the only ones alive.
Cayo took a deep breath, keeping his strides long and quick. “Death isn’t the worst punishment for him. To be heirless, penniless—that’s always been his nightmare. So I let him stay in it.”
Something dangerously close to pride stirred in her chest.
They were silent the rest of the way to the Vice Sector, but the closer they got, the more they heard the distant din, saw the blur of people running to get to Diamond Street despite the curfew.
They soon saw why. The broad street was crowded and messy with people shouting, yelling, laughing. It wasn’t the usual boisterous crowd; this was something on the verge of feral. Domesticated animals now adapting to the wild.
Amaya’s hand came to rest on the knife at her hip. Her heart tapped nervously against her chest as she and Cayo scanned the street, letting themselves be absorbed into the crowd.
And then Amaya saw her. Romara stood on the roof of the building before them, decadent and deadly in black trousers and a Rehanese high-collared tunic. Her hair had been tied up, all the better to reveal the ravenous expression on her face. She wasn’t addressing the crowd; she was merely gazing down at it with a small, satisfied smile, a queen surveying her domain. Beside her stood a young man with wide, excited eyes, holding a drink in his hands like a human side table.
Sometimes it’s wiser to bend a knee than lose your head, Liesl had once warned them.
“What have you done, Romara?” Cayo muttered beside her.
You helped her do this, Amaya thought, but the resentment was there then gone. There were so many other factors, so many other things to worry about.
The cage sitting in the middle of the street, for instance.
“Shit,” Cayo hissed as Amaya hurried forward, using her elbows and shoulders to shove people out of her path.
The cage was tall and narrow, comprised of thick, rusting bars. It looked to have been dragged out of some old-fashioned dungeon. In the middle of the cage knelt Boon, hands tied behind his back, face bleeding and bruised. The crowd jeered around him, shaking the bars, throwing rotten food through the gaps. Someone banged a metal cup against the bars, making Boon flinch.
Amaya grabbed the man with the cup and pointed her knife at his chest. “Keep rattling if you want to lose a hand.”
The man backed away quickly, tripping over his feet. Amaya knelt before the cage, Cayo standing protectively at her back, glaring at anyone who got too close.
“Boon,” Amaya called. She couldn’t call him father—her mouth refused the word.
He looked up in surprise. Romara’s people had given him a thorough beating; his clothes sported darkening blossoms of blood, his lip split, one eye ringed with a bruise. Romara had taken out all her frustrations on the man who had made Moray what it was now, and she was giving her followers the chance, too.
“What are you doing here?” he rasped.
“Getting you out.”
Boon tried to bark that laugh of his, but winced and shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“He’s right,” Cayo said behind her. “If we take him from Romara, I don’t know how she’ll retaliate. She has too much power.”
“Terrifying girl,” Boon murmured. “She’ll go far.”
“I don’t give a damn about what Romara will do. We’re getting you out.”
But Boon just shook his head again. She had never seen him so defeated. “Don’t bother. Whatever she plans to do with me, I deserve it.”
“Well, for once you’re not calling the shots,” Amaya snapped, already searching for the lock to the cage. “I am.”
“Amaya—”
“No.” It came out louder than she wanted it to. Amaya forced herself to meet Boon’s eyes. Her eyes. “I know you messed up. You caused a swell when all you wanted was a wave. You’re not perfect, and you never were.”
She took a deep breath. “But in your own way, you gave me a second chance by turning me into a countess. So I’m giving you a second chance. It’s not mercy, it’s what I owe. And I refuse to be in debt anymore.”
Boon opened his mouth, ready to disagree, to work his words in that manipulative way of his.
“I’m not leaving you here,” Amaya repeated, her voice stronger. “You’re my father. I’m not done with you yet.”
His shoulders shook in a silent, humorless laugh. “You’ve got your mother’s voice, you know that?”
Now she did. Swallowing back the lump forming in her throat, she stood and turned to Cayo.
“She left the roof,” he said. “She must have seen us.”
“Then we don’t have much time. Quick, find the lock—”
But Cayo was already drawing out his pistol. The crowd around them scurried back, startled by the sight of it.
“What, may I ask, are you doing?”
Romara. She strode to the front of the crowd, her heeled boots making sharp statements against the cobblestone, her lackey still carrying her drink. Her eyes darted from Amaya to Cayo.
“What’s the meaning of this, Cayo?” she demanded.
“I should be asking you that,” he said. He sounded different than Amaya was used to, as if confronting his father had given him something new—or perhaps had taken something away. “First your little makeshift dungeon, and now thi
s?”
“I told you the city is out for his blood,” Romara said. The people around her yelled in approval, and her lips curled into a smile. “I’m doing what my father couldn’t. I’m giving them exactly what they want.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Cayo said. “Let’s talk, you and me. We can make a deal.”
“You have nothing to offer me.”
“I can give you my father.”
Amaya froze, and Romara actually let her surprise show. But then she grinned, shaking her head.
“I can get to him in my own sweet time,” she purred. “He’s no longer a threat.”
Cayo swore and pulled back the hammer of his pistol. Romara frowned.
“Oh, please,” she drawled. “You wouldn’t shoot me.”
“You’re right.” Instead, he turned and shot the lock on Boon’s cage.
Amaya’s ears rang as the ruined lock fell to the ground, the cage door creaking open. The crowd around them cried out in protest, recoiling.
Amaya grabbed Boon and dragged him out. He lurched to his feet, his breathing shallow and wet.
“The Benefactor,” Amaya said quickly as Romara started forward, Cayo interjecting himself between them. “You were trying to tell me before, weren’t you? Did you find out if Deirdre—”
She was cut off by the sound of gunshots peppering the air.
Romara whirled toward the commotion as the crowd yelped and screamed. At the far end of Diamond Street was a cadre of people wearing red fabric tied around their arms. They carried guns, knives, and daggers, their faces intent on bloodshed.
At the center of the pack was the man Amaya had met the night she had come to the Vice Sector on her own, his face handsome and scarred, his voice smooth and scheming. He strode forward, unhurried, confident, already playing the role of victor.
The Slum King.
“Of course he chooses now to attack, the dramatic bastard.” Romara turned to Cayo, and for an instant she wasn’t the Slum Queen but rather a girl searching for a friend’s help. “Did you have anything to do with this?”