by Tara Sim
“Nothing,” Cayo promised. “What do we do?”
Romara pulled a wicked-looking dagger from her sleeve as the crowd broke out into chaos, a kicked anthill unprepared for invasion. Even her lackey looked ready to bolt, his mouth hanging open as the Slum King’s small army advanced.
“We finish them for good,” Romara said.
Amaya took her knife to the bindings on Boon’s wrists, freeing his arms. He hissed and rubbed the raw, red skin.
“You’re not seriously planning on taking on Salvador, are you?” Boon demanded.
“This isn’t my fight,” Amaya said simply.
But Jun Salvador was quickly making his way down the street, knife in one hand and gun in the other. His expression was murderous as he mowed down Romara’s followers, those who tried to stop him or were simply unlucky enough to be nearby. Romara stood waiting for him, her lackey sending up prayers to the sky god and her star saints for protection.
There was an alley nearby they could duck into. Amaya grabbed Cayo’s arm, but it was tense under her hand, and he stayed put.
“Cayo,” she said, “you can’t help. This is beyond us.”
“She shouldn’t face him on her own.” He pulled the hammer back on his pistol. “He’s taken things from me, too, Amaya.”
“But—”
A man broke through the crowd and crashed into Cayo, ramming him against the wall. Cayo grunted as the man’s knife plunged into his shoulder, blood splattering his chin.
Amaya started forward, but Cayo had already fired the gun. The man staggered back with a hole blown through his hip, screaming. Amaya knocked him down and rammed the hilt of her knife against his temple.
Cayo stared down at the man, gasping for breath, face speckled with blood. Their eyes met, and for a brief moment they spoke the same language without uttering a single word.
A rough hand grabbed Amaya’s arm. “Get out of here,” Boon growled. “It’ll be me he wants.”
“Then why aren’t you running?” She pointed at the alleyway, where some of the crowd was already fleeing.
Boon grunted. “Had enough of that. Besides—”
Amaya didn’t see the man coming in on her right. He held a long knife already dripping blood, the look on his face twisted, ferocious. Boon turned, quicker than she thought possible, and punched the man senseless. Boon immediately dissolved into a coughing fit, lips wet with blood. She helped him sag to the ground, leaning against the cage.
“Just stay out of the way,” she ordered. “Then we can talk.”
“Aye, Captain,” he mumbled.
The Slum King loyalists continued to advance. Many of Romara’s followers fought back, producing hidden weapons, getting between them and the newly crowned Slum Queen. When some of the red- clad men reached Romara, Cayo rushed forward before Amaya could stop him. He fired his gun into the air and the people near him yelped in distress, some even smart enough to run away. He aimed at the ones who lingered.
“Get away!” he yelled, cocking back the hammer. “I swear I’ll shoot!”
Amaya stayed in front of Boon, sunk into a defensive stance, her knife flashing in the low light. The crowd continued to beat against one another, against the walls of the dens, wanting—needing—to take their aggression out on someone, something, anything.
A smoke bomb was tossed and unfurled like a noxious flower, tendrils of odorous fog obscuring the melee in the street, covering the smell of gunpowder and blood.
The Slum King emerged from the fog like a demon out of her father’s stories. His front was stained red, a trail of bodies in his wake.
“Romara,” the Slum King called. “You can stop this. The Vice Sector is mine, and always has been. Relinquish it, and I’ll allow you to leave the city.”
Romara yanked her dagger from a downed loyalist with a sickening squelch, drops of blood making a constellation against her cheek. Her grin was the opposite of surrender, her stance anticipatory, eyes sharp with a promise she had likely made to herself a long, long time ago. Amaya suddenly understood Romara a lot better—a daughter in the shadow of her father, pinned down by all his mistakes, desperate to fix them.
“Just like you did to Mama?” Romara called sweetly. “Force me into exile rather than muster up the balls to end it here?”
The Slum King smiled coldly, lifting his gun and aiming it at her. “I didn’t want to do this, Romara.”
“Really? I did.”
“Obstinate child.” The Slum King’s smile fell into a scowl, his finger curled decisively on the trigger.
The shot rang out and Boon grabbed Amaya from behind, pulling her back even as he jerked at the earsplitting sound. Amaya flinched; it had sounded close, far closer than where Salvador was standing.
And then she saw why: Cayo’s pistol was smoking, held steady between his hands even as the wound at his shoulder trailed blood down his arm. His eyes were wide, his lips pressed into a thin, grim line.
The Slum King let out a choked scream and collapsed. He dropped his weapons, scrabbling at the mangled, bloody mess of his knee.
Romara stared at him, then at Cayo. He stared back with a wildness in his eyes that Amaya knew intimately. It was the same wildness that had clawed up her guts after killing Melchor.
But the Slum King was still alive, wailing in agony over his ruined leg. Romara barked a quick order, and her uninjured followers hurried forward to grab hold of him and kick his weapons away. Bodies clogged the street, most of them wearing red. The fight was finally winding down. It had taken only minutes, but it had felt like hours.
Romara marched up to Salvador, her nostrils flaring, dagger still in hand. “How dare you point that gun at me. You’re weak, Father. You deserved to be usurped.”
The Slum King breathed hard, his carefully styled hair falling into his eyes. “You’ll run it into the ground. The city is doomed, anyway. It’ll fall through your fingers like sand.”
“We’ll see about that.” She changed her grip on her dagger, ready to plunge it into his chest.
“Wait!”
Cayo hurried forward. The Slum King sneered at him.
“Mercado’s whelp,” he drawled. “How fitting for you to follow in your father’s footsteps.”
Cayo spared him a cool look. “Be grateful I didn’t do worse, considering what you did to Sébastien.” He turned to Romara. “Don’t kill him. We can still use him.”
Amaya expected Romara to lash out. Instead, she lowered her dagger. “I’m listening.”
But whatever Cayo said next, Amaya couldn’t hear it. It was drowned out by the sound of Boon’s gurgling cough behind her, the hitch in his breath.
She turned, and the center of her went ice cold. Boon held a hand to his stomach, his shirt drenched in blood.
The Slum King. When Cayo shot him, Salvador’s aim must have gone wide.
“No,” she said, or maybe she only thought it. Boon sank to his knees as blood poured out of him, staining the street below.
“Not the worst I’ve gotten,” Boon wheezed, then weakly clicked his tongue. Red stained the corner of his mouth. “Then again… not the best, either.…”
“Shut up,” she snapped, grabbing him by the shoulders, forcing him to lie down. The bullet had gone into his upper abdomen, and blood continued to well up and over, cherry dark. She ripped at her shirt, tried to press the strip of fabric to the wound, but it only made Boon groan in pain.
“Cayo!” she screamed. He was at her side in a second, ashen faced. “We need a compress or—or something,” she babbled, her mind going blank. “The bullet’s still in there, we need to get it out—”
“Amaya.” Boon struggled to grasp on to her wrist. Blood trickled down his cheek, dampening his beard. “That’s enough.”
“I…” She looked to Cayo, but he turned his gaze down. “No. No.”
She had found her father, and now she was losing him all over again.
Unfair.
“It was either this or the fever,” Boon reminde
d her, voice wet and ragged. “Amaya, listen. What you said about givin’ me a second chance…” He stopped as a shudder rolled through him. “Didn’t realize… how much… I needed to hear it.”
Amaya shook her head, her mind still blank, her limbs numb. Her mouth worked, but no words came out.
“’M sorry,” he whispered. “For not… telling you ’bout me sooner. Who I was. I’m not…” His face tightened briefly, his breaths coming shorter, faster. “Not proud of who I became. Didn’t want… you to see me… like this.”
How much time could they have had to work it out, if he had told her?
The blankness gave way to horror, to heat, to the blinding force of her sudden rage. She grabbed him by the shoulders.
“You can’t do this,” she seethed. “You can’t just tell me the truth and then die! You can’t—” Her words caught on a sob. “You can’t leave me again!”
He exhaled shakily, reaching up to cup her face in his large, callused hand. Blood smeared against her jaw.
“I hate… disappointing you,” he said, his voice weaker, his chest struggling beneath her. “One more chance, yeah? To make… things right.” He suppressed a cough, grimacing. “The Benefactor. Not Deirdre.”
Cayo leaned forward. “Robin Deirdre isn’t the Benefactor?”
Boon’s voice faded even more, but they could both hear the name that fell from his red-stained lips.
“No. It’s André Basque.”
Cayo sat back with a curse, but Amaya didn’t care. Her father was dying.
“Amaya.” His hand fell to her shoulder, tried to squeeze it. “Thikha. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t,” she sobbed, curling her fingers in his shirt.
But his breaths came quicker, one after the other, until eventually he let out a small sigh and laid still. His eyes were still locked on to hers, as if she were the last thing he wanted to see.
Her throat ripped apart as Cayo’s arms went around her. The knife dropped from her hand. The world was falling out from under her again, like it always had, like it always would, because nothing stayed and nothing was easy and nothing was hers.
She let Cayo hold her as she screamed into his chest. The street was full of the dead and injured, and they were in their own pocket of misery. The stars overhead watched on and said nothing, and Cayo said nothing, because what was there to say?
Her father was gone. There was no one left in the world to love her.
Amaya didn’t know how she found herself sitting in an alleyway in the Business Sector, waiting for Cayo and Romara to return. She just kept staring at the wall before her, stained and dark. Refusing to look at the shrouded body beside her.
Romara had done that. Wrapped him up in cloth, given Amaya this one last piece of him to do with as she wished.
Footsteps. Cayo and Romara were coming back, a third person tagging along beside them.
“Remy,” she whispered.
He rushed to her and threw his arms around her. She clung to him like she was drowning, and maybe she was.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered against his shoulder.
“Don’t be. You needed to escape. Besides, I’m not hurt.” He eased back, and she noted the way his eyes flickered to the body, the exhaustion lining his face. “Cayo told me what happened. I’m sorry, Amaya.”
She only nodded, too empty for words.
Thankfully, Cayo cleared his throat. “It worked, obviously.” He gestured to Remy. “Nawarak agreed to exchange him for Salvador.”
“After some minor negotiation,” Romara said darkly, arms crossed.
“You deserve it,” Cayo told her. “If you’re going to be Slum Queen, you’ll need your fair share of allies.”
“At the cost of increased patrol in the Vice Sector?” She scoffed. “I should have just stabbed my father and been done with it.” She glanced at Amaya. “Sorry.”
Amaya swallowed. “You owe me, Romara.”
The other girl scowled but nodded. “I suppose that’s fair.”
“I need you to find two people for us. And I need…” Her voice faltered, but Remy slipped an arm around her, securing her. She forced herself to look down at the shrouded body. “I need him… to be burned.”
Romara sighed. “Jacques!” she barked.
The young man hurried around the corner. “Yes, Your Majesty!”
“Write down these descriptions, then go find a cart.”
Amaya told him what Liesl and Deadshot looked like, and then he took off. A little while later, she was watching Remy and Cayo carefully lift the body and settle it into the back of a cart.
Her hand hovered above him until she placed it on his chest.
“I forgive you,” she whispered. It would have to be enough.
The next day, Romara’s lackey came to the Brackish with Liesl and Deadshot in tow.
“Thank goodness,” Liesl said as she threw her arms around Amaya. She squeezed tight, Amaya returning the pressure. “We weren’t sure what happened to you two, so we chose to lay low for a bit.”
“I’m just glad you’re all right.”
Liesl held her by the shoulders, her face solemn. “We heard about what happened in the Vice Sector.”
Amaya’s gaze strayed to Cayo, who bit his lip. “There’s… a lot to talk about.”
Romara’s lackey, Jacques, stepped up with a short bow. He presented her with a box, larger than the one Cayo had.
“The Slum Queen sends her condolences,” he said.
Amaya carefully took the box from him. It was heavier than she expected.
She put the box under her hammock and joined the others in the galley while the Bugs kept lookout above deck. Despite his bandaged shoulder and red-rimmed eyes, Cayo did most of the talking while she stared at the far wall, feeling the others’ glances from time to time. Liesl’s hand covered hers, and Amaya gripped it tight.
“André Basque,” Remy repeated after Cayo explained why they had gone back for Boon, what had happened on Diamond Street. “Do you think we can trust what he said?”
Amaya looked to Liesl. “That seal I saw on the Silver Star? It’s also on the Brackish. André Basque owns a fleet of debtor ships, right? Mercado must have bought one of Basque’s ships, and that’s how they came to work together. Basque saw an influential merchant in Moray he could use for his own benefit, and Mercado played right into it.”
Liesl sat back, dark satisfaction on her face. Deadshot rubbed her back as she processed the information.
Remy swore. “And Basque is wealthy and respected enough in Baleine that the authorities wouldn’t dare look at him too closely.”
“But you have to convince them to,” Amaya said. “You need to go back to Baleine anyway, Remy. You can expose him.”
“We’ll go with you,” Liesl said, gesturing to herself and Deadshot. “You’ll need help, and I’ve waited a long time to be able to bring Basque down.”
“I’m all for it, but how are we supposed to expose him?” Deadshot asked. “Like Remy said, he’s rich and respected. We would have run into the same problem with Deirdre.”
Remy snapped his fingers. “The currency exchange offices. We need to take all the counterfeit coins from them and find a way to link it to Basque.”
They began to plan. Amaya only sat and listened; she was exhausted, hollow. Across the table, Cayo watched her. He didn’t try to smile, or even look triumphant. He was just as hollow as she was, and it was a cold comfort.
Remy and the others couldn’t leave by boat. The sentry was still stationed along the edge of Crescent Bay, prohibiting anyone from fleeing Moray. They would have to go on foot and slip past the guards patrolling the city’s border, travel to the nearest port town, and procure a small boat. Then they would sail to Viariche and enlist Adrienne and Jasper’s help, reclaiming the Silver Star for their plan.
No one had any idea how long they would be gone.
In the darkness of predawn, Amaya held herself as the three of them prepared to set off. She and
Cayo had decided to stay behind; a larger party would be more difficult to sneak around. Besides, Cayo was injured and in no state to travel. She didn’t want to leave him by himself.
And beyond all that, Amaya was tired. Her mind, her heart, her bones. All she wanted to do was lie down and let the earth claim her.
Her eyes pricked with tears as Liesl and Deadshot hugged her goodbye.
“Please don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Liesl begged. “You’ve had enough trouble for ten lifetimes.”
Amaya only worked up the barest smile. “I’ll try, but only if you remember to be careful.”
“Of course. I’m always careful.”
“And if not,” Deadshot said, touching her pistol and leaving it at that.
“Send word as soon as you can. And when you see Avi…”
“We’ll tell him what happened.” Liesl squeezed her arm and gave her a trembling smile. “We’ll see each other again, Amaya.”
She hoped so. But Amaya had stopped believing in promises.
Remy slung his pack across his shoulder and came to hug her. She held on for as long as she could. For a moment she returned to the day she thought she would leave the Brackish for good, before Zharo had shot at her. The same bittersweet mix of relief and regret, knowing there was more waiting for her, but that it came at the price of being separated.
“I don’t know when I’ll be able to come back,” Remy whispered.
Amaya tightened her arms around him. “Don’t bother. I’ll find you this time.”
His laugh was quiet. “Good.” He stepped back, his eyes overbright as he gave her their salute. She returned it, knowing it wouldn’t be the last time. Not if she could help it.
She and Cayo watched them disappear down the docks, toward the far beach, where they would scale the cliff face and slip into the thick foliage of the jungle. Above them, the sky began to vein with silver. Below them rested her father’s ashes.
And between them, too many words they still couldn’t say.
The magician appealed to the stars. He begged of them to bring Neralia back to her kingdom in the clouds, to give her the reign that was her right. But the stars said no. “She has killed one of our own,” they said, “in an attempt to take that light for herself. She is no longer welcome here.” They cast him out, and he fell just as Neralia had, straight into the sea. But she waited for him there, and though he had failed, they were together at last and decided they did not need the stars. They had all the sweetness of the dark, the beginning of their own kingdom.