Scavenge the Stars (Scavenge the Stars #1)(17)

Cayo made his way to her side, bringing one of the candles from the sitting room. Soria’s breathing was strained even in her sleep, her cheeks more hollow than usual, her eyelids sunken and bruised. His sister from two weeks ago wasn’t here; in her place was a specter of who she’d been.

Cursing softly, Cayo returned to the sitting room and opened the medicine cabinet.

It was empty.

The bottom of his stomach gave out. He forced himself to close it gently, to sneak back out and shut the door behind him without a sound. Then he turned and strode to his father’s office.

He was going to go through the ledgers and find the receipt for Soria’s medicine, to make sure they had been given the right amount. But he didn’t expect to find his father already sitting behind his desk, idly sipping his morning coffee. Kamon blinked at Cayo when he burst into the room, breathless and bedraggled.

“I take it the party went well,” Kamon said, lowering his mug and eyeing Cayo’s mussed suit. The window at his back was lit with the pale blue of dawn. He’d been out all night.

Cayo furiously pointed down the hall. “Soria has no medicine left. She needs another dose.”

Kamon drew a long, slow breath, then took another sip of coffee. Cayo itched to grab his mug and throw it against the wall.

“I can call for the doctor,” Cayo said, his own voice strangling him. “I can—”

“Cayo.” Kamon fixed him with a long, hard look. “There will be no doctor. We can’t afford the medicine.”

The ground felt insubstantial under his feet. Cayo swayed a bit, hands flexing uselessly at his sides. “What?”

“We’re broke.”

Cayo grabbed the back of the nearest velvet-lined chair before sitting—though it seemed more like falling.

“Between you gambling away all your savings, and bad weather in the south delaying some important deliveries, there’s nothing left to spare. Things…have been a little tight lately.” Kamon looked furious to admit it out loud. “And now that Soria’s engagement to Gen Hizon has been called off, we have no access to their fortune.”

But he’d seen what his father had been saving for Soria’s wedding day, a chest full of golden coin and fine foreign silks. “Soria’s dowry—”

“Already spent for her medicine.”

Cayo’s mind was reeling, but he remembered a fragment of the conversation he’d had with the mysterious girl at last night’s party. “You had a sale recently. The Brackish?”

Kamon looked surprised, which was a feat in itself. He took a moment to respond, and Cayo wondered if he was deciding whether to reveal that he hadn’t wanted Cayo to know about this particular transaction.

“It went cheaper than it was worth,” Kamon said at last. “Honestly, I was looking for an excuse to get rid of the thing.”

“Father…” Cayo swallowed. “Does it—or did it—use children?”

“I don’t see how that’s any of your concern.” His father took a long sip of coffee as Cayo stared blankly at him. “Whether or not it did, it’s not under my name anymore, and good riddance. But that’s beside the point. The point, Cayo, is that even with making transactions like this to help pay off your debt, there’s still barely anything left for Soria’s medicine. Do you see where this is going?”

“No, I don’t.” Cayo’s voice crept higher, louder. “What do you mean?”

Kamon sighed and looked up at the ceiling, as if to fortify himself.

“Today I’ll be dismissing Miss Lawan and the kitchen staff, as well as the maids,” he eventually said. “We can’t pay their salaries any longer.”

Cayo’s chest tightened. He already felt nauseous after being up all night, but now that feeling grew, the revelation dawning on him like the unmistakable glare of the sun at his father’s back.

His mother used to sing a song about a farmer whose crops all withered. When he asked her once why she sang it so often, she had shrugged and told him that it was the way of life. Nothing could stay; everything was temporary. You could never trust what you had, only what you were capable of.

They had been rich. He had grown up receiving everything he could possibly want.

And now they had nothing.

“We…We have to do something,” Cayo croaked. “We can sell the manor, or—”

“Cayo.” Kamon took another long breath. “The fever has already progressed quite a bit. We didn’t catch the early stages in time. Even if we sold everything we own, what good would it do? Buy Soria a few more months? A year, at most? She had her shot with the Hizons, and the sickness took that from her—from us. She is the sea on a windless day, preventing our ship from going forward. Do you understand?”

Cayo sat there with his lips parted. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing, thought that maybe he had gotten drunk at that party and everything around him was only a blurred distortion of reality.

“What are you saying?” he whispered.

“I’m saying that, though I love Soria dearly”—Kamon paused, his jaw tight and his throat working to swallow—“I have another child to think about, a blood heir who can inherit our family’s Vault when I’m gone.”

Cayo pushed himself to his feet, knocking back the chair. His father looked up, startled.