Scavenge the Stars (Scavenge the Stars #1)(26)

Nausea roiled inside her, as if Usaad and Broma were creating treacherous whirlpools in her gut. The idea of going after someone like Mercado was absurd; all she wanted was to bury a knife in Zharo’s chest.

She studied Boon, the way he leaned most of his weight on the balls of his feet, the soup stains on his shirt, how his eyes gleamed in manic anticipation. He was too invested in this idea of vengeance, so much so that she knew she had found her opening.

“I’ll help you,” she said, “on one condition.”

Boon’s eyebrows went up, but he nodded for her to continue.

“You buy the Brackish and let me kill Captain Zharo. Then, and only then, will I help you take down Mercado.”

Boon exchanged a look with Avi, who frowned in confusion. “Why’re you so hung up on this man? He’s nothing.”

She looked down at her feet, dirty and callused and scarred after seven years on the Brackish. “I have nothing to live for,” she whispered, realizing the truth of it as she spoke it aloud, the enormity of her loss.

Her father, gone. Her mother, gone. Seven years of her life, gone.

She fought to swallow. “I might as well ruin these men’s lives, after all they’ve done to ruin mine.”

When she looked back up, both Boon and Avi wore similar expressions of victory. Silverfish tried to school her own.

“I think this condition of yours should be easily met,” Boon agreed. “I help you take out the captain, you help me take out Mercado. Everybody wins.”

“Are we going to kill him? Mercado?”

“I like your enthusiasm, but picture something even worse than murder.” He held his hands together and then pulled them apart, as if unraveling a banner. “Imagine seeking the perfect revenge.”

“And how exactly do you plan to do that?”

“One, ruin the reputation he worked so hard to obtain. Second, target his family—make them fight among themselves, and turn his children on him. He has a son, an heir, who’s ripe for conning. And third…”

“We take his money,” Silverfish guessed.

Boon pointed at her. “Exactly. Then, when he’s admitted to his crimes and he’s lost everything, we go for the kill.” He dropped his hand and took a few steps toward her, eyes glinting with feverish excitement. “What do you say?”

Revenge. It was a simple word when spoken out loud, but it was so much bigger, like the hidden city under the atoll. It was a word of fire and blood, of a knife’s whisper and the priming of a pistol.

It was a word that consumed her, filled her entire being until she knew that she could no longer be Silverfish. Silverfish’s will was to survive, to simply make it to the next day, and hopefully the day after that. But that was no longer her will.

Now it was revenge.

Captain Zharo. Kamon Mercado. Moray.

They would all pay.

Amaya looked up at Boon. “Where do we start?”





Never corner a man on a losing streak. Desperation is deadlier than a bullet.

—THE DEVIOUS ART OF DICE AND DEALING



Surrounded by splendor and the empty comfort of rich, gilded things, Cayo could not stop thinking about Sébastien’s eyes floating like dusty cue balls in a jar on the Slum King’s desk.

Cayo had rushed to Bas’s apartment as soon as he’d left the Scarlet Arc after speaking to Salvador, knocking for several long minutes on a door plastered with neglected debtor notices. Eventually, the superintendent of the building had come by and told him that Sébastien hadn’t been home in days, giving the landlord no choice but to evict him.

But Cayo refused to believe that he was dead. He had gone by every place he could think of—the local clinics, the homeless shelter, even the opium dens. Bas was nowhere to be found, and there were no reports of an eyeless corpse being discovered by the city guard.

He wondered if his entire life’s purpose was to fail everyone around him.

Although Cayo wanted to keep searching, here he was, again on his father’s orders, peacocking around at another soiree thrown by Countess Yamaa. After the wild success of her first party, the gentry had been talking about it nonstop, practically clamoring for more.

Like new gamblers itching to come back to the tables because they had beginner’s luck, Cayo thought. But that luck never lasts.

The partygoers gathered in the lush gardens of the countess’s lavish estate, partially hidden by massive palmetto trees at the end of a winding road beyond the Business Sector. Thin columns supported the huge square-shaped estate, and a balcony ran the entire perimeter of the second story. It wasn’t near the sea, but he could still smell salt as the wind ruffled his hair.

The gardens were the true spectacle, though. The first level branched away from the main house, sporting a large fountain and protective marble railing that spiraled down into two separate staircases leading to the lower level. Most of the partygoers mingled here, within a masterpiece of perfectly trimmed shrubberies and rows of blooming flowers, from the red and yellow bursts of hellebore and glory lilies to the flirtatious blush of hibiscus. Orchids, cypresses, and palm trees lined the paths the partygoers took, soft lantern lights hanging from their branches. It was the latest stage of dusk, the sky dark blue and pensive, lingering on the last of the day’s light before succumbing to the dark.