Scavenge the Stars (Scavenge the Stars #1)(28)

“We meet again, my lord.”

He froze in place. A few curious onlookers glanced his way, including Tomjen, who quickly read the scene and widened his eyes at Cayo in a way that said don’t mess this up. Cayo quickly downed the rest of his Calamity, thinking the name too appropriate for the situation.

Countess Yamaa approached him, her smile reserved, subtle, like the outline of a weapon hidden under a coat.

He bowed in greeting. “Countess.”

Her smile broadened. “Ah, so you do know me.” She again wore her necklace of pearls, but the dress was wholly different. The bodice was an impossible patchwork of colorful embroidered flowers, woven through with green-threaded vines that snaked up her belly, ending in a few blooming buds over the curve of her chest. Her skirts were long and made of gauzy blue layers, each hem ending in another burst of flowers.

She was wearing her own garden.

It was exquisite.

“I should apologize for my forwardness when last we met,” she said, fidgeting with the clunky rings she wore before clasping her hands together. Her hair was down tonight, curled elegantly over her bare shoulders and braided through with jasmine blossoms. Cayo could smell them even from where he stood, thick and fragrant. “Perhaps I’d had a bit too much to drink.”

“No, it’s…it’s fine. I mean…” It wasn’t fine. Nothing was fine. “All is forgiven, my lady.”

“I’m glad.” She nodded toward the tables at the back of the garden, sparkling with trays of silver and crystal. Her silver earrings swayed with the motion. “Have you eaten? I have the best cook in Moray under my roof.”

From whose family did you steal him? Cayo wondered. “I’m afraid I have no appetite tonight.” He looked around nervously, seeking an escape route. “It’s a lovely party, though.”

“You think so? Not gaudy, as my last one was?”

He winced. He had said that to her face, hadn’t he? “Not at all, my lady.” Cayo cleared his throat, heat crawling up his neck as he thought back to the way he’d insulted Countess Yamaa in front of a girl he’d mistook for a stranger. “I must apologize for my forwardness as well.”

Amusement flashed in her eyes. “Everyone should hear a bit of critique now and then. Keeps one humble.”

He couldn’t forget all she had said. Still, there was something about the slope of her neck, the vulnerability of her bare shoulders, the sheerness of the gauze between the stitched flowers of her dress that tied his tongue into a useless knot.

“You seem distracted tonight, my lord.”

“I’m simply wondering how many hours of labor it took to pay for this party of yours,” he replied. He had the satisfaction of seeing her eyebrows go up. “After all, you own your own debtor ship, don’t you? The Brackish?”

“Good memory,” she murmured, almost as if to herself. “I can see you’re trying to goad me, but it won’t work.”

Anger, sharp and sudden, hooked into him like a barb. What gave her the right to criticize his family? The Calamity swam through him, fortifying his backbone and sharpening his tongue. “Are the children in this garden paid for by their parents’ debt? Do their earnings slide into your pocket when they’re not looking?”

At last, a flash of true anger crossed her face. In that moment, he saw through the pretense and glimpsed something like truth in her eyes, something as dangerous as it was fathomless.

“Do not presume to know me, my lord,” she said softly.

“And do not presume to know me, my lady. I’m much more than a…what was the phrase you used? Drunken playboy?”

The dawning realization on her face was even more satisfying than pulling a winning hand of Scatterjack. He could practically see the scene of that night flitting through her mind’s eye, the wholly unabashed way she had stomped upon his family’s name. Flushed, the countess held back a grimace of mortification.

“Lord Cayo Mercado,” she murmured.

He bowed with a sarcastic flourish.

She was quiet for a minute, her teeth clenched. “I see. And you think you have the right to come here and judge me for the same rotting thing your father has exploited in order to build his fortune? As I said, you cannot presume to know me.”

Cayo was startled by her use of the word rotting—he had only ever heard the servants use it—but he didn’t let it distract him. “I know enough. You’re Kharian, perhaps also Rehanese, with a fortune that likely came from dealings with the Rain Empire. Now here you are in Moray, flaunting all you have for those who think with greed instead of compassion. They don’t see the children working around them. They don’t see you as a person. They see you as a nothing but a lovely ingot of gold, and they’re all itching to chisel off a piece of you for themselves.”

The countess had begun to fiddle with the pearls on her necklace, watching him steadily during his tirade. A thin white scar lined the side of her palm. “Is that also what you would like to do, my lord?”

“No.” The truth of his answer surprised him, and perhaps her as well. “I want…”

He wanted this city to run on something other than gold. He wanted someone to help him escape the Slum King and Romara.

He wanted Soria to get better. To not leave him like their mother had, like everything good did sooner or later.