Scavenge the Stars (Scavenge the Stars #1)(3)

“Does it look like I give two shits? Let ’em drown and be done with it.”

Silverfish gritted her teeth. The man was barely staying afloat, inhaling water every time he tried to open his mouth to call for help. He’d likely been fighting against the waves for a while now and was rapidly losing energy. A goner.

Then something else caught her eye: a flash of gold on his chest. His coat, heavy and black with water, was lined with golden buttons.

A wealthy man. Maybe even a merchant from Moray.

Silverfish inhaled sharply. “Get one of the nets ready,” she snapped at the Water Bugs. When they only gaped at her, she swore and grabbed one herself.

Concern creased Roach’s face. “Sil,” he warned as she threw down the fishnet.

Captain Zharo bellowed behind them, but Silverfish ignored him and leaned over the railing.

“The net!” she screamed down to the man. At first she couldn’t tell if he’d heard her over the rushing of the waves, but she released a quick sigh of relief when she saw him weakly cling to the netting. She tried to haul the man up, the muscles in her arms and neck straining. Some of the Bugs, seeing her struggle, hurried forward to help. Silverfish winced as she heard—and felt—the netting tear, but by some miracle it didn’t give way.

The man fell over the side of the railing onto the deck. The children scrambled away as he spat up water, coughing and shuddering, before flopping onto his back and lying still.

“Have you completely lost your mind?” Roach hissed as Silverfish knelt at the man’s side. He was tall and burly, his skin brown, his jaw lined with scruff. Likely from Khari, her father’s country. Bright spots of color studded his shirt like bullet wounds—the ruffled orange petals of marigolds. “You should’ve let him drown.”

“He…” Silverfish faltered, wondering what Amaya would say. “It wouldn’t be right to let him drown.”

Roach gave her an incredulous look, his wiry brows furrowed.

A pair of boots appeared before her. Silverfish followed them up to the captain’s scowling face, his bared teeth—or what was left of them—stained with tobacco. His hand clenched and unclenched beside his pistol.

Silverfish gave a small nod to Roach, who carefully moved away from her. She began to shiver.

“Have you gone deaf, Silverfish?” the captain growled. When she didn’t answer, he smacked her so hard she fell to the deck. One of his rings caught her lower lip. “Well?”

The pain was a bright starburst across her vision, and she fought for breath. She licked her lower lip and tasted copper. “N-no, Captain.”

“I said to leave ’im be.” He cast a disdainful glance at the man’s unconscious body. “And now you’ve gone and torn a net. Repairs cost money, you know.”

Silverfish froze. No, no. Please no.

Zharo crossed to the debt board as the Bugs scattered to get out of his way. His sleeve was already coated with chalk dust from erasing Weevil’s sum, and it left a streak across the board where he struck out her remaining balance. Picking up the chalk, he made it scream against the board, quadrupling her debt.

Zharo’s beard split as he grinned at her with those yellowed, decaying teeth. “Looks like you’ll be around four more weeks, Silverfish.”

She fought back tears. The ever-present pain and exhaustion, the sores on her palms, the stink of rotting fish—it had all been bearable only because of the thought of reuniting with her mother. The only thing getting her through these last few days had been the relief of finally returning home, a dream as sweet and hazy as incense.

Now it would be a month.

The captain nudged the unconscious man with his boot. “Seeing as you thought to pull this trash from the water, he’s your responsibility now.” He tilted his head, then snapped his fingers at a boy, who flinched. “Tear off these buttons and bring them to my cabin. For every one you steal, I’ll cut off a finger. Everyone else, back to work!” The Bugs scuttled away except for the boy, who pulled off the man’s golden buttons with shaking hands.

Silverfish crouched there, her cheek ablaze with pain, as she stared at the man she had rescued. Blood dripped from her split lip and into the puddle of water around the man’s body, each drop unfurling like small purple flowers. Blue sea, red blood.

She wouldn’t know who he was—or what he was—until he woke, but when he did, she hoped she’d been right about him.

Surely saving a man’s life is worth a few more weeks, thought Amaya.

He better be rich, thought Silverfish.





When you’re on a losing streak, it’s better to call it quits. You never know when ill luck will follow you from the tables and through your doorway.

—THE DEVIOUS ART OF DICE AND DEALING



The smell of rotting squid was not helping Cayo’s headache.

But, much as he longed to remove himself from the bulbous carcass stuck to the edge of the dock, he forced himself to stay put. The entire port reeked of marine life left to bloat in the sun, but this end of the docks was the worst of it, usually reserved for lesser vessels and unexpected visitors to Moray. Everything the Miscreant wasn’t.

And yet here they were. Not dock seven, where the Miscreant should have already been anchored, but all the way at dock twenty-three. His father’s crew was lined up on deck before the gangplank, each of them subjected to the same evaluation by a harried-looking doctor before they were allowed to set foot on the dock. The captain stood in the back with her first mate, the latter rolling a gold sena coin between his tattooed fingers, antsy to disembark. But everyone had to be checked for ash fever before they were allowed into port—no exceptions.