Scavenge the Stars (Scavenge the Stars #1)(33)

Countess Yamaa.

On the night before their journey to Moray, Boon had pulled her aside and given her a gift: a set of four knives, their handles inlaid with silver and pearl.

“I’ve been teaching you how to fight with real knives,” he said, “so I figured you should have your own. Make sure you always have one hidden on your person.”

Amaya had held each of them in her hand, felt their weight and tested the edges of their blades. She had easily read the message in Boon’s gift: that she would never hold a shucker again.

“We will succeed,” he had whispered, and she had believed him.

As Liesl, Avi, and Deadshot continued to scheme down the table, Amaya licked the last of her late dinner from her fingers, only half listening. She was tired. She wanted only to fall into a dreamless sleep. But she had more to do tonight, more than they even knew.

When she heard her name, she looked up to find all their eyes turned toward her.

“You should call on the Mercado boy soon,” Liesl said. “Invite him to dine with you, or meet with him at a teahouse in the city somewhere. Get to know him better.”

Amaya bit the inside of her cheek, still smarting over the way she had fumbled both interactions with him. But what choice did she have?

“I’ll write an invitation tomorrow,” she agreed, standing up. “Liesl, I need you for something.”

The girl met her out in the entryway. “Do you need help getting ready for bed?”

“I think I can handle it,” Amaya said dryly. “No, I wanted to ask…”

She had rehearsed the words, oddly nervous at the thought of speaking them out loud. But Liesl just looked at her calmly, patiently.

Amaya took a deep breath. “If you have a spare moment, I was wondering if you could look into a person for me. Find files on him, public records, that sort of thing.”

“Of course,” Liesl said. “That’s why I’m here. Who do you need research on?”

Amaya’s throat worked, but no words came out. She swallowed, tried again.

“Arun Chandra,” she said, almost too soft to hear.

But Liesl heard, and her face shifted slightly to sympathy. She thought about it—after all, it was a request that wasn’t a part of Boon’s overall plan—until eventually she nodded.

“I’ll see what I can find,” Liesl said.

She breathed out in relief. “Thank you.”

Amaya excused herself and retired to her bedroom. Her work as Countess Yamaa was done for the night, and she had plans elsewhere.

At a specific address, in fact, that she had written on a small piece of paper tucked in a jewelry box in her room.

She walked by the expansive canopy bed, the broad windows open to a view of Crescent Bay in the distance. Lifting the lid of the jewelry box on her dresser, she thumbed the note open and took a deep breath, reciting the address for the hundredth time before she tore up the paper and threw it in the bin.

The knives Boon had given her were laid out on the bed. She tucked them away one by one: the longest at her hip, two more in the hidden sheaths in her boots, and the smallest at the bracer under her left sleeve.

Briefly she brushed her thumb against the tattoo on her wrist, the knife pointing outward. It had once meant survival to her, a reminder that she had to fight for every single day. But now it meant something else.

It meant revenge.

Turning down the lanterns in her room, she climbed out the window onto the balcony. Moray was spread out before her, its lights a pale imitation of the stars overhead. Somewhere in that sprawl was her destination, the address that had been spinning in her mind for days.

The address where the retired Captain Zharo now lived.

She had been patient long enough. Now it was time to see if there was any difference between gutting a fish and gutting a man.





Light is the greatest tool in an artist’s arsenal. It sheds truth that would otherwise be buried by the dark.

—THE PAINTER’S PRACTICE



Cayo knew that, shaken as he was, he should have gone straight home to his waiting bed. But his mind was a viper’s nest—every thought he grabbed at turned out to be venomous.

The countess was a contradiction. He was engaged to Romara and had not yet told his father. And Bas…

There had to be something he could do. Cayo was so tired of being useless, of being able to do nothing while Soria’s life drained out of her a day at a time.

Then he remembered seeing Philip at the party, how he hadn’t gotten the chance to speak to him.

Cayo pounded on the roof of the carriage. “Take me to the lighthouse,” he told the driver. “Please.”

They arrived ten minutes later, and when the driver opened the door for Cayo, he was greeted with a fresh, cool ocean breeze. The lighthouse was stationed on the edge of a tall cliff face overlooking the bay, the short, squat tower made of light brick and limestone. Night had blanketed Moray in navy and demure purple, but here, the lighthouse drove back a bit of the dark in flashes like dying stars.

It was one of Bas’s favorite places. Cayo had often come here with him, as had Philip, and he hoped to find one of them—if not both—at the top. As Cayo walked the gentle incline of the road leading to the lighthouse, he remembered a night when he had stolen a cake from a duchess’s party and how he and Sébastien had eaten the whole thing with their hands under the watchful light. Cayo absently licked at his lips, as if he could still taste the sugar.