Scavenge the Stars (Scavenge the Stars #1)(47)

A splotch of gray on the man’s neck.

“Ash fever!” a patron screamed, knocking their chair back.

The teahouse erupted into chaos.





The greatest key to pulling off a con is misdirection.

—A HUNDRED AND ONE VICES FOR THE EVERYMAN



Cayo walked the counterfeit coin across his fingers, watching it roll as fluidly as any normal sena would.

It was amazing, he thought, how easily a simple disguise could fool so many people.

Sighing, he pocketed the false coin and gazed at the mouth of the alleyway. The familiar din of the street beyond made his blood sing, his fingers buzzing with excitement, with the promise of chance and fortune.

But Cayo had not returned to the Vice Sector to play. He had come here to find clues with which to take down the Slum King.

Straightening his jacket, he stepped out of the alleyway and onto Diamond Street, the central artery of the Vice Sector. The bright multicolored lanterns dazzled him and made him blink, and the riot of the crowd stirred the nervous energy inside him. The people were a curious mix of seasoned locals, grubby alley dwellers, glitzy nobles, and naive tourists. It was the only part of the city where one could find this unexpected assortment of Moray’s citizens, the only part where luck mattered more than status.

Cayo had once considered it more home to him than Mercado Manor, a place where he could be unapologetically himself. Where excitement nipped his ankles and fed the flame of his recklessness. He remembered first feeling that recklessness after his mother died, an urge to fling himself into danger and fun—to distract his broken heart with broken morals.

He didn’t quite feel the same now, walking down Diamond Street with his hands in his pockets, keeping an eye out for thieves. It was as if that recklessness had evaporated off him, leaving him tired and unsatisfied.

“Cayo!” someone cried down the street. A petite woman with short, curly hair waved at him and grinned. He recognized her as Mariposa, a gambler roughly his age who had often sat at the same tables with him. Her girlfriend, a tall Rehanese girl, glowered at him, no doubt remembering his penchant for flirting. “We haven’t seen you in so long! Welcome back!”

His neck heated under his collar. “Well, I actually…” He shook his head; they didn’t need to know this was hopefully a onetime visit. “Have you seen Romara?”

Mariposa made a long-drawn-out sound of delight. “Of course you’re here to see your fiancée. She’s in the Hart and Bell.”

Cayo cringed before thanking Mariposa and continuing on, passing street musicians who flooded the air with brash drums and shrieking fiddles. One of them even had an old-fashioned Rehanese lute that warbled over the babbling crowd.

So the gossip had spread about him and Romara. That meant he only had so much time to tell his father about the arrangement. If Kamon heard it from someone else first…

But if Cayo succeeded in finding a link between Salvador and the counterfeit, then he wouldn’t have to. The engagement would be called off, Nawarak would give him a reward, and he could take care of Soria.

Thinking back to yesterday, to the man who had collapsed in the teahouse, he shuddered. It had reminded him too much of how Soria had fallen at their dinner with the Hizons. He and Countess Yamaa hadn’t said a word to each other as the fallen patron had been carried out on a stretcher. At least, not until the countess had laid out the money for their tea.

My invitation, my treat, she’d said in response to Cayo’s protest, paired with that small, secretive smile she was so good at.

Well, he had wanted to see if he could weasel some money out of her, hadn’t he?

Still, even the idea had sat wrong with him. Cayo rubbed a thumb against his palm, remembering the countess’s touch. How she had shown sympathy instead of scorn.

He stopped in front of the Hart and Bell, recognizing the bronze sign above the door of a stag wearing a bell on its collar. His mind still spinning, he drew a deep breath to prepare himself and walked in expecting the worst.

The den was lively with the sounds of rolling dice and shuffling cards under the roar of the losers and the cackles of the winners. The layout of the Hart and Bell was open and spacious, affording him a view of crowded tables and a long bar in the back.

He spotted her almost immediately. She was near the bar, in the nook of couches and chaises that were usually reserved for the den’s most frequent—or richest—players. She was sprawled on a cream-colored chaise, swirling a red drink in her hand. As he watched, she threw her head back and laughed over something a young man sitting on the arm of the chaise had said. There were three others with her, all with the same hungry look that Cayo was used to seeing on the Slum King’s followers.

Cayo clenched and unclenched his hands, stretching out his neck in an attempt to look more relaxed. Plastering on his dimpled smile, he approached Romara’s makeshift court.

She was taking a sip of her drink when she spotted him over the lipstick-stained rim of her glass. Her eyes narrowed.

“Romara,” he greeted her, not bothering to spare a glance at the others. “I—”

“Stop.” She pointed a gloved finger at him. “Not another word out of you. I know exactly why you’re here.”

His heart gave a violent lurch. How could she already know what he was up to? “You—you do?”

Romara waved impatiently at the young man sitting on the arm of her chaise, who stood and rounded up the others to slink back into the hubbub of the den. Cayo didn’t miss the nasty looks they gave him as they passed.