Scavenge the Stars (Scavenge the Stars #1)(52)

“These all seem like serviceable answers, Mr. Melchor,” she said. “But I do have one last question for you. Lord Mercado gave me your name personally, as he knows I’m searching for someone with just the right set of talents to get the job done. Someone who will do whatever it takes to track people down. I’ve conduced some research on your past jobs but noticed that one wasn’t documented. It was a job relating to a family named Chandra. Do you recall it?”

Melchor tipped his head back, dangling from his fingers the now empty glass of lupseh that Liesl had given to him during the interview. “Chandra…it does ring a bell.”

Amaya straightened in her seat. “Does it?”

“Yeah. Chandra. The job was to bring a Kharian brat to one of the debtor ships, but I can’t remember which one.” He brought his head back up and shrugged. “S’all I recall of it.”

Her heart beat a fierce tattoo in her chest. She felt Liesl’s gaze on her, urging her on.

“Do you remember who hired you for that specific job, and why?” she asked, hoping her voice didn’t betray the weight of her question. “Did…Did Mercado have anything to do with it?”

After all, if her father couldn’t pay back his loan, it made sense that Mercado would force his only child onto a debtor ship.

“Mercado?” Melchor gave a half grin, revealing stained teeth. “Nah, he didn’t hire me for that. This wasn’t a traditional job.”

“Wh—” Amaya reined in her surprise before it could show, before her act could unravel around her. Instead, she focused everything on tilting her head to one side in curiosity. “But I thought you were a debt collector?”

“Sure, but I took commissions on the side. We all did.”

“Then who hired you?”

“The same sorta folk who always end up making these commissions. It was the girl’s own mother.”

A coldness sank to the center of Amaya’s chest and spread outward in numbing veins, erasing all feeling in her body as her mind went blank.

Staring at Melchor’s face, she began to think about that hazy day, about the man who had pushed her toward the dock with a grating laugh and his breath smelling like alcohol.

She couldn’t tell how long she sat there—a second, a decade. She could barely process Liesl approaching the debt collector and saying that the interview was over, that he would be contacted should the countess decide to hire him for the job.

Amaya was staring at the rug when Liesl’s freshly shined shoes appeared before her. The young woman knelt down to peer into her eyes.

“Are you all right?” Liesl asked carefully. Deadshot stood behind her, looking on in worry.

Amaya merely stared at them, lips parted. That numbness had pervaded her so thoroughly that she was sure she would never move again.

“He…” It was a monumental effort to speak. “He was lying.”

Liesl exchanged a look with Deadshot. “I’m very skilled at detecting liars, and he seemed to be telling the truth. Or at least, the truth as he knows it.”

“It…can’t be true. It can’t. It doesn’t make sense.”

Her voice was rising, climbing into hysteria. Amaya took a deep breath, then another. Deadshot poured her a glass of lupseh, but Amaya merely cradled it between cold hands.

“Let’s go over the facts,” Liesl said, standing and brushing out the skirt of her dress. “We know that it was a commission and didn’t go through the proper channels. Easy enough to double-check, if the statute of limitations on the debt collectors’ data is up. We know that Melchor was the one who…took you,” she said delicately. “Maybe we can use his name to—”

“He’s wrong!” Amaya pushed herself out of the chair, the coldness giving way to fiery heat. “He’s lying, and I don’t know why! Maybe he was told to keep the job secret for some reason.”

“Ama—”

“My mother would never sell me!”

“I didn’t say she did, but—”

Amaya screamed in helpless rage and threw the glass of lupseh at the wall, reveling in the destruction, the crash, the shards that flew toward them. One nicked her on the ankle, a glorious pinpoint of pain.

Breathing hard, she looked over her shoulder, through the fallen strands of her hair. “Get out.”

Liesl hesitated, but Deadshot touched her arm and the two of them walked out of the sitting room, closing the doors gently behind them.

Amaya collapsed to the floor in a pool of silk, shaking and nauseated. She stared at the shattered glass, the lupseh soaking into the rug like spilled blood.

It was the girl’s own mother.

He was wrong. Mercado was behind all of this—the sale, the lies, the deceit—and once she knew exactly how, she would break his world apart.





“Lady,” said the magician from the clouds, “I saw you descend from the stars, and it was my wish to follow.”

—“NERALIA OF THE CLOUDS,” AN ORAL STORY ORIGINATING FROM THE LEDE ISLANDS



Cayo slipped on gravelly dirt and cursed. At this rate, he was going to scuff his shoes beyond repair. Grabbing hold of the steadiest rock, he swung down past a patch of shale, inching closer to the grass and scrub that lined the steep incline.