Scavenge the Stars (Scavenge the Stars #1)(64)

“Well, then, I guess I can’t stop you.” Liesl made a resigned motion with her hand as she left. “Just try not to get too much blood on the sheets.”

While the sun was setting, Amaya dragged herself out of bed to get dressed, the tea reducing the sharp spikes of pain into a duller ache. She chose soft trousers and a dark green bodice, and opted not to tie her hair back, as she wanted the ability to hide her face if she needed to.

When she went downstairs to return the plate of mostly uneaten food, she found some of the older Water Bugs at the scoured wooden table in the kitchens. They were all listening to Cicada, one of the few of them who could read and write, as he read out loud from a broadsheet.

“‘It is with greatest sorrow that we report the advisor to the Prince of Moray, Sir Carden Behlor, has passed due to the affliction known as ash fever. According to local sources, Sir Carden was diagnosed a mere two months ago, but the fever progressed too quickly for any remedy to take effect. The funerary rites for Sir Carden are as yet undisclosed.’”

The Bugs murmured among themselves, and Amaya frowned, remembering the man who had passed out at Laelia’s. Ash fever again. If even the richest citizens of Moray were dying despite being able to afford the medicine, the lower classes wouldn’t stand a chance.

“Seems like a good thing if the nobs are getting axed,” Weevil said, rubbing the island of a birthmark on his jaw. “Who needs ’em?”

A fifteen-year-old girl named Cricket scoffed. “Don’t you know anything? They’re the only thing that holds the empires back.”

“I thought the Prince of Moray didn’t even do much?” Cicada asked. “That it was just a title?”

“A title that they bought from the Rain Empire in exchange for neutrality,” Cricket snapped. “The prince has no heirs—he’s the last of his family’s line. So what’ll happen if the prince’s court falls to sickness and death? Moray will be weakened. The Sun Empire might decide to try their hand at us again.”

The older Bugs argued while the younger ones looked on, vaguely worried. Amaya imagined their small bodies riddled with gray marks.

Shivering, she set her plate down and headed for the front doors. She had to hurry and fulfill Boon’s plan. The Bugs were already unsafe—she couldn’t risk anyone coming down with ash fever on top of that, or a potential attack by the Sun Empire.

There was so little she could control. Finding one boy and getting him to speak to her was the least she could do.



Amaya had never set foot inside the Vice Sector before, but she had heard stories. As she walked the darkening streets of Moray, her lower belly clenching and unclenching, she imagined what she would find: knife fights, copulation in the streets, brazen thieves who didn’t care if they had witnesses.

None of it prepared her for the real thing. It was almost as if she had stumbled upon a festival rather than a district infamous for debauchery, fooled by the warm multicolored lights and the singing and the raucous laughter that wove through the crowd like strands of sugar. Amaya stopped and stared at the sight of it.

“Long as your mouth’s hangin’ open, pop somma these in,” called a boy nearby. He stood at a small cart used for roasting nuts. Their smell wafted over her, caramel and sea salt, and it reminded her of her mother.

Amaya was about to dismiss him before she remembered that she actually had money. A thrill shot through her as she pressed a coin into his hand and received a paper cone of roasted nuts, feeling silly at the flutter of her heart.

She had never done something as simple as this before.

The sign above her read DIAMOND STREET, the main thoroughfare of the sector. Amaya roamed through the crowd and merely took in what she saw, popping treats into her mouth and occasionally stopping to observe a musician or juggler or dancer.

Just the other night she had plunged a knife into a man’s body, and now she was treating herself. The juxtaposition almost made her stumble, but she forced the terror crouched in the back of her mind to be shielded for now, to focus only on what was in front of her.

There was a lively house farther down the street, with folks drinking and dancing outside. Amaya watched a young woman pull another dressed as a boy over the threshold, meeting in a passionate kiss. A third young woman, her hair henna-dyed, leaned against the doorway and looked Amaya up and down.

“Only a drina for an hour,” she called, arching her back to better show off her assets.

“Oh,” Amaya said. “Um. Maybe some other time?”

The woman blinked at her, then laughed drunkenly before shooing her away. Amaya hurried on with a reddening face.

Still, she couldn’t help but smile. She felt so much freer in these clothes, in a sector of the city that didn’t care about pretension.

She forgot about her pain. The residue of her nightmares faded. The truth of her mother fled.

She existed only for sound and sight, lost in the simple and unique pleasure of being alive.

Amaya momentarily abandoned her plan and instead lost herself in that feeling, that brief window of sunshine on a cloudy day. She allowed herself to laugh at a puppet show. She joined a shell game, even though she knew the busker would cheat. It didn’t matter—she was immersing herself in her city, in the nooks and crannies hidden by daylight.

In some ways, this place felt more like home than her actual home had.