Scavenge the Stars (Scavenge the Stars #1)(65)

She wished desperately that Roach was with her. Whenever she’d spoken of Moray, he had always been most fascinated by the Vice Sector.

“How many casinos do you suppose they have?” he’d asked.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t old enough to gamble, let alone visit the Vice Sector.”

“Well, when we go, I want to gamble.”

“With what?”

He’d shrugged in that easy way of his, unconcerned. “I’d figure something out.”

She continued through the mazelike streets of the sector, finding the area with the highest concentration of gambling dens. A large casino loomed above her, winking with lantern light and spilling over with laughter and chatter. The sign displayed across the facade had a bare-breasted mermaid luring a sailor toward her.

This had to be the Grand Mariner. According to Liesl, it was one of the casinos where Cayo Mercado had liked to not only play, but to do his own fair share of dealing.

How does a merchant’s son end up dealing at card tables? she wondered with a frown.

She rolled her shoulders back and entered through the wide double doors. The guards gave her a once-over, not even bothering to pat her down for weapons. If they had, they would have felt her knives.

As charmed as she was by the Vice Sector, she was still aware of its dangers.

The Grand Mariner was composed of three floors. The ground floor was laid out with card and dice tables, its ceiling crimped with ornate molding and a long cherrywood bar hugging the right wall. Amaya stood there, overwhelmed and unsure where to go first.

She began attracting the attention of the guards standing watch on either side of the doors, so she hurried to find a card table. Liesl had briefly gone over some of the easier games, making sure that Amaya at least understood the rules.

“Scatterjack seems to be one of the Mercado boy’s favorites,” Liesl had told her. “He was a dealer for several months, until he stopped going to the Vice Sector altogether.”

Amaya wove through the crowd of well-dressed patrons until she found a Scatterjack table. She watched a round from the sidelines, then slid into a chair once it was vacated by an irritated player.

The dealer was a young person with curly brown hair and sparkling blue eyes, and wore a diamond-shaped pin at their collar that signaled to others that they didn’t wish to be called him or her, but rather they. They had a flirtatious smile and weren’t shy about using it. When they dealt the cards, Amaya studied hers and felt a flush start from under her collar.

She had no clue what she was doing.

Still, she faked it as best she could. When she inevitably lost, she shrugged like she had predicted it and stayed for another round, and then a third.

“Your luck is a little off tonight, miss,” the dealer said with a hint of an accent that pointed to the Rain Empire.

“That seems to be the case,” she agreed. “Do you know any remedies?”

“My only solution is to continue drinking,” they said with a wink.

She continued to exchange small talk with them as she played the next round, then another. She ordered a Blood and Sand and sipped at it carefully, wanting to make sure her mind didn’t get too fuzzy.

“You seem to be enjoying the game despite the fact that you keep losing,” the dealer said with their charming smile.

“Perhaps I’m enjoying the view more than the game.”

It was the sort of ridiculous thing Boon would come up with, and she nearly cringed as she said it, but it worked—the dealer laughed at the compliment.

“Don’t think you can win your money back with just a little flirting,” they said with a playful wag of their finger.

She smiled and took another sip of her drink. Gods, how could a drink this cloyingly sweet be this strong? “I’ll admit, I came here looking for another dealer, but I think I like you even better.”

“Is that so? Who is this dealer that I must now be jealous of?”

“I never got his name, but he was about my age. Black hair, mostly Rehanese features. Small nose, perfect eyebrows.”

“Aha,” the dealer said, “you must mean Cayo. He hasn’t dealt here in a while, unfortunately.”

She pretended to be disappointed, her lower lip extending in a pout. “That’s a shame. Any reason why?”

“I’m actually not sure.” They greeted the other players and dealt out the cards. “But I know he was beginning to slip, toward the end. He was one of the best at Scatterjack, and then all of a sudden he couldn’t concentrate. Ended up losing quite a bit of money.”

Perhaps that was why Cayo hadn’t returned to the Vice Sector. “Pity. I would have liked to see him again.”

“I know he used to hang about near the Scarlet Arc, down on Malachite Street.”

Hope surged within her. After losing her eighth round, she thanked the dealer and left her unfinished drink there, her mouth coated with pomegranate and her head a little too light.

She got lost trying to find Malachite Street, tangling herself deeper within the bowels of the Vice Sector. She quickly realized that Diamond Street was merely the outer visage, the “safe” part where tourists liked to go. Beyond that visage were streets littered with trash and stinking of vomit, men relieving themselves against the sides of buildings, and grubby children fingering knives that were too large for them. Amaya stared them down, daring them to try. Although they sneered, they left her alone.