Crooked Kingdom

by Leigh Bardugo

  What am I doing here? Wylan wondered again. He found himself gnawing on his thumb and forced himself to stop. He was here for Inej. She’d saved their lives more than once, and he wasn’t going to forget that. He was here because he desperately needed the money. And if there was another reason, a tall, lanky reason with a too-strong taste for games of chance, he wasn’t going to think about that right now.

  As soon as they made it to the outskirts of the Barrel, Wylan and Kaz ditched their capes and sky-blue jackets and wended their way east into the Zelver district.

  Matthias was waiting for them beneath a darkened doorway on Handelcanal. “All clear?” Kaz asked.

  “All clear,” said the big Fjerdan. “The lights went out on the top floor of Smeet’s house more than an hour ago, but I don’t know if the servants are awake.”

  “He only has a daily maid and cook,” Kaz said. “He’s too cheap for full-time servants.”

  “How is—”

  “Nina is fine. Jesper is fine. Everyone is fine except for me because I’m stuck with a gang of hand-wringing nursemaids. Keep a watch.”

  Wylan shrugged apologetically at Matthias, who looked like he was considering dashing Kaz’s skull against a wall, then hurried along the cobblestones after Kaz. Smeet’s home also served as his office, and it was located on a dark street with sparse foot traffic. The lamps were lit along the canal and candles burned in some of the windows, but after ten bells, most of the neighborhood’s respectable citizens had already retired.

  “Are we just going in through the front door?”

  “Use your eyes instead of running your mouth,” said Kaz, lockpicks already flashing in his gloved hands.

  I am, Wylan thought. But that wasn’t strictly true. He’d taken in the house’s proportions, the pitch of its gabled roof, the roses beginning to bloom in its window boxes. But he hadn’t looked at the house as a puzzle. With some frustration, Wylan could admit this was an easy solve. The Zelver district was prosperous, but not truly wealthy—a place for successful artisans, bookkeepers, and barristers. Though the houses were well built and tidy, with views of a wide canal, they were tightly packed together, and there were no grand gardens or private docks. To access the windows of the upper floors, he and Kaz would have had to break into a neighboring home and go through two sets of locks instead of one. Better to risk the front door, to simply act as if they had every right to be there—even if Kaz was carrying picks instead of keys.

  Use your eyes. But Wylan didn’t like looking at the world the way Kaz did. And once they’d gotten their money, he’d never have to again.

  A bare second later, Kaz pressed down on the handle and the door swung open. Immediately, Wylan heard the patter of paws, claws on hard wood, low snarls, as Smeet’s pack of hounds rushed the door, white teeth flashing, growls rumbling deep in their chests. Before they could realize someone other than their master had come to call, Kaz pushed Smeet’s whistle between his lips and blew. Nina had managed to slip it from the chain the lawyer always wore around his neck, then tucked it beneath an empty oyster shell for Wylan to whisk into the kitchen.

  There was no sound from the whistle—at least not one that Wylan could hear. It’s not going to work, he thought, imagining those huge jaws tearing into his throat. But the dogs skittered to a halt, bumping into one another in a confused tangle.

  Kaz blew again, lips pursing in time with the pattern of a new command. The dogs quieted and flopped to the floor with a disgruntled whine. One even rolled over on its back.

  “Now why can’t people be this easily trained?” Kaz murmured as he crouched to oblige the dog with a belly rub, black-gloved fingers smoothing the short fur. “Close the door behind you.”

  Wylan did and stood with his back pressed to it, keeping a wary eye on the pile of slavering hounds. The whole house smelled of dog—damp fur, oily hides, warm breath moist with the stink of raw meat.

  “Not fond of animals?” Kaz asked.

  “I like dogs,” Wylan said. “Just not when they’re the size of bears.”

  Wylan knew the real puzzle of Smeet’s house had been a thorny one for Kaz to solve. Kaz could pick just about any lock and outthink any system of alarms, but he hadn’t been able to come up with a simple way around Smeet’s bloodthirsty hounds that wouldn’t leave their plan exposed. During the day, the dogs were kept in a kennel, but at night they were given free run of the house while Smeet’s family slept peacefully in the richly appointed rooms of the third floor, the staircase closed off by an iron gate. Smeet walked the dogs himself, up and down the Handelcanal, trailing after them like a tubby sled in an expensive hat.

  Nina had suggested drugging the dogs’ food. Smeet went to the butcher every morning to select cuts of meat for the pack, and it would have been easy enough to switch the parcels. But Smeet wanted his dogs hungry at night, so he fed them in the mornings. He would have noticed if his prized pets had been sluggish all day, and they couldn’t risk Smeet staying home to care for his hounds. He had to spend the evening on East Stave, and when he returned home, it was essential that he find nothing amiss. Inej’s life depended upon it.

  Kaz had arranged for the private parlor in the Cumulus, Nina had caressed the whistle from beneath Smeet’s shirt, and, piece by piece, the plan had come together. Wylan did not want to think about what they’d done to obtain the whistle commands. He shivered when he remembered what Smeet had said: One of my clerks never came back from his holiday. He never would. Wylan could still hear the clerk screaming as Kaz dangled him by the ankles from the top of the Hanraat Point Lighthouse. I’m a good man, he’d shouted. I’m a good man. They were the last words he’d spoken. If he’d talked less, he might have lived.

  Now Wylan watched Kaz give the drooling dog a scratch behind the ears and rise. “Let’s go. Watch your feet.”

  They sidestepped the pile of dog bodies in the hall and made their way quietly up the stairs. The layout of Smeet’s house was familiar to Wylan. Most businesses in the city followed the same plan: a kitchen and public rooms for meeting with clients on the ground floor, offices and storage on the second floor, sleeping rooms for the family on the third floor. Very wealthy homes had a fourth floor for servants’ quarters. As a boy, Wylan had spent more than a few hours hiding from his father in his own home’s upper rooms.

  “Not even locked,” Kaz murmured as they entered Smeet’s office. “Those hounds have made him lazy.”

  Kaz closed the door and lit a lamp, turning the flame down low.

  The office had three small desks arranged by the windows to take advantage of the natural light, one for Smeet and two for his clerks. I’m a good man.

  Wylan shook off the memory and focused on the shelves that ran from floor to ceiling. They were lined with ledgers and boxes full of documents, each carefully labeled with what Wylan assumed were the names of clients and companies.

  “So many pigeons,” Kaz murmured, eyes scanning the boxes. “Naten Boreg, that sad little skiv Karl Dryden. Smeet represents half the Merchant Council.”

  Including Wylan’s father. Smeet had served as Jan Van Eck’s attorney and property manager for as long as Wylan could remember.

  “Where do we start?” Wylan whispered.

  Kaz pulled a fat ledger from the shelves. “First we make sure your father has no new acquisitions under his name. Then we search under your stepmother’s name, and yours.”

  “Don’t call her that. Alys is barely older than I am. And my father won’t have kept property in my name.”

  “You’d be surprised at what a man will do to avoid paying taxes.”

  They spent the better part of the next hour digging through Smeet’s files. They knew all about Van Eck’s public properties—the factories, hotels, and manufacturing plants, the shipyard, the country house and farmland in southern Kerch. But Kaz believed Wylan’s father had to have private holdings, places he’d kept off the public registers, places he’d stash something—or someone—he didn’t want found.

 
; Kaz read names and ledger entries aloud, asking Wylan questions and trying to find connections to properties or companies they hadn’t yet discovered. Wylan knew he owed his father nothing, but it still felt like a betrayal.

  “Geldspin?” asked Kaz.

  “A cotton mill. I think it’s in Zierfoort.”

  “Too far. He won’t be keeping her there. What about Firma Allerbest?”

  Wylan searched his memory. “I think that one’s a cannery.”

  “They’re both practically printing cash, and they’re both in Alys’ name. But Van Eck keeps the big earners to himself—the shipyard, the silos at Sweet Reef.”

  “I told you,” Wylan said, fiddling with a pen on one of the blotters. “My father trusts himself first, Alys only so far. He wouldn’t leave anything in my name.”

  Kaz just said, “Next ledger. Let’s start with the commercial properties.”

  Wylan stopped fiddling with the pen. “Was there something in my name?”

  Kaz leaned back. His look was almost challenging when he said, “A printing press.”

  The same old joke. So why did it still sting? Wylan set the pen down. “I see.”

  “He’s not what I would call a subtle man. Eil Komedie is in your name too.”

  “Of course it is,” Wylan replied, wishing he sounded less bitter. Another private laugh for his father to enjoy—an abandoned island with nothing on it but a broken-down amusement park, a worthless place for his worthless, illiterate son. He shouldn’t have asked.

  As the minutes ticked away and Kaz continued reading aloud, Wylan became increasingly agitated. If he could just read, they’d be moving twice as fast through the files. In fact, Wylan would already know his father’s business inside out. “I’m slowing you down,” he said.

  Kaz flipped open another sheaf of documents. “I knew exactly how long this would take. What was your mother’s family name?”

  “There’s nothing in her name.”

  “Humor me.”

  “Hendriks.”

  Kaz walked to the shelves and selected another ledger. “When did she die?”

  “When I was eight.” Wylan picked up the pen again. “My father got worse after she was gone.” At least that was how Wylan remembered it. The months after his mother’s death were a blur of sadness and silence. “He wouldn’t let me go to her funeral. I don’t even know where she’s buried. Why do you guys say that, anyway? No mourners, no funerals? Why not just say good luck or be safe?”

  “We like to keep our expectations low.” Kaz’s gloved finger trailed down a column of numbers and stopped. His eyes moved back and forth between the two ledgers, then he snapped the leather covers shut. “Let’s go.”

  “Did you find something?”

  Kaz nodded once. “I know where she is.”

  Wylan didn’t think he imagined the tension in the rasp of Kaz’s voice. Kaz never yelled the way Wylan’s father did, but Wylan had learned to listen for that low note, that bit of black harmony that crept into Kaz’s tone when things were about to get dangerous. He’d heard it after the fight at the docks when Inej lay bleeding from Oomen’s knife, then when Kaz had learned it was Pekka Rollins who had tried to ambush them, again when they’d been double-crossed by Wylan’s father. He’d heard it loud and clear atop the lighthouse as the clerk screamed for his life.

  Wylan watched as Kaz set the room to rights. He moved an envelope a little more to the left, pulled a drawer on the largest file cabinet out a bit farther, pushed the chair back just so. When he was done he scanned the room, then plucked the pen from Wylan’s hands and set it carefully in its place on the desk.

  “A proper thief is like a proper poison, merchling. He leaves no trace.” Kaz blew the lamp out. “Your father much for charity?”

  “No. He tithes to Ghezen, but he says charity robs men of the chance at honest labor.”

  “Well, he’s been making donations to the Church of Saint Hilde for the last eight years. If you want to pay your respects to your mother, that’s probably the place to start.”

  Wylan stared at Kaz dumbly in the shadowy room. He’d never heard of the Church of Saint Hilde. And he’d never known Dirtyhands to share any bit of information that wouldn’t serve him. “What—”

  “If Nina and Jesper did their jobs right, Smeet will be home soon. We can’t be here when he gets back or the whole plan goes to hell. Come on.”

  Wylan felt like he’d been bashed over the head with a ledger and then told to just forget about it.

  Kaz cracked opened the door. They both stopped short.

  Over Kaz’s shoulder, Wylan saw a little girl standing on the landing, leaning on the neck of one of the massive gray dogs. She had to be about five, her toes barely visible beneath the hem of her flannel nightgown.

  “Oh Ghezen,” Wylan whispered.

  Kaz stepped out into the hall, pulling the door nearly shut behind him. Wylan hesitated in the darkened office, unsure of what he should do, terrified of what Kaz might do.

  The girl looked up at Kaz with big eyes, then removed her thumb from her mouth. “Do you work for my da?”

  “No.”

  The memory came at Wylan again. I’m a good man. They’d ambushed the clerk coming out of the Menagerie and hauled him to the top of the lighthouse. Kaz had held him by his ankles and the clerk had wet himself, screaming and begging for mercy before he’d finally given up Smeet’s whistle commands. Kaz had been about to reel him back up when the clerk had started offering things: money, bank account numbers for Smeet’s clients, and then—I’ve got information on one of the girls at the Menagerie, the Zemeni.

  Kaz had paused. What do you have on her?

  Wylan had heard it then, that low, dangerous note of warning. But the clerk didn’t know Kaz, didn’t recognize the change in the rough scrape of his voice. He thought he’d found a wedge, something Kaz wanted.

  One of her clients is giving her expensive gifts. She’s keeping the money. You know what the Peacock did to the last girl she caught holding out on her?

  I do, Kaz said, his eyes glinting like the edge of a straight razor. Tante Heleen beat her to death.

  Kaz—Wylan had attempted, but the clerk kept talking.

  Right there in the parlor. This girl knows she’s cooked if I tell. She sees me for free just so I keep my mouth shut. Sneaks me in. She’ll do the same for you, your friends. Whatever you like.

  If Tante Heleen found out, she’d kill your Zemeni, said Kaz. She’d make an example of her to the other girls.

  Yes, the clerk gasped eagerly. She’ll do anything you want, everything.

  Slowly, Kaz began to let the man’s legs slide through his grasp. It’s terrible, isn’t it? Knowing someone holds your life in his hands.

  The clerk’s voice rose another octave as he realized his mistake. She’s just a working girl, he screamed. She knows the score! I’m a good man. I’m a good man!

  There are no good men in Ketterdam, Kaz said. The climate doesn’t agree with them. And then he’d simply let go.

  Wylan shuddered. Through the crack in the door, he saw Kaz squat down so he could look the little girl in the eye. “What’s this big fellow’s name?” Kaz said, laying a hand on the dog’s wrinkled neck.

  “This is Maestro Spots.”

  “Is that so?”

  “He has a very fine howl. Da lets me name all the puppies.”

  “Is Maestro Spots your favorite?” asked Kaz.

  She appeared to think, then shook her head. “I like Duke Addam Von Silverhaunch best, then Fuzzmuzzle, then Maestro Spots.”

  “That’s good to know, Hanna.”

  Her mouth opened into a little O. “How do you know my name?”

  “I know all children’s names.”

  “You do?”

  “Oh, yes. Albert who lives next door and Gertrude on Ammberstraat. I live under their beds and in the backs of the closets.”

  “I knew it,” the girl breathed, fear and triumph in her voice. “Mama said there was noth
ing there, but I knew it.” She cocked her head to one side. “You don’t look like a monster.”

  “I’ll tell you a secret, Hanna. The really bad monsters never look like monsters.”

  Now the little girl’s lip trembled. “Did you come to eat me? Da says monsters eat children who don’t go to bed when they’re told.”

  “They do. But I won’t. Not tonight. If you do two things for me.” His voice was calm, almost hypnotic. It had the coarse rasp of an over-rosined bow. “First, you must crawl into bed. And second, you must never tell anyone you’ve seen us, especially your da.” He leaned forward and gave Hanna’s braid a playful tug. “Because if you do, I’ll slit your mother’s throat and then your father’s, and then I’ll cut out the hearts of all these sweet slobbering hounds. I shall save Duke Silverhaunch for last so that you will know it’s all your fault.” The little girl’s face was as white as the lace on the neck of her nightgown, her eyes wide and bright as new moons. “Do you understand?” She nodded frantically, chin wobbling. “Now, now, no tears. Monsters see tears and it only whets their appetites. Off to bed with you, and take that useless Maestro Spots along too.”

  She skittered backward over the landing and up the stairs. When she was halfway up, she cast a terrified glance back at Kaz. He raised one gloved finger to his lips.

  When she was gone, Wylan slipped out from behind the door and followed Kaz down the steps. “How could you say something like that to her? She’s just a child.”

  “We were all just children once.”

  “But—”

  “It was that or snap her neck and make it look like she fell down the stairs, Wylan. I think I showed remarkable restraint. Move.”

  They picked their way past the rest of the dogs still flopped down in the hallway. “Incredible,” Kaz said. “They’d probably stay like that all night.” He blew on the whistle and they leapt up, ears pricked, ready to guard the house. When Smeet returned home, all would be as it should: hounds pacing the ground floor; office intact on the second floor; wife snoozing comfortably on the third floor, and daughter pretending to do the same.