Crooked Kingdom

by Leigh Bardugo

  The nurse twinkled at Jesper. “Well then, I think we might have a quick look around.”

  Wylan studied his mother, his thoughts a jangle of misplayed chords. They’d cut her hair short. He tried to picture her younger, in the fine black wool gown of a mercher’s wife, white lace gathered at her collar, her curls thick and vibrant, arranged by a lady’s maid into a nautilus of braids.

  “Hello,” he managed.

  “Did you come for my money? I don’t have any money.”

  “I don’t either,” Wylan said faintly.

  She was not familiar, exactly, but there was something in the way she tilted her head, the way she sat, her spine still straight. As if she was at the piano.

  “Do you like music?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Yes, but there isn’t much here.”

  He pulled the flute from his shirt. He’d traveled the whole day with it tucked up against his chest like some kind of secret, and it was still warm from his body. He’d planned to play it beside her grave like some kind of idiot. How Kaz would have laughed at him.

  The first few notes were wobbly, but then he got control of his breath. He found the melody, a simple song, one of the first he’d learned. For a moment, she looked as if she was trying to remember where she might have heard it. Then she simply closed her eyes and listened.

  When he was finished, she said, “Play something cheerful.”

  So he played a Kaelish reel and then a Kerch sea shanty that was better suited to the tin whistle. He played every song that came into his head, but nothing mournful, nothing sad. She didn’t speak, though occasionally, he saw her tap her toe to the music, and her lips would move as if she knew the words.

  At last he put the flute down in his lap. “How long have you been here?”

  She stayed silent.

  He leaned forward, seeking some answer in those vague hazel eyes. “What did they do to you?”

  She laid a gentle hand on his cheek. Her palm felt cool and dry. “What did they do to you?” He couldn’t tell if it was a challenge or if she was just repeating his words.

  Wylan felt the painful press of tears in his throat and fought to swallow them.

  The door banged open. “Well now, did we have a good visit?” said the nurse as she entered.

  Hastily, Wylan tucked the flute back into his shirt. “Indeed,” he said. “Everything seems to be in order.”

  “You two seem awfully young for this type of work,” she said, dimpling at Jesper.

  “I might say the same for you,” he replied. “But you know how it is, the new clerks get stuck with the most menial tasks.”

  “Will you be back again soon?”

  Jesper winked. “You never do know.” He nodded at Wylan. “We have a boat to catch.”

  “Say goodbye, Miss Hendriks!” urged the nurse.

  Marya’s lips moved, but this time Wylan was close enough to hear what she muttered. Van Eck.

  * * *

  On the way out of the hospital, the nurse kept up a steady stream of chatter with Jesper. Wylan walked behind them. His heart hurt. What had his father done to her? Was she truly mad? Or had he simply bribed the right people to say so? Had he drugged her? Jesper glanced back at Wylan once as the nurse gibbered on, his gray eyes concerned.

  They were almost to the pale blue door when the nurse said, “Would you like to see her paintings?”

  Wylan jerked to a halt. He nodded.

  “I think that would be most interesting,” said Jesper.

  The woman led them back the way they’d come and then opened the door to what appeared to be a closet.

  Wylan felt his knees buckle and had to grab the wall for balance. The nurse didn’t notice—she was talking on and on. “The paints are expensive, of course, but they seem to bring her so much pleasure. This is just the latest batch. Every six months or so we have to put them on the rubbish heap. There just isn’t space for them.”

  Wylan wanted to scream. The closet was crammed with paintings—landscapes, different views of the hospital grounds, a lake in sun and shadow, and there, repeated again and again, was the face of a little boy with ruddy curls and bright blue eyes.

  He must have made some kind of noise, because the nurse turned to him. “Oh dear,” she said to Jesper, “your friend’s gone quite pale again. Perhaps a stimulant?”

  “No, no,” said Jesper, putting his arm around Wylan. “But we really should be going. It’s been a most enlightening visit.”

  Wylan didn’t register the walk down the drive bordered by yew hedges or retrieving their coats and caps from behind the tree stump near the main road.

  They were halfway back to the dock before he could bring himself to speak. “She knows what he did to her. She knows he had no right to take her money, her life.” Van Eck, she’d said. She was not Marya Hendriks, she was Marya Van Eck, a wife and mother stripped of her name and her fortune. “Remember when I said he wasn’t evil?”

  Wylan’s legs gave out and he sat down hard, right there in the middle of the road, and he couldn’t bring himself to care because the tears were coming and there was no way he could stop them. They gusted through his chest in ragged, ugly sobs. He hated that Jesper was seeing him cry, but there was nothing he could do, not about the tears, not about any of it. He buried his face in his arms, covering his head as if, were he to only will it strongly enough, he could vanish.

  He felt Jesper squeeze his arm.

  “It’s okay,” Jesper said.

  “No, it’s not.”

  “You’re right, it’s not. It’s rotten, and I’d like to string your father up in a barren field and let the vultures have at him.”

  Wylan shook his head. “You don’t understand. It was me. I caused this. He wanted a new wife. He wanted an heir. A real heir, not a moron who can barely spell his own name.” He’d been eight when his mother had been sent away. He didn’t have to wonder anymore; that was when his father had given up on him.

  “Hey,” Jesper said, giving him a shake. “Hey. Your father could have made a lot of choices when he found out you couldn’t read. Hell, he could have said you were blind or that you had trouble with your vision. Or better yet, he could have just been happy about the fact that he had a genius for a son.”

  “I’m not a genius.”

  “You’re stupid about a lot of things, Wylan, but you are not stupid. And if I ever hear you call yourself a moron again, I’m going to tell Matthias you tried to kiss Nina. With tongue.”

  Wylan wiped his nose on his sleeve. “He’ll never believe it.”

  “Then I’ll tell Nina you tried to kiss Matthias. With tongue.” He sighed. “Look, Wylan. Normal people don’t wall their wives up in insane asylums. They don’t disinherit their sons because they didn’t get the child they wanted. You think my dad wanted a mess like me for a kid? You didn’t cause this. This happened because your father is a lunatic dressed up in a quality suit.”

  Wylan pressed the heels of his hands to his swollen eyes. “That’s all true, and none of it makes me feel any better.”

  Jesper gave his shoulder another little shake. “Well, how about this? Kaz is going to tear your father’s damn life apart.”

  Wylan was about to say that didn’t help either, but he hesitated. Kaz Brekker was the most brutal, vengeful creature Wylan had ever encountered—and he’d sworn he was going to destroy Jan Van Eck. The thought felt like cool water cascading over the hot, shameful feeling of helplessness he’d been carrying with him for so long. Nothing could make this right, ever. But Kaz could make his father’s life very wrong. And Wylan would be rich. He could take his mother from this place. They could go somewhere warm. He could put her in front of a piano, get her to play, take her somewhere full of bright colors and beautiful sounds. They could go to Novyi Zem. They could go anywhere. Wylan lifted his head and wiped away his tears. “Actually, that helps a lot.”

  Jesper grinned. “Thought it might. But if we don’t get on that boat back to Ketterdam, no righteous
comeuppance.”

  Wylan rose, suddenly eager to return to the city, to help bring Kaz’s plan to life. He’d gone to the Ice Court reluctantly. He’d aided Kaz grudgingly. Because through all of it, he’d believed that he deserved his father’s contempt, and now he could admit that somewhere, in some buried place, he’d hoped there might still be a way back to his father’s good favor. Well, his father could keep that good favor and see what it bought him when Kaz Brekker was finished.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go steal all my dad’s money.”

  “Isn’t it your money?”

  “Okay, let’s go steal it back.”

  They headed off at a run. “I love a little righteous comeuppance,” said Jesper. “Jogs the liver!”

  15

  MATTHIAS

  A crowd had gathered outside the tavern, drawn by the sounds of breaking glass and trouble. Zoya lowered Nina and Matthias none-too-gently to the floor, and they were herded quickly out the back of the tavern, surrounded by a small segment of the armed men. The rest remained in the tavern to offer whatever explanations could be given for the fact that a bunch of bones had just flown through the marketplace and shattered the building’s windows. Matthias wasn’t even sure he understood what had happened. Had Nina controlled those false Saints’ relics? Had it been something else altogether? And why had they been attacked?

  Matthias thought they would emerge into an alley, but instead they descended a series of ancient-looking steps into a dank tunnel. The old canal, Matthias realized as they climbed aboard a boat that passed soundlessly through the dark. It had been paved over but not entirely filled in. They were traveling beneath the broad thoroughfare that fronted the embassy.

  Only a few moments later, Zoya led them up a narrow metal ladder and into a bare room with a ceiling so low Matthias had to bend double.

  Nina said something to Zoya in Ravkan and then translated Zoya’s reply for Matthias. “It’s a half room. When the embassy was built, they created a false floor four feet above the original floor. The way it’s set into the foundation, it’s almost impossible to know there’s another room beneath you.”

  “It’s little more than a crawl space.”

  “Yes, but Ketterdam’s buildings don’t have basements, so no one would ever think to search below.”

  It seemed an extreme precaution in what was supposed to be a neutral city, but perhaps the Ravkans had been forced to take extreme measures to protect their citizens. Because of people like me. Matthias had been a hunter, a killer, and proud to do his job well.

  A moment later, they came upon a group of people huddled together against what Matthias thought might be the eastern wall if he hadn’t gotten completely turned around.

  “We’re under the embassy garden,” said Nina.

  He nodded. This would be the safest place to keep a group of people if you didn’t want to risk voices rising through the embassy floor. There were about fifteen of them, all ages and colors. They seemed to have little in common beyond their wary expressions, but Matthias knew they must all be Grisha. They hadn’t needed Nina’s warning to seek sanctuary.

  “So few?” Matthias said. Nina had estimated the number of Grisha in the city as closer to thirty.

  “Maybe the others got out on their own or are just lying low.”

  Or perhaps they’d already been captured. If Nina did not wish to speak the possibility, he wouldn’t either.

  Zoya led them through an archway to an area where Matthias was relieved to be able to stand upright. Given the round shape of the room, he suspected they were beneath some kind of false cistern or maybe a folly in the garden. His relief dissolved when one of Zoya’s armed men produced a pair of shackles, and Zoya pointed directly at Matthias.

  Immediately, Nina stepped in front of him, and she and Zoya began arguing in furious whispers.

  Matthias knew exactly who he was dealing with. Zoya Nazyalensky was one of the most powerful witches in Ravka. She was a legendary Squaller, a soldier who had served first the Darkling, then the Sun Summoner, and who had ascended to power as a member of King Nikolai’s Grisha Triumvirate. Now that he’d experienced a taste of her abilities for himself, he wasn’t surprised at how quickly she’d risen.

  The argument was entirely in Ravkan, and Matthias didn’t understand a word of it, but the scorn in Zoya’s voice was obvious, as were her jabbing gestures toward Matthias and the shackles. He was ready to growl that if the storm witch wanted him locked up, she could try doing it herself and see what happened, when Nina held up her hands.

  “No more,” she said in Kerch. “Matthias remains free and we continue this conversation in a language we all understand. He has a right to know what’s going on.”

  Zoya’s eyes narrowed. She looked from Matthias to Nina and then, in heavily accented Kerch, she said, “Nina Zenik, you are still a soldier of the Second Army, and I am still your commanding officer. You are directly disobeying orders.”

  “Then you’ll just have to put me in chains too.”

  “Don’t think I’m not considering it.”

  “Nina!” The cry came from a redheaded girl who had appeared in the echoing room.

  “Genya!” Nina whooped. But Matthias would have known this woman without any introduction. Her face was covered in scars, and she wore a red silk eye patch embroidered with a golden sunburst. Genya Safin—the renowned Tailor, Nina’s former instructor, and another member of the Triumvirate. As Matthias watched them embrace, he felt sick. He’d expected to meet a group of anonymous Grisha, people who had taken refuge in Ketterdam and then found themselves alone and in danger. People like Nina—not Ravka’s highest-ranking Grisha. All his instincts called on him to fight or to be gone from this place as fast as possible, not to stand there like a suitor meeting his beloved’s parents. And yet, these were Nina’s friends, her teachers. They’re the enemy, said a voice in his head, and he wasn’t sure if it was Commander Brum’s or his own.

  Genya stepped back, brushing the blonde strands of Nina’s wig from her face to get a better look at her. “Nina, how is this possible? The last time Zoya saw you—”

  “You were throwing a tantrum,” said Zoya, “stomping away from camp with all the caution of a wayward moose.”

  To Matthias’ surprise, Nina actually winced like a child taking a scolding. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her embarrassed before.

  “We thought you were dead,” Genya said.

  “She looks half-dead.”

  “She looks fine.”

  “You vanished,” Zoya spat. “When we heard there were Fjerdans nearby, we feared the worst.”

  “The worst happened,” Nina said. “And then it happened some more.” She took Matthias’ hand. “But we’re here now.”

  Zoya glared at their clasped hands and crossed her arms. “I see.”

  Genya raised an auburn brow. “Well, if he’s the worst that can happen—”

  “What are you doing here?” Zoya demanded. “Are you and your Fjerdan … accessory trying to get out of Ketterdam?”

  “What if we were? Why did you ambush us?”

  “There have been attacks on Grisha all over the city. We didn’t know who you were or if you might be colluding with the Shu, only that you used the code on the peddler. We always station soldiers in the tavern now. Anyone looking for Grisha is a potential threat.”

  Given what Matthias had seen of the new Shu soldiers, they were right to be wary.

  “We came to offer our help,” Nina said.

  “What kind of help? You have no idea what forces are at work here, Nina. The Shu have developed a drug—”

  “Jurda parem.”

  “What do you know about parem?”

  Nina squeezed Matthias’ hand. She took a deep breath. “I’ve seen it used. I’ve … experienced it myself.”

  Genya’s single amber eye widened. “Oh, Nina, no. You didn’t.”

  “Of course she did,” said Zoya. “You’ve always been like this! You sink into tr
ouble like it’s a warm bath. Is this why you look like second-day gruel? How could you take a risk like that, Nina?”

  “I do not look like gruel,” Nina protested, but she had that same chastened look on her face. Matthias couldn’t stand it.

  “She did it to save our lives,” he said. “She did it knowing she might be dooming herself to misery and even death.”

  “Reckless,” Zoya declared.

  “Zoya,” said Genya. “We don’t know the circumstances—”

  “We know that she’s been missing nearly a year.” She pointed an accusing finger at Nina. “And now she shows up with a Fjerdan in tow, one built like a soldier and who uses drüskelle fighting techniques.” Zoya reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of bones. “She attacked our soldiers with these, with bone shards, Genya. Have you ever heard of such a thing being possible?”

  Genya stared at the bones and then at Nina. “Is this true?”

  Nina pressed her lips together. “Possibly?”

  “Possibly,” said Zoya. “And you’re telling me we should just trust her?”

  Genya looked less certain but said, “I’m telling you we should listen.”

  “All right,” said Zoya. “I wait with open ears and a ready heart. Entertain me, Nina Zenik.”

  Matthias knew what it was to face the mentors you had idolized, to feel yourself become a nervous pupil again, yearning to please. He turned to Nina and said in Fjerdan, “Do not let them cow you. You are not the girl you were. You are not just a soldier to command.”

  “So why do I feel like finding a corner to sob in?”

  “This is a round room. There are no corners.”

  “Matthias—”

  “Remember what we’ve been through. Remember what we came here for.”

  “I thought we were all speaking Kerch,” said Zoya.

  Nina gave Matthias’ hand another squeeze, threw back her head, and said, “I was taken captive by the drüskelle. Matthias helped me escape. Matthias was taken captive by the Kerch. I helped him escape. I was taken captive by Jarl Brum. Matthias helped me escape.” Matthias wasn’t entirely comfortable with how good they both were at being taken prisoner.