“Let’s see,” said Nina. “Inej fell twenty stories.”
“We put a serious hole in my father’s dining room ceiling,” Wylan offered.
“Nina can raise the dead,” said Inej.
Matthias’ cup clattered against his saucer. It looked ridiculous in his huge hand.
“I can’t raise them. I mean, they get up, but it’s not like they come back to life. I don’t think. I’m not totally sure.”
“Are you serious?” said Jesper.
Inej nodded. “I can’t explain it, but I saw it.”
Matthias’ brow was furrowed. “When we were in the Ravkan quarter, you were able to summon those pieces of bone.”
Jesper took a gulp of coffee. “But what about the lake house? Were you controlling that dust?”
“What dust?” asked Inej.
“She didn’t just take out a guard. She choked him with a cloud of dust.”
“There’s a family graveyard next to the Hendriks lake house,” said Wylan, remembering the gated plot that abutted the western wall. “What if the dust was … well, bones? People’s remains?”
Nina set down her plate. “That’s almost enough to make me lose my appetite.” She picked it up again. “Almost.”
“This is why you asked about parem changing a Grisha’s power,” said Kuwei to Matthias.
Nina looked at him. “Can it?”
“I don’t know. You took the drug only once. You survived the withdrawal. You are a rarity.”
“Lucky me.”
“Is it so bad?” Matthias asked.
Nina plucked a few crumbs from her lap, returning them to her plate. “To quote a certain big blond lump of muscle, it’s not natural.” Her voice had lost its cheery warmth. She just looked sad.
“Maybe it is,” said Matthias. “Aren’t the Corporalki known as the Order of the Living and the Dead?”
“This isn’t how Grisha power is supposed to work.”
“Nina,” Inej said gently. “Parem took you to the brink of death. Maybe you brought something back with you.”
“Well, it’s a pretty rotten souvenir.”
“Or perhaps Djel extinguished one light and lit another,” said Matthias.
Nina cast him a sidelong glance. “Did you get hit on the head?”
He reached out and took Nina’s hand. Wylan suddenly felt he was intruding on something private. “I am grateful you’re alive,” he said. “I am grateful you’re beside me. I am grateful that you’re eating.”
She rested her head on his shoulder. “You’re better than waffles, Matthias Helvar.”
A small smile curled the Fjerdan’s lips. “Let’s not say things we don’t mean, my love.”
There was a light tapping at the door. Immediately, they all reached for their weapons. Colm sat frozen in his chair.
Kaz gestured for him to stay where he was and moved silently toward the door. He peered through the peephole.
“It’s Specht,” he said. They all relaxed, and Kaz opened the door.
They watched in silence as Kaz and Specht exchanged harried whispers; then Specht nodded and disappeared back toward the lift.
“Is there access to the clock tower on this floor?” Kaz asked Colm.
“At the end of the hall,” said Colm. “I haven’t gone up. The stairs are steep.”
Without a word, Kaz was gone. They all stared at one another for a moment and then followed, filing past Colm, who watched them go with weary eyes.
As they walked down the hall, Wylan realized that the entire floor was dedicated to the luxury of the Ketterdam Suite. If he was going to die, he supposed it wouldn’t be the worst place to spend his last night.
One by one, they climbed a twisting iron staircase to the clock tower and pushed through a trapdoor. The room at the top was large and cold, taken up mostly by the gears of a huge clock. Its four faces looked out over Ketterdam and the gray dawn sky.
To the south, a plume of smoke rose from Black Veil Island. Looking northeast, Wylan could see the Geldcanal, boats from the fire brigade and the stadwatch surrounding the area near his father’s house. He remembered the shocked look on his father’s face when they’d landed in the middle of his dining room table. If Wylan hadn’t been so terrified, he might well have burst out laughing. It’s shame that eats men whole. If only they’d set the rest of the house on fire.
Far in the distance, the harbors were teeming with stadwatch boats and wagons. The city was pocked with stadwatch purple, as if it had caught a disease.
“Specht says they’ve closed the harbors and shut down the browboats,” said Kaz. “They’re sealing the city. No one will be able to get in or out.”
“Ketterdam won’t stand for that,” said Inej. “People will riot.”
“They won’t blame Van Eck.”
Wylan felt a little ill. “They’ll blame us.”
Jesper shook his head. “Even if they put every stadwatch grunt on the street, they don’t have the manpower to lock up the city and search for us.”
“Don’t they?” said Kaz. “Look again.”
Jesper walked to the west-facing window where Kaz was standing. “All the Saints and your Aunt Eva,” he said on a gust of breath.
“What is it?” asked Wylan as they peered through the glass.
A crowd was moving east from the Barrel across the Zelver district.
“Is it a mob?” asked Inej.
“More like a parade,” said Kaz.
“Why aren’t the stadwatch stopping them?” Wylan asked as the flood of people passed unhindered from bridge to bridge, through each barricade. “Why are they letting them through?”
“Probably because your father told them to,” Kaz said.
As the throng drew closer, Wylan heard singing, chanting, drums. It really did sound like a parade. They poured over Zelverbridge, streaming past the hotel as they made their way to the square that fronted the Exchange. Wylan recognized Pekka Rollins’ gang leading the march. Whoever was up front wore a lion skin with a fake golden crown sewn onto its head.
“Razorgulls,” Inej said, pointing behind the Dime Lions. “And there are the Liddies.”
“Harley’s Pointers,” Jesper said. “The Black Tips.”
“It’s all of them,” said Kaz.
“What does it mean?” asked Kuwei. “The purple bands?”
Each member of the mob below wore a strip of purple around his upper left arm.
“They’ve been deputized,” said Kaz. “Specht says word is out all over the Barrel. The good news is they want us alive now—even Matthias. The bad news is they’ve added bounties for the Shu twins we’re traveling with, so Kuwei’s face—and Wylan’s—are gracing the city walls too.”
“And your Merchant Council is just sanctioning this?” said Matthias. “What if they start looting or there’s a riot?”
“They won’t. Rollins knows what he’s doing. If the stadwatch had tried to lock down the Barrel, the gangs would have turned on them. Now they’re on the right side of the law, and Van Eck has two armies. He’s pinning us in.”
Inej drew a sharp breath.
“What?” asked Wylan, but when he looked down at the square, he understood. The last group in the parade had come into view. An old man wearing a plumed hat was leading them, and they were cawing at the top of their lungs—like crows. The Dregs, Kaz’s gang. They had turned on him.
Jesper slammed his fist against the wall. “Those ungrateful skivs.”
Kaz said nothing, just watched the crowd flow past the front of the hotel below, the gangs bunched in colorful swarms, calling insults to one another, cheering like it was some kind of holiday. Even after they’d gone by, their chants hung in the air. Maybe they would march all the way to the Stadhall.
“What will happen now?” asked Kuwei.
“We’ll be hunted by every stadwatch grunt and Barrel thug in the city, until we’re found,” said Kaz. “There’s no way out of Ketterdam now. Certainly not with you in tow.”
&n
bsp; “Can we just wait?” asked Kuwei. “Here? With Mister Fahey?”
“Wait for what?” Kaz said. “Someone to come to our rescue?”
Jesper rested his head against the glass. “My father. They’ll take him in too. He’ll be accused of harboring fugitives.”
“No,” said Kuwei abruptly. “No. Give me to Van Eck.”
“Absolutely not,” said Nina.
The boy cut his hand through the air sharply. “You saved me from the Fjerdans. If we do not act, then I will be captured anyway.”
“Then all of this was for nothing?” Wylan asked, surprised at his own anger. “The risks we took? What we accomplished at the Ice Court? Everything Inej and Nina suffered to get us out?”
“But if I give myself up to Van Eck, then the rest of you can go free,” insisted Kuwei.
“It doesn’t work that way, kid,” said Jesper. “Pekka’s got his chance to take Kaz out with the rest of the Barrel backing him, and Van Eck sure as hell doesn’t want us walking around free, not knowing what we do. This isn’t just about you anymore.”
Kuwei moaned and slumped down against the wall. He cast a baleful glance at Nina. “You should have killed me at the Ice Court.”
Nina shrugged. “But then Kaz would have killed me and Matthias would have killed Kaz and it would have gotten incredibly messy.”
“I can’t believe we broke out of the Ice Court but we’re trapped in our own town,” Wylan said. It didn’t seem right.
“Yup,” said Jesper. “We are well and truly cooked.”
Kaz drew a circle on the window with one leather gloved finger. “Not quite,” he said. “I can get the stadwatch to stand down.”
“No,” said Inej.
“I’ll give myself up.”
“But Kuwei—” said Nina.
“The stadwatch don’t know about Kuwei. They think they’re looking for Wylan. So I’ll tell them Wylan is dead. I’ll tell them I killed him.”
“Are you out of your mind?” said Jesper.
“Kaz,” said Inej. “They’ll send you to the gallows.”
“They’ll have to give me a trial first.”
“You’ll rot in prison before that happens,” said Matthias. “Van Eck will never give you a chance to speak in a courtroom.”
“You really think they’ve built a cell that can hold me?”
“Van Eck knows just how good you are with locks,” Inej said angrily. “You’ll die before you ever reach the jailhouse.”
“This is ridiculous,” said Jesper. “You’re not taking the fall for us. No one is. We’ll split up. We’ll go in pairs, find a way past the blockades, hide out somewhere in the countryside.”
“This is my city,” said Kaz. “I’m not leaving it with my tail between my legs.”
Jesper released a growl of frustration. “If this is your city, what’s left of it? You gave up your shares in the Crow Club and Fifth Harbor. You don’t have a gang anymore. Even if you did escape, Van Eck and Rollins would sic the stadwatch and half the Barrel on you again. You can’t fight them all.”
“Watch me.”
“Damn it, Kaz. What are you always telling me? Walk away from a losing hand.”
“I’m giving you a way out. Take it.”
“Why are you treating us like a bunch of yellow-bellied skivs?”
Kaz turned on him. “You’re the one getting ready to bolt, Jesper. You just want me to run with you so you don’t have to feel so bad about it. For all your love of a fight, you’re always the first to talk about running for cover.”
“Because I want to stay alive.”
“For what?” Kaz said, his eyes glittering. “So you can play another hand at the tables? So you can find another way to disappoint your father and let down your friends? Have you told your father you’re the reason he’s going to lose his farm? Have you told Inej you’re the reason she almost died at the end of Oomen’s knife? That we all almost died?”
Jesper’s shoulders bunched, but he didn’t back down. “I made a mistake. I let my bad get the best of my good, but for Saints’ sake, Kaz, how long are you going to make me pay for a little forgiveness?”
“What do you think my forgiveness looks like, Jordie?”
“Who the hell is Jordie?”
For the briefest moment, Kaz’s face went slack, a confused, almost frightened look in his dark eyes—there and gone, so fast Wylan wondered if he’d imagined it.
“What do you want from me?” Kaz snarled, his expression just as closed, just as cruel as ever. “My trust? You had it and you shot it to pieces because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut.”
“One time. How many times have I had your back in a fight? How many times have I gotten it right? Doesn’t that count for anything?” Jesper threw up his hands. “I can’t win with you. No one can.”
“That’s right. You can’t win. You think you’re a gambler, but you’re just a born loser. Fights. Cards. Boys. Girls. You’ll keep playing until you lose, so for once in your life, just walk away.”
Jesper swung first. Kaz dodged right and then they were grappling. They slammed into the wall, knocked heads, drew apart in a flurry of punches and grabs.
Wylan turned to Inej, expecting her to object, for Matthias to separate them, for someone to do something, but the others just backed up, making room. Only Kuwei showed any kind of distress.
Jesper and Kaz swung around, crashed into the mechanism of the clock, righted themselves. It wasn’t a fight, it was a brawl—graceless, a tangle of elbows and fists.
“Ghezen and his works, someone stop them!” Wylan said desperately.
“Jesper hasn’t shot him,” Nina said.
“Kaz isn’t using his cane,” said Inej.
“You think they can’t kill each other with their bare hands?”
They were both bleeding—Jesper from a cut on his lip and Kaz from somewhere near his brow. Jesper’s shirt was halfway over his head and Kaz’s sleeve was tearing at the seam.
The trapdoor sprang open and Colm Fahey’s head emerged. His ruddy cheeks went even redder.
“Jesper Llewellyn Fahey, that is enough!” he roared.
Jesper and Kaz both startled, and then, to Wylan’s shock, they stepped away from each other, looking guilty.
“Just what is going on here?” Colm said. “I thought you were friends.”
Jesper ran a hand over the back of his neck, looking like he wanted to vanish through the floorboards. “We … uh … we were having a disagreement.”
“I can see that. I have been very patient with all of this, Jesper, but I am at my limit. I want you down here before I count ten or I will tan your hide so you don’t sit for two weeks.”
Colm’s head vanished back down the stairs. The silence stretched.
Then Nina giggled. “You are in so much trouble.”
Jesper scowled. “Matthias, Nina let Cornelis Smeet grope her bottom.”
Nina stopped laughing. “I am going to turn your teeth inside out.”
“That is physically impossible.”
“I just raised the dead. Do you really want to argue with me?”
Inej cocked her head to one side. “Jesper Llewellyn Fahey?”
“Shut up,” said Jesper. “It’s a family name.”
Inej made a solemn bow. “Whatever you say, Llewellyn.”
“Kaz?” Jesper said tentatively.
But Kaz was staring into the middle distance. Wylan thought he knew that look.
“Is that—?” asked Wylan.
“Scheming face?” said Jesper.
Matthias nodded. “Definitely.”
“I know how to do it,” Kaz said slowly. “How to get Kuwei out, get the Grisha out, get our money, beat Van Eck, and give that son of a bitch Pekka Rollins everything he has coming to him.”
Nina raised a brow. “Is that all?”
“How?” asked Inej.
“This whole time, we’ve been playing Van Eck’s game. We’ve been hiding. We’re done with that. We’re going
to stage a little auction. Right out in the open.” He turned to face them, and his eyes gleamed flat and black as a shark’s. “And since Kuwei is so eager to sacrifice himself, he’s going to be the prize.”
PART FIVE
KINGS & QUEENS
24
JESPER
At the base of the iron staircase, Jesper tried to straighten his shirt and dabbed the blood from his lip, though at this point he figured it wouldn’t matter if he showed up in nothing but his skivvies. His father was no fool, and that ridiculous story Wylan had concocted to cover for Jesper’s mistakes had worn faster than a cheap suit. His father had seen their wounds, he’d heard about their botched plans. He knew they weren’t students or victims of a swindle. So what now?
Close your eyes and hope the firing squad has good aim, he thought bleakly.
“Jesper.”
He whirled. Inej was right behind him. He hadn’t heard her approach, but that was no surprise. Have you told Inej you’re the reason she almost died at the end of Oomen’s knife? Well, Jesper figured he’d be doing a lot of apologizing this morning. Best get to it.
“Inej, I’m sorry—”
“I didn’t come looking for an apology, Jesper. You have a weak spot. We all have weak spots.”
“What’s yours?”
“The company I keep,” she said with a slight smile.
“You don’t even know what I did.”
“Then tell me.”
Jesper looked down at his shoes. They were miserably scuffed. “I was in deep with Pekka Rollins for a lot of kruge. His goons were putting the pressure on, so I … I told them I was leaving town, but that I was about to come into a big score. I didn’t say anything about the Ice Court, I swear.”
“But it was enough for Rollins to put the puzzle together and prepare an ambush.” She sighed. “And Kaz has been punishing you for it ever since.”
Jesper shrugged. “Maybe I deserve it.”
“Do you know the Suli have no words to say ‘I’m sorry’?”
“What do you say when you step on someone’s foot?”
“I don’t step on people’s feet.”
“You know what I mean.”
“We say nothing. We know the slight was not deliberate. We live in tight quarters, traveling together. There’s no time to constantly be apologizing for existing. But when someone does wrong, when we make mistakes, we don’t say we’re sorry. We promise to make amends.”
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