Crooked Kingdom

by Leigh Bardugo

  He scanned the faces of the people he had fought beside, bled with. He’d lied to them and been lied to. He’d brought them into hell and dragged them out again.

  Kaz settled his hands over his cane, his back to the city. “We all want different things from this day. Freedom, redemption—”

  “Cold hard cash?” suggested Jesper.

  “Plenty of that. There are lots of people looking to stand in our way. Van Eck. The Merchant Council. Pekka Rollins and his goons, a few different countries, and most of this Saintsforsaken town.”

  “Is this supposed to be encouraging?” asked Nina.

  “They don’t know who we are. Not really. They don’t know what we’ve done, what we’ve managed together.” Kaz rapped his cane on the ground. “So let’s go show them they picked the wrong damn fight.”

  31

  WYLAN

  What am I doing here?

  Wylan bent to the basin and splashed cold water on his face. In just a few hours, the auction would begin. They would abandon the hotel suite before dawn. It was imperative that if anyone came looking for Johannus Rietveld after the auction, they would find him long gone.

  He took a final glance in the bathroom’s gilded mirror. The face gazing back at him was familiar again, but who was he really? A criminal? A runaway? A kid who was passable—maybe more than passable—at demo?

  I’m Marya Hendriks’ son.

  He thought of his mother, alone, abandoned along with her defective child. Had she not been young enough to produce a proper heir? Had his father known even then that he would want to forever rid himself of any evidence that Wylan had existed?

  What am I doing here?

  But he knew the answer. Only he could see his father punished for what he’d done. Only he could see his mother freed.

  Wylan examined himself in the glass. His father’s eyes. His mother’s curls. It had felt good to be someone else for a while, to forget he was a Van Eck. But he didn’t want to hide anymore. Ever since Prior’s fingers had closed over his throat, he’d been running. Or maybe it had started long before then, in the afternoons he’d spent sitting in the pantry or curled into a window seat behind a curtain, hoping everyone would forget him, that the nanny would just go home, that his tutor would never arrive.

  His father had wanted Wylan to vanish. He’d wanted him to disappear the way he’d made Wylan’s mother disappear, and for a long time, Wylan had wanted the exact same thing. That had all started to change when he came to the Barrel, when he got his first job, when he met Jesper and Kaz and Inej, when he’d begun to realize he was worth something.

  Jan Van Eck was not going to get his wish. Wylan wasn’t going anywhere.

  “I’m here for her,” he said to the mirror.

  The rosy-cheeked boy in the glass did not look impressed.

  * * *

  The sun had just started to rise as Pim led Wylan and Colm out the back of the hotel and through a series of confusing turns to the square that fronted the Exchange. Ordinarily, the bakery on Beurstraat would have been open at this hour, preparing to serve the traders and merchants on their way to the Exchange. But the auction had upended ordinary business and the baker had closed his shop, maybe hoping to secure a seat to watch the proceedings for himself.

  They stood at the door on the deserted square for an excruciatingly long moment as Pim fumbled with the lock. Wylan realized he’d gotten used to the dexterity with which Kaz managed breaking and entering. The door opened with a too-loud jingle and then they were inside.

  “No mourners,” said Pim. He vanished back through the door before Wylan could reply.

  The bakery cases were empty, but the smell of bread and sugar lingered. Wylan and Colm settled themselves on the floor with their backs against the shelves, trying to make themselves comfortable. Kaz had left them with strict instructions, and Wylan had no interest in disregarding them. Johannus Rietveld could never be seen in the city again, and Wylan knew exactly what his father would do to him if he found his son roaming the streets of Ketterdam.

  They sat in silence for hours. Colm dozed. Wylan hummed to himself, a tune that he’d had in his head for a while. It would need percussion, something with a rat-a-tat-tat like gunfire.

  He took a cautious peek through the window and saw a few people headed toward the Church of Barter, starlings taking flight in the square, and there, only a few hundred yards away, the entrance to the Exchange. He didn’t need to be able to read the words engraved over the arch. He’d heard his father repeat them countless times. Enjent, Voorhent, Almhent. Industry, Integrity, Prosperity. Jan Van Eck had managed two out of three well enough.

  Wylan didn’t realize Colm was awake until he said, “What made you lie for my son that day in the tomb?”

  Wylan lowered himself back down to the floor. He chose his words carefully. “I guess I know what it’s like to get things wrong.”

  Colm sighed. “Jesper gets a lot wrong. He’s reckless and foolish and apt to joke when it’s not warranted, but…” Wylan waited. “What I’m trying to say is, he’s a lot of trouble, a whole lot. But he’s worth it.”

  “I—”

  “And it’s my fault he is the way he is. I was trying to protect him, but maybe I saddled him with something worse than all the dangers I saw lurking out there.” Even in the weak morning light trickling through the bakery’s window, Wylan could see how weary Colm looked. “I made some big mistakes.”

  Wylan drew a line on the floor with his finger. “You gave him someone to run to. No matter what he did or what went wrong. I think that’s bigger than the big mistakes.”

  “See now? That’s why he likes you. I know, I know—it’s none of my business, and I have no idea if he’d be good for you. Probably bring you ten kinds of headache. But I think you’d be good for him.”

  Wylan’s face heated. He knew how much Colm loved Jesper, had seen it in every gesture he’d made. It meant something that he thought Wylan was good enough for his son.

  A sound came from near the delivery entrance, and they both stilled.

  Wylan rose, heart pounding. “Remember,” he whispered to Colm. “Stay hidden.”

  He made his way past the ovens to the back of the bakery. The smells were stronger here, the darkness more complete, but the room was empty. A false alarm.

  “It’s not—”

  The delivery door flew open. Hands grabbed Wylan from behind. His head was yanked back, his mouth forced open as a rag was stuffed inside. A bag was shoved over his head.

  “Hey, little merch,” said a deep voice he didn’t recognize. “Ready to be reunited with your daddy?”

  They wrenched his arms back and dragged him through the delivery door of the bakery. Wylan stumbled, barely able to keep his footing, unable to see or get his bearings. He fell, his knees banging painfully against the cobblestones, and he was yanked back up.

  “Don’t make me carry you, little merch. Not getting paid for that.”

  “This way,” said one of the others, a girl. “Pekka’s on the southern side of the cathedral.”

  “Hold,” said a new voice. “Who do you have there?”

  His tone was officious. Stadwatch, Wylan thought.

  “Someone Councilman Van Eck is going to be very happy to see.”

  “Is he from Kaz Brekker’s crew?”

  “Just run along like a good grunt and tell him the Dime Lions have a present waiting for him in the armaments chapel.”

  Wylan heard crowds a little way off. Were they near the church? A moment later he was pulled roughly forward and the sounds changed. They were inside. The air was cooler, the light dimmer. He was dragged up another set of stairs, his shins banging against their edges, and then shoved into a chair, his hands bound behind his back.

  He heard footsteps coming up the stairs, the sound of a door opening.

  “We got him,” said that same deep voice.

  “Where?” Wylan’s heart stuttered. Sound it out, Wylan. A child half your age can read thi
s without trying. He’d thought he was ready for this.

  “Brekker had him stashed in a bakery just a few blocks away.”

  “How did you find him?”

  “Pekka’s had us searching the area. Figured Brekker might try to pull some stunt at the auction.”

  “No doubt intending to humiliate me,” said Jan Van Eck.

  The bag was yanked from Wylan’s head and he looked into his father’s face.

  Van Eck shook his head. “Every time I think you cannot disappoint me further, you prove me wrong.”

  They were in a small chapel topped by a dome. The oil paintings on the wall featured battle scenes and piles of armaments. The chapel must have been donated by a family of weapons manufacturers.

  Over the last few days, Wylan had studied the layout of the Church of Barter, mapping the rooftop niches and alcoves with Inej, sketching the cathedral and long finger naves of Ghezen’s hand. He knew exactly where he was—one of the chapels at the end of Ghezen’s pinky. The floor was carpeted, the only door led to the stairway, and the only windows opened onto the roof. Even if he wasn’t gagged, he doubted anyone but the paintings would be able to hear him cry for help. Two people stood behind Van Eck: a girl in striped trousers, the yellow hair shaved from half of her head, and a stout boy in plaid and suspenders. Both wore the purple armbands indicating they’d been deputized by the stadwatch. Both bore the Dime Lion tattoo.

  The boy grinned. “You want me to go get Pekka?” he asked Van Eck.

  “No need. I want him keeping his eyes on the preparations for the auction. And this is something I’d prefer to handle myself.” Van Eck leaned down. “Listen, boy. The Wraith was spotted with a member of the Grisha Triumvirate. I know Brekker is working with the Ravkans. For all your many shortcomings, you still carry my blood. Tell me what he has planned and I’ll see you’re taken care of. You’ll have an allowance. You can live somewhere in comfort. I’m going to remove your gag. If you scream, I’ll let Pekka’s friends do whatever they like to you, understood?”

  Wylan nodded. His father tugged the rag from his mouth.

  Wylan ran his tongue over his lips and spat in his father’s face.

  Van Eck drew a snowy monogrammed handkerchief from his pocket. It was embroidered with the red laurel. “An apt retort from a boy who can barely form words.” He wiped the saliva from his face. “Let’s try this again. Tell me what Brekker is planning with the Ravkans and I may let you live.”

  “The way you let my mother live?”

  His father’s flinch was barely perceptible, a marionette yanked once by its strings, then allowed to return to rest.

  Van Eck folded his soiled handkerchief twice, tucked it away. He nodded to the boy and the girl. “Do whatever you have to. The auction starts in less than an hour, and I want answers before then.”

  “Hold him up,” the stout boy said to the girl. She hauled Wylan to his feet, and the boy slipped a pair of brass knuckles from his pocket. “He’s not going to be so pretty after this.”

  “Who is there to care?” Van Eck said with a shrug. “Just make sure you keep him conscious. I want information.”

  The boy eyed Wylan skeptically. “You sure you want to do it this way, little merch?”

  Wylan summoned every bit of bravado he’d learned from Nina, the will he’d learned from Matthias, the focus he’d studied in Kaz, the courage he’d learned from Inej, and the wild, reckless hope he’d learned from Jesper, the belief that no matter the odds, somehow they would win. “I won’t talk,” he said.

  The first punch shattered two of his ribs. The second had him coughing blood.

  “Maybe we should snap your fingers so you can’t play that infernal flute,” Van Eck suggested.

  I’m here for her, Wylan reminded himself. I’m here for her.

  In the end, he was not Nina or Matthias or Kaz or Inej or Jesper. He was just Wylan Van Eck. He told them everything.

  32

  INEJ

  Getting into the Church of Barter was no easy task this morning. Due to its position near the Exchange and the Beurscanal, its roof didn’t conjoin any others, and its entrances were already surrounded by guards when Inej arrived. But she was the Wraith; she was made to find the hidden places, the corners and cracks where no one thought to look.

  No weapons would be allowed inside the Church of Barter during the auction, so Jesper’s rifle was secured to her back. She waited out of sight until she spotted a group of stadwatch grunts rolling a cart full of lumber toward the church’s huge double doors. Inej assumed they were the makings of some kind of barricade for the stage or the finger naves. She waited until the cart had rolled to a stop, then tucked her hood into her tunic so it would not trail on the ground and slipped beneath the cart. She latched herself onto the axle, her body bare inches above the cobblestones, and let them wheel her directly down the center aisle. Before they reached the altar, she dropped and rolled between the pews, narrowly missing the cart’s wheels.

  The floor was cold stone under her belly as she crawled the width of the church, then waited at the end of the aisle and darted behind one of the columns of the western arcade. She moved from column to column, then slipped into the nave that would lead her to the thumb chapels. Once more she dropped into a crawl so that she could use the pews in the nave as cover. She didn’t know where the guards might be patrolling, and she had no desire to be caught simply wandering the church.

  She reached the first chapel, then climbed the stairs to the orange chapel above. Its altar was rendered in gold, but built to resemble crates of oranges and other exotic fruits. It framed a DeKappel oil that showed a family of merchants dressed in black, cradled in Ghezen’s hand, hovering over a citrus grove.

  She scaled the altar and launched herself up to the chapel’s dome, clinging to it so she was hanging nearly upside down. Once she reached the center of the cupola, she wedged her back against the little dome that crowned the larger dome like a hat. Though she doubted she could be heard here, she waited until the sounds of sawing and hammering from the cathedral began, then positioned her foot in front of one of the slender glass windows that gave light to the chapel and kicked. On the second attempt, the glass fractured, spilling outward. Inej covered her hand with her sleeve to clear away the excess shards and edged out onto the top of the dome. She latched a climbing line to the window and rappelled down the dome’s side to the roof of the nave, where she left Jesper’s rifle. She didn’t want it throwing off her balance.

  She was atop Ghezen’s thumb. The morning mist had started to burn away and she could feel the day would be a hot one. She followed the thumb back to the steeply gabled spires of the main cathedral and began to climb once more.

  This was the highest part of the church, but the terrain was familiar, and that made for easier going. Of all the rooftops in Ketterdam, the cathedral was Inej’s favorite. She’d had no good reason to learn its contours. There were plenty of other places from which she could have observed the Exchange or the Beurscanal when a job called for it, but she’d always chosen the Church of Barter. Its spires were visible from almost anywhere in Ketterdam, the copper of its rooftop long since turned to green and crisscrossed by spines of metal scrollwork, full of perfect handholds and offering plenty of cover. It was like a strange gray-green fairyland that no one else in the city ever got to see.

  The wire walker in her had imagined running a line between its tallest spires. Who would dare to defy death itself? I will. The Kerch would probably consider staging acrobatics atop their cathedral blasphemous. Unless of course she charged admission.

  She planted the explosives Kaz had described as their “insurance” in the locations she and Wylan had agreed upon while mapping the cathedral. Only in Kaz’s mind could chaos count for security. The bombs were meant to be noisy but would do little damage. Still, if something went wrong and a distraction was needed, they would be there.

  When she was done, she took up her perch in one of the metalwork pockets that over
looked the apse and the vast nave of the cathedral. Here, her view of the proceedings would be obstructed by nothing but a series of wide slats and the mesh screen between them. There were times she came here just to listen to the music from the organ or to hear voices raised in song. High above the city, chords from the pipe organ echoing through the stone, she felt closer to her Saints.

  The acoustics were good enough that she could have listened to every word of the sermons if she’d wanted to, but she chose to ignore those parts of the service. Ghezen was not her god, and she had no desire to be lectured on how she might better serve him. She wasn’t fond of Ghezen’s altar either—a graceless, flat lump of rock around which the church had been built. Some called it the First Forge, others the Mortar, but today it would be used as an auction block. It made Inej’s stomach turn. She was supposedly an indenture, brought to Kerch of her own free will. That was what the documents said. They didn’t tell the story of her abduction, her terror in the belly of a slaver ship, the humiliation she’d suffered at Tante Heleen’s hands, or the misery of her existence at the Menagerie. Kerch had been built on trade, but how much of that trade had been the human kind? A minister of Ghezen might stand at that altar and rail against slavery, but how much of this city had been built on taxes from the pleasure houses? How many members of his congregation employed boys and girls who could barely speak Kerch, who scrubbed floors and folded laundry for pennies as they worked to pay off a debt that never seemed to grow smaller?

  If Inej got her money, if she got her ship, she might do her part to change all of that. If she survived this day. She imagined all of them—Kaz, Nina, Matthias, Jesper, Wylan, Kuwei, who’d had so little say in the course of his own life—perched side by side on a wire, their balance precarious, their lives tethered together by hope and belief in one another. Pekka would be prowling the church below, and she suspected Dunyasha would be close by. She’d called the ivory-and-amber girl her shadow, but maybe she was a sign as well, a reminder that Inej hadn’t been made for this life. And yet, it was hard not to feel that this city was her home, that Dunyasha was the intruder here.