Crooked Kingdom

by Leigh Bardugo

  The figures seemed to blur, and when the mists finally thinned, Kaz saw no trace of the Tides.

  He shook his head and set off down the canal. That was the wonderful thing about Ketterdam. It never let you get bored. No doubt the Tides would want something from him in the future, and he’d be obliged to give it to them.

  But for now, he had unfinished business.

  44

  INEJ

  Inej didn’t think she could make it up the stairs to bed. How had she whiled away so many hours at dinner with Jesper and Wylan?

  The cook had been all apologies as the meal was served that night. She still couldn’t get quality fresh produce from the markets, what with people so afraid to come into the city. They’d done their best to reassure her and had stuffed themselves on cheese and leek pie, then eaten honey-soaked cakes while sitting on the music room floor. Wylan’s mother had retired early. She seemed to be coming back to herself in fits and starts, but Inej suspected it would be a long road.

  Wylan played the piano and Jesper sang the dirtiest sea shanty Inej had ever heard. She missed Nina painfully. There had been no letters, and she could only hope her friend had made it to Fjerda safely and found some peace on the ice. When Inej finally had her ship, maybe her first trip would be to Ravka. She could journey inland to Os Alta, try to find her family on one of the old routes they’d traveled, see Nina again. Someday.

  Inej had chosen to spend her nights at Wylan’s house, returning to the Slat just to fetch her few belongings. With her contract paid and her bank account brimming with funds, she wasn’t entirely sure where she belonged. She’d been researching sailing vessels with heavy cannon, and using her knowledge of the city’s secrets to begin gathering information that she hoped would lead her to the slavers who did business through the ports of Kerch. The skills she’d acquired as the Wraith would serve her well. But tonight, all she wanted to contemplate was sleep.

  She dragged herself up the stairs and crawled into her deliciously comfortable bed. Only when she’d reached over to turn down the lamp did she see the note—a sealed letter in Kaz’s messy scrawl. Sunrise. Fifth Harbor.

  Of course he’d managed to get into the locked house, past the servants and the three fools singing at the top of their lungs. It was only fair, she supposed. She’d been coming and going at the Slat, slipping in and out of windows and doorways, leaving bits of information for Kaz when she needed to. She could have simply knocked on his office door, but it was easier this way.

  Kaz had changed. The net. Paying her contract. She could still feel the faint touch of his lips on her skin, his bare hands fumbling with the knots of her bandages. Inej had seen the scant glimmer of what he might become if he let himself. She couldn’t bear to see him dressed in armor once more, buttoned back into his immaculate suits and cold demeanor. She wouldn’t listen to him talk as if the Ice Court and everything that came after had been just another job, another score, another bit of advantage to be gained.

  But she wouldn’t ignore his note. It was time to put an end to this thing that had never had a chance to begin. She’d tell him what she’d heard about Pekka, offer to share some of her routes and hiding spots with Roeder. It would be over. She turned down the light, and after a long while, she fell asleep with the note clutched in her hand.

  * * *

  It was hard to force herself from bed the next morning. She’d developed bad habits in the last three weeks—sleeping when she wanted to, eating when she liked. Nina would be proud. Being at Wylan’s house felt like she’d entered some kind of enchanted world. She’d been to the house before, when she and Kaz had stolen the DeKappel and then again before the Sweet Reef job. But it was one thing to be a thief in a house and quite another to be a guest. Inej found herself embarrassed by the pleasure of being waited on, and yet, Van Eck’s staff seemed glad to have them there. Maybe they’d feared Wylan would close up the house and they’d all lose their employment. Or maybe they thought Wylan deserved some kindness.

  One of the maids had set out a lapis silk robe and a little pair of fur-lined slippers by the side of the bed. There was hot water in the pitcher by the basin, a glass bowl full of fresh roses. She washed, brushed out her hair, rebraided it, then dressed and quietly let herself out of the house—through the front door, of all things.

  She kept her hood up and moved swiftly as she made her way to the harbor. The streets were still largely empty, especially at this hour of the morning, but Inej knew she could not let down her guard. Pekka Rollins was gone. Van Eck was in jail. But contracted to the Dregs or not, as long as Kaz had enemies on these streets, she did too.

  He was standing on the quay, looking out at the water. His black coat fit snugly across his shoulders, the salt wind off the sea ruffling the dark waves of his hair.

  She knew she did not have to announce herself, so she stood next to him, taking in the view of the boats at the docks. It looked like several vessels had arrived that morning. Maybe the city was regaining its rhythm.

  “How are things at the house?” he asked at last.

  “Comfortable,” she admitted. “It’s made me lazy.” For the briefest moment, Inej wondered if Kaz might be jealous of that comfort or if it was simply alien to him. Would he ever let himself rest? Sleep in? Linger over a meal? She would never know.

  “I hear Wylan is letting Jesper play the markets.”

  “Very cautiously and with extremely limited sums. Wylan’s hoping to channel his love of risk into something productive.”

  “It might work brilliantly or it could end in total disaster, but that’s generally the way Jesper likes to work. At least the odds are better than in any gambling hall.”

  “Wylan only agreed after Jesper promised to start training with a Fabrikator. Assuming they can find one. It might take a trip to Ravka.”

  Kaz tilted his head, watching a gull arc above them, wings spread wide. “Tell Jesper he’s missed. Around the Slat.”

  Inej raised a brow. “Around the Slat.” From Kaz that was as good as a bouquet of flowers and a heartfelt hug—and it would mean the world to Jesper.

  Part of her wanted to draw this moment out, to be near him a while longer, listen to the rough burr of his voice, or just stand there in easy silence as they’d done countless times before. He had been so much of her world for so long. Instead she said, “What business, Kaz? You can’t be planning a new job so soon.”

  “Here,” he said, handing her a long glass. With a jolt, she realized he wasn’t wearing his gloves. She took it from him tentatively.

  Inej put the long glass to her eye and peered out at the harbor. “I don’t know what I’m looking for.”

  “Berth twenty-two.”

  Inej adjusted the lens and scanned along the docks. There, in the very berth from which they’d set out for the Ice Court, was a tidy little warship. She was sleek and perfectly proportioned, cannons out, a flag bearing the three Kerch fishes flying stiffly from the mainmast. On her side, spelled out in graceful white script, were the words The Wraith.

  Inej’s heart stuttered. It couldn’t be. “That’s not—”

  “She’s yours,” said Kaz. “I’ve asked Specht to help you hire on the right crew. If you’d prefer to take on a different first mate, he—”

  “Kaz—”

  “Wylan gave me a good price. His father’s fleet is full of worthy ships, but that one … It suited you.” He looked down at his boots. “That berth belongs to you too. It will always be there when—if you want to come back.”

  Inej could not speak. Her heart felt too full, a dry creek bed ill-prepared for such rain. “I don’t know what to say.”

  His bare hand flexed on the crow’s head of his cane. The sight was so strange Inej had trouble tearing her eyes from it. “Say you’ll return.”

  “I’m not done with Ketterdam.” She hadn’t known she meant it until she’d said the words.

  Kaz cast her a swift glance. “I thought you wanted to hunt slavers.”

  �
�I do. And I want your help.” Inej licked her lips, tasted the ocean on them. Her life had been a series of impossible moments, so why not ask for something impossible now? “It’s not just the slavers. It’s the procurers, the customers, the Barrel bosses, the politicians. It’s everyone who turns a blind eye to suffering when there’s money to be made.”

  “I’m a Barrel boss.”

  “You would never sell someone, Kaz. You know better than anyone that you’re not just one more boss scraping for the best margin.”

  “The bosses, the customers, the politicians,” he mused. “That could be half the people in Ketterdam—and you want to fight them all.”

  “Why not?” Inej asked. “On the seas and in the city. One by one.”

  “Brick by brick,” he said. Then he gave a single shake of his head, as if shrugging off the notion. “I wasn’t made to be a hero, Wraith. You should have learned that by now. You want me to be the better man, a good man. I—”

  “This city doesn’t need a good man. It needs you.”

  “Inej—”

  “How many times have you told me you’re a monster? So be a monster. Be the thing they all fear when they close their eyes at night. We don’t go after all the gangs. We don’t shut down the houses that treat fairly with their employees. We go after women like Tante Heleen, men like Pekka Rollins.” She paused. “And think about it this way … you’ll be thinning the competition.”

  He made a sound that might almost have been a laugh.

  One of his hands balanced on his cane. The other rested at his side next to her. She’d need only move the smallest amount and they would be touching. He was that close. He was that far from reach.

  Cautiously, she let her knuckles brush against his, a slight weight, a bird’s feather. He stiffened, but he didn’t pull away.

  “I’m not ready to give up on this city, Kaz. I think it’s worth saving.” I think you’re worth saving.

  Once they’d stood on the deck of a ship and she’d waited just like this. He had not spoken then and he did not speak now. Inej felt him slipping away, dragged under, caught in an undertow that would take him farther and farther from shore. She understood suffering and she knew it was a place she could not follow, not unless she wanted to drown too.

  Back on Black Veil, he’d told her they would fight their way out. Knives drawn, pistols blazing. Because that’s what we do. She would fight for him, but she could not heal him. She would not waste her life trying.

  She felt his knuckles slide against hers. Then his hand was in her hand, his palm was pressed against her own. A tremor moved through him. Slowly, he let their fingers entwine.

  For a long while, they stood there, hands clasped, looking out at the gray expanse of the sea.

  A Ravkan ship flying the Lantsov double eagle had docked only a few berths over from the Wraith, probably unloading a cargo of tourists or immigrants seeking work. The world changed. The world went on.

  “Kaz,” she asked suddenly. “Why crows?”

  “The crow and cup? Probably because crows are scavengers. They take the leavings.”

  “I don’t mean the Dregs tattoo. That’s as old as the gang. Why did you adopt it? Your cane. The Crow Club. You could have chosen a new symbol, built a new myth.”

  Kaz’s bitter coffee eyes remained trained on the horizon, the rising sun painting him in pale gold light. “Crows remember human faces. They remember the people who feed them, who are kind to them. And the people who wrong them too.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded slowly. “They don’t forget. They tell each other who to look after and who to watch out for. Inej,” Kaz said, gesturing out to the harbor with the head of his cane, “look.”

  She raised the long glass and peered back down at the harbor, at the passengers disembarking, but the image was blurry. Reluctantly, she released his hand. It felt like a promise, and she didn’t want to let go. She adjusted the lens, and her gaze caught on two figures moving down the gangplank. Their steps were graceful, their posture straight as knife blades. They moved like Suli acrobats.

  She drew in a sharp breath. Everything in her focused like the lens of the long glass. Her mind refused the image before her. This could not be real. It was an illusion, a false reflection, a lie made in rainbow-hued glass. She would breathe again and it would shatter.

  She reached for Kaz’s sleeve. She was going to fall. He had his arm around her, holding her up. Her mind split. Half of her was aware of his bare fingers on her sleeve, his dilated pupils, the brace of his body around hers. The other half was still trying to understand what she was seeing.

  His dark brows knitted together. “I wasn’t sure. Should I not have—”

  She could barely hear him over the clamor in her heart. “How?” she said, her voice raw and strange with unshed tears. “How did you find them?”

  “A favor, from Sturmhond. He sent out scouts. As part of our deal. If it was a mistake—”

  “No,” she said as the tears spilled over at last. “It was not a mistake.”

  “Of course, if something had gone wrong during the job, they’d be coming to retrieve your corpse.”

  Inej choked out a laugh. “Just let me have this.” She righted herself, her balance returning. Had she really thought the world didn’t change? She was a fool. The world was made of miracles, unexpected earthquakes, storms that came from nowhere and might reshape a continent. The boy beside her. The future before her. Anything was possible.

  Now Inej was shaking, her hands pressed to her mouth, watching them move up the dock toward the quay. She started forward, then turned back to Kaz. “Come with me,” she said. “Come meet them.”

  Kaz nodded as if steeling himself, flexed his fingers once more.

  “Wait,” he said. The burn of his voice was rougher than usual. “Is my tie straight?”

  Inej laughed, her hood falling back from her hair.

  “That’s the laugh,” he murmured, but she was already setting off down the quay, her feet barely touching the ground.

  “Mama!” she called out. “Papa!”

  Inej saw them turn, saw her mother grip her father’s arm. They were running toward her.

  Her heart was a river that carried her to the sea.

  45

  PEKKA

  Pekka sat in the front room of his country house, peering out from behind one of the white lace curtains. Kaelish lace. Imported from Maroch Glen. Pekka had spared no expense when he’d polished up this place. He’d built the house from the ground up, specifying the dimensions of every room, the varnish for the floors, choosing each fixture and furnishing with care. The Emerald Palace was his great pride, the Kaelish Prince the crown jewel of his empire, a testament to luxury and style, decked out in the highest Barrel flash. But this place was his home, his castle. Its every detail spoke respectability, prosperity, permanence.

  Pekka felt safe here, safe with his son and the bodyguards he paid so well. Still, he moved away from the window. Best not to take any chances. Plenty of spots for a marksman to hide out there. Maybe he should cut down the beech trees that bordered the lawn.

  He struggled to understand where his life had gone. A month ago he’d been a rich man, a man to be reckoned with, a king. And now?

  He clutched his son closer and stroked his red hair. The boy was restless in his lap.

  “I want to go play!” Alby said, leaping from Pekka’s knee, thumb in his mouth, clutching the soft little lion—one of the many he owned. Pekka could barely stand to look at the thing. Kaz Brekker had bluffed him and he’d fallen for it.

  But it was worse than that. Brekker had gotten into his head. Pekka couldn’t stop thinking of his boy, his perfect boy buried beneath clods of earth, screaming for him, pleading for his father, and Pekka unable to come to his rescue. Sometimes his son was crying from somewhere in the fields but he didn’t know where to dig. Sometimes Pekka was the one lying in the grave, paralyzed as the earth was piled on top of him—light at first, a patte
r of rain, then in heavy clods that filled his mouth and stole the breath from his chest. Above him he could hear people laughing—boys, girls, women, men. They were silhouettes against a blue dusk sky, their faces lost to shadow, but he knew who they were. All the people he’d swindled, duped, killed. All the sorry sobs he’d sacrificed as he made his climb up the ladder. He still couldn’t remember the name of Brekker’s brother. What had he been called?

  Pekka had been Jakob Hertzoon; he’d worn a thousand different faces. But Kaz Brekker had found him. He’d come for his revenge. If one of those fools could find him, why not another, and another? How many would stand in line to throw the next shovelful of dirt?

  Making choices, even simple choices, had become difficult. What tie to wear. What to order for dinner. He doubted himself. Pekka had never doubted himself. He’d started life as a no one. A stone breaker from the Wandering Isle, a sturdy boy valued only for his strong back and his youth, for his ability to swing a pick and carry a load of rocks. But he’d cheated his way onto a boat coming to Ketterdam and made his reputation with his fists. He’d been a boxer, a bruiser, the most feared enforcer in the gangs. He’d survived because he was the wiliest, the toughest, because no one could break his will. Now all he wanted to do was sit inside, drink his whiskey, watch the shadows move across the ceiling. Anything else filled him with a terrible fatigue.

  And then one morning he woke to a bright, blue-enamel sky. The air was full of birdsong. He could smell the arrival of summer, real heat in the air, fruit ripening in the orchard.

  He dressed. He breakfasted. He spent the morning in the fields, working in the early sun and playing with Alby. When the day grew too hot, they sat on the wide porch and drank cool glasses of lemonade. Then Pekka went inside and actually faced the papers and bills that had been piling up on his desk.

  Things were in disastrous shape at the Emerald Palace and the Kaelish Prince. They’d been closed by the city as a health precaution, the doors and windows marked with dire black Xs to indicate an outbreak site. News from Ketterdam indicated that the plague had been a false alarm, some strange fungus or virus that had struck quickly but seemed to be proving harmless. City officials were cautiously optimistic.