I ’m going to die and there will be no one to help her. No one to even remember Marya Hendriks.
Wylan wanted to be brave, but he was cold and bruised, and worse— he was surrounded by the bravest people he knew and all of them seemed badly shaken.
They made slow progress through the canals, pausing under bridges and in dark wells of shadow to wait as squads of stadwatch boots thundered overhead or along the waterways. They were out in force tonight, their boats cruising along slowly, bright lanterns at their prows. Something had changed in the short time since the showdown on Goedmedbridge. The city had come alive, and it was angry.
“The Grisha—” Nina had attempted.
But Kaz had cut her off quickly. “They’re either safe at the embassy or beyond our help. They can fend for themselves. We’re going to ground.” And then Wylan knew just how much trouble they were in, because Nina hadn’t argued. She’d simply put her head in her hands and gone
silent.
“They’ll be all right,” said Inej, placing an arm around her shoulders. “ He’ll be all right.” But her movements were tentative, and Wylan could see blood on her clothes.
After that, no one spoke a word. Kaz and Rotty rowed only sporadically, steering them into the quieter, narrower canals, letting them drift silently whenever possible, until they rounded a bend near Schoonstraat and Kaz said, “Stop.” He and Rotty dug in their oars,
bringing them flush with the side of the canal, tucked behind the bulk of a vendor’s boat. Whatever the floating shop sold, its stalls had been locked tight to protect its stock.
Up ahead, they could see stadwatch swarming over a bridge, two of their boats obscuring the passage beneath.
“They’re setting up blockades,” said Kaz.
They ditched the boat there and continued on foot.
Wylan knew they were headed to another safe house, but Kaz had said it himself: There is no safe. Where could they possibly hide? Pekka Rollins was working with Wylan’s father. Between them they had to own half the city. Wylan would be captured. And then what? No one would believe he was Jan Van Eck’s son. Wylan Van Eck might be despised by his father, but he had rights no Shu criminal could hope for. Would he end up in Hellgate? Would his father find a way to see him executed?
As they got farther from the manufacturing district and the Barrel, the patrols dwindled, and Wylan realized the stadwatch must be concentrating their efforts on the less respectable parts of town. Still, they moved in fits and starts, passing along alleys Wylan had never known existed, occasionally entering empty storefronts or the lower levels of unoccupied apartments so they could cut through to the next street. It was as if Kaz had a secret map to Ketterdam that showed the city’s forgotten spaces.
Would Jesper be waiting when they finally got wherever they were going? Or was he lying wounded and bleeding on the floor of the tomb with no one to come to his aid? Wylan refused to believe it. The worse the odds, the better Jesper was in a fight. He thought of Jesper pleading with Colm. I know I let you down. Just give me one more chance. How often had Wylan spoken almost the same words to his father, hoping every time that he could make good on them? Jesper had to survive. They all did.
Wylan remembered the first time he’d seen the sharpshooter. He’d seemed like a creature from another world, dressed in lime green and lemon yellow, his stride long and loping, as if every step was poured from a bottle with a narrow neck.
On Wylan’s first night in the Barrel, he’d wandered from street to street, certain he was about to be robbed, teeth chattering from the cold. Finally, when his skin was turning blue and he couldn’t feel his fingers, he’d summoned the courage to ask a man smoking his pipe on the front
steps of a house, “Do you know where there might be rooms for rent?” “Sign right there says vacancy,” he said, gesturing across the street
with his pipe. “What are you, blind?” “Must have missed it,” Wylan said.
The boarding house was filthy but blessedly cheap. He’d rented a room for ten kruge and had also paid for a hot bath. He knew he needed to save his money, but if he contracted lung fever the first night, he’d have problems beyond being short of cash. He took the little towel into the bathroom at the end of the hall and washed up quickly. Though the water was hot enough, he felt vulnerable crouching naked in a tub with no lock on the door. He dried his clothes as best he could, but they were still damp when he put them back on.
Wylan spent that night lying on a paper-thin mattress, staring at the ceiling and listening to the sounds of the rooming house around him. On the Geldcanal, the nights were so silent you could hear the water lapping against the sides of the boathouse. But here it might as well have been noon. Music flooded in through the dirty window. People were talking, laughing, slamming doors. The couple in the room above him were fighting. The couple in the room below him were definitely doing something else.
Wylan touched his fingers to the bruises at his throat and thought, I wish I could ring for tea . That was the moment he really began to panic. How much more pathetic could he be? His father had tried to have him killed. He had almost no money and was lying on a cot that reeked of the chemicals they’d used to try to rid the mattress of lice. He should be making a plan, maybe even plotting revenge, trying to gather his wits and his resources. And what was he doing? Wishing he could ring for tea. He might not have been happy at his father’s house, but he’d never had to work for anything. He’d had servants, hot meals, clean clothes. Whatever it took to survive the Barrel, Wylan knew he didn’t have it.
As he lay there, he sought some explanation for what had happened. Surely, Miggson and Prior were to blame; his father hadn’t known. Or maybe Miggson and Prior had misunderstood his father’s orders. It had just been a terrible mistake. Wylan rose and reached into the damp pocket of his coat. His enrollment papers to the music school in Belendt were still there.
As soon as he drew out the thick envelope, he knew his father was guilty. It was soaked through and smelled of canal, but its color was
pristine. No ink had bled through from the supposed documents inside. Wylan opened the envelope anyway. The sheaf of folded papers clung together in a wet lump, but he pried each of them apart. They were all blank. His father hadn’t even bothered with a convincing ruse. He’d known Wylan wouldn’t try to read the papers. And that his gullible son would never think to suspect his father of lying. Pathetic.
Wylan had stayed inside for two days, terrified. But on the third morning, he’d been so hungry that the smell of frying potatoes wafting up from the street had driven him from the safety of his room. He bought a paper cone full of them and scarfed them down so greedily he burned his tongue. Then he made himself walk.
He had only enough money to keep his room for another week, less if he planned on eating. He needed to find work, but he had no idea where to begin. He wasn’t big enough or strong enough for a job in the warehouses or shipyards. The softer jobs would require him to read. Was it possible one of the gambling dens or even one of the pleasure houses needed a musician to play in their parlors? He still had his flute. He walked up and down East Stave and along the more well-lit side streets. When it started to get dark, he returned to the boarding house, thoroughly defeated. The man with the pipe was still on his steps, smoking. As far as Wylan knew, he never left that perch.
“I’m looking for a job,” Wylan said to him. “Do you know anyone who might be hiring?”
The man peered at him through a cloud of smoke. “Young dollop of cream like you should be able to make fine coin on West Stave.”
“Honest work.”
The man had laughed until he started hacking, but eventually he’d directed Wylan south to the tanneries.
Wylan was paid a scraping wage for mixing dyes and cleaning the vats. The other workers were mostly women and children, a few scrawny boys like him. They spoke little, too tired and too ill from the chemicals to do more than complete their work and collect their pay. They were given no gloves or masks, and Wylan was fairly sure he’d be dead of poisoning before he ever had to worry about where he should go with the tiny bit of money he was earning.
One afternoon, Wylan heard the dye chief complaining that they were losing gallons of dye to evaporation because the boilers ran too hot. He was cursing over the cost he’d paid to have two of them fixed and how
little good it had done.
Wylan hesitated, then suggested adding seawater to the tanks. “Why the hell would I want to do that?” said the dye chief.
“It will raise the boiling point,” said Wylan, wondering why he’d thought it was a good idea to speak at all. “The dyes will have to get hotter to boil so you’ll lose less to evaporation. You’ll have to tweak the formula because the saline will build up fast, and you’ll have to clean the tanks more regularly because the salt can be corrosive.”
The dye chief had merely spat a stream of jurda onto the floor and ignored him. But the next week, they tried using saltwater in one of the tanks. A few days later, they were using a mixture of seawater in all of them, and the dye chief started coming to Wylan with more questions. How could they keep the red dye from stiffening the hides? How could they shorten processing and drying times? Could Wylan make a resin to keep the dyes from bleeding?
A week after that, Wylan had been standing at the vats with his wooden paddle, woozy from the dyes, eyes watering, wondering if helping the dye chief meant he could request a raise, when a boy approached him. He was tall, lanky, his skin a deep Zemeni brown, and looked ridiculously out of place on the dying floor. Not just because of his lime plaid waistcoat and yellow trousers, but because he seemed to exude plea sure, as if there was no place he’d rather be than a miserable, foul-smelling tannery, as if he’d just walked into a party he couldn’t wait to attend. Though he was skinny, his body fit together with a kind of loose-limbed ease. The dye chief didn’t usually like strangers on the dying floor, but he didn’t say a word to this boy with the revolvers slung across his hips, just tipped his hat respectfully and went scurrying off.
Wylan’s first thought was that this boy had the most perfectly shaped lips he’d ever seen. His second was that his father had sent someone new to kill him. He gripped his paddle. Would the boy shoot him in broad daylight? Did people just do that?
But the boy said, “Hear you know your way around a chemistry set.” “What? I … yes. A bit,” Wylan had managed.
“Just a bit?”
Wylan had the sense that his next answer was very important. “I have a background.” He’d taken to science and math and pursued them diligently, hoping they might somehow compensate for his other failings. The boy handed Wylan a folded piece of paper. “Then come to this
address when you get off work tonight. We might have a job for you.” He looked around, as if just noticing the vats and the pallid laborers bent over them. “A real job.”
Wylan had stared at the paper, the letters a tangle in front of his eyes. “I—I don’t know where this is.”
The boy gave an exasperated sigh. “You’re not from here, are you?” Wylan shook his head. “Fine. I’ll come fetch you, because clearly I don’t have anything to do with my time but squire new lilies around town. Wylan, right?” Wylan nodded. “Wylan what?”
“Wylan … Hendriks.”
“You know much about demo, Wylan Hendriks?” “Demo?”
“The boom, the bang, the flint and fuss.”
Wylan didn’t know what he meant at all, but he felt admitting that would be a bad mistake. “Sure,” he said with as much confidence as he could muster.
The boy cut him a skeptical glance. “We’ll see. Be out front at six bells. And no guns unless you want trouble.”
“Of course not.”
The boy had rolled his gray eyes and muttered, “Kaz has got to be out of his mind.”
At six bells, Jesper arrived to escort Wylan to a bait shop in the Barrel. Wylan had been embarrassed by his rumpled clothes, but they were the only ones he owned, and the paralyzing fear that this was just some elaborate trap concocted by his father had provided ample distraction from his worry. In a back room of the bait shop, Wylan met Kaz and Inej. They told him they needed flash bombs and maybe something with a little more kick. Wylan had refused.
That night, he arrived back at the boarding house to find the first letter. The only words he recognized were the name of the sender: Jan Van Eck. He’d lain awake all night, certain that at any moment Prior would smash through the door and clamp his meaty hands around his neck. He’d thought about running, but he barely had enough money to pay his rent, let alone buy a ticket out of the city. And what hope did he have in the country? No one was going to hire him on as farm labor. The next day, he went to see Kaz, and that night, he built his first explosive for the Dregs. He knew what he was doing was illegal, but he’d made more
money for a few hours’ work than he made in a week at the tannery.
The letters from his father continued to arrive, once, sometimes twice a week. Wylan didn’t know what to make of them. Were they threats? Taunts? He stashed them in a stack beneath his mattress, and sometimes at night he thought he could feel the ink bleeding through the pages, up through the mattress and into his heart like dark poison.
But the more time that passed and the more he worked for Kaz, the less scared he felt. He’d make his money, get out of town, and never speak the name Van Eck again. And if his father decided to have him done away with before then, there was nothing Wylan could do about it. His clothes were ragged and threadbare. He was getting so skinny, he had to cut new holes in his belt. But he would sell himself in the pleasure houses of West Stave before he’d ask for his father’s mercy.
Wylan hadn’t realized it then, but Kaz had known his true identity all along. Dirtyhands kept tabs on anyone who took up residence in the Barrel, and he’d placed Wylan under Dregs protection, certain that one day a rich mercher’s son would come in handy.
He had no illusions about why Kaz had looked out for him, but he also knew he never would have survived this long without his help. And Kaz didn’t care if he could read. Kaz and the others teased him, but they’d given him a chance to prove himself. They valued the things he could do instead of punishing him for the things he couldn’t.
Wylan had believed that Kaz could get revenge for what had been done to his mother. He’d believed that despite his father’s wealth and influence, this crew—his crew—was a match for Jan Van Eck. But now his father was reaching out to taunt him yet again.
It was well past midnight when they reached the financial district. They’d arrived in one of the wealthiest areas of the city, not far from the Exchange and the Stadhall. His father’s presence felt closer here, and Wylan wondered why Kaz had brought them to this part of town. Kaz led them through an alley to the back of a large building, where a door had been propped open, and they entered a stairwell built around a huge iron lift that they shuffled inside. Rotty remained behind, presumably to keep watch over the entrance. The lift’s gate clanged shut and they rode it fifteen stories up, to the building’s top floor, then emerged into a hallway laid in patterns of lacquered hardwood, its high ceilings painted a pale, foamy lavender.
We’re in a hotel , Wylan realized. That was the servants’ entrance and the staff elevator.
They knocked on a pair of wide white double doors. Colm Fahey answered, wearing a long nightshirt with a coat thrown over it. They were at the Geldrenner.
“The others are inside,” he said wearily.
Colm didn’t ask any questions. He simply pointed them toward the bathroom and poured himself a cup of tea as they tracked mud and misery across the purple carpets. When Matthias saw Nina, he sprang from his seat on the large aubergine sofa and embraced her tightly.
“We couldn’t get through the blockades to Sweet Reef,” he said. “I feared the worst.”
Then they were all hugging, and Wylan was startled to feel his eyes welling up with tears. He quickly blinked them away; the last thing he wanted was for Jesper to see him cry again. Jesper was covered in soot and smelled like a forest fire, but he had that familiar glimmer-eyed look he always got after a fight. All Wylan wanted was to be as close to him as possible, just to know he was safe.
Until this moment, Wylan hadn’t fully realized how much they all meant to him. His father would have dismissed them as thugs and thieves—a disgraced soldier, a gambler who couldn’t stay out of debt. But they were his first friends, his only friends, and Wylan knew that even if he could choose from a thousand companions, these would be the people he would pick.
Only Kaz stood apart, staring silently out the window to the dark streets below.
“Kaz,” said Nina. “You may not be glad we’re alive, but we’re glad you’re alive. Come here!”
“Leave him be,” murmured Inej softly.
“Saints, Wraith,” said Jesper. “You’re bleeding.” “Should I call a doctor?” asked Jesper’s father. “No!” they all replied in unison.
“Of course not,” said Colm. “Should I ring for coffee?” “Yes, please,” said Nina.
Colm ordered coffee, waffles, and a bottle of brandy, and while they waited, Nina enlisted their help to locate some shears so that she could cut up the hotel towels for bandages. Once a pair had been found, she took Inej into the bathroom to see to her wounds.
When a knock sounded at the door, they all tensed, but it was only
their meal. Colm greeted the maid and insisted that he could manage the cart so that she wouldn’t see the strange company that had assembled in his rooms. As soon as the door closed, Jesper jumped up to help him wheel in a silver tray laden with food and stacks of dishes of porcelain so fine it was almost transparent. Wylan hadn’t eaten off dishes like these since he’d left his father’s house. He realized Jesper must be wearing one of Colm’s shirts; it was too big in the shoulders and too short in the sleeves.
“What is this place, anyway?” Wylan asked, looking around the vast room decorated almost entirely in purple.
“The Ketterdam Suite, I believe,” said Colm, scratching the back of his neck. “It’s considerably finer than my room at the university district inn.”
Nina and Inej emerged from the bathroom. Nina heaped a plate with food and plunked down beside Matthias on the couch. She folded one of the waffles in half and took a huge bite, wiggling her toes in bliss.
“I’m sorry, Matthias,” she said with her mouth full. “I’ve decided to run off with Jesper’s father. He keeps me in the deliciousness to which I have become accustomed.”
Inej had removed her tunic and wore only her quilted vest, leaving her brown arms bare. Strips of towel were tied at her shoulder, both of her forearms, her right thigh and her left shin.
“What exactly happened to you?” Jesper asked her as he handed his father a cup of coffee on a delicate saucer.
Inej perched in an armchair next to where Kuwei had settled himself on the floor. “I made a new acquaintance.”
Jesper sprawled out on a settee and Wylan took the other chair, a plate of waffles balanced on his knee. There was a perfectly good table and chairs in the suite’s dining room, but apparently none of them had an interest in it. Only Colm had taken a seat there, coffee beside him, along with the bottle of brandy. Kaz remained by the window, and Wylan wondered what he saw through the glass that was so compelling.
“So,” Jesper said, adding sugar to his coffee. “Other than Inej making a new pal, what the hell happened out there?”
“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.”
“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.”
