Crooked Kingdom (60 page)

Anyone can shoot.

“Inej,” he said, “if you have a spare prayer, this would be the time for it.”

He fired.

It was as if time slowed—he felt the kick of the rifle, the unstoppable momentum of the bullet. With all his will, he focused on its wax casing and
pulled
to the left, the shot still ringing in his ears. He felt the bullet turn, focused on that button, the second button, a little piece of wood, the threads holding it in place.

It's not a gift. It's a curse.
But when it came down to it, Jesper's life had been full of blessings. His father. His mother. Inej. Nina. Matthias leading them across the muddy canal. Kaz—even Kaz, with all his cruelties and failings, had given him a home and a family in the Dregs when Ketterdam might have swallowed him whole. And Wylan. Wylan who had understood before Jesper ever had that the power inside him might be a blessing too.

“What did you just do?” asked Inej.

Maybe nothing. Maybe the impossible. Jesper never could resist long odds.

He shrugged. “The same thing I always do. I took a shot.”

 

37

K
AZ

Kaz had been standing next to Kuwei when the bullet struck and had been the first to his side. He heard a smattering of gunfire in the cathedral, most likely panicked
stadwatch
officers with hasty trigger fingers. Kaz knelt over Kuwei's body, hiding his left hand from view, and jabbed a syringe into the Shu boy's arm. There was blood everywhere. Jellen Radmakker had fallen to the stage and was bellowing, “I've been shot!” He had not been shot.

Kaz shouted for the medik. The little bald man stood paralyzed beside the stage where he'd been tending to Wylan, his face horror-stricken. Matthias seized the medik's elbow and dragged him over.

People were still pushing to get out of the church. A brawl had erupted between the Ravkan soldiers and the Fjerdans as Sturmhond, Zoya, and Genya bolted for an exit. The members of the Merchant Council had surrounded Van Eck with a clutch of men from the
stadwatch
. He wasn't going anywhere.

A moment later, Kaz saw Inej and Jesper pushing against the tide of people trying to escape down the center aisle. Kaz let his eyes scan Inej once. She was bloody, and her eyes were red and swollen, but she seemed all right.

“Kuwei—” said Inej.

“We can't help him now,” said Kaz.

“Wylan!” Jesper said, taking in the cuts and rapidly forming bruises. “Saints, is all that real?”

“Anika and Keeg did a number on him.”

“I wanted it to be believable,” said Wylan.

“I admire your commitment to the craft,” said Kaz. “Jesper, stay with Wylan. They're going to want to question him.”

“I'm fine,” said Wylan, though his lip was so swollen it sounded more like, “I'b fibe.”

Kaz spared a single nod for Matthias as two
stadwatch
guards lifted Kuwei's body onto a stretcher. Instead of fighting the crowds in the cathedral, they headed for the arch that led to Ghezen's little finger and the exit beyond. Matthias trailed them, pulling the medik along. There could be no questions surrounding Kuwei's survival.

Kaz and Inej followed them into the nave, but Inej paused at the archway. Kaz saw her look once over her shoulder, and when he tracked her gaze he saw that Van Eck, surrounded by furious councilmen, was staring right back at her. He remembered the words she'd spoken to Van Eck on Goedmedbridge,
You will see me once more, but only once.
From the nervous bob of Van Eck's throat, he was remembering too. Inej gave the smallest bow.

They raced up the pinky nave and into the chapel. But the door to the street and the canal beyond was locked. Behind them, the door to the chapel banged shut. Pekka Rollins leaned back against it, surrounded by four of his Dime Lion crew.

“Right on time,” said Kaz.

“I suppose you predicted this too, you tricksy bastard?”

“I knew you wouldn't let me walk away this time.”

“No,” Rollins conceded. “When you came to me looking for money, I should have gutted you and your friends and saved myself a lot of hassle. That was foolish of me.” Rollins began to shrug off his jacket. “I can admit I didn't show you the proper respect, lad, but now you've got it. Congratulations. You're worth the time it's going to take me to beat you to death with that stick of yours.” Inej drew her knives. “No, no, little girl,” Rollins said warningly. “This is between me and this skivstain upstart.”

Kaz nodded to Inej. “He's right. We're long overdue for a chat.”

Rollins laughed, unbuttoning his cuffs and rolling up his sleeves. “The time for talk is over, lad. You're young, but I've been brawling since long before you were born.”

Kaz didn't move; he kept his hands resting on his cane. “I don't need to fight you, Rollins. I'm going to offer you a trade.”

“Ah, a fair exchange in the Church of Barter. You cost me a lot of money and earned me a lot of trouble with your scheming. I don't see what you could possibly have to offer that would satisfy me as much as killing you with my bare hands.”

“It's about the Kaelish Prince.”

“Three stories of paradise, the finest gambling den on East Stave. You plant a bomb there or something?”

“No, I mean the little Kaelish prince.” Rollins stilled. “Fond of sweets, red hair like his father. Doesn't take very good care of his toys.”

Kaz reached into his coat and drew out a small crocheted lion. It was a faded yellow, its yarn mane tangled—and stained by dark soil. Kaz let it drop to the floor.

Rollins stared at it. “What is that?” he said, his voice little more than a whisper. Then, as if coming back to himself, he shouted, “
What is that?
”

“You know what it is, Rollins. And weren't you the one who told me how much alike you and Van Eck are? Men of industry, building something to leave behind. Both of you so concerned with your legacy. What good is all that if there's no one to leave it to? So I found myself asking, just who is he building for?”

Rollins clenched his fists, the meaty muscles of his forearms flexing, his jowls quivering. “I will kill you, Brekker. I will kill everything you love.”

Now Kaz laughed. “The trick is not to love anything, Rollins. You can threaten me all you like. You can gut me where I stand. But there's no way you'll find your son in time to save him. Shall I have him sent to your door with his throat cut and dressed in his best suit?”

“You trifling piece of Barrel trash,” Rollins snarled. “What the hell do you want from me?”

Kaz felt his humor slide away, felt that dark door open inside of him.

“I want you to remember.”

“Remember what?”

“Seven years ago you ran a con on two boys from the south. Farm boys too stupid to know any better. You took us in, made us trust you, fed us
hutspot
with your fake wife and your fake daughter. You took our trust and then you took our money and then you took everything.” He could see Rollins' mind working. “Can't quite recall? There were so many, weren't there? How many swindles that year? How many unlucky pigeons have you conned in the time since?”

“You have no right—” Pekka said angrily, his chest rising and falling in ragged bursts, his eyes drawn again and again to the toy lion.

“Don't worry. Your boy isn't dead. Yet.” Kaz watched Pekka's face closely. “Here, I'll help. You used the name Jakob Hertzoon. You made my brother a runner for you. You operated out of a coffeehouse.”

“Across from the park,” Pekka said quickly. “The one with the cherry trees.”

“That's it.”

“It was a long time ago, boy.”

“You duped us out of everything. We ended up on the streets and then we died. Both of us in our own way. But only one of us was reborn.”

“Is that what this has been about all this time? Why you look at me with murder in those shark's eyes of yours?” Pekka shook his head. “You were two pigeons, and I happened to be the one who plucked you. If it hadn't been me, it would have been someone else.”

That dark door opened wider. Kaz wanted to walk through it. He would never be whole. Jordie could never be brought back. But Pekka Rollins could learn the helplessness they'd known.

“Well, it's your bad luck that it was you,” he bit out. “Yours and your son's.”

“I think you're bluffing.”

Kaz smiled. “I buried your son,” he crooned, savoring the words. “I buried him alive, six feet beneath the earth in a field of rocky soil. I could hear him crying the whole time, begging for his father.
Papa, Papa.
I've never heard a sweeter sound.”

“Kaz—” said Inej, her face pale. This she would not forgive him.

Rollins bulled toward him, grabbed him by his lapels, and slammed him against the chapel wall. Kaz let him. Rollins was sweating like a moist plum, his face livid with desperation and terror. Kaz drank it in. He wanted to remember every moment of this.

“Tell me where he is, Brekker.” He smashed Kaz's head against the wall again.
“Tell me.”

“It's a simple trade, Rollins. Just speak my brother's name and your son lives.”

“Brekker—”

“Tell me my brother's name,” Kaz repeated. “How about another hint? You invited us to a house on Zelverstraat. Your
wife
played the piano. Her name was Margit. There was a silver dog and you called your daughter Saskia. She wore a red ribbon in her braid. You see? I remember. I remember all of it. It's easy.”

Rollins released him, paced the chapel, ran his hands through his thinning hair.

“Two boys,” he said frantically, searching for the memory. He whirled on Kaz, pointing. “I remember. Two boys from Lij. You had a piddling little fortune. Your brother fancied himself a trader, wanted to be a merch and get rich like every other nub who steps off a browboat in the Barrel.”

“That's right. Two more fools for you to cozy. Now tell me his name.”

“Kaz and…” Rollins clasped his hands on top of his head. Back and forth he crossed the chapel, back and forth, breathing heavily, as if he'd run the length of the city. “Kaz and…” He turned back to Kaz. “I can make you rich, Brekker.”

“I can make myself rich.”

“I can give you the Barrel, influence you've never dreamed of. Whatever you want.”

“Bring my brother back from the dead.”

“He was a fool and you know it! He was like any other mark, thinking he was smarter than the system, looking to make quick coin. You can't fleece an honest man, Brekker. You know that!”

Greed is my lever.
Pekka Rollins had taught him that lesson, and he was right. They'd been fools. Maybe one day Kaz could forgive Jordie for not being the perfect brother he held in his heart. Maybe he could even absolve himself for being the kind of gullible, trusting boy who believed someone might simply want to be kind. But for Rollins there would be no reprieve.

“You tell me where he is, Brekker,” Rollins roared in his face. “You tell me where my son is!”

“Say my brother's name. Speak it like they do in the magic shows on East Stave—like an incantation. You want your boy? What right does your son have to his precious, coddled life? How is he different from me or my brother?”

“I don't know your brother's name. I don't know! I don't remember! I was making my name. I was making a little scrub. I thought you two would have a rough week and head home to the country.”

“No, you didn't. You never gave us another thought.”

“Please, Kaz,” whispered Inej. “Don't do this. Don't be this.”

Rollins groaned. “I am begging you—”

“Are you?”

“You son of a bitch.”

Kaz consulted his watch. “All this time talking while your boy is lost in the dark.”

Pekka glanced at his men. He rubbed his hands over his face. Then slowly, his movements heavy, as if he had to fight every muscle of his body to do it, Rollins went to his knees.

Kaz saw the Dime Lions shake their heads. Weakness never earned respect in the Barrel, no matter how good the cause.

“I am begging you, Brekker. He's all I have. Let me go to him. Let me save him.”

Kaz looked at Pekka Rollins, Jakob Hertzoon, kneeling before him at last, eyes wet with tears, pain carved into the lines of his flushed face.
Brick by brick.

It was a start.

“Your son is in the southernmost corner of Tarmakker's Field, two miles west of Appelbroek. I've marked the plot with a black flag. If you leave now, you should get to him in plenty of time.”

Pekka lurched to his feet and began calling orders. “Send ahead to the boys to have horses waiting. And get me a medik.”

“The plague—”

“The one who's on call for the Emerald Palace. You haul him out of the sick ward yourself if you have to.” He jabbed a finger into Kaz's chest. “You'll pay for this, Brekker. You'll pay and keep paying. There will be no end to your suffering.”

Kaz met Pekka's gaze. “Suffering is like anything else. Live with it long enough, you learn to like the taste.”

“Let's go,” said Rollins. He fumbled with the locked door. “Where's the damn key?” One of his men came forward with it, but Kaz noticed the distance he kept from his boss. They'd be telling the story of Pekka Rollins on his knees all over the Barrel tonight, and Rollins must know it too. He loved his son enough to wager the whole of his pride and reputation. Kaz supposed that should count for something. Maybe to someone else it would have.

The door to the street burst open, and a moment later they were gone.

Inej sank down into a squat, pressing her palms to her eyes. “Will he get there in time?”