Crooked Kingdom (9 page)

“Bring her here,” Van Eck told the guards.

Inej didn't hesitate. She sprang onto the narrow back of the nearest theater seat, then raced toward the stage, leaping from row to row as the guards tried to scramble over the seats. She vaulted onto the stage, past a startled Van Eck, neatly skirting two more guards, and seized one of the stage ropes, shinnying up its length, praying it would hold her weight until she made it to the top. She could hide in the rafters, find a way to the roof.

“Cut her down!” Van Eck called, his voice calm.

Inej climbed higher, faster. But seconds later she saw a face above her. One of Van Eck's guards, a knife in his hand. He slashed through the rope.

It gave way and Inej fell to the floor, softening her knees to take the impact. Before she could right herself, three guards were on her, holding her in place.

“Really, Miss Ghafa,” Van Eck chided. “We're well aware of your gifts. Did you think I wouldn't take precautions?” He did not wait for an answer. “You are not going to find your way out of this without my help or Mister Brekker's. As he does not seem to be making an appearance, perhaps you should consider a change in alliance.”

Inej said nothing.

Van Eck tucked his hands behind his back. It was strange to look at him and see the ghost of Wylan's face. “The city is awash in rumors of
parem
. A delegation of Fjerdan
drüskelle
has arrived in the embassy sector. Today the Shu sailed two warships into Third Harbor. I gave Brekker seven days to broker a trade for your safety, but they are all looking for Kuwei Yul-Bo, and it is imperative that I get him out of the city before they find him.”

Two Shu warships.
That was what had changed. Van Eck was out of time. Had Bajan known it or simply sensed the difference in his master's mood?

“I had hoped Bajan might prove good for something other than bettering my wife's talent at the pianoforte,” Van Eck continued. “But it seems you and I must now come to an arrangement. Where is Kaz Brekker keeping the boy?”

“How could I possibly know that?”

“You must know the locations of the Dregs' safe houses. Brekker does nothing without preparation. He'll have warrens to hide in all over the city.”

“If you know him so well, then you know he'd never keep Kuwei somewhere that I could lead you to him.”

“I don't believe that.”

“I can't help what you do or don't believe. Your Shu scientist is probably long gone already.”

“Word would have reached me. My spies are everywhere.”

“Clearly not everywhere.”

Bajan's lips quirked.

Van Eck shook his head wearily. “Get her on the table.”

Inej knew it was pointless to struggle, but she did anyway. It was fight or give in to the terror that rushed through her as the guards hefted her onto the table and pinned down her limbs. Now she saw one of the prop tables was set with instruments that looked nothing like the oversized mallets and saws hanging from the walls. They were real surgeon's tools. Scalpels and saws and clamps that gleamed with sinister intent.

“You are the
Wraith
, Miss Ghafa, legend of the Barrel. You've gathered the secrets of judges, councilmen, thieves, and killers alike. I doubt there is anything in this city you do not know. You will tell me the locations of Mister Brekker's safe houses now.”

“I can't tell you what I don't know.”

Van Eck sighed. “Remember that I have tried to treat you with civility.” He turned to one of the guards, a heavyset man with a sharp blade of a nose. “I'd prefer this didn't go on too long. Do what you think is best.”

The guard let his hand hover over the table of instruments as if deciding which cruelty would be most efficient. Inej felt her courage wobble, her breath coming in panicked gasps.
When fear arrives, something is about to happen.

Bajan leaned over her, face pale, eyes full of concern. “Please tell him. Surely Brekker isn't worth being scarred or maimed? Tell him what you know.”

“All I know is that men like you don't deserve the air they breathe.”

Bajan looked stung. “I've been nothing but kind to you. I'm not some sort of monster.”

“No, you're the man who sits idly by, congratulating yourself on your decency, while the monster eats his fill. At least a monster has teeth and a spine.”

“That isn't fair!”

Inej couldn't believe the softness of this creature, that he would bid for her approval in this moment. “If you still believe in fairness, then you've led a very lucky life. Get out of the monster's way, Bajan. Let's get this over with.” The blade-nosed guard stepped forward; something gleamed in his hand. Inej reached for a place of stillness inside of herself, the place that had allowed her to endure a year at the Menagerie, a year of nights marked by pain and humiliation, of days counted in beatings and worse. “Go on,” she urged, and her voice was steel.

“Wait,” said Van Eck. He was studying Inej as if he were reading a ledger, trying to make the figures line up. He cocked his head to one side and said, “Break her legs.”

Inej felt her courage fracture. She began to thrash, trying to get free of the guards' hold.

“Ah,” said Van Eck. “That's what I thought.”

The blade-nosed guard selected a heavy length of pipe.

“No,” said Van Eck. “I don't want it to be a clean break. Use the mallet. Shatter the bone.” His face hovered above her, his eyes a bright, clear blue—Wylan's eyes, but devoid of any of Wylan's kindness. “No one will be able to put you back together again, Miss Ghafa. Maybe you can earn your way out of your contract by begging for pennies on East Stave and then crawl home to the Slat every night, assuming Brekker still gives you a room there.”

“Don't.” She didn't know if she was pleading with Van Eck or herself. She didn't know who she hated more in this moment.

The guard took up a steel mallet.

Inej writhed on the table, her body coated in sweat. She could smell her own fear. “Don't,” she repeated.
“Don't.”

The blade-nosed guard tested the mallet's weight in his hands. Van Eck nodded. The guard lifted it in a smooth arc.

Inej watched the mallet rise and reach its apex, light glinting off its wide head, the flat face of a dead moon. She heard the crackle of the campfire, thought of her mother's hair twined with persimmon silk.

“He'll never trade if you break me!” she screamed, the words tearing loose from some deep place inside her, her voice raw and undefended. “I'll be no use to him anymore!”

Van Eck held up a hand. The mallet fell.

Inej felt it brush against her trousers as the impact shattered the surface of the table a hair's breadth from her calf, the entire corner collapsing beneath the force.

My leg
, she thought, shuddering violently.
That would have been my leg.
There was a metallic taste in her mouth. She'd bitten her tongue.
Saints protect me. Saints protect me.

“You make an interesting argument,” Van Eck said meditatively. He tapped a finger against his lips, thinking. “Ponder your loyalties, Miss Ghafa. Tomorrow night I may not be so merciful.”

Inej could not control her shaking.
I'm going to cut you open
, she vowed silently
. I'm going to excavate that pathetic excuse of a heart from your chest.
It was an evil thought, a vile thought. But she couldn't help it. Would her Saints sanction such a thing? Could forgiveness come if she killed not to survive but because she burned with living, luminous hatred?
I don't care
, she thought as her body spasmed and the guards lifted her trembling form from the table.
I'll do penance for the rest of my days if it means I get to kill him.

They dragged her back to her room through the lobby of the dilapidated theater and down a hall to what she now knew must be an old equipment room. They bound her hands and feet again.

Bajan moved to place the blindfold over her eyes. “I'm sorry,” he whispered. “I didn't know he intended … I—”

“Kadema mehim.”

Bajan flinched. “Don't say that.”

The Suli were a close people, loyal. They had to be, in a world where they had no land and where they were so very few. Inej's teeth were chattering, but she forced out the words. “You are forsaken. As you have turned your back on me, so will they turn their backs on you.” It was the worst of Suli denunciations, one that forbade you the welcome of your ancestors in the next world, and doomed your spirit to wander without a home.

Bajan paled. “I don't believe any of that.”

“You will.”

He secured the blindfold around her head. She heard the door close.

Inej lay on her side, her hip and her shoulder digging into the hard floor, and waited for the tremors to pass.

In her early days at the Menagerie, she'd believed someone would come for her. Her family would find her. An officer of the law. A hero from one of the stories her mother used to tell. Men had come, but not to set her free, and eventually her hope had withered like leaves beneath a too-bright sun, replaced by a bitter bud of resignation.

Kaz had rescued her from that hopelessness, and their lives had been a series of rescues ever since, a string of debts that they never tallied as they saved each other again and again. Lying in the dark, she realized that for all her doubts, she'd believed he would rescue her once more, that he would put aside his greed and his demons and come for her. Now she wasn't so sure. Because it was not just the sense in the words she'd spoken that had stilled Van Eck's hand but the truth he'd heard in her voice.
He'll never trade if you break me.
She could not pretend those words had been conjured by strategy or even animal cunning. The magic they'd worked had been born of belief. An ugly enchantment.

Tomorrow night I may not be so merciful.
Had tonight been an exercise meant to frighten her? Or would Van Eck return to carry out his threats? And if Kaz did come, how much of her would be left?

 

PART TWO

A K
ILLING
W
IND

 

5

J
ESPER

Jesper felt like his clothes were crawling with fleas. Whenever the crew left Black Veil Island to skulk around the Barrel, they wore the costumes of the Komedie Brute—the capes, veils, masks, and occasionally horns that tourists and locals alike used to disguise their identities while enjoying the pleasures of the Barrel.

But here on the respectable avenues and canals of the university district, Mister Crimson and the Gray Imp would have drawn a lot of stares, so he and Wylan had ditched their costumes as soon as they were clear of the Staves. And if Jesper was honest with himself, he didn't want to meet his father for the first time in years dressed in a goggle-eyed mask or an orange silk cape or even his usual Barrel flash. He'd dressed as respectably as he could. Wylan had lent him a few
kruge
for a secondhand tweed jacket and a gloomy gray waistcoat. Jesper didn't look precisely reputable, but students weren't supposed to look too prosperous anyway.

Once again he found himself reaching for his revolvers, longing for the cool, familiar feel of their pearl handles beneath his thumbs. That skiv of a lawyer had ordered the floor boss to store them in a safe at the Cumulus. Kaz said they'd get them back in good time, but he doubted Kaz would be so calm and collected if someone had swiped his cane.
You're the one who put them on the table like a nub
, Jesper reminded himself. He'd done it for Inej. And if he was honest, he'd done it for Kaz too, to show he was willing to do what it took to make things right. Not that it seemed to matter much.

Well
, he consoled himself,
it's not like I could have worn my revolvers on this errand anyway
. Students and professors didn't go from class to class packing powder. Might make for a more interesting school day if they did. Even so, Jesper had hidden a sad lump of a pistol beneath his coat. This was Ketterdam, after all, and it was possible he and Wylan were walking into a trap. That was why Kaz and Matthias were shadowing their steps. He'd seen no sign of either of them, and Jesper supposed that was a good thing, but he was still grateful Wylan had offered to come along. Kaz had only allowed it because Wylan said he needed supplies for his work on the weevil.

They walked past student cafés and booksellers, shop windows crammed with textbooks, ink, and paper. They were less than two miles from the noise and clatter of the Barrel, but it felt like they'd crossed a bridge into another country. Instead of packs of sailors fresh off the boats looking for trouble, or tourists jostling into you from every angle, people stepped aside to let you pass, kept their conversations low. No barkers shouted from storefronts hoping to garner business. The crooked little alleys were full of bookbinders and apothecaries, and the corners were free of the girls and boys who lacked an association with one of the West Stave houses and who had been forced to ply their trade on the street.

Jesper paused below an awning and took a deep breath through his nose.

“What?” asked Wylan.

“It smells so much better here.” Expensive tobacco, morning rain still damp on the cobblestones, blue clouds of hyacinths in the window boxes. No urine, no vomit, no cheap perfume or garbage rot. Even the tang of coal smoke seemed fainter.

“Are you stalling?” Wylan asked.

“No.” Jesper exhaled and sagged a bit. “Maybe a little.” Rotty had taken a message to the hotel where the man claiming to be Jesper's father was staying, so they could set a time and place to meet. Jesper had wanted to go himself, but if his father really was in Ketterdam, it was possible he was being used as bait. Better to meet in broad daylight, on neutral ground. The university had seemed safest, far away from the dangers of the Barrel or any of Jesper's usual stomping grounds.