Crooked Kingdom (10 page)

Jesper didn't know if he wanted his father to be waiting for him at the university or not. It was so much more pleasant to think of facing a fight than the shame of how horribly he'd botched everything, but talking about that felt like trying to climb a scaffold made of rotting boards. So he said, “I always liked this part of town.”

“My father likes it too. He places a high value on learning.”

“Higher than money?”

Wylan shrugged, eyeing a window full of hand-painted globes. “Knowledge isn't a sign of divine favor. Prosperity is.”

Jesper cast him a swift glance. He still wasn't used to Wylan's voice coming out of Kuwei's mouth. It always left him feeling a little off-kilter, like he'd thought he was reaching for a cup of wine and gotten a mouthful of water instead. “Is your papa really that religious, or is that just an excuse for being a mean son of a bitch when it comes to business?”

“When it comes to anything, really.”

“Particularly thugs and canal rats from the Barrel?”

Wylan shifted the strap of his satchel. “He thinks the Barrel distracts men from work and industry and leads to degeneracy.”

“He may have a point,” said Jesper. He sometimes wondered what might have happened if he'd never gone out with his new friends that night, if he'd never walked into that gambling parlor and taken that first spin at Makker's Wheel. It was meant to be harmless fun. And for everyone else, it had been. But Jesper's life had split like a log into two distinct and uneven pieces: the time before he'd stepped up to that wheel and every day since. “The Barrel eats people.”

“Maybe,” Wylan considered. “But business is business. The gambling parlors and brothels meet a demand. They offer employment. They pay taxes.”

“What a good little Barrel boy you've become. That's practically a page out of the bosses' books.” Every few years some reformer got it into his head to clean up the Barrel and purge Ketterdam of its unsavory reputation. That was when the pamphlets came out, a war of propaganda between the owners of the gambling dens and pleasure houses on one side and the black-suited merch reformers on the other. In the end, it all came down to money. The businesses of East and West Stave turned a serious profit, and the denizens of the Barrel dumped very righteous coin into the city's tax coffers.

Wylan tugged on the satchel strap again. It had gotten twisted at the top. “I don't think it's much different from wagering your fortune on a shipment of silk or
jurda
. Your odds are just a lot better when you're playing the market.”

“You have my attention, merchling.” Better odds were always of interest. “What's the most your father's ever lost on a trade?”

“I don't really know. He stopped talking about those things with me a long time ago.”

Jesper hesitated. Jan Van Eck was three kinds of fool for the way he'd treated his son, but Jesper could admit he was curious about Wylan's supposed “affliction.” He wanted to know what Wylan saw when he tried to read, why he seemed fine with equations or prices on a menu, but not sentences or signs. Instead he said, “I wonder if proximity to the Barrel makes merchers more uptight. All that black clothing and restraint, meat only twice a week, lager instead of brandy. Maybe they're making up for all the fun we're having.”

“Keeping the scales balanced?”

“Sure. I mean, just think of the heights of debauchery we could reach if no one kept this city in check. Champagne for breakfast. Naked orgies on the floor of the Exchange.”

Wylan made a flustered noise that sounded like a bird with a cough and looked anywhere but at Jesper. He was so wonderfully easy to rattle, though Jesper could admit he didn't think the university district needed a dose of the dirty. He liked it just fine as it was—clean and quiet and smelling of books and flowers.

“You don't have to come, you know,” Jesper said, because he felt he should. “You have your supplies. You could wait this out safe and snug in a coffeehouse.”

“Is that what you want?”

No. I can't do this alone.
Jesper shrugged. He wasn't sure how he felt about what Wylan might witness at the university. Jesper had rarely seen his father angry, but how could he fail to be angry now? What explanations could Jesper offer him? He'd lied, put the livelihood his father had worked so hard for into jeopardy. And for what? A steaming pile of nothing.

But Jesper couldn't bear the thought of facing his father on his own. Inej would have understood. Not that he deserved her sympathy, but there was something steady in her that he knew would recognize and ease his own fears. He'd hoped that Kaz would offer to accompany him. But when they'd split up to approach the university, Kaz had spared him only one dark glance. The message had been clear:
You dug this grave. Go lie in it.
Kaz was still punishing him for the ambush that had nearly ended the Ice Court job before it began, and it was going to take more than Jesper sacrificing his revolvers for him to earn his way back into Kaz's good graces. Did Kaz even have good graces?

Jesper's heart beat a little harder as they walked beneath the vast stone archway into the courtyard of the Boeksplein. The university wasn't one building but a series of them, all built around parallel sections of the Boekcanal and joined by Speaker's Bridge, where people met to debate or drink a friendly pint of lager, depending on the day of the week. But the Boeksplein was the heart of the university—four libraries built around a central courtyard and the Scholar's Fountain. It had been nearly two years since Jesper had set foot on university grounds. He'd never officially withdrawn from school. He hadn't even really decided not to attend. He'd simply started spending more and more time on East Stave, until he looked up one day and realized the Barrel had become his home.

Even so, in his brief time as a student, he'd fallen in love with the Boeksplein. Jesper had never been a great reader. He loved stories, but he hated sitting still, and the books assigned to him for school seemed designed to make his mind wander. At the Boeksplein, wherever his eyes strayed, there was something to occupy them: leaded windows with stained-glass borders, iron gates worked into figures of books and ships, the central fountain with its bearded scholar, and best of all, the gargoyles—bat-winged grotesques in mortarboard caps, and stone dragons falling asleep over books. He liked to think that whoever had built this place had known not all students were suited to quiet contemplation.

But as they entered the courtyard, Jesper didn't look around to savor the stonework or listen to the splashing of the fountain. All his attention focused on the man standing near the eastern wall, gazing up at the stained-glass windows, a crumpled hat clasped in his hands. With a pang, Jesper realized his father had worn his best suit. He'd combed his Kaelish red hair tidily back from his brow. There was gray in it now that hadn't been there when Jesper left home. Colm Fahey looked like a farmer on his way to church. Totally out of place. Kaz—hell, anyone in the Barrel—would take one look at him and just see a walking, talking target.

Jesper's throat felt dry-sand parched. “Da,” he croaked.

His father's head snapped up and Jesper steeled himself for what might come next—whatever insults or outrage his father hurled at him, he deserved. But he wasn't prepared for the relieved grin that split his father's craggy features. Someone might as well have put a bullet right in Jesper's heart.

“Jes!” his father cried. And then Jesper was crossing the courtyard and his father's arms were tight around him, hugging him so hard Jesper thought he actually felt his ribs bend. “All Saints, I thought you were dead. They said you weren't a student here anymore, that you'd just vanished and—I was sure you'd been stuck through by bandits or the like in this Saintsforsaken place.”

“I'm alive, Da,” Jesper gasped. “But if you keep squeezing me like that, I won't be for long.”

His father laughed and released him, holding him at arm's length, big hands on Jesper's shoulders. “I swear you're a foot taller.”

Jesper ducked his head. “Half a foot. Um, this is Wylan,” he said, switching from Zemeni to Kerch. They'd spoken both at home, his mother's language and the language of trade. His father's native Kaelish had been reserved for the rare times Colm sang.

“Nice to meet you. Do you speak Kerch?” his father practically shouted, and Jesper realized it was because Wylan still looked Shu.

“
Da
,” he said, cringing in embarrassment. “He speaks Kerch just fine.”

“Nice to meet you, Mister Fahey,” said Wylan. Bless his merch manners.

“And you too, lad. Are you a student as well?”

“I … have studied,” said Wylan awkwardly.

Jesper had no idea how to fill the silence that followed. He wasn't sure what he'd expected from this meeting with his father, but a friendly exchange of pleasantries wasn't it.

Wylan cleared his throat. “Are you hungry, Mister Fahey?”

“Starving,” Jesper's father replied gratefully.

Wylan gave Jesper a poke with his elbow. “Maybe we could take your father to lunch?”

“Lunch,” Jesper said, repeating the word as if he'd just learned it. “Yes, lunch. Who doesn't like lunch?” Lunch felt like a miracle. They'd eat. They'd talk. Maybe they'd drink. Please let them drink.

“But Jesper, what has been happening? I received a notice from the Gemensbank. The loan is coming due, and you'd given me to believe it was temporary. And your studies—”

“Da,” Jesper began. “I … the thing is—”

A shot rang out against the walls of the courtyard. Jesper shoved his father behind him as a bullet pinged off the stones at their feet, sending up a cloud of dust. Suddenly, gunfire was echoing across the courtyard. The reverberation made it hard to tell where the shots were coming from.

“What in the name of all that is holy—”

Jesper yanked on his father's sleeve, pulling him toward the hooded stone shelter of a doorway. He looked to his left, prepared to grab hold of Wylan, but the merchling was already in motion, keeping pace beside Jesper in what passed for a reasonable crouch.
Nothing like being shot at a few times to make you a fast learner
, Jesper thought as they reached the protective curve of the overhang. He craned his neck to try to see up to the roofline, then flinched back as more shots rang out. Another smattering of gunfire rattled from somewhere above and to the left of them, and Jesper could only hope that meant Matthias and Kaz were returning fire.

“Saints!” his father gasped. “This city is worse than the guidebooks said!”

“Da, it isn't the city,” Jesper said, pulling the pistol from his coat. “They're after me. Or after us. Hard to say.”

“Who's after you?”

Jesper exchanged a glance with Wylan. Jan Van Eck? A rival gang looking to settle a score? Pekka Rollins or someone else Jesper had borrowed money from? “There's a long list of potential suitors. We need to get out of here before they introduce themselves more personally.”

“Brigands?”

Jesper knew there was a good chance he was about to be riddled with holes, so he tried to restrain his grin. “Something like that.”

He peered around the edge of the door, peeled off two shots, then ducked back when another spate of gunfire exploded.

“Wylan, tell me you're packing more than pens, ink, and weevil makings.”

“I've got two flash bombs and something new I rigged up with a little more, um, wallop.”

“Bombs?” Jesper's father asked, blinking as if to wake himself from a bad dream.

Jesper shrugged helplessly. “Think of them as science experiments?”

“What kind of numbers are we up against?” asked Wylan.

“Look at you, asking all the right questions. Hard to tell. They're somewhere on the roof, and the only way out is back through the archway. That's a lot of courtyard to cross with them firing from high ground. Even if we make it, I'm guessing they're going to have plenty more thunder waiting for us outside the Boeksplein unless Kaz and Matthias can somehow clear a path.”

“I know another way out,” said Wylan. “But the entrance is on the other side of the courtyard.” He pointed to a door beneath an arch carved with some kind of horned monster gnawing on a pencil.

“The reading room?” Jesper gauged the distance. “All right. On three, you make a break. I'll cover you. Get my father inside.”

“Jesper—”

“Da, I swear I'll explain everything, but right now all you need to know is that we're in a bad situation, and bad situations happen to be my area of expertise.” And it was true. Jesper could feel himself coming alive, the worry that had been dogging his steps since he'd gotten news of his father's arrival in Ketterdam falling away. He felt free, dangerous, like lightning rolling over the prairie. “Trust me, Da.”

“All right, boy. All right.”

Jesper was pretty sure he could hear an unspoken
for now
. He saw Wylan brace himself. The merchling was still so new to all this. Hopefully Jesper wouldn't get everyone killed.

“One, two…” He started firing on
three
. Leaping into the courtyard, he rolled for cover behind the fountain. He'd gone in blind, but he picked out the shapes on the roof quickly, aiming by instinct, sensing movement and firing before he could think his way clear of a good shot. He didn't need to kill anyone, he just needed to scare the hell out of them and buy Wylan and his father time.

A bullet struck the fountain's central statue, the book in the scholar's hand exploding into fragments of stone. Whatever ammunition they were using, they weren't messing around.

Jesper reloaded and popped up from behind the fountain, shooting.

“All
Saints
,” he shouted as pain tore through his shoulder. He really hated being shot. He shrank back behind the stone lip. He flexed his hand, testing the damage to his arm. Just a scratch, but it hurt like hell, and he was bleeding all over his new tweed jacket. “This is why it doesn't pay to try to look respectable,” he muttered. Above him, he could see the silhouettes on the roof moving. Any minute, they were going to circle around the other side of the fountain and he'd be done for.