Crooked Kingdom (14 page)

He smiled. “Most of your friends won't survive this night.”

She thought of Jesper, Nina and Matthias, sweet Wylan who deserved so much better than this filth for a father. It wasn't just about winning for Van Eck. It was personal. “You hate us.”

“Frankly,
you
are of little interest to me—an acrobat or dancer or whatever you were before you became a blight on this city. But I confess Kaz Brekker does offend me. Vile, ruthless, amoral. He feeds corruption with corruption. Such a remarkable mind might have been put to great use. He might have ruled this city, built something, created profit that would have benefited all. Instead he leeches off the work of better men.”

“Better men? Like you?”

“It pains you to hear it, but it is true. When I leave this world, the greatest shipping empire ever known will remain, an engine of wealth, a tribute to Ghezen and a sign of his favor. Who will remember a girl like you, Miss Ghafa? What will you and Kaz Brekker leave behind but corpses to be burned on the Reaper's Barge?”

A shout came from outside the theater, and a sudden hush fell as the guards turned toward the entrance doors.

Van Eck consulted his watch. “Midnight on the dot. Brekker has a flair for the dramatic.”

She heard another shout, then a brief rattle of gunfire. Six guards behind her, shackles at her feet. Helplessness rose up to choke her. Kaz and the others were about to walk into a trap, and she had no way to warn them.

“I thought it best not to leave the perimeter completely unguarded,” said Van Eck. “We wouldn't want to make it too easy and give away the game.”

“He'll never tell you where Kuwei is.”

Van Eck's smile was indulgent. “I only wonder which will prove more effective—torturing Mister Brekker or having him watch as I torture you.” He leaned in, his voice conspiratorial. “I can tell you the first thing I'm going to do is peel off those gloves and break every one of his thieving fingers.”

Inej thought of Kaz's pale trickster hands, the shiny rope of scar tissue that ran atop his right knuckle. Van Eck could break every finger and both of Kaz's legs and he'd never say a word, but if his men stripped away Kaz's gloves? Inej still didn't understand why he needed them or why he'd fainted in the prison wagon on the way into the Ice Court, but she knew Kaz couldn't bear the touch of skin on skin. How much of this weakness could he hide? How quickly would Van Eck locate his vulnerability, exploit it? How long until Kaz came undone? She couldn't bear it. She was glad she didn't know where Kuwei was. She would break before Kaz did.

Boots were clattering down the hall, a thunder of footsteps. Inej surged forward and opened her mouth to cry out warning, but a guard's hand clamped down hard over her lips as she struggled in his arms.

The door flew open. Thirty guards raised thirty rifles and thirty triggers cocked. The boy in the doorway flinched backward, his face white, his corkscrew brown curls disarrayed. He wore the Van Eck livery of red and gold.

“I—Mister Van Eck,” he panted, hands held up in defense.

“Stand down,” Van Eck commanded the guards. “What is it?”

The boy swallowed. “Sir, the lake house. They approached from the water.”

Van Eck stood, knocking over his chair. “Alys—”

“They took her an hour ago.”

Alys.
Jan Van Eck's pretty, pregnant wife. Inej felt hope spark, but she tamped it down, afraid to believe.

“They killed one of the guards and left the rest tied up in the pantry,” the boy continued breathlessly. “There was a note on the table.”

“Bring it here,” Van Eck barked. The boy strode down the aisle, and Van Eck snatched the note from his hand.

“What does it … what does it say?” asked Bajan. His voice was tremulous. Maybe Inej had been right about Alys and the music teacher.

Van Eck backhanded him. “If I find out you knew anything about this—”

“I didn't!” Bajan cried. “I knew nothing. I followed your orders to the letter!”

Van Eck crumpled the note in his fist, but not before Inej made out the words in Kaz's jagged, unmistakable hand:
Noon tomorrow. Goedmedbridge. With her knives.

“The note was weighted down with this.” The boy reached into his pocket and drew out a tie pin—a fat ruby surrounded by golden laurel leaves. Kaz had stolen it from Van Eck back when they'd first been hired for the Ice Court job. Inej hadn't had the chance to fence it before they left Ketterdam. Somehow Kaz must have gotten hold of it again.

“Brekker,” Van Eck snarled, his voice taut with rage.

Inej couldn't help it. She started to laugh.

Van Eck slapped her hard. He grabbed her tunic and shook her so that her bones rattled. “Brekker thinks we're still playing a game, does he? She is my wife. She carries my heir.”

Inej laughed even harder, all the horrors of the past week rising from her chest in giddy peals. She wasn't sure she could have stopped if she wanted to. “And you were foolish enough to tell Kaz all of that on Vellgeluk.”

“Shall I have Franke fetch the mallet and show you just how serious I am?”

“Mister Van Eck,” Bajan pleaded.

But Inej was done being frightened of this man. Before Van Eck could take another breath, she slammed her forehead upward, shattering his nose. He screamed and released her as blood gushed over his fine mercher suit. Instantly, his guards were on her, pulling her back.

“You little wretch,” Van Eck said, holding a monogrammed handkerchief to his face. “You little whore. I'll take a hammer to both your legs myself—”

“Go on, Van Eck, threaten me. Tell me all the
little
things I am. You lay a finger on me and Kaz Brekker will cut the baby from your pretty wife's stomach and hang its body from a balcony at the Exchange.” Ugly words, speech that pricked her conscience, but Van Eck deserved the images she'd planted in his mind. Though she didn't believe Kaz would do such a thing, she felt grateful for each nasty, vicious thing Dirtyhands
had
done to earn his reputation—a reputation that would haunt Van Eck every second until his wife was returned.

“Be silent,” he shouted, spittle flying from his mouth.

“You think he won't?” Inej taunted. She could feel the heat in her cheek from where his hand had struck her, could see the mallet still resting in the guard's hand. Van Eck had given her fear and she was happy to return it to him. “Vile, ruthless, amoral. Isn't that why you hired Kaz in the first place? Because he does the things that no one else dares? Go on, Van Eck. Break my legs and see what happens.
Dare him.
”

Had she really believed a merch could outthink Kaz Brekker? Kaz would get her free and then they'd show this man exactly what whores and canal rats could do.

“Console yourself,” she said as Van Eck clutched the ragged corner of the table for support. “Even better men can be bested.”

 

8

M
ATTHIAS

Matthias would be atoning for the mistakes he'd made in this life long into the next one, but he'd always believed that despite his crimes and failings, there was a core of decency inside him that could never be breached. And yet, he felt sure that if he had to spend another hour with Alys Van Eck, he might murder her just for the sake of a little quiet.

The siege on the lake house had gone off with a precision that Matthias couldn't help but admire. Only three days after Inej was taken, Rotty had alerted Kaz to the lights that had appeared on Eil Komedie, and the fact that boats had been seen coming and going there at odd hours, often carrying a young Suli man. He'd quickly been identified as Adem Bajan, a music teacher indentured to Van Eck for the last six months. He'd apparently joined the Van Eck household after Wylan had left home, but Wylan wasn't surprised his father had secured professional musical instruction for Alys.

“Is she any good?” asked Jesper.

Wylan had hesitated, then said, “She's very enthusiastic.”

It had been easy enough to surmise that Inej was being kept on Eil Komedie, and Nina had wanted to go after her immediately.

“He didn't take her out of the city,” she'd said, cheeks glowing with color for the first time since she'd emerged from her battle with
parem
. “It's obvious he's keeping her there.”

But Kaz had simply gazed into the middle distance with that odd look on his face and said, “Too obvious.”

“Kaz—”

“How would you like a hundred
kruge
?”

“What's the catch?”

“Exactly. Van Eck's making it too easy. He's treating us like marks. But he isn't Barrel born, and we aren't a bunch of dumb culls ready to jump at the first shiny lure he flashes. Van Eck wants us to think she's on that island. Maybe she is. But he'll have plenty of firepower waiting for us too, maybe even a few Grisha using
parem
.”

“Always hit where the mark isn't looking,” Wylan had murmured.

“Sweet Ghezen,” said Jesper. “You've been thoroughly corrupted.”

Kaz had tapped his crow's head cane on the flagstones of the tomb floor. “Do you know what Van Eck's problem is?”

“No honor?” said Matthias.

“Rotten parenting skills?” said Nina.

“Receding hairline?” offered Jesper.

“No,” said Kaz. “Too much to lose. And he gave us a map to what to steal first.”

He'd pushed himself to his feet and begun laying out the plans for kidnapping Alys. Instead of trying to rescue Inej as Van Eck expected, they would force Van Eck to trade her for his very pregnant wife. The first trick had been finding her. Van Eck was no fool. Kaz suspected that he'd gotten Alys out of the city as soon as he'd made his false deal with them, and their initial investigations supported that. Van Eck wouldn't keep his wife in a warehouse or factory or industrial building, and she was at neither of the hotels he owned, or at the Van Eck country house or his two farms near Elsmeer. It was possible he'd spirited her away to some farm or holding across the True Sea, but Kaz doubted he'd put the woman carrying his heir through a grueling sea voyage.

“Van Eck must be keeping property off the books,” Kaz had said. “Probably income too.”

Jesper frowned. “Isn't not paying your taxes … I don't know, sacrilegious? I thought he was all about serving Ghezen.”

“Ghezen and Kerch aren't the same thing,” Wylan said.

Of course, uncovering those secret properties had meant gaining access to Cornelis Smeet's office, and another series of deceptions. Matthias hated the dishonesty of it all, but he couldn't deny the value of the information they'd obtained. Thanks to Smeet's files, Kaz had located the lake house, a fine property ten miles south of the city, easy to defend, comfortably appointed, and listed under the Hendriks name.

Always hit where the mark isn't looking.
It was sound thinking, Matthias could admit—military thinking, in fact. When you were outgunned and outmanned, you sought the less defended targets. Van Eck had expected a rescue attempt on Inej, so that was where he'd concentrated his forces. And Kaz had encouraged that, telling Matthias and Jesper to be as conspicuous as possible when they brought a
gondel
down to one of the private berths at Fifth Harbor. At eleven bells, Rotty and Specht had left Kuwei at Black Veil and, dressed in heavy cloaks to hide their faces, launched the boat, making a tremendous show of shouting to supposed compatriots setting out from other berths—most of them confused tourists who weren't sure why strange men were yelling at them from a
gondel
.

It had taken everything in Matthias not to argue when Kaz had paired Nina with Jesper in the assault on the lake house, despite the fact that he knew the partnership made sense. They needed to take out the guards quietly to prevent anyone from raising an alarm or panicking. Matthias' combat training made that possible, as did Nina's Grisha abilities, so they'd been split up. Jesper and Wylan had noisier talents, so they would enter the fray only as a last resort. Also, Matthias knew if he started trailing after Nina on missions like some kind of watchdog, she'd put her hands on those glorious hips and demonstrate her knowledge of profanity in several different languages. Still, he was the only one besides perhaps Kuwei who knew how she'd suffered since they'd returned from the Ice Court. It had been hard to watch her go.

They'd approached from across the lake and made quick work of the few guards on the perimeter. Most of the villas along the shore were empty, as it was too early in the season for the weather to have gotten properly warm. But lights had burned in the windows of the Van Eck house—or, rather, the Hendriks house. The property had belonged to Wylan's mother's family for generations before Van Eck had ever set foot through the door.

It almost didn't feel like a break-in; one of the guards had actually been dozing in the gazebo. Matthias didn't realize there had been a casualty until the count on the guards had come up short, but there hadn't been time to question Nina and Jesper about what had gone wrong. They'd tied up the remaining guards, herded them and the rest of the staff into the pantry, and then swept up the stairs to the second floor wearing the masks of the Komedie Brute. They'd stopped outside the music room, where Alys was perched precariously on the bench of a pianoforte. Though they had expected to find her asleep, she was laboring her way through some piece of music.

“Saints, what is that noise?” Nina had whispered.

“I think it's ‘Be Still, Little Bumble Bee,'” said Wylan from behind the mask and horns of his Gray Imp ensemble. “But it's hard to tell.”

When they'd entered the music room, the silky-haired terrier at her feet had the sense to growl, but poor, pretty, pregnant Alys had just looked up from her sheet music and said, “Is this a play?”