Crooked Kingdom (19 page)

“Shu,” said Jesper. “What are they doing here? And since when do they
fly
?”

“Masks down,” said Matthias. “We need to get to safety.”

They slid their masks into place. Jesper felt grateful for the uproar surrounding them. But even as he had the thought, one of the Shu men sniffed the air, a deep inhale. In horror, Jesper watched him turn slowly and lock eyes on them. He barked something to his companions, and then the Shu were headed straight for them.

“Too late,” said Jesper. He tore off his mask and cape and shouldered his rifle. “If they came looking for fun, let's give them some. I'll take the flyer!”

Jesper had no intention of getting swept up by some kind of Shu birdboy. He didn't know where the second flyer had gone and could only hope he was occupied with his Inferni captive. The winged man darted left, right, swooping and zooming like a drunken honeybee. “Stay still, you big bug,” Jesper grunted, then squeezed off three shots that struck the flyer's chest dead center, flinging him backward.

But the flyer righted himself in a graceful somersault and sped toward Jesper.

Matthias was blasting away at the two huge Shu. Every shot was a direct hit, but though the Shu stumbled, they just kept coming.

“Wylan? Nina?” said Jesper. “Any time you want to jump in, feel free!”

“I'm trying,” Nina growled, hands raised, fists clenched. “They're not feeling it.”

“Get down!” said Wylan. They dropped to the cobblestones. Jesper heard a
thunk
and then saw a black blur as something hurtled at the winged man. The flyer dodged left, but the black blur split and two crackling balls of violet flame exploded. One landed with a harmless hiss in the canal water. The other struck the flyer. He screamed, clawing at himself as violet flames spread over his body and wings, then careened off course and slammed into a wall, the flames still burning, their heat palpable even from a distance.

“Run!” Matthias yelled.

They bolted for the nearest alley, Jesper and Wylan in the lead, Nina and Matthias on their heels. Wylan tossed a flash bomb recklessly over his shoulder. It smashed through a window and released a burst of useless brilliance.

“You probably just scared the hell out of some hapless working girl,” Jesper said. “Give me that.” He snatched the other flash bomb and lobbed it directly into the path of their pursuers, turning to protect his eyes from the explosion. “And that's how it's done.”

“Next time, I'm not saving your life,” Wylan panted.

“You'd miss me. Everyone does.”

Nina cried out. Jesper turned. Nina's thrashing body was covered in silver netting, and she was being dragged backward by the Shu woman, who stood with legs planted in the center of the alley. Matthias opened fire, but she didn't budge.

“Bullets don't work!” Wylan said. “I think there's metal beneath their skin.”

Now that he said it, Jesper could see metal glinting from under the bloody bullet wounds. But what did that mean? Were they mechanicals of some sort? How was it possible?

“The net!” Matthias roared.

They all grabbed hold of the metal net, trying to pull Nina to safety. But the Shu woman kept yanking her backward, hand over hand, with impossible strength.

“We need something to cut the cord!” Jesper shouted.

“To hell with the cord,” Nina snarled between gritted teeth. She snatched a revolver from Jesper's holster. “Let go!” she commanded.

“Nina—” protested Matthias.

“Do it.”

They let go, and Nina zipped down the alley in a sudden burst of momentum. The Shu woman took an awkward step back, then seized the edge of the net, yanking Nina up.

Nina waited until the last possible second, then said, “Let's see if you're metal all the way through.”

She shoved the revolver directly into the Shu woman's eye socket and squeezed the trigger.

The blast didn't just take her eye but most of the top of her skull. For a moment, she still stood, clutching Nina, a gaping mess of bone, soft pink brain matter, and shards of metal where the rest of her face should have been. Then she crumpled.

Nina gagged and scrabbled at the net. “Get me out of this thing before her friend comes looking for us.”

Matthias tore the net away from Nina and they all ran, hearts hammering, boots pounding over the cobblestones.

Jesper could hear his father's fearful words, hastening him through the streets, a wind of warning at his back.
I'm afraid for you. The world can be cruel to your kind.
What had the Shu sent after Nina? After the city's Grisha? After
him
?

Jesper's existence had been a string of close calls and near disasters, but he'd never been so sure he was running for his life.

 

PART THREE

B
RICK BY
B
RICK

 

11

I
NEJ

As Inej and Kaz moved farther from West Stave, the silence between them spread like a stain. They'd abandoned their capes and masks in a rubbish heap behind a run-down little brothel called the Velvet Room, where Kaz had apparently stashed another change of clothes for them. It was as if the whole city had become their wardrobe, and Inej couldn't help but think of the conjurers who drew miles of scarves from their sleeves and vanished girls from boxes that always reminded her uncomfortably of coffins.

Dressed in the bulky coats and roughspun trousers of dockworkers, they made their way into the warehouse district, hair covered by hats, collars pulled up despite the warm weather. The eastern edge of the district was like a city within a city, populated mostly by immigrants who lived in cheap hotels and rooming houses or in shantytowns of plywood and corrugated tin, segregating themselves into ramshackle neighborhoods by language and nationality. At this time of day, most of the area's denizens were at work in the city's factories and docks, but on certain corners, Inej saw men and women gathered, hoping some foreman or boss would come along to offer a lucky few of them a day's work.

After she'd been freed from the Menagerie, Inej had wandered the streets of Ketterdam, trying to make sense of the city. She'd been overwhelmed by the noise and the crowds, certain that Tante Heleen or one of her henchmen would catch her unawares and drag her back to the House of Exotics. But she'd known that if she was going to be useful to the Dregs and earn her way out of her new contract, she couldn't let the strangeness of the clamor and cobblestones best her.
We greet the unexpected visitor.
She would have to learn the city.

She always preferred to travel along the rooftops, out of sight, free from the shuffle of bodies. There, she felt most herself again—the girl she'd once been, someone who hadn't had the sense to be afraid, who hadn't known what cruelty the world could offer. She'd gotten to know the gabled peaks and window boxes of the Zelverstraat, the gardens and wide boulevards of the embassy sector. She'd traveled far south to where the manufacturing district gave way to foul-smelling slaughterhouses and brining pits hidden at the very outskirts of the city, where their offal could be sluiced into the swamp at Ketterdam's edge, and their stink was less likely to be sent wafting over the residential parts of town. The city had revealed its secrets to her almost shyly, in flashes of grandeur and squalor.

Now she and Kaz left the rooming houses and street carts behind, plunging deeper into the busy warehouse district and the area known as the Weft. Here, the streets and canals were clean and orderly, kept wide for the transportation of goods and cargo. They passed fenced-in acres of raw lumber and quarried stone, closely guarded stockpiles of weapons and ammunition, huge storehouses brimming with cotton, silk, canvas, and furs, and warehouses packed with the carefully weighed bundles of dried
jurda
leaves from Novyi Zem that would be processed and packaged into tins with bright labels, then shipped out to other markets.

Inej still remembered the jolt she'd felt when she saw the words
Rare Spices
painted on the side of one of the warehouses. It was an advertisement, the words framed by two Suli girls rendered in paint, brown limbs bare, the embroidery of their scant silks hinted at by golden brushstrokes. Inej had stood there, gaze fastened to the sign, less than two miles from where the rights to her body had been bought and sold and haggled over, her heart jackrabbiting in her chest, panic seizing her muscles, unable to stop staring at those girls, the bangles on their wrists, the bells around their ankles. Eventually she'd willed herself to move, and as if some spell had been broken, she'd run faster than she ever had, back to the Slat, racing over the rooftops, the city passing in gray glimpses below her reckless feet. That night she'd dreamed the painted girls had come to life. They were trapped in the brick wall of the warehouse, screaming to be set free, but Inej was powerless to help them.

Rare Spices.
The sign was still there, faded from the sun. It still held power for her, made her muscles clench, her breath hitch. But maybe when she had her ship, when she'd brought down the first slaver, the paint would blister from the bricks. The cries of those girls in their mint-colored silks would turn to laughter. They would dance for no one but themselves. Ahead, Inej could see a high column topped by Ghezen's Hand, casting its long shadow over the heart of Kerch's wealth. She imagined her Saints wrapping ropes around it and sending it toppling to the ground.

She and Kaz drew no stares in their shapeless coats, two boys looking for work or on their way to the next shift. Still Inej could not breathe easily. The
stadwatch
patrolled the streets of the warehouse district regularly, and just in case that wasn't enough protection, the shipping companies employed private guards to make sure the doors stayed locked and that none of the workers stocking, stacking, and transporting goods got too free with their hands. The warehouse district was one of the most secure places in Ketterdam, and because of that, it was the last spot Van Eck would look for them.

They approached an abandoned linen storehouse. The windows of its lower floors were broken, the bricks above them blackened by soot. The fire must have been recent, but the storehouse wouldn't remain unoccupied for long; it would be cleaned out and rebuilt or simply razed for a new structure. Space was precious in Ketterdam.

The padlock on the back door was little challenge to Kaz, and they entered a lower story that had been badly damaged by the fire. The stairway near the front of the building seemed largely intact. They climbed, Inej moving lightly over the boards, Kaz's tread punctuated by the rhythmic
thunk
of his cane.

When they reached the third floor, Kaz directed them to a stock room where bolts of linen were still piled high in giant pyramids. They were largely undamaged, but those on the bottom were stained with soot, and the fabric had a burnt, unpleasant smell. They were comfortable, though. Inej found a perch by a window that let her rest her feet on one bolt and her back on another. She was grateful to simply sit, to look out the window into the watery afternoon light. There wasn't much to see, just the bare brick walls of the warehouses and the grove of huge sugar silos that loomed over the harbor.

Kaz took a tin from beneath one of the old sewing machines and passed it to her. She popped it open, revealing hazelnuts, crackers wrapped in wax paper, and a stoppered flask. So this was one of the safe houses Van Eck had been so eager to learn about. Inej uncorked the flask and sniffed.

“Water,” he said.

She drank deeply and ate a few of the stale crackers. She was famished, and she doubted she'd be getting a hot meal anytime soon. Kaz had warned her that they couldn't return to Black Veil until nightfall, and even then, she didn't think they'd be doing much cooking. She watched him push himself up onto the stack of bolts across from her, resting his cane beside him, but she forced her eyes back to the window, away from the precision of his movements, the taut line of his jaw. Looking at Kaz felt dangerous in a way it hadn't before. She could see the mallet rise, glinting in the stage lights on Eil Komedie.
He'll never trade if you break me.
She was grateful for the weight of her knives. She touched her hands to them as if greeting old friends, felt some of the tension inside her ease.

“What did you say to Van Eck on the bridge?” Kaz asked at last. “When we were making the trade?”

“You will see me once more, but only once.”

“More Suli proverbs?”

“A promise to myself. And Van Eck.”

“Careful, Wraith. You're ill-suited to the revenge game. I'm not sure your Suli Saints would approve.”

“My Saints don't like bullies.” She rubbed her sleeve over the dirty window. “Those explosions,” she said. “Will the others be all right?”

“None of them were stationed near where the bombs went off. At least not the ones we saw. We'll know more when we're back on Black Veil.”

Inej didn't like that. What if someone had been hurt? What if all of them didn't make it back to the island? After days of fear and waiting, sitting still while her friends might be in trouble was a new kind of frustration.

She realized Kaz was studying her, and turned her gaze to his. Sunlight slanted through the windows, turning his eyes the color of strong tea.
He'll never trade if you break me.
She could feel the memory of the words, as if they'd burned her throat in the speaking.

Kaz didn't look away when he said, “Did he hurt you?”

She wrapped her arms around her knees.
Why do you want to know? So that you can be sure I'm capable of taking on some new danger? So that you can add to the list of wrongs for which Van Eck must be held to account?