Crooked Kingdom (26 page)

But from the edges of her consciousness she sensed something else, a different kind of awareness, a pocket of cold in a deep lake, a bracing shock that seemed to wake her cells. It was familiar—she'd felt something similar when she'd brought down the guard the night they'd kidnapped Alys, but this was much stronger. It had shape and texture. She let herself dive into the cold, reaching for that sense of wakefulness blindly, greedily, and arced her arms forward in a movement that was as much instinct as skill.

The tavern windows crashed inward in a hail of glass. Fragments of bone shot through the air, peppering the armed men like shrapnel.
The relics from the vendors' carts
, Nina realized in a flash of understanding. She'd somehow controlled the bones.

“They have reinforcements!” one of the men yelled.

“Open fire!”

Nina braced for the impact of the bullets, but in the next second she felt herself yanked off her feet. One moment she was standing on the floor of the tavern and the next her back was slamming against the roof beams as she gazed down at the sawdust far below. All around her, the men who'd attacked her and Matthias hung aloft, also pinned to the ceiling.

A young woman stood at the doorway to the kitchen, black hair shining nearly blue in the dim light.

“Zoya?” Nina gasped as she stared down, trying to catch her breath.

Zoya stepped into the light, a vision in sapphire silk, her cuffs and hem embroidered in dense whorls of silver. Her heavily lashed eyes widened. “Nina?” Zoya's concentration wavered, and they all dropped a foot through the air before she tossed her hands up and they were once more slammed against the beams.

Zoya stared up at Nina in wonder. “You're alive,” she said. Her gaze slid to Matthias, thrashing like the biggest, angriest butterfly ever pinned to a page. “And you've made a new friend.”

 

14

W
YLAN

Wylan hadn't been on a browboat of this size since he'd tried to leave the city six months ago, and it was hard not to remember that disaster now, especially when thoughts of his father were so fresh in his mind. But this boat was considerably different from the one he'd tried to take that night. This browboat ran the market line twice a day. Inbound, it would be crowded with vegetables, livestock, whatever farmers were bringing to the market squares scattered around the city. As a child, he'd thought everything came from Ketterdam, but he'd soon learned that, though just about anything could be had in the city, little of it was produced there. The city got its exotics—mangoes; dragon fruit; small, fragrant pineapples—from the Southern Colonies. For more ordinary fare, they relied on the farms that surrounded the city.

Jesper and Wylan caught an outbound boat crammed with immigrants fresh from the Ketterdam harbor and laborers looking for farmwork instead of the manufacturing jobs offered in the city. Unfortunately, they'd boarded far enough south that all the seats were already taken, and Jesper was looking positively sulky about it.

“Why can't we take the Belendt line?” Jesper had complained only hours before. “It goes past Olendaal. The boats on the market line are filthy and there's never any place to sit.”

“Because you two will stand out on the Belendt line. Here in Ketterdam, you're nothing to look at—assuming Jesper doesn't wear one of his brighter plaids. But give me one good reason other than farmwork you'd see a Shu and a Zemeni traipsing around the countryside.”

Wylan hadn't considered how conspicuous he might be outside the city with his new face. But he was secretly relieved Kaz didn't want them on the Belendt line. It might have been more comfortable, but the memories would have been too much on the day he would finally see where his mother had been laid to rest.

“Jesper,” Kaz had said, “keep your weapons hidden and your eyes open. Van Eck has to have people watching all the major transportation hubs, and we don't have time to fake up identification for Wylan. I'll get the corrosive from one of the shipyards on Imperjum. Your first priority is to find the quarry and get the other mineral we need for the auric acid. You go to Saint Hilde if and only if there's time.”

Wylan felt his chin lift, that simmering, stubborn feeling overtaking him. “I need to do this. I've never been to my mother's grave. I'm not leaving Kerch without saying goodbye.”

“Trust me, you care more than she does.”

“How can you say that? Don't you remember your mother and father at all?”

“My mother is Ketterdam. She birthed me in the harbor. And my father is profit. I honor him daily. Be back by nightfall or don't come back at all. Either of you. I need crew, not sentimental nubs.” Kaz handed Wylan the travel money. “Make sure
you
buy the tickets. I don't want Jesper wandering off to take a spin at Makker's Wheel.”

“This song is getting old,” muttered Jesper.

“Then learn a new refrain.”

Jesper had just shaken his head, but Wylan could tell Kaz's barbs still stung. Now Wylan looked at Jesper leaning back on the railing, eyes shut, profile turned to the weak spring sun.

“Don't you think we should be more cautious?” Wylan asked, his own face buried in the collar of his coat. They'd barely dodged two
stadwatch
as they'd boarded.

“We're already out of the city. Relax.”

Wylan glanced over his shoulder. “I thought they might search the boat.”

Jesper opened one eye and said, “And hold up traffic? Van Eck's already making trouble at the harbors. If he jams up the browboats, there'll be a riot.”

“Why?”

“Look around. The farms need laborers. The plants need workers. The Kerch will only abide so much inconvenience for a rich man's son, especially when there's money to be made.”

Wylan tried to make himself relax and unbuttoned the roughspun coat Kaz had obtained for him. “Where does he get all the clothes and uniforms from anyway? Does he just have a giant closet somewhere?”

“Come here.”

Warily, Wylan sidled closer. Jesper reached for his collar and flipped it, giving it a tug so Wylan could twist around and just make out a blue ribbon pinned there.

“This is how actors mark their costumes,” Jesper said. “This one belonged to … Josep Kikkert. Oh, he's not bad. I saw him in
The Madman Takes a Bride
.”

“Costumes?”

Jesper flipped the collar back, and as he did, his fingers brushed against the nape of Wylan's neck. “Yup. Kaz cut a secret entrance into the wardrobe rooms of the Stadlied opera house years ago. That's where he gets a lot of what he needs and where he stashes the rest. Means he can never be caught with a fake
stadwatch
uniform or house livery in a raid.”

Wylan supposed it made sense. He watched the sunlight flashing off the water for a while, then focused on the railing and said, “Thanks for coming with me today.”

“Kaz wasn't going to let you go by yourself. Besides, I owe you. You came with me to meet my dad at the university, and you stepped in when he started getting inquisitive.”

“I don't like lying.”

Jesper turned around, balancing his elbows on the railing and gazing out at the grassy banks that sloped down to the canal. “So why did you do it?”

Wylan didn't really know why he'd made up that crazy story about luring Jesper into a bad investment. He hadn't even been totally sure what he was going to say when he opened his mouth. He just couldn't stand to see Jesper—confident, smiling Jesper—with that lost look on his face, or the terrible mix of hope and fear in Colm Fahey's gaze as he waited for an answer from his son. It reminded Wylan too much of the way his own father had looked at him, back when he'd still believed Wylan could be cured or fixed. He didn't want to see the expression in Jesper's father's eyes change from worry to anguish to anger.

Wylan shrugged. “I'm making a habit of rescuing you. For exercise.”

Jesper released a guffaw that had Wylan looking frantically over his shoulder again, afraid of drawing attention.

But Jesper's mirth was short-lived. He shifted his position at the rail, scrubbed his hand over the back of his neck, fiddled with the brim of his hat. He was always in motion, like a lanky piece of clockwork that ran on invisible energy. Except clocks were simple. Wylan could only guess at Jesper's workings.

At last Jesper said, “I should have gone to see him today.”

Wylan knew he was talking about Colm. “Why didn't you?”

“I have no idea what to say to him.”

“Is the truth out of the question?”

“Let's just say I'd rather avoid it.”

Wylan looked back at the water. He'd started to think of Jesper as fearless, but maybe being brave didn't mean being unafraid. “You can't run from this forever.”

“Watch me.”

Another farmhouse slid by, little more than a white shape in the early morning mist, lilies and tulips stippling the fields before it in fractured constellations. Maybe Jesper could keep running. If Kaz kept coming along with miracle scores, maybe Jesper could always stay one step ahead.

“I wish I'd brought flowers for her,” Wylan said. “Something.”

“We can pick some on the way,” said Jesper, and Wylan knew he was seizing the change in subject with both hands. “Do you remember her much?”

Wylan shook his head. “I remember her curls. They were the most beautiful reddish gold.”

“Same as yours,” said Jesper. “Before.”

Wylan felt his cheeks pink for no good reason. Jesper was just stating a fact, after all.

He cleared his throat. “She liked art and music. I think I remember sitting at the piano bench with her. But it might have been a nanny.” Wylan lifted his shoulders. “One day she was sick and going to the country so her lungs could recover, and then she was gone.”

“What about the funeral?”

“My father told me she'd been buried at the hospital. That was all. We just stopped talking about her. He said it didn't pay to dwell on the past. I don't know. I think he really loved her. They fought all the time, sometimes about me, but I remember them laughing a lot together too.”

“I have trouble imagining your father laughing, even smiling. Unless he's rubbing his hands together and cackling over a pile of gold.”

“He isn't evil.”

“He tried to kill you.”

“No, he destroyed our ship. Killing me would have been an added benefit.” That wasn't entirely true, of course. Jesper wasn't the only one trying to keep a step ahead of his demons.

“Oh, then you're absolutely right,” said Jesper. “Not evil at all. I'm sure he also had good reasons for not letting you grieve for your mother.”

Wylan tugged at a thread unraveling from the sleeve of his coat. “It wasn't all his fault. My father seemed sad most of the time. And far away. That was around the same time he realized I wasn't … what he'd hoped for.”

“How old were you?”

“Eight, maybe? I'd gotten really good at hiding it.”

“How?”

A faint smile touched Wylan's lips. “He would read to me or I'd ask one of the nannies to, and I'd memorize whatever they said. I even knew when to pause and turn the pages.”

“How much could you remember?”

“A lot. I sort of set the words to music in my head like songs. I still do it sometimes. I'll just claim I can't read someone's writing and get them to read the words aloud, set it all to a melody. I can hold it in my head until I need it.”

“Don't suppose you could apply that skill to card counting.”

“Probably. But I'm not going to.”

“Misspent gifts.”

“You're one to talk.”

Jesper scowled. “Let's enjoy the scenery.”

There wasn't much to look at yet. Wylan realized how tired he felt. He wasn't used to this life of fear, moving from one moment of worry to the next.

He thought about telling Jesper how it had all started. Would it be a relief to have the whole shameful story out in the open? Maybe. But some part of him wanted Jesper and the others to keep believing that he'd left his father's house intending to set up in the Barrel, that he'd chosen this life.

As Wylan got older, Jan Van Eck had made it increasingly clear that there was no place for his son in his household, especially after his marriage to Alys. But he didn't seem to know what to do with Wylan. He took to making pronouncements about his son, each one more dire than the last.

You can't be sent to seminary because you can't read.

I can't apprentice you somewhere because you may reveal yourself to be defective.

You are like food that spoils too easily. I can't even put you on a shelf somewhere to keep without making a stink.

Then, six months ago, Wylan's father had summoned him to his office. “I've secured you a position at the music school in Belendt. A personal secretary has been hired on and will meet you at the school. He will handle any mail or business beyond your capabilities. It is a ridiculous waste of both money and time, but I must accept what is possible where you are concerned.”

“For how long?” Wylan had asked.

His father shrugged. “As long as it takes people to forget I had a son. Oh, don't look at me with that wounded expression, Wylan. I am honest, not cruel. This is best for both of us. You'll be spared the impossible task of trying to step into the role of a merchant's son, and I'll be spared the embarrassment of watching you attempt it.”

I treat you no more harshly than the world will.
That was his father's refrain. Who else would be so frank with him? Who else loved him enough to tell him the truth? Wylan had happy memories of his father reading him stories—dark tales of forests full of witches and rivers that spoke. Jan Van Eck had done his best to care for his son, and if he'd failed, then the defect lay with Wylan. His father might sound cruel, but he wasn't just protecting himself or the Van Eck empire, he was protecting Wylan as well.