Crooked Kingdom (42 page)

“Leave him be,” murmured Inej softly.

“Saints, Wraith,” said Jesper. “You're bleeding.”

“Should I call a doctor?” asked Jesper's father.

“No!” they all replied in unison.

“Of course not,” said Colm. “Should I ring for coffee?”

“Yes, please,” said Nina.

Colm ordered coffee, waffles, and a bottle of brandy, and while they waited, Nina enlisted their help to locate some shears so that she could cut up the hotel towels for bandages. Once a pair had been found, she took Inej into the bathroom to see to her wounds.

When a knock sounded at the door, they all tensed, but it was only their meal. Colm greeted the maid and insisted that he could manage the cart so that she wouldn't see the strange company that had assembled in his rooms. As soon as the door closed, Jesper jumped up to help him wheel in a silver tray laden with food and stacks of dishes of porcelain so fine it was almost transparent. Wylan hadn't eaten off dishes like these since he'd left his father's house. He realized Jesper must be wearing one of Colm's shirts; it was too big in the shoulders and too short in the sleeves.

“What is this place, anyway?” Wylan asked, looking around the vast room decorated almost entirely in purple.

“The Ketterdam Suite, I believe,” said Colm, scratching the back of his neck. “It's considerably finer than my room at the university district inn.”

Nina and Inej emerged from the bathroom. Nina heaped a plate with food and plunked down beside Matthias on the couch. She folded one of the waffles in half and took a huge bite, wiggling her toes in bliss.

“I'm sorry, Matthias,” she said with her mouth full. “I've decided to run off with Jesper's father. He keeps me in the deliciousness to which I have become accustomed.”

Inej had removed her tunic and wore only her quilted vest, leaving her brown arms bare. Strips of towel were tied at her shoulder, both of her forearms, her right thigh and her left shin.

“What exactly happened to you?” Jesper asked her as he handed his father a cup of coffee on a delicate saucer.

Inej perched in an armchair next to where Kuwei had settled himself on the floor. “I made a new acquaintance.”

Jesper sprawled out on a settee and Wylan took the other chair, a plate of waffles balanced on his knee. There was a perfectly good table and chairs in the suite's dining room, but apparently none of them had an interest in it. Only Colm had taken a seat there, coffee beside him, along with the bottle of brandy. Kaz remained by the window, and Wylan wondered what he saw through the glass that was so compelling.

“So,” Jesper said, adding sugar to his coffee. “Other than Inej making a new pal, what the hell happened out there?”

“Let's see,” said Nina. “Inej fell twenty stories.”

“We put a serious hole in my father's dining room ceiling,” Wylan offered.

“Nina can raise the dead,” said Inej.

Matthias' cup clattered against his saucer. It looked ridiculous in his huge hand.

“I can't
raise
them. I mean, they get up, but it's not like they come back to life. I don't think. I'm not totally sure.”

“Are you serious?” said Jesper.

Inej nodded. “I can't explain it, but I saw it.”

Matthias' brow was furrowed. “When we were in the Ravkan quarter, you were able to summon those pieces of bone.”

Jesper took a gulp of coffee. “But what about the lake house? Were you controlling that dust?”

“What dust?” asked Inej.

“She didn't just take out a guard. She choked him with a cloud of dust.”

“There's a family graveyard next to the Hendriks lake house,” said Wylan, remembering the gated plot that abutted the western wall. “What if the dust was … well, bones? People's remains?”

Nina set down her plate. “That's almost enough to make me lose my appetite.” She picked it up again. “Almost.”

“This is why you asked about
parem
changing a Grisha's power,” said Kuwei to Matthias.

Nina looked at him. “Can it?”

“I don't know. You took the drug only once. You survived the withdrawal. You are a rarity.”

“Lucky me.”

“Is it so bad?” Matthias asked.

Nina plucked a few crumbs from her lap, returning them to her plate. “To quote a certain big blond lump of muscle, it's not natural.” Her voice had lost its cheery warmth. She just looked sad.

“Maybe it is,” said Matthias. “Aren't the Corporalki known as the Order of the Living and the Dead?”

“This isn't how Grisha power is supposed to work.”

“Nina,” Inej said gently. “
Parem
took you to the brink of death. Maybe you brought something back with you.”

“Well, it's a pretty rotten souvenir.”

“Or perhaps Djel extinguished one light and lit another,” said Matthias.

Nina cast him a sidelong glance. “Did you get hit on the head?”

He reached out and took Nina's hand. Wylan suddenly felt he was intruding on something private. “I am grateful you're alive,” he said. “I am grateful you're beside me. I am grateful that you're
eating
.”

She rested her head on his shoulder. “You're better than waffles, Matthias Helvar.”

A small smile curled the Fjerdan's lips. “Let's not say things we don't mean, my love.”

There was a light tapping at the door. Immediately, they all reached for their weapons. Colm sat frozen in his chair.

Kaz gestured for him to stay where he was and moved silently toward the door. He peered through the peephole.

“It's Specht,” he said. They all relaxed, and Kaz opened the door.

They watched in silence as Kaz and Specht exchanged harried whispers; then Specht nodded and disappeared back toward the lift.

“Is there access to the clock tower on this floor?” Kaz asked Colm.

“At the end of the hall,” said Colm. “I haven't gone up. The stairs are steep.”

Without a word, Kaz was gone. They all stared at one another for a moment and then followed, filing past Colm, who watched them go with weary eyes.

As they walked down the hall, Wylan realized that the entire floor was dedicated to the luxury of the Ketterdam Suite. If he was going to die, he supposed it wouldn't be the worst place to spend his last night.

One by one, they climbed a twisting iron staircase to the clock tower and pushed through a trapdoor. The room at the top was large and cold, taken up mostly by the gears of a huge clock. Its four faces looked out over Ketterdam and the gray dawn sky.

To the south, a plume of smoke rose from Black Veil Island. Looking northeast, Wylan could see the Geldcanal, boats from the fire brigade and the
stadwatch
surrounding the area near his father's house. He remembered the shocked look on his father's face when they'd landed in the middle of his dining room table. If Wylan hadn't been so terrified, he might well have burst out laughing.
It's shame that eats men whole.
If only they'd set the rest of the house on fire.

Far in the distance, the harbors were teeming with
stadwatch
boats and wagons. The city was pocked with
stadwatch
purple, as if it had caught a disease.

“Specht says they've closed the harbors and shut down the browboats,” said Kaz. “They're sealing the city. No one will be able to get in or out.”

“Ketterdam won't stand for that,” said Inej. “People will riot.”

“They won't blame Van Eck.”

Wylan felt a little ill. “They'll blame us.”

Jesper shook his head. “Even if they put every
stadwatch
grunt on the street, they don't have the manpower to lock up the city and search for us.”

“Don't they?” said Kaz. “Look again.”

Jesper walked to the west-facing window where Kaz was standing. “All the Saints and your Aunt Eva,” he said on a gust of breath.

“What is it?” asked Wylan as they peered through the glass.

A crowd was moving east from the Barrel across the Zelver district.

“Is it a mob?” asked Inej.

“More like a parade,” said Kaz.

“Why aren't the
stadwatch
stopping them?” Wylan asked as the flood of people passed unhindered from bridge to bridge, through each barricade. “Why are they letting them through?”

“Probably because your father told them to,” Kaz said.

As the throng drew closer, Wylan heard singing, chanting, drums. It really did sound like a parade. They poured over Zelverbridge, streaming past the hotel as they made their way to the square that fronted the Exchange. Wylan recognized Pekka Rollins' gang leading the march. Whoever was up front wore a lion skin with a fake golden crown sewn onto its head.

“Razorgulls,” Inej said, pointing behind the Dime Lions. “And there are the Liddies.”

“Harley's Pointers,” Jesper said. “The Black Tips.”

“It's all of them,” said Kaz.

“What does it mean?” asked Kuwei. “The purple bands?”

Each member of the mob below wore a strip of purple around his upper left arm.

“They've been deputized,” said Kaz. “Specht says word is out all over the Barrel. The good news is they want us alive now—even Matthias. The bad news is they've added bounties for the Shu twins we're traveling with, so Kuwei's face—and Wylan's—are gracing the city walls too.”

“And your Merchant Council is just sanctioning this?” said Matthias. “What if they start looting or there's a riot?”

“They won't. Rollins knows what he's doing. If the
stadwatch
had tried to lock down the Barrel, the gangs would have turned on them. Now they're on the right side of the law, and Van Eck has two armies. He's pinning us in.”

Inej drew a sharp breath.

“What?” asked Wylan, but when he looked down at the square, he understood. The last group in the parade had come into view. An old man wearing a plumed hat was leading them, and they were cawing at the top of their lungs—like crows. The Dregs, Kaz's gang. They had turned on him.

Jesper slammed his fist against the wall. “Those ungrateful skivs.”

Kaz said nothing, just watched the crowd flow past the front of the hotel below, the gangs bunched in colorful swarms, calling insults to one another, cheering like it was some kind of holiday. Even after they'd gone by, their chants hung in the air. Maybe they would march all the way to the Stadhall.

“What will happen now?” asked Kuwei.

“We'll be hunted by every
stadwatch
grunt and Barrel thug in the city, until we're found,” said Kaz. “There's no way out of Ketterdam now. Certainly not with you in tow.”

“Can we just wait?” asked Kuwei. “Here? With Mister Fahey?”

“Wait for what?” Kaz said. “Someone to come to our rescue?”

Jesper rested his head against the glass. “My father. They'll take him in too. He'll be accused of harboring fugitives.”

“No,” said Kuwei abruptly. “
No.
Give me to Van Eck.”

“Absolutely not,” said Nina.

The boy cut his hand through the air sharply. “You saved me from the Fjerdans. If we do not act, then I will be captured anyway.”

“Then all of this was for nothing?” Wylan asked, surprised at his own anger. “The risks we took? What we accomplished at the Ice Court? Everything Inej and Nina suffered to get us out?”

“But if I give myself up to Van Eck, then the rest of you can go free,” insisted Kuwei.

“It doesn't work that way, kid,” said Jesper. “Pekka's got his chance to take Kaz out with the rest of the Barrel backing him, and Van Eck sure as hell doesn't want us walking around free, not knowing what we do. This isn't just about you anymore.”

Kuwei moaned and slumped down against the wall. He cast a baleful glance at Nina. “You should have killed me at the Ice Court.”

Nina shrugged. “But then Kaz would have killed me and Matthias would have killed Kaz and it would have gotten incredibly messy.”

“I can't believe we broke out of the Ice Court but we're trapped in our own town,” Wylan said. It didn't seem right.

“Yup,” said Jesper. “We are well and truly cooked.”

Kaz drew a circle on the window with one leather gloved finger. “Not quite,” he said. “I can get the
stadwatch
to stand down.”

“No,” said Inej.

“I'll give myself up.”

“But Kuwei—” said Nina.

“The
stadwatch
don't know about Kuwei. They think they're looking for Wylan. So I'll tell them Wylan is dead. I'll tell them I killed him.”

“Are you out of your mind?” said Jesper.

“Kaz,” said Inej. “They'll send you to the gallows.”

“They'll have to give me a trial first.”

“You'll rot in prison before that happens,” said Matthias. “Van Eck will never give you a chance to speak in a courtroom.”

“You really think they've built a cell that can hold me?”

“Van Eck knows just how good you are with locks,” Inej said angrily. “You'll die before you ever reach the jailhouse.”

“This is ridiculous,” said Jesper. “You're not taking the fall for us. No one is. We'll split up. We'll go in pairs, find a way past the blockades, hide out somewhere in the countryside.”

“This is my city,” said Kaz. “I'm not leaving it with my tail between my legs.”

Jesper released a growl of frustration. “If this is your city, what's left of it? You gave up your shares in the Crow Club and Fifth Harbor. You don't have a gang anymore. Even if you did escape, Van Eck and Rollins would sic the
stadwatch
and half the Barrel on you again. You can't fight them all.”

“Watch me.”