Crooked Kingdom: Book 2 (Six of Crows)

by Bardugo, Leigh

  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 store house. The windows of its lower floors were broken, the bricks above them blackened by soot. The fire must have been recent, but the store house 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?

  Kaz had been clear about his arrangement with her from the beginning. Inej was an investment, an asset worthy of protection. She had wanted to believe they’d become more to each other. Jan Van Eck had robbed her of that illusion. Inej was whole, unharmed. She bore no scars or trauma from her ordeal on Eil Komedie that food and sleep would not ease. But Van Eck had taken something from her nonetheless. I’ll be no use to him anymore. Words torn from some hidden place inside her, a truth she could not unknow. She should be glad of it. Better terrible truths than kind lies.

  She let her fingers drift to the place where the mallet had brushed her leg, saw Kaz’s eyes track the movement, stopped. She folded her hands in her lap, shook her head.

  “No. He didn’t hurt me.”

  Kaz leaned back, his gaze dismantling her slowly. He didn’t believe her, but she could not bring herself to try and convince him of this lie.

  He propped his cane on the floor and used it to brace himself as he slid off the fabric pile. “Rest,” he said.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I have business near the silos, and I want to see what information I can pick up.” He left his cane leaning against one of the bolts.

  “You’re not taking it?”

  “Too conspicuous, especially if Van Eck has gotten the stadwatch involved. Rest,” he repeated. “You’ll be safe here.”

  Inej closed her eyes. She could trust him enough for that.

  When Kaz woke her, the sun was setting, gilding the tower of Ghezen in the distance. They left the store house, locking it behind them, and joined the workers walking home for the night. They continued south and east, dodging the busiest parts of the Barrel, where no doubt the stadwatch would be prowling, and headed toward a more residential area. In a narrow canal, they boarded a smallboat that they piloted down Grafcanal, and into the mists shrouding Black Veil Island.

  Inej felt her excitement increasing as they picked their way through the mausoleums toward the center of the island. Let them be okay , she prayed. Let them all be okay. Finally, she glimpsed a dim light and heard the faint murmur of voices. She broke into a run, not caring when her cap slipped from her head to the vine-covered ground. She tore open the door to the tomb.

  The five people inside rose, guns and fists raised, and Inej skidded to a halt.

  Nina shrieked, “Inej!”

  She flew across the room and crushed Inej in a tight hug. Then they were all around her at once, hugging her, clapping her on the back. Nina would not let go of her. Jesper threw his arms around both of them and crowed, “The Wraith returns!” as Matthias stood back, formal as ever but smiling. She looked from the Shu boy seated at the table in the center of the tomb to the identical Shu boy hovering in front of her.

  “Wylan?” she asked of the one closest to her.

  He broke into a grin, but it slipped sideways when he said, “Sorry about my father.”

  Inej pulled him into the hug and whispered, “We are not our fathers.”

  Kaz rapped his cane on the stone floor. He was standing in the doorway to the tomb. “If everyone is done cuddling, we have a job to do.”

  “Hold up,” said Jesper, arm still slung around Inej. “We’re not talking about the job until we figure out what those things were on the Stave.”

  “What things?” asked Inej.

  “Did you miss half the Stave blowing up?”

  “We saw the bomb at the White Rose go off,” said Inej, “and then we heard another explosion.”

  “At the Anvil,” said Nina.

  “After that,” Inej said, “we ran.”

  Jesper nodded sagely. “That was your big mistake. If you’d stuck around, you could have nearly been killed by a Shu guy with wings.”

  “Two of them,” said Wylan.

  Inej frowned. “T
wo wings?”

  “Two guys,” said Jesper.

  “With wings?” Inej probed. “Like a bird?”

  Nina dragged her toward the cluttered table, where a map of Ketterdam had been spread. “No, more like a moth, a deadly, mechanical moth. Are you hungry? We have chocolate biscuits.”

  “Oh sure,” said Jesper. “She gets the cookie hoard.”

  Nina planted Inej in a chair and plunked the tin down in front of her. “Eat,” she commanded. “There were two Shu with wings, and a man and a woman who were … not normal.”

  “Nina’s power had no effect on them,” said Wylan.

  “Hmm,” Nina said noncommittally, nibbling daintily at the edge of a biscuit. Inej had never seen Nina nibble daintily on anything. Her appetite clearly hadn’t returned, but Inej wondered if there was more to it.

  Matthias joined them at the table. “The Shu woman we faced was stronger than me, Jesper, and Wylan put together.”

  “You heard right,” said Jesper. “Stronger than Wylan.”

  “I did my part,” objected Wylan.

  “You most definitely did, merchling. What was that violet stuff?”

  “Something new I’ve been working on. It’s based on a Ravkan invention called lumiya ; the flames are almost impossible to extinguish, but I changed the formulation so that it burns a lot hotter.”

  “We were lucky to have you there,” said Matthias with a small bow that left Wylan looking pleased and entirely flustered. “The creatures were nearly impervious to bullets.”

  “Nearly,” Nina said grimly. “They had nets. They were looking to hunt and capture Grisha.”

  Kaz rested his shoulders against the wall. “Were they using parem ?”

  She shook her head. “No. I don’t think they were Grisha. They didn’t display any powers, and they weren’t healing their wounds. It looked like they had some kind of metal plating beneath their skin.”

  She spoke to Kuwei rapidly in Shu.

  Kuwei groaned. “Kherguud.” They all looked at him blankly. He sighed and said, “When my father made parem , the government tests it on Fabrikators.”

  Jesper cocked his head to one side. “Is it just me or is your Kerch getting better?”

  “My Kerch is good. You all talk too fast.”

  “Okay,” drawled Jesper. “Why did your dear Shu friends test parem on Fabrikators?” He was sprawled in his chair, hands resting on his revolvers, but Inej did not quite believe his relaxed pose.

  “They have more Fabrikators in captivity,” said Kuwei.

  “They’re the easiest to capture,” Matthias put in, ignoring Nina’s sour look. “Until recently, they received little combat training, and without parem their powers are poorly suited to battle.”

  “Our leaders want to conduct more experiments,” Kuwei continued. “But they don’t know how many Grisha they can find—”

  “Maybe if they hadn’t killed so many?” Nina suggested.

  Kuwei nodded, missing or ignoring the sarcasm in Nina’s voice. “Yes. They have few Grisha, and using parem shortens a Grisha’s life. So they bring doctors to work with the Fabrikators already sick from parem . They plan to make a new kind of soldier, the Kherguud. I don’t know if they succeeded.”

  “I think I can answer that question with a big fat yes,” said Jesper.

  “Specially tailored soldiers,” Nina said thoughtfully. “Before the war, I heard they tried something similar in Ravka, reinforcing skeletons, tampering with bone density, metal implants. They experimented on First Army volunteers. Oh, stop grimacing, Matthias. Your Fjerdan masters probably would have gotten around to trying the exact same thing, given the time.”

  “Fabrikators deal in solids,” said Jesper. “Metal, glass, textiles. This seems like Corporalki work.”

  Still talking as if he isn’t one of them , Inej noted. They all knew Jesper was a Fabrikator; even Kuwei had discovered it in the chaos that followed their escape from the Ice Court. And yet, Jesper rarely acknowledged his power. She supposed it was his secret to tend as he wished.

  “Tailors blur the line between Fabrikator and Corporalnik,” said Nina. “I had a teacher in Ravka, Genya Safin. She could have been either a Heartrender or a Fabrikator if she’d wanted to—instead she became a great Tailor. The work you’re describing is really just an advanced kind of tailoring.”

  Inej could not quite fathom it. “But you’re telling us you saw a man with wings somehow grafted onto his back?”

  “No, they were mechanical. Some kind of metal frame, and canvas, maybe? But it’s more sophisticated than just slapping a pair of wings between someone’s shoulder blades. You’d have to link the musculature, hollow out the bones to decrease body weight, then somehow compensate for the loss of bone marrow, maybe replace the skeleton entirely. The level of complexity—”

  “Parem ,” said Matthias, his pale blond brows furrowed. “A Fabrikator using parem could manage that kind of tailoring.”

  Nina shoved back from the table. “Won’t the Merchant Council do anything about the Shu attack?” she asked Kaz. “Are they just allowed to waltz into Kerch and start blowing things up and kidnapping people?”

  “I doubt the Council will act,” he said. “Unless the Shu who attacked you were wearing uniforms, the Shu Han government will probably deny any knowledge of the attack.”

  “So they just get away with it?”

  “Maybe not,” Kaz said. “I spent a little time gathering intelligence at the harbors today. Those two Shu warships? The Council of Tides dry-docked them.”

  Jesper’s boots slid off the table and hit the floor with a thud. “What?”

  “They pulled back the tide. All of it. Used the sea to carve a new island with both of those warships beached on it. You can see them lying on their sides, sails dragging in the mud, right there in the harbor.”

  “A show of force,” said Matthias.

  “On behalf of Grisha or the city?” Jesper asked.

  Kaz shrugged. “Who knows? But it might make the Shu a little more careful about hunting on the Ketterdam streets.”

  “Could the Council of Tides help us?” asked Wylan. “If they know about parem , they have to be worried about what might happen if the wrong people get their hands on it.”

  “How would you find them?” Nina asked bitterly. “No one knows the Tides’ identities, no one ever sees them coming or going from those watchtowers.” Inej suddenly wondered if Nina had tried to garner help from the Tides when she’d first arrived in Ketterdam, sixteen years old, a Grisha separated from her country with no friends or knowledge of the city. “The Shu won’t stay cowed forever. They created those soldiers for a reason.”

  “It’s smart when you think about it,” said Kaz. “The Shu were maximizing their resources. A Grisha addicted to parem can’t survive for long, so the Shu found another way to exploit their powers.”

  Matthias shook his head. “Indestructible soldiers who outlive their creators.”

  Jesper rubbed a hand over his mouth. “And who can go out and hunt more Grisha. I swear to the Saints one of them found us by our smell.”

  “Is that even possible?” Inej asked, horrified.

  “I’ve never heard of Grisha giving off a particular scent,” said Nina, “but I guess it’s possible. If the soldiers’ olfactory receptors were improved … Maybe it’s a scent ordinary people can’t detect.”

  “I don’t think this was the first attack,” Jesper said. “Wylan, remember how terrified that Squaller in the rare books room was? And what about that merch ship Rotty told us about?”

  Kaz nodded. “It was torn apart, a bunch of sailors were found dead. At the time, they thought the crew’s Squaller might have gone rogue, busted out of his indenture. But maybe he didn’t disappear. Maybe he was captured. He was one of old Councilman Hoede’s Grisha.”

  “Emil Retvenko,” said Nina.

  “That’s the one. You knew him?”

  “I knew of him. Most of the Grisha in Ketterdam know about eac
h other. We share information, try to keep an eye out for one another. The Shu must have spies here if they knew where to look for each of us. The other Grisha—” Nina stood up, then grabbed the back of her chair, as if the sudden movement had made her woozy.

  Inej and Matthias were on their feet instantly.

  “Are you all right?” Inej asked.

  “Splendid,” Nina said with an unconvincing smile. “But if the other Grisha in Ketterdam are in danger—”

  “You’re going to do what?” Jesper said, and Inej was surprised by the harsh edge to his voice. “You’re lucky to be alive after what happened today. Those Shu soldiers can smell us, Nina.” He turned on Kuwei. “Your father made that possible.”

  “Hey,” said Wylan, “go easy.”

  “Go easy? Like things weren’t bad enough for the Grisha before? What if they track us to Black Veil? There are three of us here.”

  Kaz rapped his knuckles against the table. “Wylan’s right. Go easy. The city wasn’t safe before and it isn’t safe now. So let’s all get rich enough to relocate.”

  Nina placed her hands on her hips. “Are we really talking about money?”

  “We’re talking about the job and making Van Eck pay up.”

  Inej looped her arm through Nina’s. “I want to know what we can do to help the Grisha who are still in Ketterdam.” She saw the mallet glint as it reached the top of its arc. “And I’d also like to know how we’re going to make Van Eck suffer.”

  “There are bigger issues here,” said Matthias.

  “Not for me,” Jesper said. “I have two days left to get right with my father.”

  Inej wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. “Your father?”

  “Yup. Family reunion in Ketterdam,” said Jesper. “Everyone’s invited.”