Crooked Kingdom: Book 2 (Six of Crows)

by Bardugo, Leigh

  He gave her hand a squeeze. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “I promise.” And he meant it. They’d find a good attorney or man of business to help Alys with the estate. If Kaz knew all the swindlers in Ketterdam, then he must know who the honest dealers were too—if for no other reason than to avoid them.

  “Will they let Jan come home tonight?” Alys asked, her lower lip wobbling.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted.

  “But you’ll come back to the house, won’t you?”

  “I—”

  “You stay away from her,” Van Eck spat as the stadwatch dragged him down the steps from the stage. “Alys, don’t listen to him. You’re going to need to get Smeet to put up the funds for bail. Go to—”

  “I don’t think Alys will be able to help with that,” said Kaz. He was standing in the aisle, leaning on his crow’s head cane.

  “Brekker, you wretched little thug. Do you really think this is over?” Van Eck straightened, attempting to reclaim some of his lost dignity. “By this time tomorrow, I’ll be out on bail and setting my reputation to rights. There’s a way to connect you to the Rietveld fund and I will find it. I swear it.”

  Wylan felt Jesper stiffen beside him. Colm Fahey was the only connection.

  “By all means, swear,” said Kaz. “Make a solemn vow. I think we all know what your word is worth. But you may find your resources somewhat constrained. The custodian of your estate will be in charge of your funds. I’m not sure how much money Wylan plans to devote to your defense, or your bail, for that matter.”

  Van Eck laughed bitterly. “I wrote him out of my will as soon as Alys conceived. Wylan will never see a penny of my money.”

  A murmur of surprise went up from the members of the Merchant Council.

  “Are you certain?” Kaz said. “I’m sure Wylan told me you two had reconciled. Of course, that was before all this ugly business.”

  “My will is perfectly clear. There’s a copy of it in—” Van Eck stopped midsentence, and Wylan watched a horrified expression spread over his father’s face. “The safe,” he whispered.

  Understanding struck Wylan bare seconds later. Specht had forged a letter in his father’s hand for the ship’s captain; why not something else? Sometimes a proper thief doesn’t just take. He leaves something behind. The night they’d broken into his father’s office, Kaz hadn’t just tried to steal the seal. He’d replaced Van Eck’s will with a forgery. Wylan remembered what Kaz had said: You do realize we’re stealing your money? He’d meant it.

  “There’s another copy,” said Van Eck. “My attorney—”

  “Cornelis Smeet?” said Kaz. “Do you know if he breeds those watchdogs of his? Funny thing, when you train an animal to obey. Sometimes they get too easy to command. Better to keep them a little wild.”

  You don’t win by running one game. How long had Kaz been planning to hand Wylan his father’s empire?

  “No,” said Van Eck, shaking his head. “No.” With surprising strength, he shook off his guards. “You can’t give this cretin control of my funds,” he shouted, gesturing to Wylan with his shackled hands. “Even if I’d wanted him to inherit, he’s incompetent to do so. He can’t read, can barely string a basic sentence together on the page. He is an idiot, a soft-minded child.”

  Wylan registered the horror on the Council members’ faces. This was the nightmare he’d had countless times as a child—standing in public, his deficiencies exposed.

  “Van Eck!” said Radmakker. “How can you say such a thing about your own blood?”

  Van Eck laughed wildly. “This at least I can prove! Give him something to read. Go on, Wylan, show them what a great man of business you will make.”

  Radmakker laid a hand on his shoulder. “You needn’t oblige his ravings, son.”

  But Wylan cocked his head to one side, an idea forming in his mind. “It’s all right, Mister Radmakker,” he said. “If it will help us end this tragic business, I will oblige my father. In fact, if you have a Transfer of Authority, I can sign it now and begin assembling funds for my father’s defense.”

  There were murmurs from the stage, and then a file was produced with the indenture documents. Wylan’s eyes met Jesper’s. Did he understand what Wylan intended?

  “These were meant for Kuwei Yul-Bo,” said Dryden. “But they haven’t been completed. There should be a Transfer of Authority.”

  He offered the file to Wylan, but Jesper took it and thumbed through.

  “He must read it!” yelled Van Eck. “Not the other boy!”

  “I think your first investment should be a muzzle,” murmured Jesper.

  He handed Wylan a document. It could have been anything. Wylan saw the words, recognized their shapes, couldn’t form their meaning. But he could hear the music in his head, that trick of memory he’d used so often as a child—Jesper’s voice reading aloud to him in the entry of Saint Hilde. He saw the pale blue door, smelled the wisteria blooming.

  Wylan cleared his throat and pretended to examine the page. “This document, witnessed in the full sight of Ghezen and in keeping with the honest dealings of men, made binding by the courts of Kerch and its Merchant Council, signifies the transfer of all property, estates, and legal holdings from— ” He paused. “I suppose it will say our names here, Jan Van Eck to Wylan Van Eck, to be managed by him until Jan Van Eck is once again competent to conduct … his own affairs. Do I really need to continue?”

  Van Eck was staring openmouthed at Wylan. The members of the Merchant Council were shaking their heads.

  “Certainly not, son,” Radmakker said. “You’ve been through enough, I think.” The look he turned on Van Eck now was one of pity. “Take him to the Stadhall. We may need to find him a medik too. Something must have addled his mind, put these mad thoughts in his head.”

  “It’s a trick,” said Van Eck. “It’s another one of Brekker’s tricks.” He broke away from his guards and rushed at Wylan, but Jesper stepped in front of him, grabbing him by the shoulders and holding him at bay with straight arms. “You’ll destroy everything I’ve built, everything my father and his father built. You—”

  Jesper leaned in and said, quietly enough that no one else could hear, “I can read to him.”

  “He has a very soothing baritone,” added Wylan, and then the guards were hauling his father down the aisle.

  “You won’t get away with this!” Van Eck screamed. “I know your game now, Brekker. My wits are sharper—”

  “You can only sharpen a blade so far,” Kaz said as he joined them at the front of the church. “In the end, it comes down to the quality of the metal.”

  Van Eck was howling. “You don’t even know if that’s really Wylan! He could be wearing another boy’s face! You don’t understand—”

  The rest of the Merchant Council followed, all looking a bit thunder-struck. “He’s come unhinged,” said Dryden.

  “We should have known he wasn’t rational when he allied himself with that miscreant Pekka Rollins.”

  Wylan handed the Transfer of Authority back to Radmakker. “Maybe it’s best that we don’t handle this now. I find I’m a bit shaken.”

  “Of course. We’ll see to getting the will from Smeet and making sure all is in order. We can send the appropriate papers to your house.”

  “My house?”

  “Won’t you be going home to the Geldstraat?”

  “I …”

  “He will indeed,” said Jesper.

  “I don’t understand,” said Alys as her maid patted her hand gently. “Jan has been arrested?”

  “Alys,” said Kaz. “How would you feel about waiting out all this nasty business in the country? Far away from the threat of plague. Maybe at that nice lake house you mentioned.”

  Alys’ face came alight, but then she hesitated. “Is it wholly proper, do you think? For a wife to abandon her husband at such a time?”

  “It’s your duty, really,” said Kaz. “After all, shouldn’t your priority be the baby?”
>
  Jesper nodded sagely. “Good country air, lots of fields for … gamboling about. I grew up on a farm. It’s why I’m so tall.”

  Alys frowned. “You’re a little too tall.”

  “It was a really big farm.”

  “And you could continue your music lessons,” said Wylan.

  Now Alys’ eyes were positively sparkling. “With Mister Bajan?” Her cheeks pinked; she bit her lip. “Perhaps it would be best. For the baby.”

  I n the gathering evening gloom, they walked to Van Eck’s house together, Kaz leaning on his cane, Alys leaning on her maid’s arm. The streets were eerily empty. Occasionally, they would see stadwatch and Jesper’s heart would start to race, wondering if their trouble was going to start all over again. But now that Van Eck and Pekka had been so thoroughly discredited, the stadwatch had bigger problems to grapple with, and the outbreaks in the Barrel had given the gangs plenty to occupy them. It seemed the city’s citizens, both lawful and unlawful, were seeing to themselves, and were content to leave Jesper and his friends in peace.

  But none of that mattered to Jesper. He just needed to know his father was safe. He was tempted to go to the bakery, but he couldn’t risk being followed.

  It put the itch in him, but for now he could resist it. Maybe using his power had helped. Maybe he was just giddy off the fight. It was too soon to try to untangle it. But tonight at least, he could vow not to do something stupid. He would sit in a room fabrikating the color out of a carpet, or take target practice, or have Wylan tie him to a chair if he had to. Jesper wanted to know what happened next. He wanted to be a part of it.

  No matter the scandal that had touched the Van Eck name today, the lanterns had still been lit in the windows, and the servants happily opened the door to Alys and young Mister Wylan. As they passed through what looked like the dining room but seemed to be missing a table, Jesper glanced up at the huge hole in the ceiling. He could see straight through to the next floor and some very fancy woodwork.

  He shook his head. “You really should be more careful with your things.”

  Wylan tried to smile, but Jesper could see he was all nerves. He moved from room to room warily, occasionally touching a piece of furniture or a spot on the wall briefly. Wylan was still pretty banged up. They’d sent to the university for a medik, but it might be a long while before anyone was able to come.

  When they reached the music room, Wylan finally stopped. He ran a hand over the lid of the pianoforte. “This is the only place in this house I was ever happy.”

  “Hopefully that can change now.”

  “I feel like an intruder. Like any minute, my father’s going to barge through that door and tell me to get out.”

  “It will help when the papers are signed. Make it feel more permanent.” Jesper grinned. “You were pretty amazing back there, by the way.”

  “I was terrified. I still am.” He looked down at the keys and played a gentle chord. Jesper wondered at how he could have mistaken Kuwei for Wylan. Their hands were completely different, the shape of the fingers, the knuckles. “Jes,” Wylan said, “did you mean what you told my father? Will you stay with me? Will you help?”

  Jesper leaned back on the pianoforte, resting on his elbows. “Let’s see. Live in a luxurious merch mansion, get waited on by servants, spend a little extra time with a budding demolitions expert who plays a mean flute? I guess I can manage it.” Jesper’s eyes traveled from the top of Wylan’s red-gold curls to the tips of his toes and back again. “But I do charge a pretty steep fee.”

  Wylan flushed a magnificent shade of pink. “Well, hopefully the medik will be here to fix my ribs soon,” he said as he headed back into the parlor.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes,” said Wylan, glancing briefly over his shoulder, his cheeks now red as cherries. “I’d like to make a down payment.”

  Jesper released a bark of laughter. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this good. And no one was even shooting at him.

  The cook laid out a cold supper and Alys retired to her rooms. The rest of them sat together on the steps that led down to the back garden, watching the strange sight of the sun setting over the near-empty Geldcanal, waiting. Only the stadwatch boats, the fire brigade, and the occasional medik’s boat could be seen gliding along the water, leaving wide, uninterrupted ripples in their wakes. No one ate much. They were all on edge as they waited for night to fall. Had the others made it out safely? Had everything gone as planned? There was still so much to do. Kaz kept perfectly still, but Jesper could sense the tension in him, coiled like a rattler.

  Jesper felt the hope in him ebbing away, ground down to nothing by his worry for his father. He explored the house, paced the garden, marveled at the destruction wrought on Van Eck’s office. Since when did the sun setting take so long? He could tell himself his father was fine as much as he wanted, but he wouldn’t believe it until he saw Colm Fahey’s craggy face for himself.

  At last night fell, and a long hour later the big bottleboat slid up to the dock at Van Eck’s elegant boathouse.

  “They made it!” Wylan whooped.

  Kaz released a slow breath. Jesper grabbed a lantern and the champagne they’d been chilling. They bounded across the garden, tore open the door, and streamed into the boathouse. Their greetings died on their lips.

  Inej and Rotty were helping Kuwei from the bottleboat. Though he looked rumpled and shaky, and his shirt hung open to reveal a chest still spattered with pig’s blood, he was in one piece. Jesper’s father sat in the boat, his shoulders slumped, looking wearier than Jesper had ever seen him, his freckled face creased with sadness. He rose slowly and climbed onto the dock. He clutched Jesper tightly and said, “You’re all right. You’re all right.”

  Nina remained in the boat, resting her head on Matthias’ chest. He was laid out beside her, his eyes closed, his color ashen.

  Jesper cast Inej a questioning look. Her face was tearstained. She gave a single shake of her head.

  “How?” Kaz said quietly.

  Fresh tears gathered in Inej’s eyes. “We still don’t know.”

  Wylan retrieved a blanket from the house and they spread it in the corner of the boathouse, then Jesper and Rotty helped lift Matthias’ massive body out of the boat. The process was awkward, undignified. Jesper couldn’t help but think the Fjerdan would have hated that.

  They laid him down on the blanket. Nina sat beside him, saying nothing, his hand clutched in hers. Inej brought a shawl that she tucked over Nina’s arms, then crouched silently next to her, head nestled against her shoulder.

  For a while, none of them knew what to do, but eventually Kaz looked at his watch and signaled silently to them. There was still work that required their attention.

  They set about converting the bottleboat. By ten bells, it needed to look less like a merchant’s canal shop and more like a bodyman’s sick-boat. They’d remade crafts many times, using the base of a single vessel as the skeleton for a flower barge, a fishing vessel, a floating market stall. Whatever was necessary for the job. This was an easier transformation. Nothing had to be built, only stripped away.

  They lugged the flats of bottles into the house and tore up the top part of the deck to eliminate the storage compartments, making the boat wider and flatter. Colm helped, working side by side with Jesper as they’d done back at the farm. Kuwei drifted between the garden and the boat-house, still weak from his ordeal.

  Soon Jesper was sweating, trying to focus on the rhythm of the work, but he couldn’t shake the sadness in his heart. He’d lost friends. He’d been on jobs when things had gone wrong. Why did this feel so different?

  When the last of the work was finished, Wylan, Kaz, Rotty, Jesper, and his father stood in the garden. There was nothing left to do. The barge was ready. Rotty was dressed head to toe in black, and they’d fashioned a bodyman’s hood by tearing apart and restitching one of Van Eck’s fine black suits. It was time to go, but none of them moved. All around, Jesper could smell spr
ing, sweet and eager, the scent of lilies and hyacinths, early blooming roses.

  “We were all supposed to make it,” said Wylan softly.

  Maybe that was naive, the protest of a rich merchant’s son who’d only had a taste of Barrel life. But Jesper realized he’d been thinking the same thing. After all their mad escapes and close calls, he’d started to believe the six of them were somehow charmed, that his guns, Kaz’s brains, Nina’s wit, Inej’s talent, Wylan’s ingenuity, and Matthias’ strength had made them somehow untouchable. They might suffer. They might take their knocks, but Wylan was right, in the end they were all supposed to stay standing.

  “No mourners,” said Jesper, surprised by the ache of tears in his throat.

  “No funerals,” they all replied softly.

  “Go on now,” said Colm. “Say your goodbyes.”

  They walked down to the boathouse. But before Wylan entered, he bent and plucked a red tulip from its bed. They all followed suit and silently filed inside. One by one, they knelt by Nina and rested a flower upon Matthias’ chest, then stood, surrounding his body, as if now that it was too late, they might protect him.

  Kuwei was the last. There were tears in his golden eyes, and Jesper was glad he’d joined their circle. Matthias was the reason Kuwei and Jesper had survived the ambush on Black Veil; he was one of the reasons Kuwei would have a chance to truly live as a Grisha in Ravka.

  Nina turned her face to the water, looking out at the narrow houses that lined the Geldcanal. Jesper saw that the residents had filled their windows with candles, as if these small gestures might somehow push back the dark. “I’m pretending those lights are for him,” she said. She plucked a stray red petal from Matthias’ chest, sighed, and released his hand, rising slowly. “I know it’s time.”

  Jesper put his arm around her. “He loved you so much, Nina. Loving you made him better.”

  “Did it make a difference in the end?”

  “Of course it did,” said Inej. “Matthias and I didn’t pray to the same god, but we knew there was something beyond this life. He went easier to the next world knowing he’d done good in this one.”