Crooked Kingdom: Book 2 (Six of Crows) Read online

  Inej slid the balance pole from its loop on her vest and, with a flick, extended it to its full length. She tested its weight in her hands, flexed her toes in her slippers. They were leather, stolen from the Cirkus Zirkoa at her request. Their smooth soles lacked the firm, tactile grip of her beloved rubber shoes, but the slippers allowed her to release more easily.

  At last the signal came from Nina, a brief flash of green light.

  Inej stepped out onto the wire. Instantly, the wind snatched at her and she released a long breath, feeling its per sis tent tug, using the flexible pole to pull her center of gravity lower.

  She let her knees bounce once. Thankfully, the wire had almost no give. She walked, feeling the hard press of it beneath the arches of her feet. With each step, it bowed slightly, eager to twist away from her gripping toes.

  The air felt warm against her skin. It smelled of sugar and molasses. Her hood was down and she could feel the hairs from her braid escaping to tickle her face. She focused on the wire, feeling the familiar kinship she’d experienced as a child, as if the wire were clinging to her as closely as she clung to it, welcoming her into that mirror world, a secret place occupied by her alone. In moments, she’d reached the rooftop of the second silo.

  She stepped onto it, retracting the balance pole and returning it to its sling. She took a sip of water from the flask in her pocket, allowed herself the briefest moment to stretch. Then she opened the hatch and dropped in the weevil. Again she heard that crackling hiss, and her nose filled with the smell of burning sugar. It was stronger this time, a sweet, dense cloud of perfume.

  Suddenly, she was back at the Menagerie, a thick hand grasping her wrist, demanding. Inej had gotten good at anticipating when a memory might seize her, bracing for it, but this time she wasn’t prepared. It came at her, more insistent than the wind on the wire, sending her mind sprawling. Though he smelled of vanilla, beneath it, she could smell garlic. She felt the slither of silk all around her as if the bed itself were a living thing.

  Inej didn’t remember all of them. As the nights at the Menagerie had strung together, she had become better at numbing herself, vanishing so completely that she almost didn’t care what was done to the body she left behind. She learned that the men who came to the house never looked too closely, never asked too many questions. They wanted an illusion, and they were willing to ignore anything to preserve that illusion. Tears, of course, were forbidden. She had cried the first night. Tante Heleen had used the switch on her, then the cane, then choked her until she’d passed out. The next time, Inej’s fear was greater than her sorrow.

  She learned to smile, to whisper, to arch her back and make the sounds Tante Heleen’s customers required. She still wept, but the tears were never shed. They filled the empty place inside her, a well of sadness where, each night, she sank like a stone. The Menagerie was one of the most expensive pleasure houses in the Barrel, but its customers were no kinder than those who frequented the dollar houses and alley girls. In some ways, Inej came to understand, they were worse. When a man spends that much coin , said the Kaelish girl, Caera, he thinks he’s earned the right to do whatever he wants.

  There were young men, old men, handsome men, ugly men. There was the man who cried and struck her when he could not perform. The man who wanted her to pretend it was their wedding night and tell him that she loved him. The man with sharp teeth like a kitten who had bitten at her breasts until she’d bled. Tante Heleen added the price of the blood-speckled sheets and the days of work Inej missed to her indenture. But he hadn’t been the worst. The worst had been a Ravkan man who had chosen her in the parlor, the man who smelled of vanilla. Only when they were back in her room amid the purple silks and incense did he say, “I’ve seen you before, you know.”

  Inej had laughed, thinking this was part of the game he wished to play, and poured him wine from a golden carafe. “Surely not.”

  “It was years ago, at one of the carnivals outside Caryeva.”

  Wine sloshed over the lip of the glass. “You must have me confused with someone else.”

  “No,” he said, eager as a boy. “I’m sure of it. I saw your family perform there. I was on military leave. You couldn’t have been more than ten, the barest slip of a girl, walking the high wire without fear. You wore a headdress covered in roses. At one point, you bobbled. You lost your footing and the petals of your crown came loose in a cloud that drifted down, down.” He fluttered his fingers through the air as if miming a snowfall. “The crowd gasped—and so did I. I came back the second night, and it happened again, and even though then I knew it was all part of the act, I still felt my heart clench as you pretended to regain your balance.”

  Inej tried to steady her shaking hands. The rose headdress had been her mother’s idea. “You make it look too easy, meja , scampering around like a squirrel on a branch. They must believe you are in danger even if you are not.”

  That had been Inej’s worst night at the Menagerie, because when the man who smelled of vanilla had begun to kiss her neck and peel away her silks, she hadn’t been able to leave her body behind. Somehow his memory of her had tied her past and present together, pinned her there beneath him. She’d cried, but he hadn’t seemed to mind.

  Inej could hear the hissing of the sugar as the weevil did its work. She forced herself to focus on the sound, to breathe past the constriction in her throat.

  I will have you without armor. Those were the words she’d said to Kaz aboard the Ferolind , desperate for some sign that he might open himself to her, that they could be more than two wary creatures united by their distrust of the world. But what might have happened if he’d spoken that night? If he had willingly offered her some part of his heart? What if he had come to her, laid his gloves aside, drawn her to him, kissed her mouth? Would she have pulled him closer? Kissed him back? Could she have been herself in such a moment, or would she have broken apart and vanished, a doll in his arms, a girl who could never quite be whole?

  It didn’t matter. Kaz hadn’t spoken, and perhaps that had been best for them both. They could continue on with their armor intact. She would have her ship and he would have his city.

  Inej reached out to close the hatch and took a deep breath of coal-tinged air, coughing the sweetness of the ruined sugar from her lungs. Then she stumbled as she felt a hand grab the back of her neck, shove her forward.

  She felt her center of gravity shift as she was sucked into the yawning mouth of the silo.

  G etting into the house wasn’t nearly as difficult as it should have been, and it put Kaz on edge. Was he giving Van Eck too much credit? The man thinks like a merch , Kaz reminded himself as he tucked his cane beneath his arm and eased down a drainpipe. He still believes his money keeps him safe.

  The easiest points of entry were the windows on the house’s top floor, accessible only from the roof. Wylan wasn’t up to the climb or the descent, so Kaz would go first and get him inside via the lower floors.

  “Two good legs and he still needs a ladder,” Kaz muttered, ignoring the twinge his leg gave in agreement.

  He wasn’t thrilled to be on another job with Wylan, but Wylan’s knowledge of the house and his father’s habits would be useful if any surprises cropped up, and he was best equipped to handle the auric acid. Kaz thought of Inej, perched on the roof of the Church of Barter, the city lights glinting below. This is what I’m good at, so let me do my job. Fine. He would let them all do their jobs. Nina would hold up her end of the mission, and Inej had seemed confident enough in her ability to walk the wire—with little rest and without the security of a net. Would she have told you if she was afraid? Is that something you’ve ever shown sympathy for?

  Kaz shook the thought from his mind. If Inej didn’t doubt her abilities, then he shouldn’t either. Besides, if they wanted that seal for Nina’s darling refugees, he had his own problems to contend with.

  Luckily, Van Eck’s security system wasn’t one of them. Inej’s surveillance had indicated that the locks
were Schuyler work. They were complicated little bastards, but once you’d cracked one, you’d cracked them all. Kaz had gotten on very friendly terms with a locksmith in Klokstraat who firmly believed Kaz was the son of a wealthy merchant who highly valued his collection of priceless snuffboxes. Consequently, Kaz was always first to know exactly how the rich of Ketterdam were keeping their property secure. Kaz had once heard Hubrecht Mohren, Master Thief of Pijl, extemporizing on the beauty of a quality lock while drunk on brown lager in the Crow Club.

  “A lock is like a woman,” he’d said blearily. “You have to seduce it into giving up its secrets.” He was one of Per Haskell’s old cronies, happy to talk about better days and big scams, especially if it meant he didn’t have to do much work. And that was exactly the kind of muddled wisdom these old cadgers loved to spout. Sure, a lock was like a woman. It was also like a man and anyone or anything else—if you wanted to understand it, you had to take it apart and see how it worked. If you wanted to master it, you had to learn it so well you could put it back together.

  The lock on the window gave way in his hands with a satisfying click. He slid open the sash and climbed inside. The tiny rooms on the top floor of Van Eck’s house were devoted to the servants’ quarters, but all of the staff were currently occupied below with Van Eck’s guests. Some of the richest members of the Kerch Merchant Council were filling their bellies in the first-floor dining room, probably listening to Van Eck’s tale of woe about his son’s kidnapping and commiserating about the gangs controlling the Barrel. From the smell in the air, Kaz suspected ham was on the menu.

  He opened the door and quietly made his way to the staircase, then proceeded cautiously down to the second floor. He knew Van Eck’s house from when he and Inej had heisted the DeKappel oil, and he always liked returning to a home or a business he’d had cause to visit before. It wasn’t just the familiarity. It was as if by returning, he laid claim to a place. We know each other’s secrets , the house seemed to say. Welcome back.

  A guard stood at attention at the end of the carpeted hallway in front of what Kaz knew was Alys’ door. Kaz checked his watch. There was a brief pop and a flash of light from the window at the end of the hall. At least Wylan was punctual. The guard went to investigate, and Kaz slipped down the hall in the other direction.

  He ducked into Wylan’s old room—which was now clearly intended to be the nursery. By the light from the street below, he could see its walls had been decorated with an elaborate seascape mural. The bassinet was shaped like a tiny sailing ship, complete with flags and a captain’s wheel. Van Eck was really embracing this new heir thing.

  Kaz worked the lock on the nursery window and pushed it open, then secured the rope ladder and waited. He heard a loud thud and winced. Apparently Wylan had made it over the garden wall. Hopefully he hadn’t broken the containers of auric acid and burned a hole through himself and the rosebushes. A moment later, Kaz heard panting and Wylan rounded the corner, bustling along like a harried goose. When he was below the window, he tucked his satchel carefully against his body and climbed up the rope ladder, sending it swaying wildly left and right. Kaz helped him through the window, then pulled the ladder in and closed the sash. They’d exit the same way.

  Wylan looked around the nursery with wide eyes, then just shook his head. Kaz checked the hall. The guard was back at his post in front of Alys’ door.

  “Well?” Kaz whispered to Wylan.

  “It’s a slow-burning fuse,” said Wylan. “The timing is imprecise.”

  The seconds ticked by. Finally, another pop sounded. The guard returned to the window, and Kaz gestured for Wylan to follow him along the hallway. Kaz made quick work of the lock on Van Eck’s office door, and they were inside in moments.

  When Kaz had broken into the house to steal the DeKappel, he’d been surprised by the office’s plush trappings. He’d expected severe mercher restraint, but the woodwork was heavily ornamented with swags of laurel leaves; a chair the size of a throne, upholstered in crimson velvet, loomed over the wide, glossy desk.

  “Behind the painting,” Wylan whispered, gesturing to a portrait of one of the Van Eck ancestors.

  “Which member of your hallowed line is that supposed to be?”

  “Martin Van Eck, my great-great-grandfather. He was a ship’s captain, the first to land at Eames Chin and navigate the river inland. He brought back a shipload of spices and used the profits to buy a second ship—that’s what my father told me, anyway. That was the start of the Van Eck fortune.”

  “And we’ll be the end of it.” Kaz shook out a bonelight, and the green glow filled the room. “Quite a resemblance,” he said, glancing at the gaunt face, the high brow, and stern blue eyes.

  Wylan shrugged. “Except for the red hair, I always took after my father. And his father and all the Van Ecks. Well, until now.”

  They each took a side of the painting and lifted it from the wall.

  “Look at you,” Kaz crooned as Van Eck’s safe came into view. Safe didn’t even seem like the right word. It was more like a vault, a steel door set into a wall that had itself been reinforced with more steel. The lock on it was Kerch-made but like nothing Kaz had ever seen before, a series of tumblers that could be reset with a random combination of numbers every day. Impossible to crack in less than an hour. But if you couldn’t open a door, you just had to make a new one.

  The sound of raised voices filtered up from the floor below. The merchers were finding something to disagree about. Kaz wouldn’t have minded a chance to eavesdrop on that conversation. “Let’s go,” he said. “The clock is ticking.”

  Wylan removed two jars from his satchel. On their own, they were nothing special, but if Wylan was right, once they were combined, the resulting compound would burn through everything except the balsa glass container.

  Wylan took a deep breath and held the jars away from his body. “Stay back,” he said, and poured the contents of one jar into the other. Nothing happened.

  “Well?” Kaz said.

  “Move, please.”

  Wylan took a balsa glass pipette and drew out a small amount of liquid, letting it trickle down the front of the safe’s steel door. Instantly, the metal began to dissolve, giving off a noisy crackle that seemed uncomfortably loud in the small room. A sharp metallic smell filled the air, and both Kaz and Wylan covered their faces with their sleeves.

  “Trouble in a bottle,” Kaz marveled.

  Wylan worked steadily, carefully transferring the auric acid from the jar onto the steel, the hole in the safe door growing steadily larger.

  “Pick up the pace,” Kaz said, eyeing his watch.

  “If I spill a single drop of this, it will burn straight through the floor onto my father’s dinner guests.”

  “Take your time.”

  The acid consumed the metal in rapid bursts, burning quickly and only gradually tapering off. Hopefully, it wouldn’t eat through too much of the wall after they left. He didn’t mind the idea of the office collapsing on Van Eck and his guests, but not before the night’s business was complete.

  After what felt like a lifetime, the hole was big enough to reach through. Kaz shone the bonelight inside and saw a ledger, stacks of kruge, and a little velvet bag. Kaz drew the bag from the safe, wincing when his arm made contact with the edge of the hole. The steel was still hot enough to singe.

  He shook the contents of the bag into his leather-clad palm: a fat gold ring with an engraving of a red laurel and Van Eck’s initials.

  He tucked the ring into his pocket, then grabbed a couple of stacks of kruge and handed one over to Wylan.

  Kaz almost laughed at the expression on Wylan’s face. “Does this bother you, merchling?”

  “I don’t enjoy feeling like a thief.”

  “After everything he’s done?”

  “Yes.”

  “So much for righteous. You do realize we’re stealing your money?”

  “Jesper said the same thing, but I’m sure my father wrote me out of h
is will as soon as Alys became pregnant.”

  “That doesn’t mean you’re any less entitled to it.”

  “I don’t want it. I just don’t want him to have it.”

  “What a luxury to turn your back on luxury.” Kaz shoved the kruge into his pockets.

  “How would I run an empire?” Wylan said, tossing the pipette into the safe to smolder. “I can’t read a ledger or a bill of lading. I can’t write a purchase order. My father is wrong about a lot of things, but he’s right about that. I’d be a laughingstock.”

  “So pay someone to do that work for you.”

  “Would you?” asked Wylan, his chin jutting forward. “Trust someone with that knowledge, with a secret that could destroy you?”

  Yes , thought Kaz without hesitation. There’s one person I would trust. One person I know would never use my weaknesses against me.

  He thumbed quickly through the ledger and said, “When people see a cripple walking down the street, leaning on his cane, what do they feel?” Wylan looked away. People always did when Kaz talked about his limp, as if he didn’t know what he was or how the world saw him. “They feel pity. Now, what do they think when they see me coming?”

  Wylan’s mouth quirked up at the corner. “They think they’d better cross the street.”

  Kaz tossed the ledger back in the safe. “You’re not weak because you can’t read. You’re weak because you’re afraid of people seeing your weakness. You’re letting shame decide who you are. Help me with the painting.”

  They lifted the portrait back into place over the gaping hole in the safe. Martin Van Eck glared down at them.

  “Think on it, Wylan,” Kaz said as he straightened the frame. “It’s shame that lines my pockets, shame that keeps the Barrel teeming with fools ready to put on a mask just so they can have what they want with no one the wiser for it. We can endure all kinds of pain. It’s shame that eats men whole.”