Crooked Kingdom Read online

  Van Eck could not have chosen her jailer better. Bajan was Suli, only a few years older than Inej, with thick black hair that curled around his collar and black gem eyes framed by lashes long enough to swat flies. He told her he was a music teacher indentured to Van Eck, and Inej wondered that the merch would bring a boy like that into his household given that his new wife was less than half his own age. Van Eck was either very confident or very stupid. He double-crossed Kaz, she reminded herself. He’s leaning heavily into the stupid column.

  Once the mess had been cleaned up—by a guard; Bajan didn’t stoop to such work—and a new meal procured, he’d leaned against the wall to watch her eat. She’d scooped up a lump of porridge with her fingers, allowing herself only a few awkward bites.

  “You must eat more than that,” Bajan chided. “If you make yourself a bit more obliging, if you answer his questions, you’ll find Van Eck is a reasonable man.”

  “A reasonable liar, cheat, and kidnapper,” she said, then cursed herself for replying.

  Bajan couldn’t hide his pleasure. They had the same routine at each meal: She picked at her food. He made small talk, peppering his chatter with pointed questions about Kaz and the Dregs. Every time she spoke, he considered it a victory. Unfortunately, the less she ate, the weaker she got, and the harder it was to keep her wits about her.

  “Given the company you keep, I’d think lying and cheating would be points in Mister Van Eck’s favor.”

  “Shevrati,” Inej said distinctly. Know-nothing. She’d called Kaz that on more than one occasion. She thought of Jesper toying with his guns, Nina squeezing the life from a man with the flick of a wrist, Kaz picking a lock in his black gloves. Thugs. Thieves. Murderers. And all worth more than a thousand Jan Van Ecks.

  Then where are they? The question tore at some hastily stitched seam inside of her. Where is Kaz? She didn’t want to look at that question too closely. Above everything else, Kaz was practical. Why would he come for her when he could walk away from Van Eck with the most valuable hostage in the world?

  Bajan wrinkled his nose. “Let’s not speak Suli. It makes me maudlin.” He wore tapered silk trousers and an elegantly cut coat. Pinned to his lapel, a golden lyre crowned with laurel leaves and a small ruby indicated both his profession and the house of his indenture.

  Inej knew she shouldn’t continue to talk with him, but she was still a gatherer of secrets. “What instruments do you teach?” she said. “Harp? Pianoforte?”

  “Also flute, and voice for ladies.”

  “And how does Alys Van Eck sing?”

  Bajan gave her a lazy grin. “Most prettily under my instruction. I could teach you to make all manner of pleasing sounds.”

  Inej rolled her eyes. He was just like the boys she’d grown up with, a head full of nonsense and a mouth full of easy charm. “I am bound and facing the prospect of torture or worse. Are you actually flirting with me?”

  Bajan tsked. “Mister Van Eck and your Mister Brekker will reach an arrangement. Van Eck is a businessman. From what I understand, he is simply protecting his interests. I cannot imagine he would resort to torture.”

  “Were you the one tied up and blindfolded every night, your imagination might not fail you so completely.”

  And if Bajan had known Kaz at all, he wouldn’t be so certain of an exchange.

  In the long hours she was left alone, Inej tried to rest and put her mind to escape, but inevitably her thoughts turned to Kaz and the others. Van Eck wanted to trade her for Kuwei Yul-Bo, the Shu boy they had stolen from the deadliest fortress in the world. He was the only person who had a hope of re-creating his father’s work on the drug known as jurda parem, and the price of his ransom would give Kaz all he had ever wanted—all the money and prestige he needed to take his rightful place among the bosses of the Barrel, and the chance at revenge on Pekka Rollins for the death of his brother. The facts lined up one after another, an army of doubts assembled against the hope she tried to keep steady inside her.

  Kaz’s course was obvious: Ransom Kuwei, take the money, find himself a new spider to scale the walls of the Barrel and steal secrets for him. And hadn’t she told him she planned on leaving Ketterdam as soon as they were paid? Stay with me. Had he meant it? What value did her life carry in the face of the reward Kuwei might garner? Nina would never let Kaz abandon her. She’d fight with everything she had to free Inej even if she was still in the grips of parem. Matthias would stand by her with that great heart full of honor. And Jesper … well, Jesper would never do Inej harm, but he needed money badly if he didn’t want his father to lose his livelihood. He would do his best, but that might not necessarily mean what was best for her. Besides, without Kaz, were any of them a match for Van Eck’s ruthlessness and resources? I am, Inej told herself. I may not have Kaz’s devious mind, but I am a dangerous girl.

  Van Eck had sent Bajan to her every day, and he’d been nothing but amiable and pleasant even as he’d prodded her for the locations of Kaz’s safe houses. She suspected that Van Eck didn’t come himself because he knew Kaz would be keeping a close eye on his movements. Or maybe he thought she’d be more vulnerable to a Suli boy than a wily merch. But tonight something had changed.

  Bajan usually left when Inej had made it clear she would eat no more—a parting smile, a small bow, and away he went, duty dispatched until the following morning. Tonight he had lingered.

  Instead of taking his cue to vanish when she used her bound hands to nudge away her dish, he’d said, “When did you see your family last?”

  A new approach. “Has Van Eck offered you some reward if you can extract information from me?”

  “It was just a question.”

  “And I am just a captive. Did he threaten you with punishment?”

  Bajan glanced at the guards and said quietly, “Van Eck could bring you back to your family. He could pay off your contract with Per Haskell. It is well within his means.”

  “Was this your idea or your master’s?”

  “Why does it matter?” Bajan asked. There was an urgency in his voice that pricked at Inej’s defenses. When fear arrives, something is about to happen. But was he afraid of Van Eck or afraid for her? “You can walk away from the Dregs and Per Haskell and that horrid Kaz Brekker free and clear. Van Eck could give you transport to Ravka, money to travel.”

  An offer or a threat? Could Van Eck have found her mother and father? The Suli were not easy to track, and they would be wary of strangers asking questions. But what if Van Eck had sent men claiming to have knowledge of a lost girl? A girl who had vanished one chilly dawn as if the tide had reached up to the shore to claim her?

  “What does Van Eck know about my family?” she asked, anger rising.

  “He knows you’re far from home. He knows the terms of your indenture with the Menagerie.”

  “Then he knows I was a slave. Will he have Tante Heleen arrested?”

  “I … don’t think—”

  “Of course not. Van Eck doesn’t care that I was bought and sold like a bolt of cotton. He’s just looking for leverage.”

  But what Bajan asked next took Inej by surprise. “Did your mother make skillet bread?”

  She frowned. “Of course.” It was a Suli staple. Inej could have made skillet bread in her sleep.

  “With rosemary?”

  “Dill, when we had it.” She knew what Bajan was doing, trying to make her think of home. But she was so hungry and the memory was so strong that her stomach growled anyway. She could see her mother damping the fire, see her flipping the bread with quick pinches of her fingers, smell the dough cooking over the ashes.

  “Your friends are not coming,” said Bajan. “It is time to think of your own survival. You could be home with your family by summer’s end. Van Eck can help you if you let him.”

  Every alarm inside Inej had sounded danger. The play was too obvious. Beneath Bajan’s charm, his dark eyes, his easy promises, there was fear. And yet amid the clamor of suspicion, she could hear the soft ch
iming of another bell, the sound of What if? What if she let herself be comforted, gave up the pretense of being beyond the things she’d lost? What if she simply let Van Eck put her on a ship, send her home? She could taste the skillet bread, warm from the pan, see her mother’s dark braid twined with ribbons, strands of silk the color of ripe persimmons.

  But Inej knew better than that. She’d learned from the best. Better terrible truths than kind lies. Kaz had never offered her happiness, and she didn’t trust the men promising to serve it up to her now. Her suffering had not been for nothing. Her Saints had brought her to Ketterdam for a reason—a ship to hunt slavers, a mission to give meaning to all she’d been through. She would not betray that purpose or her friends for some dream of the past.

  Inej hissed at Bajan, an animal sound that made him flinch backward. “Tell your master to honor his old deals before he starts making new ones,” she said. “Now leave me alone.”

  Bajan had scurried away like the well-dressed rat he was, but Inej knew it was time to go. Bajan’s new insistence could mean nothing good for her. I have to get out of this trap, she’d thought, before this creature lures me with memories and sympathy. Maybe Kaz and the others were coming for her, but she didn’t intend to wait around and see.

  Once Bajan and the guards had left, she’d slipped the shard of broken bowl from where she’d hidden it beneath the ropes around her ankles and set to work. Weak and wobbly as she’d felt when Bajan had arrived with that heavenly smelling bowl of mush, she’d only pretended to swoon so that she could deliberately knock her tray off the table. If Van Eck had really done his research, he would have warned Bajan that the Wraith did not fall. Certainly not in a clumsy heap on the floor where she could easily tuck a sharp piece of crockery between her bonds.

  After what seemed like a lifetime of sawing and scraping and bloodying her fingertips on the shard’s edge, she’d finally severed her ropes and freed her hands, then untied her ankles and felt her way to the vent. Bajan and the guards wouldn’t be back until morning. That gave her the whole night to escape this place and get as far away as she possibly could.

  The passage was a miserably tight fit, the air inside musty with smells she couldn’t quite identify, the dark so complete she might as well have kept her blindfold on. She had no idea where the vent might lead. It could run for a few more feet or for half a mile. She needed to be gone by morning or they’d find the grating that covered the vent loosened on its hinges and know exactly where she was.

  Good luck getting me out, she thought grimly. She doubted any of Van Eck’s guards could squeeze inside the air shaft. They’d have to find some kitchen boy and grease him down with lard.

  She inched forward. How far had she gone? Every time she took a deep breath, it felt like the air shaft was tightening around her ribs. For all she knew, she could be atop a building. She might pop her head out the other side only to find a busy Ketterdam street far below. Inej could contend with that. But if the shaft just ended? If it was walled up on the other side? She’d have to squirm backward the entire distance and hope to refasten her ropes so that her captors wouldn’t know what she’d done. Impossible. There could be no dead ends tonight.

  Faster, she told herself, sweat beading on her brow. It was hard not to imagine the building compressing around her, its walls squeezing the breath from her lungs. She couldn’t make a real plan until she reached the end of this tunnel, until she knew just how far she’d have to go to evade Van Eck’s men.

  Then she felt it, the barest gust of air brushing against her damp forehead. She whispered a quick prayer of thanks. There must be some kind of opening up ahead. She sniffed, searching for a hint of coal smoke or the wet green fields of a country town. Cautiously, she wiggled forward until her fingers made contact with the slats of the vent. There was no light trickling through, which she supposed was a good thing. The room she was about to drop into must be unoccupied. Saints, what if she was in Van Eck’s mansion? What if she was about to land on a sleeping merch? She listened for some human sound—snores, deep breathing. Nothing.

  She wished for her knives, for the comforting weight of them in her palms. Did Van Eck still have them in his possession? Had he sold them off? Tossed them into the sea? She named the blades anyway—Petyr, Marya, Anastasia, Lizabeta, Sankt Vladimir, Sankta Alina—and found courage in each whispered word. Then she jiggled the vent and gave it a hard shove. It flew open, but instead of swinging on its hinges, it came completely loose. She tried to grab it, but it slid past her fingertips and clattered to the floor.

  Inej waited, heart pounding. A minute passed in silence. Another. No one came. The room was empty. Maybe the whole building was empty. Van Eck wouldn’t have left her unguarded, so his men must be stationed outside. If that was the case, she knew slipping past them would present little challenge. And at least now she knew roughly how far away the floor was.

  There was no graceful way to accomplish what came next. She slid down headfirst, gripping the wall. Then, when she was more than halfway out and her body began to tip, she let momentum carry her forward, curling into a ball and tucking her arms over her head to protect her skull and neck as she fell.

  The impact was fairly painless. The floor was hard concrete like the floor of her cell, but she rolled as she struck and came up against what seemed to be the back of something solid. She pulled herself to her feet, hands exploring whatever she’d banged into. It was upholstered in velvet. As she moved along, she felt another identical object next to it. Seats, she realized. I’m in a theater.

  There were plenty of music halls and theaters in the Barrel. Could she be so close to home? Or maybe in one of the respectable opera houses of the Lid?

  She moved slowly, hands out before her until she reached a wall at what she thought was the back of the theater. She groped along it, seeking a door, a window, even another vent. Finally, her fingers hooked over a door frame and her hands wrapped around the knob. It wouldn’t budge. Locked. She gave it a tentative rattle.

  The room flooded with light. Inej shrank back against the door, squinting in the sudden brightness.

  “If you wanted a tour, Miss Ghafa, you might simply have asked,” said Jan Van Eck.

  He stood on the stage of the decrepit theater, his black mercher’s suit cut in severe lines. The theater’s green velvet seats were moth-eaten. The curtains bracketing the stage hung in shreds. No one had bothered to take down the set from the last play. It looked like a child’s terrified vision of a surgeon’s operating room, oversized saws and mallets hanging from the walls. Inej recognized it as the set for The Madman and the Doctor, one of the short plays from the Komedie Brute.

  Guards were stationed around the room, and Bajan stood beside Van Eck, wringing his elegant hands. Had the vent been left open to tempt her? Had Van Eck been toying with her all along?

  “Bring her here,” Van Eck told the guards.

  Inej didn’t hesitate. She sprang onto the narrow back of the nearest theater seat, then raced toward the stage, leaping from row to row as the guards tried to scramble over the seats. She vaulted onto the stage, past a startled Van Eck, neatly skirting two more guards, and seized one of the stage ropes, shinnying up its length, praying it would hold her weight until she made it to the top. She could hide in the rafters, find a way to the roof.

  “Cut her down!” Van Eck called, his voice calm.

  Inej climbed higher, faster. But seconds later she saw a face above her. One of Van Eck’s guards, a knife in his hand. He slashed through the rope.

  It gave way and Inej fell to the floor, softening her knees to take the impact. Before she could right herself, three guards were on her, holding her in place.

  “Really, Miss Ghafa,” Van Eck chided. “We’re well aware of your gifts. Did you think I wouldn’t take precautions?” He did not wait for an answer. “You are not going to find your way out of this without my help or Mister Brekker’s. As he does not seem to be making an appearance, perhaps you should consider a chan
ge in alliance.”

  Inej said nothing.

  Van Eck tucked his hands behind his back. It was strange to look at him and see the ghost of Wylan’s face. “The city is awash in rumors of parem. A delegation of Fjerdan drüskelle has arrived in the embassy sector. Today the Shu sailed two warships into Third Harbor. I gave Brekker seven days to broker a trade for your safety, but they are all looking for Kuwei Yul-Bo, and it is imperative that I get him out of the city before they find him.”

  Two Shu warships. That was what had changed. Van Eck was out of time. Had Bajan known it or simply sensed the difference in his master’s mood?

  “I had hoped Bajan might prove good for something other than bettering my wife’s talent at the pianoforte,” Van Eck continued. “But it seems you and I must now come to an arrangement. Where is Kaz Brekker keeping the boy?”

  “How could I possibly know that?”

  “You must know the locations of the Dregs’ safe houses. Brekker does nothing without preparation. He’ll have warrens to hide in all over the city.”

  “If you know him so well, then you know he’d never keep Kuwei somewhere that I could lead you to him.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “I can’t help what you do or don’t believe. Your Shu scientist is probably long gone already.”

  “Word would have reached me. My spies are everywhere.”

  “Clearly not everywhere.”

  Bajan’s lips quirked.

  Van Eck shook his head wearily. “Get her on the table.”

  Inej knew it was pointless to struggle, but she did anyway. It was fight or give in to the terror that rushed through her as the guards hefted her onto the table and pinned down her limbs. Now she saw one of the prop tables was set with instruments that looked nothing like the oversized mallets and saws hanging from the walls. They were real surgeon’s tools. Scalpels and saws and clamps that gleamed with sinister intent.

  “You are the Wraith, Miss Ghafa, legend of the Barrel. You’ve gathered the secrets of judges, councilmen, thieves, and killers alike. I doubt there is anything in this city you do not know. You will tell me the locations of Mister Brekker’s safe houses now.”