Crooked Kingdom (The Six of Crows Duology #2) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,131

into the middle distance. Wylan thought he knew that look.

“Is that—?” asked Wylan.

“Scheming face?” said Jesper.

Matthias nodded. “Definitely.”

“I know how to do it,” Kaz said slowly. “How to get Kuwei out, get the Grisha out, get our money, beat Van Eck, and give that son of a bitch Pekka Rollins everything he has coming to him.”

Nina raised a brow. “Is that all?”

“How?” asked Inej.

“This whole time, we’ve been playing Van Eck’s game. We’ve been hiding. We’re done with that. We’re going to stage a little auction. Right out in the open.” He turned to face them, and his eyes gleamed flat and black as a shark’s. “And since Kuwei is so eager to sacrifice himself, he’s going to be the prize.”

A t the base of the iron staircase, Jesper tried to straighten his shirt and dabbed the blood from his lip, though at this point he figured it wouldn’t matter if he showed up in nothing but his skivvies. His father was no fool, and that ridiculous story Wylan had concocted to cover for Jesper’s mistakes had worn faster than a cheap suit. His father had seen their wounds, he’d heard about their botched plans. He knew they weren’t students or victims of a swindle. So what now?

Close your eyes and hope the firing squad has good aim , he thought bleakly.

“Jesper.”

He whirled. Inej was right behind him. He hadn’t heard her approach, but that was no surprise. Have you told Inej you’re the reason she almost died at the end of Oomen’s knife? Well, Jesper figured he’d be doing a lot of apologizing this morning. Best get to it.

“Inej, I’m sorry—”

“I didn’t come looking for an apology, Jesper. You have a weak spot. We all have weak spots.”

“What’s yours?”

“The company I keep,” she said with a slight smile.

“You don’t even know what I did.”

“Then tell me.”

Jesper looked down at his shoes. They were miserably scuffed. “I was in deep with Pekka Rollins for a lot of kruge . His goons were putting the pressure on, so I … I told them I was leaving town, but that I was about to come into a big score. I didn’t say anything about the Ice Court, I swear.”

“But it was enough for Rollins to put the puzzle together and prepare an ambush.” She sighed. “And Kaz has been punishing you for it ever since.”

Jesper shrugged. “Maybe I deserve it.”

“Do you know the Suli have no words to say ‘I’m sorry’?”

“What do you say when you step on someone’s foot?”

“I don’t step on people’s feet.”

“You know what I mean.”

“We say nothing. We know the slight was not deliberate. We live in tight quarters, traveling together. There’s no time to constantly be apologizing for existing. But when someone does wrong, when we make mistakes, we don’t say we’re sorry. We promise to make amends.”

“I will.”

“Mati en sheva yelu. This action will have no echo. It means we won’t repeat the same mistakes, that we won’t continue to do harm.”

“I’m not going to get you stabbed again.”

“I got stabbed because I let my guard down. You betrayed your crew.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“It would be better if you had meant to betray us. Jesper, I don’t want an apology, not until you can promise that you won’t keep making the same mistake.”

Jesper rocked lightly on his heels. “I don’t know how to do that.”

“There’s a wound in you, and the tables, the dice, the cards—they feel like medicine. They soothe you, put you right for a time. But they’re poison, Jesper. Every time you play, you take another sip. You have to find some other way to heal that part of yourself.” She laid her hand on his chest. “Stop treating your pain like it’s something you imagined. If you see the wound is real, then you can heal it.”

A wound? He opened his mouth to deny it, but something stopped him. For all his trouble at the tables and away from them, Jesper had always thought of himself as lucky. Happy, easygoing. The kind of guy people wanted around. But what if he’d been bluffing this whole time? Angry and frightened —that’s what the Fjerdan had called him. What had Matthias and Inej seen in Jesper that he didn’t understand?

“I … I’ll try.” It was the most he could offer right now. He took her hand in his, pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “It may take me a while before I can say those words.” His lips tilted in a grin. “And not just