Crooked Kingdom (The Six of Crows Duology #2) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,139

take the long way,” said Kaz. He wanted his mind on the fight ahead and avoiding notice, not on the chance he was going to tumble to his death.

When he was satisfied he could follow the route from memory, he tucked the map away and took another paper from his pocket. It bore the pale green seal of the Gemensbank. He handed it to her.

“What is this?” she asked, her eyes scanning the page. “It’s not …” She ran her fingertips over the words as if expecting them to vanish. “My contract,” she whispered.

“I don’t want you beholden to Per Haskell. Or me.” Another half-truth. His mind had concocted a hundred schemes to bind her to him, to keep her in this city. But she’d spent enough of her life caged by debts and obligations, and it would be better for them both when she was gone.

“How?” she said. “The money—”

“It’s done.” He’d liquidated every asset he had, used the last of the savings he’d accrued, every ill-gotten cent.

She pressed the envelope to her chest, above her heart. “I have no words to thank you for this.”

“Surely the Suli have a thousand proverbs for such an occasion?”

“Words have not been invented for such an occasion.”

“If I end up on the gallows, you can say something nice over the corpse,” he said. “Wait until six bells. If I’m not back, try to get everyone out of the city.”

“Kaz—”

“There’s a discolored brick in the wall behind the Crow Club. Behind it you’ll find twenty thousand kruge . It’s not much, but it should be enough to bribe a few stadwatch grunts.” He knew their chances would be slim and that it was his fault. “You’d have a better shot on your own—even better if you left now.”

Inej narrowed her eyes. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that. These are my friends. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Tell me about Dunyasha,” he said.

“She was carrying quality blades.” Inej took the shears from the table of the vanity and began cutting fresh strips of cloth from one of the towels. “I think she may be my shadow.”

“Pretty solid shadow if she can throw knives.”

“The Suli believe that when we do wrong, we give life to our shadows. Every sin makes the shadow stronger, until eventually the shadow is stronger than you.”

“If that were true, my shadow would have put Ketterdam in permanent night.”

“Maybe,” Inej said, turning her dark gaze to his. “Or maybe you’re someone else’s shadow.”

“You mean Pekka.”

“What happens if you make it back from the Slat? If the auction goes as planned and we manage this feat?”

“Then you get your ship and your future.”

“And you?”

“I wreak all the havoc I can until my luck runs out. I use our haul to build an empire.”

“And after that?”

“Who knows? Maybe I’ll burn it to the ground.”

“Is that what makes you different from Rollins? That you’ll leave nothing behind?”

“I am not Pekka Rollins or his shadow. I don’t sell girls into brothels. I don’t con helpless kids out of their money.”

“Look at the floor of the Crow Club, Kaz.” Her voice was gentle, patient—why was it making him want to set fire to something? “Think of every racket and card game and theft you’ve run. Did all those men and women deserve what they got or what they had taken from them?”

“Life isn’t ever what we deserve, Inej. If it were—”

“Did your brother get what he deserved?”

“No.” But the denial felt hollow.

Why had he called Jesper by Jordie’s name? When he looked into the past, he saw his brother through the eyes of the boy he’d been: brave, brilliant, infallible, a knight bested by a dragon dressed like a merch. But how would he see Jordie now? As a mark? Another dumb pigeon looking for a shortcut? He leaned his hands on the edge of the sink. He wasn’t angry anymore. He just felt weary. “We were fools.”

“You were children. Was there no one to protect you?”

“Was there anyone to protect you ?”

“My father. My mother. They would have done anything to keep me from being stolen.”

“And they would have been mowed down by slavers.”

“Then I guess I was lucky I didn’t have to see that.”

How could she still look at the world that way? “Sold into a brothel at age fourteen and you count yourself lucky.”

“They loved me. They love me. I believe that.” He saw her draw closer in the mirror. Her black hair was an ink splash against the white tile walls. She