Crooked Kingdom (The Six of Crows Duology #2) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,14

were dwindling, and Matthias knew Nina would allow herself no comfort until Inej was safe.

“It’s not a mission; it’s a job,” Nina corrected. “And it went splendidly.”

“Yeah,” said Jesper. “Splendidly. Except that my revolvers are currently collecting dust in the Club Cumulus safe. Smeet was afraid to walk home with them, the hopeless podge. Just thinking of my babies in his sweaty hands—”

“No one told you to wager them,” said Kaz.

“You dealt me into a corner. How the hell else was I supposed to get Smeet to stay at the tables?”

Kuwei poked his head out of the huge stone tomb as they approached.

“What did I tell you?” Kaz growled, pointing his cane at him.

“My Kerch isn’t very good,” protested Kuwei.

“Don’t run game on me, kid. It’s good enough. Stay in the tomb.”

Kuwei hung his head. “Stay in the tomb,” he repeated glumly.

They followed the Shu boy inside. Matthias loathed this place. Why build such monuments to death? The tomb was constructed to look like an ancient cargo ship, its interior carved into a vast stone hull. It even had stained-glass portholes that cast rainbows on the crypt floor in the late afternoon. According to Nina, the carvings of palm trees and snakes on the walls indicated that the family had been spice traders. But they must have fallen on hard times or simply taken their dead elsewhere, because only one of the vaults had a resident, and the narrow passages on either side of the main hull were equally empty.

Nina pulled the pins from her hair, shucked off the blonde wig, and tossed it on the table they’d set in the middle of the tomb. She slumped into a chair, rubbing her fingers along her scalp. “So much better,” she said with a happy sigh. But Matthias could not ignore the almost greenish cast to her skin.

She was worse tonight. Either she’d run into trouble with Smeet or she’d simply overexerted herself. And yet, watching her, Matthias felt something in him ease. At least now she looked like Nina again, her brown hair in damp tangles, her eyes half-shut. Was it normal to be fascinated by the way someone slouched?

“Guess what we saw on our way out of the Lid?” she asked.

Jesper started digging through their food stores. “Two Shu warships sitting in the harbor.”

She threw a hairpin at him. “I was going to make them guess.”

“Shu?” asked Kuwei, returning to where he’d spread his notebooks over the table.

Nina nodded. “Cannons out, red flags flying.”

“I talked to Specht earlier,” said Kaz. “The embassies are full up with diplomats and soldiers. Zemeni, Kaelish, Ravkan.”

“You think they know about Kuwei?” Jesper asked.

“I think they know about parem ,” said Kaz. “Rumors, at least. And there were plenty of interested parties at the Ice Court to pick up gossip about Kuwei’s … liberation.” He turned his gaze on Matthias. “The Fjerdans are here too. They’ve got a whole contingent of drüskelle with them.”

Kuwei sighed mournfully, and Jesper plunked down next to him, giving him a nudge with his shoulder. “Isn’t it nice to be wanted?”

Matthias said nothing. He did not like to think about the fact that his old friends, his old commander, might be only a few miles from them. He wasn’t sorry for the things he’d done at the Ice Court, but that didn’t mean he had made peace with them either.

Wylan reached for one of the crackers Jesper had dumped on the table. It was still disconcerting to see him and Kuwei in the same room. Nina’s tailoring had been so successful that Matthias often had trouble telling them apart until they spoke. He wished one of them would do him the courtesy of wearing a hat.

“This is good for us,” said Kaz. “The Shu and the Fjerdans don’t know where to start looking for Kuwei, and all those diplos making trouble at the Stadhall are going to create some nice noise to distract Van Eck.”

“What happened at Smeet’s office?” Nina asked. “Did you find out where Van Eck is keeping her?”

“I have a pretty good idea. We strike tomorrow at midnight.”

“Is that enough time to prepare?” asked Wylan.

“It’s all the time we have. We’re not going to wait for an engraved invitation. What’s your progress on the weevil?”

Jesper’s brows shot up. “The weevil?”

Wylan removed a small vial from his coat and set it down on the table.

Matthias bent to peer at it. It looked like a bunch of pebbles. “That’s a weevil?” He thought of weevils as pests that