Crooked Kingdom (The Six of Crows Duology #2) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,142

and longing roiled in his gut.

He lurched backward, and pain shot through his bad leg. His mouth was on fire. The room swayed. He braced himself against the wall, trying to breathe. Inej was on her feet, moving toward him, her face concerned. He held up a hand to stop her.

“Don’t.”

She stood in the center of the tile floor, framed by white and gold, like a gilded icon. “What happened to you, Kaz? What happened to your brother?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Tell me. Please.”

Tell her , said a voice inside him. Tell her everything. But he didn’t know how or where to begin. And why should he? So she could find a way to absolve him of his crimes? He didn’t want her pity. He didn’t need to explain himself, he just needed to find a way to let her go.

“You want to know what Pekka did to me?” His voice was a snarl, reverberating off the tiles. “How about I tell you what I did when I found the woman who pretended to be his wife, the girl who pretended to be his daughter? Or how about I tell you what happened to the boy who lured us in that first night with his mechanical toy dogs? That’s a good one. His name was Filip. I found him running a monte game on Kelstraat. I tortured him for two days and left him bleeding in an alley, the key to a wind-up dog shoved down his throat.” Kaz saw Inej flinch. He ignored the sting in his heart.

“That’s right,” he went on. “The clerks at the bank who turned over our information. The fake attorney. The man who gave me free hot chocolate at Hertzoon’s fake office. I destroyed them all, one by one, brick by brick. And Rollins will be the last. These things don’t wash away with prayer, Wraith. There is no peace waiting for me, no forgiveness, not in this life, not in the next.”

Inej shook her head. How could she still look at him with kindness in her eyes? “You don’t ask for forgiveness, Kaz. You earn it.”

“Is that what you intend to do? By hunting slavers?”

“By hunting slavers. By rooting out the merchers and Barrel bosses who profit off of them. By being something more than just the next Pekka Rollins.”

It was impossible. There was nothing more. He could see the truth even if she couldn’t. Inej was stronger than he would ever be. She’d kept her faith, her goodness, even when the world tried to take it from her with greedy hands.

His eyes scanned her face as they always had, closely, hungrily, snatching at the details of her like the thief he was—the even set of her dark brows, the rich brown of her eyes, the upward tilt of her lips. He didn’t deserve peace and he didn’t deserve forgiveness, but if he was going to die today, maybe the one thing he’d earned was the memory of her—brighter than anything he would ever have a right to—to take with him to the other side.

Kaz strode past Inej, took his discarded gloves from the sink, pulled them on. He shrugged into his coat, straightened his tie in the mirror, tucked his cane under his arm. He might as well go to meet his death in style.

When he turned back to her, he was ready. “Whatever happens to me, survive this city. Get your ship, have your vengeance, carve your name into their bones. But survive this mess I’ve gotten us into.”

“Don’t do this,” Inej said.

“If I don’t, it’s all over. There’s no way out. There’s no reward. There’s nothing left.”

“Nothing,” she repeated.

“Look for Dunyasha’s tells.”

“What?”

“A fighter always has a tell, a sign of an old injury, a dropped shoulder when they’re about to throw a punch.”

“Do I have a tell?”

“You square your shoulders before you start a move as if you’re about to perform, like you’re waiting for the audience’s attention.”

She looked slightly affronted at that. “And what’s yours?”

Kaz thought of the moment on Vellgeluk that had nearly cost him everything.

“I’m a cripple. That’s my tell. No one’s ever smart enough to look for the others.”

“Don’t go to the Slat, Kaz. Let us find another way.”

“Step aside, Wraith.”

“Kaz—”

“If you ever cared about me at all, don’t follow.”

He pushed past her and strode from the room. He couldn’t think of what might be, of what there was to lose. And Inej was wrong about one thing. He knew exactly what he intended to leave behind when