Crooked Kingdom (The Six of Crows Duology #2) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,144

pigeons, and nudged open the window with her foot, wrinkling her nose at the stink of the bird droppings. She slipped inside, moving across the roof beams, and found a place among the shadows. Then she waited, unsure of what to do next. If anyone looked up, they might see her there, perched in the corner like the spider she was, but why would anyone think to?

Below, the entry way buzzed with activity. Apparently the festive mood of that morning’s parade had suffused the day. People came in and out the front door, shouting to one another, laughing and singing. A few Dregs sat on the squeaky wooden staircase, passing a bottle of whiskey back and forth. Seeger—one of Per Haskell’s favorite bruisers—kept blowing the same three notes on a tin whistle for all he was worth. A group of rowdies burst through the door and tumbled into the entry, cawing and screeching like fools, stomping the floor, banging into one another like a school of hungry sharks. They carried axe handles studded with rusty nails, cudgels, knives, and guns, and some of them had painted crows’ wings in black across their wild eyes. Behind them, Inej glimpsed a few Dregs who didn’t seem to share the excitement—Anika with her crop of yellow hair, wiry Roeder who Per Haskell had suggested Kaz use as his spider, the bigger bruisers Keeg and Pim. They hung back against the wall, exchanging unhappy looks as the others whooped and postured. They’re Kaz’s best hope for support , she thought. The youngest members of the Dregs, the kids Kaz had brought in and organized, the ones who worked the hardest and took the worst jobs because they were the newest.

But what exactly did Kaz have in mind? Had he entered his office for a reason or simply because it was the easiest point of access from the roof? Did he mean to speak to Per Haskell alone? The entirety of the staircase was exposed to the entry way. Kaz couldn’t even start down it without attracting everyone’s notice, unless he planned to do it in disguise. And how he would negotiate the stairs on his bad leg without anyone recognizing his gait was beyond her.

A cheer went up from the people gathered below. Per Haskell had emerged from his office, gray head moving through the crowd. He was dressed in high flash for the festivities today—crimson-and-silver-checked vest, houndstooth trousers—out and about as the lord of the Dregs, the gang Kaz had built up from practically nothing. With one hand, he was waving around the plumed hat he favored so much, and in the other, he carried a walking stick. Someone had secured a cartoonish papier-mâché crow atop it. It made her sick. Kaz had been better than a son to Haskell. A devious, ruthless, murdering son, but even so.

“Think we’ll land him tonight, old man?” asked Bastian, tapping a nasty-looking cudgel against his leg.

Haskell lifted the walking stick like a scepter. “If anyone’s gonna get that reward, it’s one of my lads! Isn’t that right?”

They cheered.

“Old man.”

Inej’s head snapped up as Kaz’s rock-salt rasp cut through the noise of the crowd, silencing the rowdy chatter. Every eye turned upward.

He stood at the top of the stairs, looking down four flights of rickety wood. She realized he’d stopped to change his coat and it clung to him in perfectly tailored lines. He stood leaning on his cane, hair neatly pushed back from his pale brow, a black glass boy of deadly edges.

The look of surprise on Haskell’s face was nearly comical. Then he started to laugh. “Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch, Brekker. You have to be the craziest bastard I ever met.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Shouldn’t have come here—unless it’s to turn yourself in like the smart lad I know you to be.”

“I’m through making you money.”

Per Haskell’s face crumpled in rage. “You ignorant little skiv!” he roared. “Waltzing in here like some merch at his manor.”

“You was always acting like you’re better than us, Brekker,” shouted Seeger, still holding the tin whistle, and a few of the other Dregs nodded. Per Haskell clapped his hands in encouragement.

And it was true. Kaz had always kept himself at a remove from everyone. They’d wanted camaraderie, friendship, but he had never agreed to play their game, only his own. Maybe this reckoning was inevitable. Inej knew Kaz hadn’t intended to remain Per Haskell’s lieutenant forever. Their triumph at the Ice Court should have