Crooked Kingdom (The Six of Crows Duology #2) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,164

Church of Barter to take up her position on the roof.

Kaz would descend to the square in front of the Exchange with Matthias and Kuwei and meet the armed stadwatch troop that would escort them into the church. Kaz wondered how Van Eck felt about his own officers protecting the bastard of the Barrel.

He felt more himself than he had in days. The ambush at Van Eck’s house had shaken him. He hadn’t been ready for Pekka Rollins to reenter the field on those terms. He hadn’t been prepared for the shame of it, for the memories of Jordie that had returned with such force.

You failed me. His brother’s voice, louder than ever in his head. You let him dupe you all over again.

Kaz had called Jesper by his brother’s name. A bad slip. But maybe he’d wanted to punish them both. Kaz was older now than Jordie had been when he’d succumbed to the Queen’s Lady Plague. Now he could look back and see his brother’s pride, his hunger for fast success. You failed me, Jordie. You were older. You were supposed to be the smart one.

He thought of Inej asking, Was there no one to protect you? He remembered Jordie seated beside him on a bridge, smiling and alive, the reflection of their feet in the water beneath them, the warmth of a cup of hot chocolate cradled in his mittened hands. We were supposed to look out for each other.

They’d been two farm boys, missing their father, lost in this city. That was how Pekka got them. It wasn’t just the enticement of money. He’d given them a new home. A fake wife who made them hutspot , a fake daughter for Kaz to play with. Pekka Rollins had lured them with a warm fire and the promise of the life they’d lost.

And that was what destroyed you in the end: the longing for something you could never have.

He scanned the faces of the people he had fought beside, bled with. He’d lied to them and been lied to. He’d brought them into hell and dragged them out again.

Kaz settled his hands over his cane, his back to the city. “We all want different things from this day. Freedom, redemption—”

“Cold hard cash?” suggested Jesper.

“Plenty of that. There are lots of people looking to stand in our way. Van Eck. The Merchant Council. Pekka Rollins and his goons, a few different countries, and most of this Saintsforsaken town.”

“Is this supposed to be encouraging?” asked Nina.

“They don’t know who we are. Not really. They don’t know what we’ve done, what we’ve managed together.” Kaz rapped his cane on the ground. “So let’s go show them they picked the wrong damn fight.”

W hat am I doing here?

Wylan bent to the basin and splashed cold water on his face. In just a few hours, the auction would begin. They would abandon the hotel suite before dawn. It was imperative that if anyone came looking for Johannus Rietveld after the auction, they would find him long gone.

He took a final glance in the bathroom’s gilded mirror. The face gazing back at him was familiar again, but who was he really? A criminal? A runaway? A kid who was passable—maybe more than passable—at demo?

I’m Marya Hendriks’ son.

He thought of his mother, alone, abandoned along with her defective child. Had she not been young enough to produce a proper heir? Had his father known even then that he would want to forever rid himself of any evidence that Wylan had existed?

What am I doing here?

But he knew the answer. Only he could see his father punished for what he’d done. Only he could see his mother freed.

Wylan examined himself in the glass. His father’s eyes. His mother’s curls. It had felt good to be someone else for a while, to forget he was a Van Eck. But he didn’t want to hide anymore. Ever since Prior’s fingers had closed over his throat, he’d been running. Or maybe it had started long before then, in the afternoons he’d spent sitting in the pantry or curled into a window seat behind a curtain, hoping everyone would forget him, that the nanny would just go home, that his tutor would never arrive.

His father had wanted Wylan to vanish. He’d wanted him to disappear the way he’d made Wylan’s mother disappear, and for a long time, Wylan had wanted the exact same thing. That had all started to change when he came to the Barrel, when he got