a single round inside it—nonlethal, a mixture of wax and rubber. If he missed, someone could be hurt badly. But if he didn’t shoot, a lot of people would be hurt. Hell , Jesper thought, maybe if I miss Kuwei, I’ll take out one of Van Eck’s eyes .
He’d worked with gunsmiths, made his own ammunition. He knew his guns better than he knew the rules of Makker’s Wheel. Jesper focused on the bullet, sensed the smallest parts of it. Maybe he was the same. A bullet in a chamber, spending his whole life waiting for the moment when he would have direction.
Anyone can shoot.
“Inej,” he said, “if you have a spare prayer, this would be the time for it.”
He fired.
It was as if time slowed—he felt the kick of the rifle, the unstoppable momentum of the bullet. With all his will, he focused on its wax casing and pulled to the left, the shot still ringing in his ears. He felt the bullet turn, focused on that button, the second button, a little piece of wood, the threads holding it in place.
It’s not a gift. It’s a curse. But when it came down to it, Jesper’s life had been full of blessings. His father. His mother. Inej. Nina. Matthias leading them across the muddy canal. Kaz—even Kaz, with all his cruelties and failings, had given him a home and a family in the Dregs when Ketterdam might have swallowed him whole. And Wylan. Wylan who had understood before Jesper ever had that the power inside him might be a blessing too.
“What did you just do?” asked Inej.
Maybe nothing. Maybe the impossible. Jesper never could resist long odds.
He shrugged. “The same thing I always do. I took a shot.”
K az had been standing next to Kuwei when the bullet struck and had been the first to his side. He heard a smattering of gunfire in the cathedral, most likely panicked stadwatch officers with hasty trigger fingers. Kaz knelt over Kuwei’s body, hiding his left hand from view, and jabbed a syringe into the Shu boy’s arm. There was blood everywhere. Jellen Radmakker had fallen to the stage and was bellowing, “I’ve been shot!” He had not been shot.
Kaz shouted for the medik. The little bald man stood paralyzed beside the stage where he’d been tending to Wylan, his face horror-stricken. Matthias seized the medik’s elbow and dragged him over.
People were still pushing to get out of the church. A brawl had erupted between the Ravkan soldiers and the Fjerdans as Sturmhond, Zoya, and Genya bolted for an exit. The members of the Merchant Council had surrounded Van Eck with a clutch of men from the stadwatch . He wasn’t going anywhere.
A moment later, Kaz saw Inej and Jesper pushing against the tide of people trying to escape down the center aisle. Kaz let his eyes scan Inej once. She was bloody, and her eyes were red and swollen, but she seemed all right.
“Kuwei—” said Inej.
“We can’t help him now,” said Kaz.
“Wylan!” Jesper said, taking in the cuts and rapidly forming bruises. “Saints, is all that real?”
“Anika and Keeg did a number on him.”
“I wanted it to be believable,” said Wylan.
“I admire your commitment to the craft,” said Kaz. “Jesper, stay with Wylan. They’re going to want to question him.”
“I’m fine,” said Wylan, though his lip was so swollen it sounded more like, “I’b fibe.”
Kaz spared a single nod for Matthias as two stadwatch guards lifted Kuwei’s body onto a stretcher. Instead of fighting the crowds in the cathedral, they headed for the arch that led to Ghezen’s little finger and the exit beyond. Matthias trailed them, pulling the medik along. There could be no questions surrounding Kuwei’s survival.
Kaz and Inej followed them into the nave, but Inej paused at the archway. Kaz saw her look once over her shoulder, and when he tracked her gaze he saw that Van Eck, surrounded by furious councilmen, was staring right back at her. He remembered the words she’d spoken to Van Eck on Goedmedbridge, You will see me once more, but only once. From the nervous bob of Van Eck’s throat, he was remembering too. Inej gave the smallest bow.
They raced up the pinky nave and into the chapel. But the door to the street and the canal beyond was locked. Behind them, the door to the chapel banged shut. Pekka Rollins leaned back against it, surrounded by four of his Dime Lion crew.
“Right on time,” said Kaz.
“I suppose you predicted this too,