to hide it. Jesper supposed there was a lesson there if he wanted to take it. There were only four real Tidemakers among them, but it had been enough. Of course, there had been the chance the real Council of Tides would show up at the auction, but based on their record, Kaz had thought it was worth the risk.
The Grisha and Sturmhond would be waiting to board the boat not far from Sweet Reef. Once they were all aboard, Rotty would pole them out past the harbor and then send up a flare where Sturmhond’s ship would come to meet them. It was the only way to get a group of refugee Grisha, a farmer who’d helped con the entire Merchant Council, and the body of a boy who had—until a few hours ago—been the most wanted hostage in the world, out of the city.
“You’ll have to be still,” Inej murmured.
“Still as the grave,” Nina replied.
The barge slid into the canal, and she lifted her hand in farewell, her palm like a white star, bright against the dark. They stood by the water’s edge long after it had faded.
At some point, Jesper realized Kaz was gone.
“Not one for goodbyes, is he?” he muttered.
“He doesn’t say goodbye,” Inej said. She kept her eyes on the lights of the canal. Somewhere in the garden, a night bird began to sing. “He just lets go.”
K az propped his bad leg on a low stool and listened as Anika gave her report on the earnings at the Crow Club and the status of tourist traffic on East Stave. In the three weeks since Kuwei’s auction and the plague panic, Kaz had taken over Per Haskell’s office on the ground floor of the Slat. He still slept on the top floor, but it was easier to do business from Haskell’s lair. He didn’t miss the extra trips up and down the stairs, and his old office felt empty now. Whenever he sat down to try to get some work done, he’d find his eyes straying to the window ledge.
The city still hadn’t returned to normal, but that had created some interesting opportunities. Prices on the Staves had dropped as people prepared for a long plague outbreak, and Kaz was quick to take advantage. He bought the building next to the Crow Club so that they could expand, and he even managed to acquire a small property on the Lid. When the panic was over and tourism resumed, Kaz was looking forward to fleecing a far higher class of pigeon. He’d also bought out Per Haskell’s shares in the Crow Club for a reasonable price. He could have had them for nothing, given the trouble in the Barrel, but he didn’t want anyone feeling too sorry for the old man.
When Pekka Rollins returned to the city, Kaz would find a way to cut him out of the business. The last thing he wanted was for the proceeds of his hard work to go into Rollins’ coffers.
Once Anika finished her recital, Pim gave the details he’d gathered on Van Eck’s trial. The mysterious Johannus Rietveld had not been found, but once Van Eck’s accounts had been laid bare, it had quickly become clear he’d been using the information he’d learned on the Merchant Council to buy up jurda farms. Beyond swindling his friends, tampering with an auction, and kidnapping his own son, there were even suggestions that he’d hired a team to break into a Fjerdan government building and possibly sabotage his own sugar silos. Van Eck was not out on bail. In fact, it didn’t look like he’d be out of jail anytime soon. Though his son had provided a small fund for his legal representation, it could be described as moderate at best.
Wylan had chosen to use a portion of his newfound wealth to restore his home. He’d given Jesper a small allowance to speculate in the markets, and he’d brought his mother home as well. People in the Geldstraat were shocked to see Marya Hendriks sitting in the park with her son or being rowed down the canal by one of their servants. Sometimes they could be glimpsed from the water, standing before their easels in the Van Eck garden.
Alys had stayed with them for a time, but eventually she and her terrier had chosen to escape the city and its gossip. She would finish her confinement in the Hendriks lake house, and was said to be making dubious progress in her singing