Crooked Kingdom (The Six of Crows Duology #2) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,27

shame of how horribly he’d botched everything, but talking about that felt like trying to climb a scaffold made of rotting boards. So he said, “I always liked this part of town.”

“My father likes it too. He places a high value on learning.”

“Higher than money?”

Wylan shrugged, eyeing a window full of hand-painted globes. “Knowledge isn’t a sign of divine favor. Prosperity is.”

Jesper cast him a swift glance. He still wasn’t used to Wylan’s voice coming out of Kuwei’s mouth. It always left him feeling a little off-kilter, like he’d thought he was reaching for a cup of wine and gotten a mouthful of water instead. “Is your papa really that religious, or is that just an excuse for being a mean son of a bitch when it comes to business?”

“When it comes to anything, really.”

“Particularly thugs and canal rats from the Barrel?”

Wylan shifted the strap of his satchel. “He thinks the Barrel distracts men from work and industry and leads to degeneracy.”

“He may have a point,” said Jesper. He sometimes wondered what might have happened if he’d never gone out with his new friends that night, if he’d never walked into that gambling parlor and taken that first spin at Makker’s Wheel. It was meant to be harmless fun. And for everyone else, it had been. But Jesper’s life had split like a log into two distinct and uneven pieces: the time before he’d stepped up to that wheel and every day since. “The Barrel eats people.”

“Maybe,” Wylan considered. “But business is business. The gambling parlors and brothels meet a demand. They offer employment. They pay taxes.”

“What a good little Barrel boy you’ve become. That’s practically a page out of the bosses’ books.” Every few years some reformer got it into his head to clean up the Barrel and purge Ketterdam of its unsavory reputation. That was when the pamphlets came out, a war of propaganda between the owners of the gambling dens and pleasure houses on one side and the black-suited merch reformers on the other. In the end, it all came down to money. The businesses of East and West Stave turned a serious profit, and the denizens of the Barrel dumped very righteous coin into the city’s tax coffers.

Wylan tugged on the satchel strap again. It had gotten twisted at the top. “I don’t think it’s much different from wagering your fortune on a shipment of silk or jurda . Your odds are just a lot better when you’re playing the market.”

“You have my attention, merchling.” Better odds were always of interest. “What’s the most your father’s ever lost on a trade?”

“I don’t really know. He stopped talking about those things with me a long time ago.”

Jesper hesitated. Jan Van Eck was three kinds of fool for the way he’d treated his son, but Jesper could admit he was curious about Wylan’s supposed “affliction.” He wanted to know what Wylan saw when he tried to read, why he seemed fine with equations or prices on a menu, but not sentences or signs. Instead he said, “I wonder if proximity to the Barrel makes merchers more uptight. All that black clothing and restraint, meat only twice a week, lager instead of brandy. Maybe they’re making up for all the fun we’re having.”

“Keeping the scales balanced?”

“Sure. I mean, just think of the heights of debauchery we could reach if no one kept this city in check. Champagne for breakfast. Naked orgies on the floor of the Exchange.”

Wylan made a flustered noise that sounded like a bird with a cough and looked anywhere but at Jesper. He was so wonderfully easy to rattle, though Jesper could admit he didn’t think the university district needed a dose of the dirty. He liked it just fine as it was—clean and quiet and smelling of books and flowers.

“You don’t have to come, you know,” Jesper said, because he felt he should. “You have your supplies. You could wait this out safe and snug in a coffeehouse.”

“Is that what you want?”

No. I can’t do this alone. Jesper shrugged. He wasn’t sure how he felt about what Wylan might witness at the university. Jesper had rarely seen his father angry, but how could he fail to be angry now? What explanations could Jesper offer him? He’d lied, put the livelihood his father had worked so hard for into jeopardy. And for what? A steaming pile of nothing.

But Jesper couldn’t bear the thought of facing his father on his own. Inej would have understood. Not that