Crooked Kingdom (The Six of Crows Duology #2) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,30

need to kill anyone, he just needed to scare the hell out of them and buy Wylan and his father time.

A bullet struck the fountain’s central statue, the book in the scholar’s hand exploding into fragments of stone. Whatever ammunition they were using, they weren’t messing around.

Jesper reloaded and popped up from behind the fountain, shooting.

“All Saints ,” he shouted as pain tore through his shoulder. He really hated being shot. He shrank back behind the stone lip. He flexed his hand, testing the damage to his arm. Just a scratch, but it hurt like hell, and he was bleeding all over his new tweed jacket. “This is why it doesn’t pay to try to look respectable,” he muttered. Above him, he could see the silhouettes on the roof moving. Any minute, they were going to circle around the other side of the fountain and he’d be done for.

“Jesper!” Wylan’s voice. Damn it. He was supposed to get clear. “Jesper, at your two o’clock.”

Jesper looked up and something was arcing through the sky. Without thinking, he aimed and fired. The air exploded.

“Get in the water!” Wylan shouted.

Jesper dove into the fountain, and a second later the air sizzled with light. When Jesper poked his soaked head out of the water, he saw that every exposed surface of the courtyard and its gardens was pocked with holes, tendrils of smoke rising from the tiny craters. Whoever was up on the roof was screaming. Just what kind of bomb had Wylan let loose?

He hoped Matthias and Kaz had found cover, but there was no time to stew on it. He bolted for the doorway beneath the pencil-chewing demon. Wylan and his father were waiting inside. They slammed the door shut.

“Help me,” said Jesper. “We need to barricade the entrance.”

The man behind the desk wore gray scholar’s robes. His nostrils were flared so wide in effrontery that Jesper feared being sucked up one of them. “Young man—”

Jesper pointed his gun at the scholar’s chest. “Move.”

“Jesper!” his father said.

“Don’t worry, Da. People point guns at each other all the time in Ketterdam. It’s basically a handshake.”

“Is that true?” his father asked as the scholar grudgingly moved aside and they shoved the heavy desk in front of the door.

“Absolutely,” said Wylan.

“Certainly not ,” said the scholar.

Jesper waved them on. “Depends on the neighborhood. Let’s go.”

They pelted down the main aisle of the reading room between long tables lit by lamps with curving necks. Students huddled against the wall and under their chairs, probably thinking they were all about to die.

“Nothing to worry about, everyone!” Jesper called. “Just a little target practice in the courtyard.”

“This way,” said Wylan, ushering them through a door covered in elaborate scrollwork.

“Oh, you mustn’t,” said the scholar rushing after them, robes flapping. “Not the rare books room!”

“Do you want to shake hands again?” Jesper asked, then added, “I promise we won’t shoot anything we don’t have to.” He gave his father a gentle shove. “Up the stairs.”

“Jesper?” said a voice from beneath the nearest table.

A pretty blonde girl looked up from where she was crouched on the floor.

“Madeleine?” Jesper said. “Madeleine Michaud?”

“You said we’d have breakfast!”

“I had to go to Fjerda.”

“Fjerda?”

Jesper headed up the stairs after Wylan, then poked his head back into the reading room. “If I live, I’ll buy you waffles.”

“You don’t have enough money to buy her waffles,” Wylan grumbled.

“Be quiet. We’re in a library.”

Jesper had never had cause to enter the rare books room while he was at school. The silence was so deep it was like being underwater. Illuminated manuscripts were displayed in glass cases lit by golden falls of lamplight, and rare maps covered the walls.

A Squaller in a blue kefta stood in the corner, arms raised, but shrank back as they entered.

“Shu!” the Squaller cried when he saw Wylan. “I won’t go with you. I’ll kill myself first!”

Jesper’s father held up his hands as if gentling a horse. “Easy, lad.”

“We’re just passing through,” said Jesper, giving his father another push.

“Follow me,” said Wylan.

“What is a Squaller doing in the rare books room?” Jesper asked as they raced through the labyrinth of shelves and cases, past the occasional scholar or student crouched against the books in fear.

“Humidity. He keeps the air dry to preserve the manuscripts.”

“Nice work if you can get it.”

When they reached the westernmost wall, Wylan stopped in front of a map of Ravka. He looked around to make sure they weren’t being observed, then pressed the symbol marking the capital—Os Alta. The