Crooked Kingdom (The Six of Crows Duology #2) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,31

country seemed to tear apart along the seam of the Unsea, revealing a dark gap barely wide enough to squeeze through.

“It leads to the second floor of a printmaker’s shop,” said Wylan as they edged inside. “It was built as a way for professors to get from the library to their homes without having to deal with angry students.”

“Angry?” Jesper’s father said. “Do all the students have guns?”

“No, but there’s a long-standing tradition of rioting over grades.”

The map slid closed, leaving them in the dark as they shuffled along sideways.

“Not to be a podge,” Jesper murmured to Wylan, “but I wouldn’t have thought you’d know your way around the rare books room.”

“I used to meet with one of my tutors here, back when my father still thought … The tutor had a lot of interesting stories. And I always liked the maps. Tracing the letters sometimes made it easier to … It’s how I found the passage.”

“You know, Wylan, one of these days I’m going to stop underestimating you.”

There was a brief pause and then, from somewhere up ahead, he heard Wylan say, “Then you’re going to be a lot harder to surprise.”

Jesper grinned, but it didn’t quite feel right. From behind them, he could hear shouting from the rare books room. It had been a close call, he was bleeding from his shoulder, they’d made a grand escape—these were the moments he lived for. He should be buzzing from the excitement of the fight. The thrill was still there, fizzing through his blood, but beside it was a cold, unfamiliar sensation that felt like it was draining the joy from him. All he could think was, Da could have been hurt. He could have died. Jesper was used to people shooting at him. He would have been a little insulted if they’d stopped shooting at him. This was different. His father hadn’t chosen this fight. His only crime had been putting his faith in his son.

That’s the problem with Ketterdam , Jesper thought as they stumbled uncertainly through the dark. Trusting the wrong person can get you killed .

N ina couldn’t stop staring at Colm Fahey. He was a bit shorter than his son, broader in the shoulders, his coloring classically Kaelish—vibrant, dark red hair and that salt-white skin, densely clouded with freckles by the Zemeni sun. And though his eyes were the same clear gray as Jesper’s, they had a seriousness to them, a kind of sure warmth that differed from Jesper’s crackling energy.

It wasn’t only the pleasure of trying to find Jesper in his father’s features that kept Nina’s attention focused on the farmer. There was just something so strange about seeing a person that wholesome standing in the stone hull of an empty mausoleum surrounded by Ketterdam’s worst—herself among them.

Nina shivered and drew the old horse blanket she’d been using as a wrap more tightly around her. She’d started tallying her life in good days and bad days, and thanks to the Cornelis Smeet job, this was turning out to be a very bad day. She couldn’t afford to let it get the best of her, not when they were this close to rescuing Inej. Be all right , Nina willed silently, hoping her thoughts could somehow cut through the air, speed over the waters of the Ketterdam harbors, and reach her friend. Stay safe and whole and wait for us.

Nina hadn’t been on Vellgeluk when Van Eck had taken Inej hostage. She’d still been trying to purge the parem from her body, caught in the haze of suffering that had begun on the voyage from Djerholm. She told herself to be grateful for the memory of that misery, every shaking, aching, vomiting minute of it. The shame of Matthias witnessing it all, holding back her hair, dabbing her brow, restraining her as gently as he could as she argued, cajoled, screamed at him for more parem . She made herself remember every terrible thing she’d said, every wild pleasure offered, each insult or accusation she’d hurled at him. You enjoy watching me suffer. You want me to beg, don’t you? How long have you been waiting to see me like this? Stop punishing me, Matthias. Help me. Be good to me and I’ll be good to you. He’d absorbed it all in stoic silence. She clutched tight to those memories. She needed them as vivid and bright and cringe-inducing as possible to fight her hunger for the drug. She never wanted to be like that