Crooked Kingdom (The Six of Crows Duology #2) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,53

wasn’t the type to miscalculate so gravely. Someone else had come to make trouble on West Stave, someone who didn’t mind doing more than a little damage.

All Kaz knew was he’d invested a lot of time and money in getting his Wraith back. He sure as hell wasn’t going to lose her again.

He touched Inej’s shoulder briefly. That was all the signal they needed. He raced for the nearest alleyway. He didn’t have to look to know she was beside him—silent, sure-footed. She could have outpaced him in an instant, but they ran in tandem, matching each other step for step.

N ow this was Jesper’s kind of chaos.

Jesper had two jobs, one before the exchange of hostages, and one after. While Inej was in Van Eck’s possession, Nina was the first line of defense if the guards tried to remove her from the bridge or anyone threatened her. Jesper was to keep Van Eck in his rifle sights—no kill shots, but if the guy started brandishing a gun, Jesper was allowed to leave him without the use of an arm. Or two.

“Van Eck’s going to pull something,” Kaz had said back on Black Veil, “and it’s going to be messy, because he has less than twelve hours to plan it.”

“Good,” said Jesper.

“Bad,” said Kaz. “The more complicated a plan is, the more people he has to involve, the more people talk, the more ways it can go wrong.”

“It’s a law of systems,” Wylan murmured. “You build in safeguards for failures, but something in the safeguards ends up causing an unforeseen failure.”

“Van Eck’s move won’t be elegant, but it will be unpredictable, so we need to be prepared.”

“How do we prepare for the unpredictable?” Wylan asked.

“We broaden our options. We keep every possible avenue of escape open. Rooftops, streets and alleys, waterways. There’s no chance Van Eck is going to let us just stroll off that bridge.”

Jesper had seen trouble coming a ways off when he’d spotted the groups of stadwatch headed for the bridge. It could just be a rousting. That happened once or twice a year in the Staves, the Merchant Council’s way of showing the gamblers, procurers, and performers that no matter how much money they poured into the city coffers, the government was still in charge.

He had signaled Matthias and waited. Kaz had been clear: “Van Eck won’t act until he has Alys back and out of harm’s way. That’s when we need to keep sharp.”

And sure enough, once Alys and Inej had traded places, some kind of ruckus had started on the bridge. Jesper’s trigger finger itched, but his second job had been simple too: Watch Kaz for the sign.

Seconds later, Kaz’s cane shot into the air, and he and Inej were hurtling over the bridge railing. Jesper struck a match and one, two, three, four, five of the rockets Wylan had prepared were screaming toward the sky, exploding in crackling bursts of color. The last was a shimmer of pink. Strontium chloride , Wylan had told him, working away on his collection of fireworks and explosives, flash bombs, weevils, and whatever else was needed. In the dark, it burns red.

Things are always more interesting in the dark , Jesper had replied. He hadn’t been able to help it. Really, if the merchling was going to offer those kinds of opportunities, he had a duty to take them.

The first batch of fireworks was a signal to the Mister Crimsons whom Nina and Matthias had recruited last night—or very early this morning—offering free food and wine to anyone who came to Goedmedbridge when the fireworks went off just after noon. All a big promotion for the nonexistent Crimson Cutlass. Knowing only a fraction of the people would actually show up, they’d given away more than two hundred costumes and bags of fake coins. “If we get fifty, it will be enough,” said Kaz.

Never underestimate the public’s desire to get something for nothing. Jesper figured there had to be at least one hundred Mister Crimsons flooding the bridge and the Stave, singing the chant that accompanied his entrance in any of the Komedie Brute plays, tossing coins into the air. Sometimes the coins were real. It was why he was a crowd favorite. People were laughing, whirling each other around, grabbing for coins, chasing after the Mister Crimsons as the stadwatch tried in vain to keep order. It was glorious. Jesper knew the money was fake, but he would have loved to be down there scrambling for silver