Crooked Kingdom (The Six of Crows Duology #2) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,57

afraid, who hadn’t known what cruelty the world could offer. She’d gotten to know the gabled peaks and window boxes of the Zelverstraat, the gardens and wide boulevards of the embassy sector. She’d traveled far south to where the manufacturing district gave way to foul-smelling slaughter houses and brining pits hidden at the very outskirts of the city, where their offal could be sluiced into the swamp at Ketterdam’s edge, and their stink was less likely to be sent wafting over the residential parts of town. The city had revealed its secrets to her almost shyly, in flashes of grandeur and squalor.

Now she and Kaz left the rooming houses and street carts behind, plunging deeper into the busy warehouse district and the area known as the Weft. Here, the streets and canals were clean and orderly, kept wide for the transportation of goods and cargo. They passed fenced-in acres of raw lumber and quarried stone, closely guarded stockpiles of weapons and ammunition, huge store houses brimming with cotton, silk, canvas, and furs, and warehouses packed with the carefully weighed bundles of dried jurda leaves from Novyi Zem that would be processed and packaged into tins with bright labels, then shipped out to other markets.

Inej still remembered the jolt she’d felt when she saw the words Rare Spices painted on the side of one of the warehouses. It was an advertisement, the words framed by two Suli girls rendered in paint, brown limbs bare, the embroidery of their scant silks hinted at by golden brushstrokes. Inej had stood there, gaze fastened to the sign, less than two miles from where the rights to her body had been bought and sold and haggled over, her heart jackrabbiting in her chest, panic seizing her muscles, unable to stop staring at those girls, the bangles on their wrists, the bells around their ankles. Eventually she’d willed herself to move, and as if some spell had been broken, she’d run faster than she ever had, back to the Slat, racing over the rooftops, the city passing in gray glimpses below her reckless feet. That night she’d dreamed the painted girls had come to life. They were trapped in the brick wall of the warehouse, screaming to be set free, but Inej was powerless to help them.

Rare Spices. The sign was still there, faded from the sun. It still held power for her, made her muscles clench, her breath hitch. But maybe when she had her ship, when she’d brought down the first slaver, the paint would blister from the bricks. The cries of those girls in their mint-colored silks would turn to laughter. They would dance for no one but themselves. Ahead, Inej could see a high column topped by Ghezen’s Hand, casting its long shadow over the heart of Kerch’s wealth. She imagined her Saints wrapping ropes around it and sending it toppling to the ground.

She and Kaz drew no stares in their shapeless coats, two boys looking for work or on their way to the next shift. Still Inej could not breathe easily. The stadwatch patrolled the streets of the warehouse district regularly, and just in case that wasn’t enough protection, the shipping companies employed private guards to make sure the doors stayed locked and that none of the workers stocking, stacking, and transporting goods got too free with their hands. The warehouse district was one of the most secure places in Ketterdam, and because of that, it was the last spot Van Eck would look for them.

They approached an abandoned linen store house. The windows of its lower floors were broken, the bricks above them blackened by soot. The fire must have been recent, but the store house wouldn’t remain unoccupied for long; it would be cleaned out and rebuilt or simply razed for a new structure. Space was precious in Ketterdam.

The padlock on the back door was little challenge to Kaz, and they entered a lower story that had been badly damaged by the fire. The stairway near the front of the building seemed largely intact. They climbed, Inej moving lightly over the boards, Kaz’s tread punctuated by the rhythmic thunk of his cane.

When they reached the third floor, Kaz directed them to a stock room where bolts of linen were still piled high in giant pyramids. They were largely undamaged, but those on the bottom were stained with soot, and the fabric had a burnt, unpleasant smell. They were comfortable, though. Inej found a perch by a window that let