Crooked Kingdom (The Six of Crows Duology #2) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,77

light, a vision in sapphire silk, her cuffs and hem embroidered in dense whorls of silver. Her heavily lashed eyes widened. “Nina?” Zoya’s concentration wavered, and they all dropped a foot through the air before she tossed her hands up and they were once more slammed against the beams.

Zoya stared up at Nina in wonder. “You’re alive,” she said. Her gaze slid to Matthias, thrashing like the biggest, angriest butterfly ever pinned to a page. “And you’ve made a new friend.”

W ylan hadn’t been on a browboat of this size since he’d tried to leave the city six months ago, and it was hard not to remember that disaster now, especially when thoughts of his father were so fresh in his mind. But this boat was considerably different from the one he’d tried to take that night. This browboat ran the market line twice a day. Inbound, it would be crowded with vegetables, livestock, whatever farmers were bringing to the market squares scattered around the city. As a child, he’d thought everything came from Ketterdam, but he’d soon learned that, though just about anything could be had in the city, little of it was produced there. The city got its exotics—mangoes; dragon fruit; small, fragrant pineapples—from the Southern Colonies. For more ordinary fare, they relied on the farms that surrounded the city.

Jesper and Wylan caught an outbound boat crammed with immigrants fresh from the Ketterdam harbor and laborers looking for farmwork instead of the manufacturing jobs offered in the city. Unfortunately, they’d boarded far enough south that all the seats were already taken, and Jesper was looking positively sulky about it.

“Why can’t we take the Belendt line?” Jesper had complained only hours before. “It goes past Olendaal. The boats on the market line are filthy and there’s never any place to sit.”

“Because you two will stand out on the Belendt line. Here in Ketterdam, you’re nothing to look at—assuming Jesper doesn’t wear one of his brighter plaids. But give me one good reason other than farmwork you’d see a Shu and a Zemeni traipsing around the countryside.”

Wylan hadn’t considered how conspicuous he might be outside the city with his new face. But he was secretly relieved Kaz didn’t want them on the Belendt line. It might have been more comfortable, but the memories would have been too much on the day he would finally see where his mother had been laid to rest.

“Jesper,” Kaz had said, “keep your weapons hidden and your eyes open. Van Eck has to have people watching all the major transportation hubs, and we don’t have time to fake up identification for Wylan. I’ll get the corrosive from one of the shipyards on Imperjum. Your first priority is to find the quarry and get the other mineral we need for the auric acid. You go to Saint Hilde if and only if there’s time.”

Wylan felt his chin lift, that simmering, stubborn feeling overtaking him. “I need to do this. I’ve never been to my mother’s grave. I’m not leaving Kerch without saying goodbye.”

“Trust me, you care more than she does.”

“How can you say that? Don’t you remember your mother and father at all?”

“My mother is Ketterdam. She birthed me in the harbor. And my father is profit. I honor him daily. Be back by nightfall or don’t come back at all. Either of you. I need crew, not sentimental nubs.” Kaz handed Wylan the travel money. “Make sure you buy the tickets. I don’t want Jesper wandering off to take a spin at Makker’s Wheel.”

“This song is getting old,” muttered Jesper.

“Then learn a new refrain.”

Jesper had just shaken his head, but Wylan could tell Kaz’s barbs still stung. Now Wylan looked at Jesper leaning back on the railing, eyes shut, profile turned to the weak spring sun.

“Don’t you think we should be more cautious?” Wylan asked, his own face buried in the collar of his coat. They’d barely dodged two stadwatch as they’d boarded.

“We’re already out of the city. Relax.”

Wylan glanced over his shoulder. “I thought they might search the boat.”

Jesper opened one eye and said, “And hold up traffic? Van Eck’s already making trouble at the harbors. If he jams up the browboats, there’ll be a riot.”

“Why?”

“Look around. The farms need laborers. The plants need workers. The Kerch will only abide so much inconvenience for a rich man’s son, especially when there’s money to be made.”

Wylan tried to make himself relax and unbuttoned the roughspun coat Kaz had obtained for him. “Where does he get