Crooked Kingdom (The Six of Crows Duology #2) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,9

an iron gate. Smeet walked the dogs himself, up and down the Handelcanal, trailing after them like a tubby sled in an expensive hat.

Nina had suggested drugging the dogs’ food. Smeet went to the butcher every morning to select cuts of meat for the pack, and it would have been easy enough to switch the parcels. But Smeet wanted his dogs hungry at night, so he fed them in the mornings. He would have noticed if his prized pets had been sluggish all day, and they couldn’t risk Smeet staying home to care for his hounds. He had to spend the evening on East Stave, and when he returned home, it was essential that he find nothing amiss. Inej’s life depended upon it.

Kaz had arranged for the private parlor in the Cumulus, Nina had caressed the whistle from beneath Smeet’s shirt, and, piece by piece, the plan had come together. Wylan did not want to think about what they’d done to obtain the whistle commands. He shivered when he remembered what Smeet had said: One of my clerks never came back from his holiday. He never would. Wylan could still hear the clerk screaming as Kaz dangled him by the ankles from the top of the Hanraat Point Lighthouse. I’m a good man , he’d shouted. I’m a good man. They were the last words he’d spoken. If he’d talked less, he might have lived.

Now Wylan watched Kaz give the drooling dog a scratch behind the ears and rise. “Let’s go. Watch your feet.”

They sidestepped the pile of dog bodies in the hall and made their way quietly up the stairs. The layout of Smeet’s house was familiar to Wylan. Most businesses in the city followed the same plan: a kitchen and public rooms for meeting with clients on the ground floor, offices and storage on the second floor, sleeping rooms for the family on the third floor. Very wealthy homes had a fourth floor for servants’ quarters. As a boy, Wylan had spent more than a few hours hiding from his father in his own home’s upper rooms.

“Not even locked,” Kaz murmured as they entered Smeet’s office. “Those hounds have made him lazy.”

Kaz closed the door and lit a lamp, turning the flame down low.

The office had three small desks arranged by the windows to take advantage of the natural light, one for Smeet and two for his clerks. I’m a good man.

Wylan shook off the memory and focused on the shelves that ran from floor to ceiling. They were lined with ledgers and boxes full of documents, each carefully labeled with what Wylan assumed were the names of clients and companies.

“So many pigeons,” Kaz murmured, eyes scanning the boxes. “Naten Boreg, that sad little skiv Karl Dryden. Smeet represents half the Merchant Council.”

Including Wylan’s father. Smeet had served as Jan Van Eck’s attorney and property man ager for as long as Wylan could remember.

“Where do we start?” Wylan whispered.

Kaz pulled a fat ledger from the shelves. “First we make sure your father has no new acquisitions under his name. Then we search under your stepmother’s name, and yours.”

“Don’t call her that. Alys is barely older than I am. And my father won’t have kept property in my name.”

“You’d be surprised at what a man will do to avoid paying taxes.”

They spent the better part of the next hour digging through Smeet’s files. They knew all about Van Eck’s public properties—the factories, hotels, and manufacturing plants, the shipyard, the country house and farmland in southern Kerch. But Kaz believed Wylan’s father had to have private holdings, places he’d kept off the public registers, places he’d stash something—or someone—he didn’t want found.

Kaz read names and ledger entries aloud, asking Wylan questions and trying to find connections to properties or companies they hadn’t yet discovered. Wylan knew he owed his father nothing, but it still felt like a betrayal.

“Geldspin?” asked Kaz.

“A cotton mill. I think it’s in Zierfoort.”

“Too far. He won’t be keeping her there. What about Firma Allerbest?”

Wylan searched his memory. “I think that one’s a cannery.”

“They’re both practically printing cash, and they’re both in Alys’ name. But Van Eck keeps the big earners to himself—the shipyard, the silos at Sweet Reef.”

“I told you,” Wylan said, fiddling with a pen on one of the blotters. “My father trusts himself first, Alys only so far. He wouldn’t leave anything in my name.”

Kaz just said, “Next ledger. Let’s start with the commercial properties.”

Wylan stopped fiddling with the pen. “Was there something in