Page 78 of Crooked Kingdom (Dregs 2)
“So you’re saying you’d make an excellent hostage.”
“I suspect that the ransom for me would be considerably less than the price Kuwei has on his head. Really, it’s a bit of a blow to my self-esteem.”
“You don’t seem to be suffering,” said Kaz.
“Sturmhond was a creation of my youth, and his reputation still serves me well. I cannot bid on Kuwei Yul-Bo as the king of Ravka. I hope your plan will play out the way you think it will. But if it doesn’t, the loss of such a prize would be seen as a humiliating blunder diplomatically and strategically. I enter that auction as Sturmhond or as no one at all. If that is a problem—”
Kaz settled his hands on his cane. “As long as you don’t try to con me, you can enter as the Fairy Queen of Istamere.”
“It’s certainly nice to have my options open.” He looked back out at the city. “Can this possibly work, Mister Brekker? Or am I risking the fate of Ravka and the world’s Grisha on the honor and abilities of a fast-talking urchin?”
“More than a bit of both,” said Kaz. “You’re risking a country. We’re risking our lives. Seems a fair trade.”
The king of Ravka offered his hand. “The deal is the deal?”
“The deal is the deal.” They shook.
“If only treaties could be signed so quickly,” he said, his easy privateer’s mien sliding back in place like a mask purchased on West Stave. “I’m going to have a drink and a bath. One can take only so much mud and squalor. As the rebel said to the prince, it’s bad for the constitution.” He flicked an invisible speck of dust from his lapel and sauntered out of the solarium.
Now Kaz smoothed his hair and pulled on his jacket. It was hard to believe a lowly canal rat had struck a deal with a king. He thought of that broken nose that gave the privateer the look of someone who had been through a fair share of fistfights. For all Kaz knew, he had, but he must have been tailored to disguise his features. Hard to lie low when your face was on the money. In the end, royalty or not, Sturmhond was really just a very grand con man, and all that mattered was that he and his people did their part.
Kaz checked his watch—past midnight, later than he would have liked—and went to find Nina. He was surprised to see Jesper waiting in the hall.
“What is it?” Kaz said, his mind instantly trying to calculate all the things that might have gone wrong as he slept.
“Nothing,” Jesper said. “Or no more than usual.”
“Then what do you want?”
Jesper swallowed and said, “Matthias gave you the remaining parem, didn’t he?”
“So?”
“If anything happens … the Shu will be at the auction, maybe the Kherguud. There’s too much riding on this job. I can’t let my father down again. I need the parem, as a security measure.”
Kaz studied him for a long moment. “No.”
“Why the hell not?”
A reasonable question. Giving Jesper the parem would have been the smart move, the practical move.
“Your father cares more about you than some plot of land.”
“But—”
“I’m not going to let you make yourself a martyr, Jes. If one of us goes down, we all go down.”
“This is my choice to make.”
“And yet I seem to be the one making it.” Kaz headed toward the sitting room. He didn’t intend to argue with Jesper, especially when he wasn’t entirely sure why he was saying no in the first place.
“Who’s Jordie?”
Kaz paused. He’d known the question would come, and yet it was still hard to hear his brother’s name spoken. “Someone I trusted.” He looked over his shoulder and met Jesper’s gray eyes. “Someone I didn’t want to lose.”
Kaz found Nina and Matthias asleep on the couch in the purple sitting room. Why the two biggest people in their crew had chosen the smallest space to sleep on, he had no idea. He gave Nina a nudge with his cane. Without opening her eyes, she tried to bat it away.
“Rise and shine.”
“Go ’way,” she said, burying her head in Matthias’ chest.
“Let’s go, Zenik. The dead will wait, but I won’t.”
At last she roused herself and pulled on her boots. She had discarded her red kefta in favor of the coat and trousers she’d worn during the disastrous botch that had been the Sweet Reef job. Matthias watched her every move, but he did not ask to accompany them. He knew his presence would only increase their risk of exposure.
Inej appeared in the doorway, and they headed for the lift in silence. Curfew was in effect on the streets of Ketterdam, but there was no avoiding this. They would have to rely on luck and Inej’s ability to scout the path ahead of them for patrolling stadwatch.
They left the back of the hotel and headed toward the manufacturing district. Their progress was slow, a circuitous route around the blockades, full of stops and starts as Inej vanished and reappeared, signaling them to wait or rerouting them with a flick of her hand before she was gone once more.
At last they reached the morgue, an unmarked, gray stone structure on the border of the warehouse district, fronted by a garden no one had tended to in some time. Only the bodies of the wealthy were brought here to be prepared for transportation and burial outside the city. It wasn’t the miserable human heap of the Reaper’s Barge, but Kaz still felt like he was descending into a nightmare. He thought of Inej’s voice echoing off the white tiles. Go on.
The morgue was deserted, its heavy iron door sealed tight. He picked the lock and looked once over his shoulder at the shifting shadows of the weedy garden. He couldn’t see Inej, but he knew she was there. She would keep watch over the entrance as they got this grim business done.
It was chilly inside, lit only by a lantern with the blue-tinted warning flame of corpselight. There was a processing room and beyond it a large, icy stone chamber lined with drawers big enough to hold bodies. The whole place smelled of death.
He thought of the pulse beating beneath Inej’s jaw, the warmth of her skin on his lips. He tried to shake the thought free. He did not want that memory tangling with this room full of rot.
Kaz had never been able to dodge the horror of that night in the Ketterdam harbor, the memory of his brother’s corpse clutched tight in his arms as he told himself to kick a little harder, to take one more breath, stay afloat, stay alive. He’d found his way to shore, devoted himself to the vengeance he and his brother were owed. But the nightmare refused to fade. Kaz had been sure it would get easier. He would stop having to think twice before he shook a hand or was forced into close quarters. Instead, things got so bad he could barely brush up against someone on the street without finding himself once more in the harbor. He was on the Reaper’s Barge and death was all around him. He was kicking through the water, clinging to the slippery bloat of Jordie’s flesh, too frightened of drowning to let go.
The situation had gotten dangerous. When Gorka once got too drunk to stand at the Blue Paradise, Kaz and Teapot had to carry him home. Six blocks they hauled him, Gorka’s weight shifting back and forth, slumping against Kaz in a sickening press of skin and stink, then flopping onto Teapot, freeing Kaz briefly—though he could still feel the rub of the man’s hairy arm against the back of his neck.
Later, Teapot had found Kaz huddled in a lavatory, shaking and covered in sweat. He’d pleaded food poisoning, teeth chattering as he jammed his foot against the door to keep Teapot out. He could not be touched again or he would lose his mind completely.
The next day he’d bought his first pair of gloves—cheap black things that bled dye whenever they got wet. Weakness was lethal in the Barrel. People could smell it on you like blood, and if Kaz was going to bring Pekka Rollins to his knees, he couldn’t afford any more nights trembling on a bathroom floor.
