Page 10 of Crooked Kingdom (Dregs 2)
Van Eck could not have chosen her jailer better. Bajan was Suli, only a few years older than Inej, with thick black hair that curled around his collar and black gem eyes framed by lashes long enough to swat flies. He told her he was a music teacher indentured to Van Eck, and Inej wondered that the merch would bring a boy like that into his household given that his new wife was less than half his own age. Van Eck was either very confident or very stupid. He double-crossed Kaz, she reminded herself. He’s leaning heavily into the stupid column.
Once the mess had been cleaned up—by a guard; Bajan didn’t stoop to such work—and a new meal procured, he’d leaned against the wall to watch her eat. She’d scooped up a lump of porridge with her fingers, allowing herself only a few awkward bites.
“You must eat more than that,” Bajan chided. “If you make yourself a bit more obliging, if you answer his questions, you’ll find Van Eck is a reasonable man.”
“A reasonable liar, cheat, and kidnapper,” she said, then cursed herself for replying.
Bajan couldn’t hide his pleasure. They had the same routine at each meal: She picked at her food. He made small talk, peppering his chatter with pointed questions about Kaz and the Dregs. Every time she spoke, he considered it a victory. Unfortunately, the less she ate, the weaker she got, and the harder it was to keep her wits about her.
“Given the company you keep, I’d think lying and cheating would be points in Mister Van Eck’s favor.”
“Shevrati,” Inej said distinctly. Know-nothing. She’d called Kaz that on more than one occasion. She thought of Jesper toying with his guns, Nina squeezing the life from a man with the flick of a wrist, Kaz picking a lock in his black gloves. Thugs. Thieves. Murderers. And all worth more than a thousand Jan Van Ecks.
Then where are they? The question tore at some hastily stitched seam inside of her. Where is Kaz? She didn’t want to look at that question too closely. Above everything else, Kaz was practical. Why would he come for her when he could walk away from Van Eck with the most valuable hostage in the world?
Bajan wrinkled his nose. “Let’s not speak Suli. It makes me maudlin.” He wore tapered silk trousers and an elegantly cut coat. Pinned to his lapel, a golden lyre crowned with laurel leaves and a small ruby indicated both his profession and the house of his indenture.
Inej knew she shouldn’t continue to talk with him, but she was still a gatherer of secrets. “What instruments do you teach?” she said. “Harp? Pianoforte?”
“Also flute, and voice for ladies.”
“And how does Alys Van Eck sing?”
Bajan gave her a lazy grin. “Most prettily under my instruction. I could teach you to make all manner of pleasing sounds.”
Inej rolled her eyes. He was just like the boys she’d grown up with, a head full of nonsense and a mouth full of easy charm. “I am bound and facing the prospect of torture or worse. Are you actually flirting with me?”
Bajan tsked. “Mister Van Eck and your Mister Brekker will reach an arrangement. Van Eck is a businessman. From what I understand, he is simply protecting his interests. I cannot imagine he would resort to torture.”
“Were you the one tied up and blindfolded every night, your imagination might not fail you so completely.”
And if Bajan had known Kaz at all, he wouldn’t be so certain of an exchange.
In the long hours she was left alone, Inej tried to rest and put her mind to escape, but inevitably her thoughts turned to Kaz and the others. Van Eck wanted to trade her for Kuwei Yul-Bo, the Shu boy they had stolen from the deadliest fortress in the world. He was the only person who had a hope of re-creating his father’s work on the drug known as jurda parem, and the price of his ransom would give Kaz all he had ever wanted—all the money and prestige he needed to take his rightful place among the bosses of the Barrel, and the chance at revenge on Pekka Rollins for the death of his brother. The facts lined up one after another, an army of doubts assembled against the hope she tried to keep steady inside her.
Kaz’s course was obvious: Ransom Kuwei, take the money, find himself a new spider to scale the walls of the Barrel and steal secrets for him. And hadn’t she told him she planned on leaving Ketterdam as soon as they were paid? Stay with me. Had he meant it? What value did her life carry in the face of the reward Kuwei might garner? Nina would never let Kaz abandon her. She’d fight with everything she had to free Inej even if she was still in the grips of parem. Matthias would stand by her with that great heart full of honor. And Jesper … well, Jesper would never do Inej harm, but he needed money badly if he didn’t want his father to lose his livelihood. He would do his best, but that might not necessarily mean what was best for her. Besides, without Kaz, were any of them a match for Van Eck’s ruthlessness and resources? I am, Inej told herself. I may not have Kaz’s devious mind, but I am a dangerous girl.
Van Eck had sent Bajan to her every day, and he’d been nothing but amiable and pleasant even as he’d prodded her for the locations of Kaz’s safe houses. She suspected that Van Eck didn’t come himself because he knew Kaz would be keeping a close eye on his movements. Or maybe he thought she’d be more vulnerable to a Suli boy than a wily merch. But tonight something had changed.
Bajan usually left when Inej had made it clear she would eat no more—a parting smile, a small bow, and away he went, duty dispatched until the following morning. Tonight he had lingered.
Instead of taking his cue to vanish when she used her bound hands to nudge away her dish, he’d said, “When did you see your family last?”
A new approach. “Has Van Eck offered you some reward if you can extract information from me?”
“It was just a question.”
“And I am just a captive. Did he threaten you with punishment?”
Bajan glanced at the guards and said quietly, “Van Eck could bring you back to your family. He could pay off your contract with Per Haskell. It is well within his means.”
“Was this your idea or your master’s?”
“Why does it matter?” Bajan asked. There was an urgency in his voice that pricked at Inej’s defenses. When fear arrives, something is about to happen. But was he afraid of Van Eck or afraid for her? “You can walk away from the Dregs and Per Haskell and that horrid Kaz Brekker free and clear. Van Eck could give you transport to Ravka, money to travel.”
An offer or a threat? Could Van Eck have found her mother and father? The Suli were not easy to track, and they would be wary of strangers asking questions. But what if Van Eck had sent men claiming to have knowledge of a lost girl? A girl who had vanished one chilly dawn as if the tide had reached up to the shore to claim her?
“What does Van Eck know about my family?” she asked, anger rising.
“He knows you’re far from home. He knows the terms of your indenture with the Menagerie.”
“Then he knows I was a slave. Will he have Tante Heleen arrested?”
“I … don’t think—”
“Of course not. Van Eck doesn’t care that I was bought and sold like a bolt of cotton. He’s just looking for leverage.”
But what Bajan asked next took Inej by surprise. “Did your mother make skillet bread?”
She frowned. “Of course.” It was a Suli staple. Inej could have made skillet bread in her sleep.
“With rosemary?”
“Dill, when we had it.” She knew what Bajan was doing, trying to make her think of home. But she was so hungry and the memory was so strong that her stomach growled anyway. She could see her mother damping the fire, see her flipping the bread with quick pinches of her fingers, smell the dough cooking over the ashes.
“Your friends are not coming,” said Bajan. “It is time to think of your own survival. You could be home with your family by summer’s end. Van Eck can help you if you let him.”
Every alarm inside Inej had sounded danger. The play was too obvious. Beneath Bajan’s charm, his dark eyes, his easy promises, there was fear. And yet amid the clamor of suspicion, she could hear the soft ch
iming of another bell, the sound of What if? What if she let herself be comforted, gave up the pretense of being beyond the things she’d lost? What if she simply let Van Eck put her on a ship, send her home? She could taste the skillet bread, warm from the pan, see her mother’s dark braid twined with ribbons, strands of silk the color of ripe persimmons.
But Inej knew better than that. She’d learned from the best. Better terrible truths than kind lies. Kaz had never offered her happiness, and she didn’t trust the men promising to serve it up to her now. Her suffering had not been for nothing. Her Saints had brought her to Ketterdam for a reason—a ship to hunt slavers, a mission to give meaning to all she’d been through. She would not betray that purpose or her friends for some dream of the past.
