“He’s your son,” Jesper said.
“No, he is a mistake. One soon to be corrected. My lovely young wife is carrying a child, and be it boy or girl or creature with horns, that child will be my heir, not some soft-pated idiot who cannot read a hymnal, let alone a ledger, not some fool who would make the Van Eck name a laughingstock.”
“You’re the fool,” Jesper snarled. “He’s smarter than most of us put together, and he deserves a better father than you.”
“Deserved,” amended Van Eck. He blew the whistle twice.
The Tidemakers didn’t hesitate. Before anyone could draw breath to protest, two huge walls of water rose and shot towards the Ferolind. They crushed the ship between them with a resonant boom, sending debris flying.
Jesper screamed in rage and raised his guns.
“Jesper!” Kaz commanded. “Stand down!”
“He killed them,” Jesper said, face contorted. “He killed Wylan and Nina!”
Matthias laid a hand on his arm. “Jesper,” he said calmly. “Be still.”
Jesper looked back at the rocking waves, at the broken bits of mast and torn sail where a ship had been only seconds before. “I don’t … I don’t understand.”
“I confess to being a bit shocked, too, Mister Brekker,” said Van Eck. “No tears? No righteous protests for your lost crew? They raise you cold in the Barrel.”
“Cold and cautious,” said Kaz.
“Not cautious enough, it seems. At least you won’t live to regret your mistakes.”
“Tell me, Van Eck. Will you do penance? Ghezen frowns on broken contracts.”
Van Eck’s nostrils flared. “What have you given to the world, Mister Brekker? Have you created wealth? Prosperity? No. You take from honest men and women and serve only yourself. Ghezen shows his favour to those who are deserving, to those who build cities, not the rats who eat away at their foundations. He has blessed me and my dealings. You will perish, and I will prosper. That is Ghezen’s will.”
“There’s just one problem, Van Eck. You’ll need Kuwei Yul-Bo to do it.”
“And how will you take him from me? You are outgunned and surrounded.”
“I don’t need to take him from you. You never had him. That’s not Kuwei Yul-Bo.”
“A sorry bluff at best.”
“I’m not big on bluffing, am I, Inej?”
“Not as a rule.”
Van Eck’s lip curled. “And why is that?”
“Because he’d rather cheat,” said the boy who was not Kuwei Yul-Bo in perfect, unaccented Kerch.
Van Eck startled at the sound of his voice, and Jesper flinched.
The Shu boy held out a hand. “Pay up, Kaz.”
Kaz sighed. “I do hate to lose a wager. You see, Van Eck, Wylan bet me that you would have no qualms about ending his life. Call me sentimental, but I didn’t believe a father could be so callous.”
Van Eck stared at Kuwei Yul-Bo – or the boy he’d believed to be Kuwei Yul-Bo. Kaz watched him
wrestle with the reality of Wylan’s voice coming from Kuwei’s mouth. Jesper looked just as incredulous. He’d get his explanation after Kaz got his money.
“It’s not possible,” said Van Eck.
It shouldn’t have been. Nina had been a passable Tailor at best – but under the influence of jurda parem, well, as Van Eck had once said, Things become possible that simply shouldn’t be. A nearly perfect replica of Kuwei Yul-Bo stood before them, but he had Wylan’s voice, his mannerisms, and –
though Kaz could see the fear and hurt in his golden eyes – Wylan’s surprising courage, too.
After the battle in the Djerholm harbour, the merchling had come to Kaz to warn him that he couldn’t be used as leverage against his father. Wylan had been red-faced, barely able to speak the words of his supposed ‘affliction’. Kaz had only shrugged. Some men were poets. Some were farmers. Some were rich merchers. Wylan could draw a perfect elevation. He’d made a drill that could cut through Grisha glass from parts of a gate and scavenged bits of jewellery. So what if he couldn’t read?
Kaz had expected the boy to balk at the idea of being tailored to look like Kuwei. A transformation that extreme was beyond the power of any Grisha not using parem. “It may be permanent,” Kaz had warned him.
Wylan hadn’t cared. “I need to know. Once and for all, I need to know what my father really thinks of me.”
And now he did.
Van Eck goggled at Wylan, searching for some sign of his son’s features. “It can’t be.”
Wylan walked to Kaz’s side. “Maybe you can pray to Ghezen for understanding, Father.”
Wylan was a bit taller than Kuwei, his face a bit rounder. But Kaz had seen them side by side, and the likeness was extraordinary. Nina’s work, performed on the ship before that first extraordinary high had begun to wane, was nearly flawless.
Fury lashed across Van Eck’s features. “Worthless,” he hissed at Wylan. “I knew you were a fool, but a traitor as well?”