She heard another shout, then a brief rattle of gunfire. Six guards behind her, shackles at her feet. Helplessness rose up to choke her. Kaz and the others were about to walk into a trap, and she had no way to warn them.
“I thought it best not to leave the perimeter completely unguarded,” said Van Eck. “We wouldn’t want to make it too easy and give away the game.”
“He’ll never tell you where Kuwei is.”
Van Eck’s smile was indulgent. “I only wonder which will prove more effective—torturing Mister Brekker or having him watch as I torture you.” He leaned in, his voice conspiratorial. “I can tell you the first thing I’m going to do is peel off those gloves and break every one of his thieving fingers.”
Inej thought of Kaz’s pale trickster hands, the shiny rope of scar tissue that ran atop his right knuckle. Van Eck could break every finger and both of Kaz’s legs and he’d never say a word, but if his men stripped away Kaz’s gloves? Inej still didn’t understand why he needed them or why he’d fainted in the prison wagon on the way into the Ice Court, but she knew Kaz couldn’t bear the touch of skin on skin. How much of this weakness could he hide? How quickly would Van Eck locate his vulnerability, exploit it? How long until Kaz came undone? She couldn’t bear it. She was glad she didn’t know where Kuwei was. She would break before Kaz did.
Boots were clattering down the hall, a thunder of footsteps. Inej surged forward and opened her mouth to cry out warning, but a guard’s hand clamped down hard over her lips as she struggled in his arms.
The door flew open. Thirty guards raised thirty rifles and thirty triggers cocked. The boy in the doorway flinched backward, his face white, his corkscrew brown curls disarrayed. He wore the Van Eck livery of red and gold.
“I—Mister Van Eck,” he panted, hands held up in defense.
“Stand down,” Van Eck commanded the guards. “What is it?”
The boy swallowed. “Sir, the lake house. They approached from the water.”
Van Eck stood, knocking over his chair. “Alys—”
“They took her an hour ago.”
Alys. Jan Van Eck’s pretty, pregnant wife. Inej felt hope spark, but she tamped it down, afraid to believe.
“They killed one of the guards and left the rest tied up in the pantry,” the boy continued breathlessly. “There was a note on the table.”
“Bring it here,” Van Eck barked. The boy strode down the aisle, and Van Eck snatched the note from his hand.
“What does it … what does it say?” asked Bajan. His voice was tremulous. Maybe Inej had been right about Alys and the music teacher.
Van Eck backhanded him. “If I find out you knew anything about this—”
“I didn’t!” Bajan cried. “I knew nothing. I followed your orders to the letter!”
Van Eck crumpled the note in his fist, but not before Inej made out the words in Kaz’s jagged, unmistakable hand: Noon tomorrow. Goedmedbridge. With her knives.
“The note was weighted down with this.” The boy reached into his pocket and drew out a tie pin—a fat ruby surrounded by golden laurel leaves. Kaz had stolen it from Van Eck back when they’d first been hired for the Ice Court job. Inej hadn’t had the chance to fence it before they left Ketterdam. Somehow Kaz must have gotten hold of it again.
“Brekker,” Van Eck snarled, his voice taut with rage.
Inej couldn’t help it. She started to laugh.
Van Eck slapped her hard. He grabbed her tunic and shook her so that her bones rattled. “Brekker thinks we’re still playing a game, does he? She is my wife. She carries my heir.”
Inej laughed even harder, all the horrors of the past week rising from her chest in giddy peals. She wasn’t sure she could have stopped if she wanted to. “And you were foolish enough to tell Kaz all of that on Vellgeluk.”
“Shall I have Franke fetch the mallet and show you just how serious I am?”
“Mister Van Eck,” Bajan pleaded.
But Inej was done being frightened of this man. Before Van Eck could take another breath, she slammed her forehead upward, shattering his nose. He screamed and released her as blood gushed over his fine mercher suit. Instantly, his guards were on her, pulling her back.
“You little wretch,” Van Eck said, holding a monogrammed handkerchief to his face. “You little whore. I’ll take a hammer to both your legs myself—”
“Go on, Van Eck, threaten me. Tell me all the little things I am. You lay a finger on me and Kaz Brekker will cut the baby from your pretty wife’s stomach and hang its body from a balcony at the Exchange.” Ugly words, speech that pricked her conscience, but Van Eck deserved the images she’d planted in his mind. Though she didn’t believe Kaz would do such a thing, she felt grateful for each nasty, vicious thing Dirtyhands had done to earn his reputation—a reputation that would haunt Van Eck every second until his wife was returned.
“Be silent,” he shouted, spittle flying from his mouth.
“You think he won’t?” Inej taunted. She could feel the heat in her cheek from where his hand had struck her, could see the mallet still resting in the guard’s hand. Van Eck had given her fear and she was happy to return it to him. “Vile, ruthless, amoral. Isn’t that why you hired Kaz in the first place? Because he does the things that no one else dares? Go on, Van Eck. Break my legs and see what happens. Dare him. ”
Had she really believed a merch could outthink Kaz Brekker? Kaz would get her free and then they’d show this man exactly what whores and canal rats could do.
“Console yourself,” she said as Van Eck clutched the ragged corner of the table for support. “Even better men can be bested.”
M atthias would be atoning for the mistakes he’d made in this life long into the next one, but he’d always believed that despite his crimes and failings, there was a core of decency inside him that could never be breached. And yet, he felt sure that if he had to spend another hour with Alys Van Eck, he might murder her just for the sake of a little quiet.
The siege on the lake house had gone off with a precision that Matthias couldn’t help but admire. Only three days after Inej was taken, Rotty had alerted Kaz to the lights that had appeared on Eil Komedie, and the fact that boats had been seen coming and going there at odd hours, often carrying a young Suli man. He’d quickly been identified as Adem Bajan, a music teacher indentured to Van Eck for the last six months. He’d apparently joined the Van Eck house hold after Wylan had left home, but Wylan wasn’t surprised his father had secured professional musical instruction for Alys.
“Is she any good?” asked Jesper.
Wylan had hesitated, then said, “She’s very enthusiastic.”
It had been easy enough to surmise that Inej was being kept on Eil Komedie, and Nina had wanted to go after her immediately.
“He didn’t take her out of the city,” she’d said, cheeks glowing with color for the first time since she’d emerged from her battle with parem . “It’s obvious he’s keeping her there.”
But Kaz had simply gazed into the middle distance with that odd look on his face and said, “Too obvious.”
“Kaz—”
“How would you like a hundred kruge ?”
“What’s the catch?”
“Exactly. Van Eck’s making it too easy. He’s treating us like marks. But he isn’t Barrel born, and we aren’t a bunch of dumb culls ready to jump at the first shiny lure he flashes. Van Eck wants us to think she’s on that island. Maybe she is. But he’ll have plenty of firepower waiting for us too, maybe even a few Grisha using parem .”
“Always hit where the mark isn’t looking,” Wylan had murmured.
“Sweet Ghezen,” said Jesper. “You’ve been thoroughly corrupted.”
Kaz had tapped his crow’s head cane on the flagstones of the tomb floor. “Do you know what Van Eck’s problem is?”
“No honor?” said Matthias.
“Rotten parenting skills?” said Nina.
“Receding hairline?” offered Jesper.