Kaz yanked a loop of climbing line from inside his pocket and hooked it to the rail. He snagged the head of his cane on the railing beside it, hauled himself up, and vaulted over the side, his momentum carrying him out above the canal. The cord snapped taut, and he arced back toward the bridge like a pendulum, dropping onto the deck of the flower barge beside Inej.
Two stadwatch boats were already moving toward them quickly as more officers raced down the ramps to the canal. Kaz hadn’t known what Van Eck would try—he certainly hadn’t expected him to bring the stadwatch into it—but he’d been sure Van Eck would attempt to close off all their escape routes. Another series of booms sounded, and bursts of pink and green exploded in the sky above the Stave. The tourists cheered. They didn’t seem to notice that two of the explosions had come from the canal and had blown holes in the prow of one of the stadwatch boats, sending men scurrying for the sides and into the canal as the craft sank. Nicely done, Wylan. He’d bought them time—and done it without panicking the bystanders on the Stave. Kaz wanted the crowd in a very good mood.
He heaved a flat of wild geraniums into the canal over the protests of the flower seller and grabbed the clothes Matthias had stashed there earlier that morning. He swept the red cloak around Inej’s shoulders in a rain of petals and blossoms as she continued to strap on her knives. She looked almost as startled as the flower seller.
“What?” he asked as he tossed her a Mister Crimson mask that matched his own.
“Those were my mother’s favorite flower.”
“Good to know Van Eck didn’t cure you of sentiment.”
“Nice to be back, Kaz.”
“Good to have you back, Wraith.”
“Ready?”
“Wait,” he said, listening. The fireworks had ceased, and a moment later he heard the sound he’d been waiting for, the musical tinkle of coins hitting the pavement, followed by shrieks of delight from the crowd.
“Now,” he said.
They grabbed the cord and he gave a sharp tug. With a high-pitched whir, the cord retracted, yanking them upward in a burst of speed. They were back on the bridge in moments, but the scene awaiting them was decidedly different from the one they’d escaped less than two minutes before.
West Stave was in chaos. Mister Crimsons were everywhere, fifty, sixty, seventy of them in red masks and cloaks, tossing coins into the air as tourists and locals alike pushed and shoved, laughing and shouting, crawling on hands and knees, completely oblivious to the stadwatch officers trying to get past them.
“Mother, Father, pay the rent!” shouted a crowd of girls from the doorway of the Blue Iris.
“I can’t, my dear, the money’s spent!” the Mister Crimsons chorused back, and tossed another cloud of coins into the air, sending the crowd into freshly delirious shrieks of joy.
“Clear the way!” shouted the captain of the guard.
One of the officers tried to unmask a Mister Crimson standing by a lamppost, and the crowd began booing. Kaz and Inej plunged into the swirl of red capes and people scrambling for coins. To his left, he heard Inej laugh behind her mask. He’d never heard her laugh like that, giddy and wild.
Suddenly a deep, thunderous boom shook the Stave. People toppled, grabbed at one another, at walls, at whatever was closest. Kaz almost lost his footing, righted himself with his cane.
When he looked up, it was like trying to peer through a thick veil. Smoke hung heavy in the air. Kaz’s ears were ringing. As if from a great distance, he heard frightened screams, cries of terror. A woman ran past him, face and hair coated in dust and plaster like a pantomime ghost, hands clapped over her ears. There was blood trickling from beneath her palms. A gaping hole had been blown in the facade of the House of the White Rose.
He saw Inej lift her mask, and he pulled it back down over her face. He shook his head. Something was wrong. He’d planned a friendly riot, not a mass disaster, and Wylan wasn’t the type to miscalculate so gravely. Someone else had come to make trouble on West Stave, someone who didn’t mind doing more than a little damage.
All Kaz knew was he’d invested a lot of time and money in getting his Wraith back. He sure as hell wasn’t going to lose her again.
He touched Inej’s shoulder briefly. That was all the signal they needed. He raced for the nearest alleyway. He didn’t have to look to know she was beside him—silent, sure-footed. She could have outpaced him in an instant, but they ran in tandem, matching each other step for step.
N ow this was Jesper’s kind of chaos.
Jesper had two jobs, one before the exchange of hostages, and one after. While Inej was in Van Eck’s possession, Nina was the first line of defense if the guards tried to remove her from the bridge or anyone threatened her. Jesper was to keep Van Eck in his rifle sights—no kill shots, but if the guy started brandishing a gun, Jesper was allowed to leave him without the use of an arm. Or two.
“Van Eck’s going to pull something,” Kaz had said back on Black Veil, “and it’s going to be messy, because he has less than twelve hours to plan it.”
“Good,” said Jesper.
“Bad,” said Kaz. “The more complicated a plan is, the more people he has to involve, the more people talk, the more ways it can go wrong.”
“It’s a law of systems,” Wylan murmured. “You build in safeguards for failures, but something in the safeguards ends up causing an unforeseen failure.”
“Van Eck’s move won’t be elegant, but it will be unpredictable, so we need to be prepared.”
“How do we prepare for the unpredictable?” Wylan asked.
“We broaden our options. We keep every possible avenue of escape open. Rooftops, streets and alleys, waterways. There’s no chance Van Eck is going to let us just stroll off that bridge.”
Jesper had seen trouble coming a ways off when he’d spotted the groups of stadwatch headed for the bridge. It could just be a rousting. That happened once or twice a year in the Staves, the Merchant Council’s way of showing the gamblers, procurers, and performers that no matter how much money they poured into the city coffers, the government was still in charge.
He had signaled Matthias and waited. Kaz had been clear: “Van Eck won’t act until he has Alys back and out of harm’s way. That’s when we need to keep sharp.”
And sure enough, once Alys and Inej had traded places, some kind of ruckus had started on the bridge. Jesper’s trigger finger itched, but his second job had been simple too: Watch Kaz for the sign.
Seconds later, Kaz’s cane shot into the air, and he and Inej were hurtling over the bridge railing. Jesper struck a match and one, two, three, four, five of the rockets Wylan had prepared were screaming toward the sky, exploding in crackling bursts of color. The last was a shimmer of pink. Strontium chloride , Wylan had told him, working away on his collection of fireworks and explosives, flash bombs, weevils, and whatever else was needed. In the dark, it burns red.
Things are always more interesting in the dark , Jesper had replied. He hadn’t been able to help it. Really, if the merchling was going to offer those kinds of opportunities, he had a duty to take them.
The first batch of fireworks was a signal to the Mister Crimsons whom Nina and Matthias had recruited last night—or very early this morning—offering free food and wine to anyone who came to Goedmedbridge when the fireworks went off just after noon. All a big promotion for the nonexistent Crimson Cutlass. Knowing only a fraction of the people would actually show up, they’d given away more than two hundred costumes and bags of fake coins. “If we get fifty, it will be enough,” said Kaz.