But they couldn’t let this little rescue slow them down. With so many opponents and the stadwatch involved, they couldn’t afford it. Given enough time, the Shu would stop worrying about those dry-docked warships and the Council of Tides, and find their way to Black Veil. Kaz wanted Kuwei out of the city and removed from play as soon as possible.
At last, they put their lists and sketches aside. The wreckage of their makeshift meal was cleared from the table to avoid attracting the rats of Black Veil, and the lanterns were doused.
The others would sleep. Kaz could not. He’d meant what he’d said. Van Eck had more money, more allies, and the might of the city behind him. They couldn’t just be smarter than Van Eck, they had to be relentless. And Kaz could see what the others couldn’t. They’d won the battle today; they’d set out to get Inej back from Van Eck and they had. But the merch was still winning the war.
That Van Eck was willing to risk involving the stadwatch , and by extension the Merchant Council, meant he really believed he was invulnerable. Kaz still had the note Van Eck had sent arranging the meeting on Vellgeluk, but it was shoddy proof of the man’s schemes. He remembered what Pekka Rollins had said back at the Emerald Palace, when Kaz had claimed that the Merchant Council would never stand for Van Eck’s illegal activities. And who’s going to tell them? A canal rat from the worst slum in the Barrel? Don’t kid yourself, Brekker.
At the time, Kaz had barely been able to think beyond the red haze of anger that descended when he was in Rollins’ presence. It stripped away the reason that guided him, the patience he relied on. Around Pekka, he lost the shape of who he was—no, he lost the shape of who he’d fought to become. He wasn’t Dirtyhands or Kaz Brekker or even the toughest lieutenant in the Dregs. He was just a boy fueled by a white flame of rage, one that threatened to burn the pretense of the hard-won civility he maintained to ash.
But now, leaning on his cane among the graves of Black Veil, he could acknowledge the truth of Pekka’s words. You couldn’t go to war with an upstanding merch like Van Eck, not if you were a thug with a reputation dirtier than a stable hand’s boot sole. To win, Kaz would have to level the field. He would show the world what he already knew: Despite his soft hands and fine suits, Van Eck was a criminal, just as bad as any Barrel thug—worse, because his word was worth nothing.
Kaz didn’t hear Inej approach, he just knew when she was there, standing beside the broken columns of a white marble mausoleum. She’d found soap to wash with somewhere, and the scent of the dank rooms of Eil Komedie—that faint hint of hay and greasepaint—was gone. Her black hair shone in the moonlight, already tucked tidily away in a coil at her neck, and her stillness was so complete she might have been mistaken for one of the cemetery’s stone guardians.
“Why the net, Kaz?”
Yes, why the net? Why something that would complicate the assault he’d planned on the silos and leave them twice as open to exposure? I couldn’t bear to watch you fall. “I just went to a lot of trouble to get my spider back. I didn’t do it so you could crack your skull open the next day.”
“You protect your investments.” Her voice sounded almost resigned.
“That’s right.”
“And you’re going off island.”
He should be more concerned that she could guess his next move. “Rotty says the old man’s getting restless. I need to go smooth his feathers.”
Per Haskell was still the leader of the Dregs, and Kaz knew he liked the perks of that position, but not the work that went with it. With Kaz gone for so long, things would be starting to unravel. Besides, when Haskell got antsy, he liked to do something stupid just to remind people he was in charge.
“We should get eyes on Van Eck’s house too,” said Inej.
“I’ll take care of it.”
“He’ll have strengthened his security.” The rest went unspoken. There was no one better equipped to slip past Van Eck’s defenses than the Wraith.
He should tell her to rest, tell her he would handle the surveillance on his own. Instead, he nodded and set out for one of the gondels hidden in the willows, ignoring the relief he felt when she followed.
After the raucous din of the afternoon, the canals seemed more silent than usual, the water unnaturally still.
“Do you think West Stave will be back to itself tonight?” Inej asked, voice low. She’d learned a canal rat’s caution when it came to traveling the waterways of Ketterdam.
“I doubt it. The stadwatch will be investigating, and tourists don’t come to Ketterdam for the thrill of being blown to bits.” A lot of businesses were going to lose money. Come tomorrow morning, Kaz suspected the front steps of the Stadhall would be crowded with the owners of pleasure houses and hotels demanding answers. Could be quite a scene. Good. Let the members of the Merchant Council concern themselves with problems other than Jan Van Eck and his missing son. “Van Eck will have changed things up since we lifted the DeKappel.”
“And now that he knows Wylan is with us,” agreed Inej. “Where are we going to meet the old man?”
“The Knuckle.”
They couldn’t intercept Haskell at the Slat. Van Eck would have been keeping the Dregs’ headquarters under surveillance, and now there were probably stadwatch swarming over it too. The thought of stadwatch grunts searching his rooms, digging through his few belongings, sent fury prickling over Kaz’s skin. The Slat wasn’t much, but Kaz had converted it from a leaky squat to a place you could sleep off a bender or lie low from the law without freezing your ass off in the winter or being bled by fleas in the summer. The Slat was his, no matter what Per Haskell thought.
Kaz steered the gondel into Zovercanal at the eastern edge of the Barrel. Per Haskell liked to hold court at the Fair Weather Inn on the same night every week, meeting up with his cronies to play cards and gossip. There was no way he’d miss it tonight, not when his favored lieutenant—his missing favored lieutenant—had fallen out with a member of the Merchant Council and brought so much trouble to the Dregs, not when he’d be the center of attention.
No windows faced onto the Knuckle, a crooked passage that bent between a tenement and a factory that manufactured cut-rate souvenirs. It was quiet, dimly lit, and so narrow it could barely call itself an alley—the perfect place for a jump. Though it wasn’t the safest route from the Slat to the Fair Weather, it was the most direct, and Per Haskell never could resist a shortcut.
Kaz moored the boat near a small footbridge and he and Inej took up their places in the shadows to wait, the need for silence understood. Less than twenty minutes later, a man’s silhouette appeared in the lamplight at the mouth of the alley, an absurd feather jutting from the crown of his hat.
Kaz waited until the figure was almost level with him before he stepped forward. “Haskell.”
Per Haskell whirled, pulling a pistol from his coat. He moved quickly despite his age, but Kaz had known he would be packing iron and was ready. He gave Haskell’s shoulder a quick jab with the tip of his cane, just enough to send a jolt of numbness to his hand.
Haskell grunted and the gun slipped from his grasp. Inej caught it before it could hit the ground and tossed it to Kaz.
“Brekker,” Haskell said angrily, trying to wiggle his numb arm. “Where the hell have you been? And what kind of skiv rolls his own boss in an alley?”
“I’m not robbing you. I just didn’t want you to shoot anyone before we had a chance to talk.” Kaz handed the gun back to Haskell by its grip. The old man snatched it from his palm, grizzled chin jutting out stubbornly.
“Always overstepping,” he grumbled, tucking the weapon into a pocket of his nubbly plaid jacket, unable to reach his holster with his incapacitated arm. “You know what trouble you brought down on me today, boy?”
“I do. That’s why I’m here.”