28
ZOYA
THEY EMERGED FROM THE TUNNEL in an unfamiliar part of the city, and Zoya wondered if Brekker was deliberately trying to disorient them.
“We’re in the Geldin District,” Nikolai murmured. “The favored neighborhood of wealthy merchants.”
Leave it to Nikolai to have an accurate map in his head. It was as if they’d traveled to a different country, not a different part of town. The streets were tidy and lovely, all neat cobblestones and clean brick facades. Zoya noted the curtains in the windows, a woman walking home with her groceries, a housekeeper sweeping a stoop. Ordinary people, living ordinary lives. They did their shopping, ate their meals, lay down at night thinking of the health of their children or the work waiting to be done in the morning. Could they find a way to give this peace, this ease, to Ravka? Would there ever be a time when Grisha were free to choose their paths instead of living as soldiers? It was something worth fighting for.
They arrived at an elegant mansion with red tulips painted over the entry. Brekker rapped twice on the front door with the head of his cane.
Zoya recognized the young man who popped his head out—Jesper Fahey. They’d met him when they’d last been forced to work with Brekker’s crew. He was brown-skinned and gray-eyed and wore his hair shaved close to the scalp. If memory served, he was some kind of expert sharpshooter.
“I’m not supposed to let you in,” Jesper said.
Brekker seemed unperturbed. “Why not?”
“Because every time I do, you ask me to break the law.”
A voice from behind Jesper said, “The problem isn’t that he asks, it’s that you always say yes.”
“But look who he brought,” Jesper said, gazing at Nikolai with delight. “The man with the flying ships. Come in! Come in!”
Jesper threw open the door, revealing a grand entryway and his shockingly bright combination of turquoise waistcoat and hounds-tooth trousers. The ensemble shouldn’t have worked, but Zoya was forced to admit it did. He could give Count Kirigin some lessons.
“I’ve been keeping up on your exploits, Captain Sturmhond,” Jesper whispered conspiratorially.
Kaz Brekker had sussed out Nikolai’s real identity at their first meeting long ago, but Zoya didn’t think he’d shared it with his crew. They all still believed they were dealing with the legendary Sturmhond, rather than Ravka’s king.
“You should join up with us sometime,” Nikolai said smoothly. “We can always use a sharpshooter aboard.”
“Really?”
“Are you forgetting how much you hate the open sea?” asked a slender boy with ruddy gold curls and luminous blue eyes. Wylan … something. She couldn’t remember his last name, only that Genya had helped to tailor him as part of their plan to secure Kuwei Yul-Bo and his knowledge of jurda parem.
“I can change,” said Jesper. “I’m extremely adaptable.”
They followed Wylan and Jesper across a cluttered parlor strewn with musical instruments in various states of repair and a desktop littered with what looked like tiny piles of gunpowder. Through the tall windows, Zoya glimpsed a garden and a woman painting at an easel, and beyond her the slow-moving gray waters of the Geldcanal.
The house had the starchy lines and precision of any rich merchant household in Ketterdam, but it felt as if it had been taken over by a combination of circus performers, street hooligans, and mad scientists. The dining room table was laden with paints and newly strung canvases as well as what seemed to be the bits and pieces of some kind of chemistry experiment.
Zoya picked up a swatch of fabric that looked like the color had been bled from it. “Is there a Fabrikator living here?”
“A friend of ours,” said Jesper, throwing his lanky frame down in a chair. “An indenture who likes to pop by for meals. Quite the sponger.”
“Has he never been trained? The work seems rudimentary.”
Jesper sniffed. “I thought it had a certain rustic elegance.”
“No,” said Wylan. “He hasn’t been trained. He’s stubborn that way.”
“Independent,” corrected Jesper.
“Pigheaded.”
“But stylish.”
Kaz rapped his cane on the floor. “And now you know why I don’t visit more often.”
Jesper folded his arms. “No one asked you to visit more often. And I don’t remember issuing an invitation for lunch.”
“I have a job that requires both of your skill sets.”
“Kaz,” Wylan said, carefully collecting some of the half-full glasses around the room. “We’d prefer not to do anything illegal.”