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Wylan followed Jesper through the cemetery, trying not to trip over any of the decaying gravestones. Black Veil was abandoned; no money or time was spent on keeping it in good condition. Or any condition. "Are you sure he said here? This is the plague cemetery; no one ever comes here."

"Which means we'll be safe here."

As they came out from behind a mausoleum, they found Kaz, Nina, and Inej arriving from the other direction.

Jesper approached them, looking everyone over with concern. Nina was holding an injured arm, but otherwise they looked all right. "Assuming you got ambushed, too?"

"Oh, yes. So many of them, I lost count," Nina said jauntily. Jesper quite liked her—she was a breath of fresh air.

"I got what I needed, and Wylan's bombs took care of the rest."

Wylan didn't want to ask Kaz what that meant, or who had been hurt in the process.

Kaz opened the door of a crypt, ordering, "Get her inside." Only then did Jesper realize that Inej's arms were dripping with blood and she was moving with the gait of someone who was nearing the edge of collapse. Nina led Inej into the crypt.

"She gonna be okay?" Jesper asked.

"She'll be fine."

"Will any of us be fine?" he snapped. "This won't end well, Kaz." If Kaz was willing to let Inej get hurt in this mad rush at Pekka Rollins, he was willing to do anything.

Kaz held his gaze, looking as guilty as he was capable of. "No, it won't. But I'll be the one who ends it." He followed the women inside.

Jesper turned and looked at Wylan, but for once, he had nothing to say. Finally he tipped his head toward the door of the crypt, clapping Wylan on the back as he entered. He'd done well tonight; better than Jesper had expected. With a quick glance around to be sure that only ghosts were moving about the cemetery tonight, Jesper closed the door behind him.

Inside the crypt, Jesper paced while Nina tended to Inej's wounds and Kaz pored over the books he had stolen from Pekka Rollins. Wylan stood there feeling useless. He had compounds in his workshop that could have helped with Inej's healing, but nothing on him. He resolved to start carrying more supplies if he was going to continue working with these people. Which it seemed he was. Now that Jesper remembered him, it was possible to imagine him wanting a repeat of their night together at some point.

But certainly not now. Jesper's face was clouded with anger and concern.

"It looks like Pekka made a move on more than just the Crow Club while we were away," Kaz said at last. "He bought out all of Fifth Harbor."

"You know, Inej took some serious damage," Jesper said impatiently. "The novice nearly lost his head, and the Heartrender took a bullet. But no worries. As long as you're on top of Pekka's corporate holdings."

"You don't take down a lion by cutting off his tail," Kaz snapped.

Jesper snarled back at him, "I'm sorry, you've been on safari when? We're putting our lives on the line!"

Kaz turned and glared at Jesper. "I thought you preferred it that way."

Nina appeared before the argument could get any more heated, and Wylan asked if Inej was going to be okay. Biting her lip, Nina said, "I wouldn't call myself the most proficient Healer, but she'll not be a permanent resident here."

"Not yet anyway." Jesper bit off his words. Whatever was going on with Kaz was threatening everything they had built as a team, even their very relationships with one another. Jesper could feel formerly solid ground shifting under his feet, and he didn't like it.

"Technically, no one actually gets buried here anymore," Wylan said. "When the firepox plague hit years ago, so many people died that the crematoriums all got backed up, so they had to float all the dead bodies in the harbor."

"That's enough!"

All of them stared at Kaz. Even Jesper had never heard him shout like that.

In the silence that followed, Kaz removed a page from the ledger he was holding, and handed it to Jesper.

"Appelbroek?"

"Pekka has a glass factory there, but there are no sandpits in Appelbroek. So cartage fees would kill all of his profits. Find out what he's really up to." Those cold eyes turned to Wylan. "If you want to help, instead of spurting useless historical facts, go with Jesper."

Wylan looked up into Jesper's face to see his reaction. It appeared Jesper was relieved enough to be getting out of Kaz's presence that he was willing to put up with Wylan's. They left the crypt together.

"Is—is he always like this?"

"No." The sharpness of the word convinced Wylan not to ask any further.

He followed Jesper through the cemetery. "We can sleep at my workshop; I should get some supplies, anyway, if I'm going to be ready for … something like tonight."

Jesper stopped abruptly and looked down at him, his face softening slightly. Then he gave a brief nod and they kept walking in silence.

Wylan offered Jesper the bed for the night—he considered, in fact, suggesting they share it, but in Jesper's current mood didn't want it to seem as though he was hinting at anything. Jesper was tempted to take the bed, but he shook his head. "No. You take it. I've gotten used to sleeping on the ground." He tried to get comfortable in the blankets—at least there were more of them since he was the only one here—but couldn't quite. He thought of the night they had spent together, of waking alone in the light of day, of trying to remember the name and face from the night before. If Wylan remembered him, why hadn't he spoken up? "Wylan."

"Hm?"

"Why didn't you say something?"

There was silence, followed by a completely unconvincing light snore. Jesper sighed, closing his eyes. He remembered that night, and Wylan, very well now. He'd have liked to repeat it sometime—except now they worked together, and that would be complicated. Telling himself to put the idea out of his mind, he rolled over and tried to go to sleep.

After an uncomfortable night and an early morning, they found themselves walking the sunny streets of Appelbroek. This was an area of fancy mansions, not an industrial zone. Who would ever have expected to find a glass factory here? And, in fact, they didn't.

They stood outside the gate looking at the mansion. "Does that look like a glass factory to you?"

Wylan shook his head. "Well, we have our answer, then. There's no glass factory in Appelbroek, so we tell Kaz that Pekka's been laundering money from his country estate."

"Question is: What are those guards guarding?"

Wylan hadn't known Jesper that long, but he could see in his face that standing here and watching from a distance as men unloaded temptingly obscured crates and barrels from a cart was not going to satisfy his curiosity. "You're gonna make me go in there. Aren't you?"

The smile Jesper turned on him would have made him go just about anywhere, truth be told. Jesper gave a little shrug. "Break-in's the best part."

And he was off, scouting for handy windows to sneak through. Wylan sighed and followed him.

A window in the laundry was open; it was hardly a break-in at all, Jesper thought in some disappointment, spinning his gun and reholstering it. He made sure Wylan made it through the window all right and then led him through the house, tiptoeing lightly, scouting for anything unusual. Mostly it just looked like an unused country home … or, at least, what Jesper would have imagined an unused country home to look like. You could fit half the Barrel in here and still have room to dance in.

Their pace slowed as they made their way through the house, distracted by all the fine things. Was it possible there was no secret here, just … a house?

And as the break-in became less interesting, Jesper's curiosity about Wylan became more so. As they came into a room dominated by a lovely piano, he decided to ask his question again, when Wylan couldn't pretend to be asleep. "I'd still like to know why you didn't tell me."

"Tell you what?"

"That we'd … met before."

Wylan looked at the piano, seeing a broken key. He tapped on it, trying to decide how to answer. At last, he said, "You didn't remember me." It still stung, being forgotten. More than stung, if he was being honest with himself.

Jesper felt badly about that. He remembered now, in detail. The room, the heat between them, the morning, and the empty bed. He wished he had remembered before. "In my defense, it was dark. And … when I woke up, you were gone." It still stung, being left alone. Jesper was the one who did the leaving, precisely so he never had to feel that way again.

Before Wylan could respond, a door opened in an adjoining room. Someone was here. The guards? Or did someone actually live in this giant house?

They moved through the door into the next room, but Jesper put out an arm to stop Wylan going further and stumbling into someone, or something, he wasn't prepared for. On a table next to the door he saw a pile of drawings and picked one up. It was two stick figures, one of them bearded, holding hands, and it said "Daddy" across the top. So. Pekka Rollins had a child, and the child lived here. That was what the guards were guarding.

Kaz was going to love this.