Six of Crows

by Leigh Bardugo

  “This isn’t the Hellshow,” said Kaz. “It won’t be that easy.”

  “Visitors are vetted weeks before they arrive at the Ice Court,” Matthias said. “Anyone entering the embassy will have their papers checked and checked again. Fjerdans aren’t fools.”

  Nina raised a brow. “Not all of them, at least.”

  “Don’t poke the bear, Nina,” Kaz said. “We need him friendly. When does this party take place?”

  “It’s seasonal,” Nina said, “on the spring equinox.”

  “Two weeks from today,” noted Inej.

  Kaz cocked his head to one side, his eyes focused on something in the distance.

  “Scheming face,” Jesper whispered to Inej.

  She nodded. “Definitely.”

  “Is the White Rose sending a delegation?” Kaz asked.

  Nina shook her head. “I didn’t hear anything about it.”

  “Even if we go straight to Djerholm,” Inej said, “we’ll need most of a week to travel. There isn’t time to secure documents or create cover that will bear up under scrutiny.”

  “We’re not going in through the embassy,” said Kaz. “Always hit where the mark isn’t looking.”

  “Who’s Mark?” asked Wylan.

  Jesper burst out laughing. “Oh, Saints, you are something. The mark, the pigeon, the cozy, the fool you’re looking to fleece.”

  Wylan drew himself up. “I may not have had your … education, but I’m sure I know plenty of words that you don’t.”

  “Also the proper way to fold a napkin and dance a minuet. Oh, and you can play the flute. Marketable skills, merchling. Marketable skills.”

  “No one dances the minuet anymore,” grumbled Wylan.

  Kaz leaned back. “What’s the easiest way to steal a man’s wallet?”

  “Knife to the throat?” asked Inej.

  “Gun to the back?” said Jesper.

  “Poison in his cup?” suggested Nina.

  “You’re all horrible,” said Matthias.

  Kaz rolled his eyes. “The easiest way to steal a man’s wallet is to tell him you’re going to steal his watch. You take his attention and direct it where you want it to go. Hringkälla is going to do that job for us. The Ice Court will have to divert resources to monitoring guests and protecting the royal family. They can’t be looking everywhere at once. It’s the perfect opportunity to spring Bo Yul-Bayur.” Kaz pointed to the prison gate in the ringwall. “Remember what I told you at Hellgate, Nina?”

  “It’s hard to keep track of all your wisdom.”

  “At the prison, they won’t care about who’s coming in, just anyone trying to get out.” His gloved finger slid sideways to the next sector. “At the embassy they won’t care who’s going out, they’ll just be focused on who’s trying to get in. We enter through the prison, leave through the embassy. Helvar, is the Elderclock functional?”

  Matthias nodded. “It chimes every quarter hour. It’s also how the alarm protocols are sounded.”

  “It’s accurate?”

  “Of course.”

  “Quality Fjerdan engineering,” Nina said sourly.

  Kaz ignored her. “Then we’ll use the Elderclock to coordinate our movements.”

  “Will we enter disguised as guards?” Wylan asked.

  Jesper couldn’t keep the disdain from his voice. “Only Nina and Matthias speak Fjerdan.”

  “I speak Fjerdan,” Wylan protested.

  “Schoolroom Fjerdan, right? I bet you speak Fjerdan about as well as I speak moose.”

  “Moose is probably your native tongue,” mumbled Wylan.

  “We enter as we are,” Kaz said. “As criminals. The prison is our front door.”

  “Let me get this straight,” said Jesper. “You want us to let the Fjerdans lock us in jail. Isn’t that what we’re always trying to avoid?”

  “Criminal identities are slippery. It’s one of the perks of being a member of the troublemaking class. They’ll be counting heads at the prison gate, looking at names and crimes, not checking passports or examining embassy seals.”

  “Because no one wants to go to prison,” Jesper said.

  Nina rubbed her hands over her arms. “I don’t want to be locked up in a Fjerdan cell.”

  Kaz flicked his sleeve, and two slender rods of metal appeared between his fingers. They danced over his knuckles then vanished once more.

  “Lockpicks?” Nina asked.

  “You let me take care of the cells,” Kaz said.

  “Hit where the mark isn’t looking,” mused Inej.

  “That’s right,” said Kaz. “And the Ice Court is like any other mark, one big white pigeon ready for the plucking.”

  “Will Yul-Bayur come willingly?” Inej asked.

  “Van Eck said the Council gave Yul-Bayur a code word when they first tried to get him out of Shu Han so he’d know who to trust: Sesh-uyeh. It will tell him we’ve been sent by Kerch.”

  “Sesh-uyeh,” Wylan repeated, trying the syllables clumsily on his tongue. “What does it mean?”

  Nina examined a spot on the floor and said, “Heartsick.”

  “This can be done,” said Kaz, “and we’re the ones to do it.” Jesper felt the mood shift in the room as possibility took hold. It was a subtle thing, but he’d learned to look for it at the tables—the moment a player came awake to the fact that he might have a winning hand. Anticipation tugged at Jesper, a fizzing mix of fear and excitement that made it hard for him to sit still.

  Maybe Matthias sensed it, too, because he folded his huge arms and said, “You have no idea what you’re up against.”

  “But you do, Helvar. I want you working on the plan of the Ice Court every minute until we sail. No detail is too small or inconsequential. I’ll be checking on you regularly.”

  Inej traced her finger over the rough sketch Wylan had produced, a series of embedded circles. “It really does look like the rings of a tree,” she said.

  “No,” said Kaz. “It looks like a target.”

  9

  KAZ

  “We’re done here,” Kaz told the others. “I’ll send word to each of you after I find us a ship, but be ready to sail by tomorrow night.”

  “So soon?” Inej asked.

  “We don’t know what kind of weather we’ll hit, and there’s a long journey ahead of us. Hringkälla is our best shot at Bo Yul-Bayur. I’m not going to risk losing it.”

  Kaz needed time to think through the plan that was forming in his mind. He could see the basics—where they would enter, how they would leave. But the plan he envisioned would mean that they wouldn’t be able to bring much with them. They’d be operating without their usual resources. That meant more variables and a lot more chances for things to go wrong.

  Keeping Wylan Van Eck around meant he could at least make sure they got their reward. But it wasn’t going to be easy. They hadn’t even left Ketterdam, and Wylan already seemed completely out of his depth. He wasn’t much younger than Kaz, but somehow he looked like a child—smooth-skinned, wide-eyed, like a silk-eared puppy in a room full of fighting dogs.

  “Keep Wylan out of trouble,” he told Jesper as he dismissed them.

  “Why me?”

  “You’re unlucky enough to be in my line of sight, and I don’t want any sudden reconciliations between father and son before we set sail.”

  “You don’t need to worry about that,” said Wylan.

  “I worry about everything, merchling. That’s why I’m still alive. And you can keep an eye on Jesper, too.”

  “On me?” Jesper said indignantly.

  Kaz slid a black wood panel aside and unlocked the safe hidden behind it. “Yes, you.” He counted out four slender stacks of kruge and handed one over to Jesper. “This is for bullets, not bets. Wylan, make sure his feet don’t mysteriously find their way into a gambling den on his way to buy ammunition, understood?”

  “I don’t need a nursemaid,” Jesper snapped.

  “More like a chaperone, but if you want him to w
ash your nappies and tuck you in at night, that’s your business.” He ignored Jesper’s stung expression and doled kruge out to Wylan for explosives and to Nina for whatever she’d need in her tailoring kit. “Stock up for the journey only,” he said. “If this works the way I think it will, we’re going to have to enter the Ice Court empty-handed.”

  He saw a shadow pass over Inej’s face. She wouldn’t like being without her knives any more than he liked being without his cane.

  “I’ll need you to get cold weather gear,” he told her. “There’s a shop on the Wijnstraat that supplies trappers—start there.”

  “You think to approach from the north?” asked Helvar.

  Kaz nodded. “The Djerholm harbor is crawling with customs agents, and I’m going to bet they’ll be tightening security during your big party.”

  “It isn’t a party.”

  “It sounds like a party,” said Jesper.

  “It isn’t supposed to be a party,” Helvar amended sullenly.

  “What are we going to do with him?” Nina asked, nodding at Matthias. Her voice was disinterested, but the performance was wasted on everyone except Helvar. They’d all seen her tears at Hellgate.

  “For the moment, he stays here at the Crow Club. I want you dredging your memory for details, Helvar. Wylan and Jesper will join you later. We’ll keep this parlor closed. If anyone playing in the main hall asks, tell them there’s a private game going on.”

  “We have to sleep here?” asked Jesper. “I have things I need to see to at the Slat.”

  “You’ll manage,” Kaz said, though he knew asking Jesper to spend the night in a gambling den without placing a bet was a particular kind of cruelty. He turned to the rest of them. “Not a word to anyone. No one is to know you’re leaving Kerch. You’re working with me on a job at a country house outside the city. That’s all.”

  “Are you going to tell us anything else about your miraculous plan?” Nina asked.

  “On the boat. The less you know, the less you can talk.”

  “And you’re leaving Helvar unshackled?”

  “Can you behave?” Kaz asked the Fjerdan.

  His eyes looked murder, but he nodded.

  “We’ll be locking this room up tight and posting a guard.”

  Inej considered the giant Fjerdan. “Maybe two.”

  “Post Dirix and Rotty, but don’t give them too many details. They’ll sail out with us, and I can fill them in later. And Wylan, you and I are going to have a chat. I want to know everything about your father’s trading company.”

  Wylan shrugged. “I don’t know anything about it. He doesn’t include me in those discussions.”

  “You’re telling me you’ve never snooped around his office? Looked through his documents?”

  “No,” Wylan said, his chin jutting out slightly. Kaz was surprised to find he actually believed him.

  “What did I tell you?” Jesper said cheerfully as he headed through the door. “Useless.”

  The others started to file out behind him, and Kaz shut the safe, giving the tumbler a spin.

  “I’d like a word with you, Brekker,” Helvar said. “Alone.”

  Inej cast Kaz a warning glance. Kaz ignored it. She didn’t think he could handle a lump of country muscle like Matthias Helvar? He slid the wall panel closed and gave his leg a shake. It was aching now—too many late nights and too much time with his weight on it.

  “Go on, Wraith,” he said. “Shut the door behind you.”

  As soon as the door clicked shut, Matthias lunged for him. Kaz let it happen. He’d been expecting it.

  Matthias clamped one filthy hand over Kaz’s mouth. The sensation of skin on skin set off a riot of revulsion in Kaz’s head, but because he’d been anticipating the attack, he managed to control the sickness that overcame him. Matthias’ other hand rooted around in Kaz’s coat pockets, first one then the other.

  “Fer esje?” he grunted angrily in Fjerdan. Then, “Where is it?” in Kerch.

  Kaz gave Helvar another moment of frenzied searching, then dropped his elbow and jabbed upward, forcing Helvar to loosen his grip. Kaz slipped away easily. He smacked Helvar behind the right leg with his cane. The big Fjerdan collapsed. When he tried to shove up again, Kaz kicked him.

  “Stay down, you pathetic skiv.”

  Again, Helvar tried to rise. He was fast, and prison had made him strong. Kaz cracked him hard on the jaw, then gave the pressure points at Helvar’s huge shoulders two lightning-quick jabs with the tip of his cane. The Fjerdan grunted as his arms went limp and useless at his sides.

  Kaz flipped the cane in his hand and pressed the carved crow’s head against Helvar’s throat. “Move again and I’ll smash your jaw so badly you’ll be drinking your meals for the rest of your life.”

  The Fjerdan stilled, his blue eyes alight with hate.

  “Where is the pardon?” Helvar growled. “I saw you put it in your pocket.”

  Kaz crouched down beside him and produced the folded document from a pocket that had seemed empty just a moment before. “This?”

  The Fjerdan flopped his useless arms, then released a low animal growl as Kaz made the pardon vanish in thin air. It reappeared between his fingers. He turned it once, flashing the text, then ran his hand over it, and showed Helvar the seemingly blank page.

  “Demjin,” muttered Helvar. Kaz didn’t speak Fjerdan, but that word he knew. Demon.

  Hardly. He’d learned sleight of hand from the cardsharps and monte runners on East Stave, and spent hours practicing it in front of a muddy mirror he’d bought with his first week’s pay.

  Kaz knocked his cane gently against Helvar’s jaw. “For every trick you’ve seen, I know a thousand more. You think a year in Hellgate hardened you up? Taught you to fight? Hellgate would have been paradise to me as a child. You move like an ox—you’d last about two days on the streets where I grew up. This was your one free pass, Helvar. Don’t test me again. Nod so I know you understand.”

  Helvar pressed his lips together and nodded once.

  “Good. I think we’ll shackle those feet tonight.”

  Kaz rose, snatched his new hat from the desk where he’d left it, and gave the Fjerdan one last kick to the kidneys for good measure. Sometimes the big ones didn’t know when to stay down.

  10

  INEJ

  Over the next day, Inej saw Kaz begin to move the pieces of his scheme into position. She’d been privy to his consultations with every member of the crew, but she knew she was seeing only fragments of his plan. That was the game Kaz always played.

  If he had doubts about what they were attempting, it didn’t show, and Inej wished she shared his certainty. The Ice Court had been built to withstand an onslaught of armies, assassins, Grisha, and spies. When she’d said as much to Kaz, he’d simply replied, “But it hasn’t been built to keep us out.”

  His confidence unnerved her. “What makes you think we can do this? There will be other teams out there, trained soldiers and spies, people with years of experience.”

  “This isn’t a job for trained soldiers and spies. It’s a job for thugs and thieves. Van Eck knows it, and that’s why he brought us in.”

  “You can’t spend his money if you’re dead.”

  “I’ll acquire expensive habits in the afterlife.”

  “There’s a difference between confidence and arrogance.”

  He’d turned his back on her then, giving each of his gloves a sharp tug. “And when I want a sermon on that, I know who to come to. If you want out, just say so.”

  Her spine had straightened, her own pride rising to her defense. “Matthias isn’t the only irreplaceable member of this crew, Kaz. You need me.”

  “I need your skills, Inej. That’s not the same thing. You may be the best spider crawling around the Barrel, but you’re not the only one. You’d do well to remember it if you want to keep your share of the haul.”

  She hadn’t said a word, hadn’t want to show just how angry he’d made her, but she’d
left his office and hadn’t said a thing to him since.

  Now, as she headed toward the harbor, she wondered what kept her on this path.

  She could leave Kerch anytime she wanted. She could stow away on a ship bound for Novyi Zem. She could go back to Ravka and search for her family. Hopefully they’d been safe in the west when the civil war broke out, or maybe they’d taken refuge in Shu Han. The Suli caravans had been following the same well-worn roads for years, and she had the skills to steal what she needed to survive until she found them.

  That would mean walking out on her debt to the Dregs. Per Haskell would blame Kaz; he’d be forced to carry the price of her indenture, and she’d be leaving him vulnerable without his Wraith to gather secrets. But hadn’t he told her that she was easily replaced? If they managed to pull off this heist and return to Kerch with Bo Yul-Bayur safely in tow, her percentage of the haul would be more than enough to buy her way out of her contract with the Dregs. She’d owe Kaz nothing, and there would be no reason for her to stay.

  Sunrise was only an hour away, but the streets were crowded as she wended her way from East to West Stave. There was a Suli saying: The heart is an arrow. It demands aim to land true. Her father had liked to recite this when she was training on the wire or the swings. Be decisive, he’d say. You have to know where you want to go before you get there. Her mother had laughed at this. That’s not what that means, she’d say. You take the romance out of everything. He hadn’t, though. Her father had adored her mother. Inej remembered him leaving little bouquets of wild geraniums for her mother to find everywhere, in the cupboards, the camp cook pots, the sleeves of her costumes.

  Shall I tell you the secret of true love? her father once asked her. A friend of mine liked to tell me that women love flowers. He had many flirtations, but he never found a wife. Do you know why? Because women may love flowers, but only one woman loves the scent of gardenias in late summer that remind her of her grandmother’s porch. Only one woman loves apple blossoms in a blue cup. Only one woman loves wild geraniums.