Six of Crows

by Leigh Bardugo

  Nina took one step, then another. She glanced back over her shoulder. If a guard entered the corridor behind her, she’d have nowhere to hide. So move, Nina.

  She peered inside the first window. The cell was as white as the hallway and illuminated by that same sustained, bright light. The room was empty and devoid of any kind of furniture—no bench, no basin, no bucket. The only break in all that whiteness was a drain at the very center of the floor, surrounded by reddish stains.

  She continued to the next cell. It was identical and equally empty, as was the next, and the next. But here something caught her eye, a coin lying next to the drain—no, not a coin, a button. A tiny silver button emblazoned with a wing, the symbol of a Grisha Squaller. She felt a chill creep over her arms. Had these cells been crafted by Grisha slaves for Grisha prisoners? Had the glass, the walls, the floor been made to withstand Fabrikator manipulation? The rooms were devoid of metal. There was no plumbing, no pipes to carry water that a Tidemaker might abuse. And Nina suspected that the glass she was peering through was mirrored on the other side, so that a Heartrender in the cell wouldn’t be able to locate a target. These were cells designed to hold Grisha. Designed to hold her.

  She whirled on her heel. Bo Yul-Bayur wasn’t here, and she wanted out of this place right now. She snatched the fabric from the lock and blew through the door, not stopping to make sure it closed behind her. The corridor of iron cells was even darker after the brightness that had come before, and she stumbled as she raced back the way she’d come. Nina knew she was being incautious, but she couldn’t get the image of those white rooms out of her head. The drain. The stains around it. Had Grisha been tortured there? Made to confess their crimes against the people?

  She’d studied the Fjerdans—their leaders, their language. She’d even dreamed of entering the Ice Court as a spy just like this, of striking at the heart of this nation that hated her so much. But now that she was here, she just wanted to be gone. She’d grown used to Ketterdam, to the adventures that came with her involvement with the Dregs, to her easy life at the White Rose. But even there, had she ever felt safe? In a city where she couldn’t walk down the streets without fear? I want to go home. The longing for it hit her hard, a physical ache. I want to go back to Ravka.

  The Elderclock began to chime a soft three-quarter-hour. She was late. Still, she forced her steps to slow before she opened the door into the stairway. There was no one there, not even Kaz. She ducked her head into the opposite passage to see if he was coming. Nothing—iron doors, deep shadow, no sign of Kaz.

  Nina waited, unsure of what to do. They’d been meant to meet on the landing with fifteen minutes to spare before the hour. What if he was in some kind of trouble? She hesitated, then plunged down the corridor Kaz had been responsible for searching. She raced past the cells, the hallways snaking back and forth, but Kaz was nowhere to be found.

  Enough, thought Nina when she reached the end of the second corridor. Either Kaz had abandoned her and was already downstairs with the others, or he’d been caught and dragged off somewhere. Either way, she had to get to the incinerator. Once she found the others they could figure out what to do.

  She sped back through the halls and threw open the door to the landing. Two guards stood chatting at the head of the stairs. For a moment, they stared at her, open-mouthed.

  “Sten!” one shouted in Fjerdan, ordering her to halt as they fumbled for their guns. Nina threw out both hands, fingers forming fists, and watched the guards topple backward. One fell flat on the landing, but the other tumbled down the stairs, his rifle firing, sending bullets pinging against the stone walls, the sound echoing down the stairwell. Kaz was going to kill her. She was going to kill Kaz.

  Nina hurtled past the guards’ bodies, down one flight, two flights. On the third-floor landing a door flew open as a guard burst into the stairwell. Nina twisted her hands in the air, and the guard’s neck broke with an audible snap. She was plunging down the next flight before his body struck the ground.

  That was when the Elderclock began to chime. Not the steady tolling of the hour, but a shrill clamor, high and percussive—a sound of alarm.

  25

  INEJ

  Inej looked up, into the dark. High above her floated a small, gray patch of evening sky. Six levels to climb in the dark with her hands slippery from sweat and the fires of hell burning below, with the rope weighing her down and no net to catch her. Climb, Inej.

  Bare hands were best for climbing, but the incinerator walls were far too hot to permit that. So Wylan and Jesper had helped her fish Kaz’s gloves from the laundry bins. She hesitated briefly. Kaz would tell her to just put the gloves on, to do whatever it took to get the job done. And yet, she felt curiously guilty as she slid the supple black leather over her hands, as if she had crept into his rooms without his permission, read his letters, lain down in his bed. The gloves were unlined, with the slenderest slashes hidden in the fingertips. For sleight of hand, she realized, so that he can keep contact with coins or cards or finesse the workings of a lock. Touch without touch.

  There was no time to acclimate herself to the oversized feel of the gloves. Besides, she’d climbed with covered hands plenty of times when the Ketterdam winters had turned her fingers numb. She flexed her toes in her little leather slippers, reveling in the familiar feel of them on her feet, bouncing on her nubbly rubber soles, fearless and eager. The heat was nothing, mere discomfort. The weight of seventy feet of rope coiled around her body? She was the Wraith. She’d suffered worse. She launched herself up into the chimney with pure confidence.

  When her fingers made contact with the stone, she hissed in a breath. Even through the leather, she could feel the dense heat of the bricks. Without the gloves, her skin would have started to blister right away. But there was nothing to do except hold on. She climbed—hand then foot, then hand again, seeking the next small crack, the next divot in the soot-slick walls.

  Sweat coursed down her back. They’d doused the rope and her clothes in water, but it didn’t seem to be doing much good. Her whole body felt flushed, suffused with blood as if she were being slowly cooked in her own skin.

  Her feet pulsed with heat. They felt heavy, clumsy, as if they belonged to someone else. She tried to center herself. She trusted her body. She knew her own strength and exactly what she could do. Another hand up, forcing her limbs to cooperate, seeking a rhythm, but finding only an awkward syncopation that left her muscles trembling with every upward gain. She reached for the next hold, digging in. Climb, Inej.

  Her foot slipped. Her toes lost contact with the wall, and her stomach lurched as she felt the pull of her weight and the rope. She gripped the stone, digging into the cracks, Kaz’s gloves bunching around her damp fingers. Again, her toes sought purchase, but only slid over the bricks. Then her other foot began to slip, too. She sucked in a gust of searing air. Something was wrong. She risked a glance down. Far below, she saw the red glow of the coals, but it was what she saw on her feet that shocked her heart into a panicked gallop. They were a gummy mess. The soles of her shoes—her perfect, beloved shoes—were melting.

  It’s all right, she told herself. Just change your grip. Put your weight in your shoulders. The rubber will cool as you go higher. It will help you grip. But her feet felt like they were on fire. Seeing what was happening had somehow made it worse, as if the rubber was fusing with her flesh.

  Inej blinked the sweat from her eyes and hauled herself up a few more inches. From somewhere above, she heard the chime of the Elderclock. The half hour? Or quarter till? She had to move faster. She should be on the roof by now, attaching the rope.

  She pushed higher and her foot skidded down the brick. She dropped, her whole body stuttering against the wall as she scrambled for purchase. There was no one to save her. No Kaz to come to her rescue, no net waiting to break her fall, only the fire ready to claim her.

  Inej canted her head back, seeking that patch of sky. It still seemed impossibly distant. How far was it
? Twenty feet? Thirty? It might as well have been miles. She was going to die here, slowly, horribly on the coals. They were all going to die—Kaz, Nina, Jesper, Matthias, Wylan—and it was her fault.

  No. No, it wasn’t.

  She hefted herself up another foot—Kaz brought us here—and then another. She forced herself to find the next hold. Kaz and his greed. She didn’t feel guilty. She wasn’t sorry. She was just mad. Mad at Kaz for attempting this insane job, furious with herself for agreeing to it.

  And why had she? To pay off her debt? Or because despite all good sense and better intentions, she’d let herself feel something for the bastard of the Barrel?

  * * *

  When Inej entered Tante Heleen’s salon on that long ago night, Kaz Brekker had been waiting, dressed in darkest gray, leaning on his crow’s head cane. The salon was furnished in gold and teal, one wall patterned entirely in peacock feathers. Inej hated every inch of the Menagerie—the parlor where she and the other girls were forced to coo and bat their lashes at prospective clients, her bedroom that had been made up to look like some farcical version of a Suli caravan, festooned in purple silk and redolent with incense—but Tante Heleen’s salon was the worst. It was the room for beatings, for Heleen’s worst rages.

  Inej had tried to escape when she’d first arrived in Ketterdam. She’d gotten two blocks from the Menagerie, still in her silks, dazed by the light and chaos of West Stave, running without direction, before Cobbet had clamped a meaty hand on the nape of her neck and hauled her back. Heleen took her into the salon and beat her badly enough that she hadn’t been able to work for a week. For the month after, Heleen had kept her in golden chains, not even letting her go down to the parlor. When she’d finally unlocked the shackles, Heleen had said, “You owe me for a month of lost income. Run again, and I’ll have you thrown in Hellgate for breach of contract.”

  That night, she’d entered the salon with dread, and when she’d seen Kaz Brekker there, her dread only doubled. Dirtyhands must have informed on her. He’d told Tante Heleen that she’d spoken out of turn, that she’d been trying to make trouble.

  But Heleen had leaned back in her silken chair and said, “Well, little lynx, it seems you’re someone else’s problem now. Apparently Per Haskell has a taste for Suli girls. He’s purchased your indenture for a very tidy sum.”

  Inej swallowed. “I’m moving to a different house?”

  Heleen waved a hand. “Haskell does own a pleasure house—if you can call it that—somewhere in the lower Barrel, but you’d be a waste of his money there—though you’d certainly learn just how kind Tante Heleen has been to you. No, Haskell wants you for his very own.”

  Who was Per Haskell? Does it matter? said a voice inside her. He’s a man who buys women. That’s all you need to know.

  Inej’s distress must have been obvious because Tante Heleen laughed lightly. “Don’t worry. He’s old, disgustingly old, but he seems harmless enough. Of course, one never knows.” She lifted a shoulder. “Perhaps he’ll share you with his errand boy, Mister Brekker.”

  Kaz turned his cold eyes on Tante Heleen. “Are we done?” It was the first time Inej had heard him speak, and she was startled by the rough burn of his voice.

  Heleen sniffed, adjusting the neckline of her shimmering blue gown. “We are indeed, you little wretch.” She heated a stick of peacock blue wax and affixed her seal to the document before her. Then, she rose and examined her reflection in the looking glass that hung above the mantel. Inej watched Heleen straighten the diamond choker on her neck, the jewels glinting brightly. Through the din of confusion in her head, Inej thought, They look like stolen stars.

  “Goodbye, little lynx,” said Tante Heleen. “I doubt you’ll last more than a month in that part of the Barrel.” She glanced at Kaz. “Don’t be surprised if she runs. She’s faster than she looks. But maybe Per Haskell will enjoy that, too. See yourselves out.”

  She swept from the room in a billow of silk and honeyed perfume, leaving a stunned Inej in her wake.

  Slowly, Kaz crossed the room and shut the door. Inej tensed for whatever was to come next, fingers twisting in her silks.

  “Per Haskell runs the Dregs,” Kaz said. “You’ve heard of us?”

  “They’re your gang.”

  “Yes, and Haskell is my boss. Yours, too, if you like.”

  She summoned her courage and said, “And if I don’t like?”

  “I withdraw the offer and go back home looking like a fool. You stay here with that monster Heleen.”

  Inej’s hands flew to her mouth. “She listens,” Inej whispered, terrified.

  “Let her listen. The Barrel has all kinds of monsters in it, and some of them are very beautiful indeed. I pay Heleen for information. In fact, I pay her too much for information. But I know exactly what she is. I asked Per Haskell to pay off your indenture. Do you know why?”

  “You like Suli girls?”

  “I don’t know enough Suli girls to say.” He moved to the desk and picked up the document, tucking it in his coat. “The other night, when you spoke to me—”

  “I meant no offense, I—”

  “You wanted to offer me information. Perhaps in return for help? A letter to your parents? Some extra pay?”

  Inej cringed. That was exactly what she’d wanted. She’d overheard gossip about a silk trade and had thought to make some kind of exchange. It was foolish, brash.

  “Is Inej Ghafa your real name?”

  A strange sound escaped Inej’s throat, part sob, part laugh, a weak, embarrassing sound, but it had been months since she’d heard her own name, her family name. “Yes,” she managed.

  “Is that what you prefer to be called?”

  “Of course,” she said, then added, “Is Kaz Brekker your real name?”

  “Real enough. Last night, when you approached me, I didn’t know you were anywhere near me until you spoke.”

  Inej frowned. She’d wanted to be silent so she had been. What did that matter?

  “Bells on your ankles,” Kaz said, gesturing to her costume, “but I didn’t hear you. Purple silks and spots painted on your shoulders, but I didn’t see you. And I see everything.” She shrugged, and he cocked his head to one side. “Were you trained as a dancer?”

  “An acrobat.” She paused. “My family … we’re all acrobats.”

  “High wire?”

  “And swings. Juggling. Tumbling.”

  “Did you work with a net?”

  “Only when I was very little.”

  “Good. There aren’t any nets in Ketterdam. Have you ever been in a fight?”

  She shook her head.

  “Killed someone?”

  Her eyes widened. “No.”

  “Ever think about it?”

  She paused and then crossed her arms. “Every night.”

  “That’s a start.”

  “I don’t want to kill people, not really.”

  “That’s a solid policy until people want to kill you. And in our line of work that happens a lot.”

  “Our line of work?”

  “I want you to join the Dregs.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Gathering information. I need a spider to climb the walls of Ketterdam’s houses and businesses, to listen at windows and in the eaves. I need someone who can be invisible, who can become a ghost. Do you think you could do that?”

  I’m already a ghost, she thought. I died in the hold of a slaver ship.

  “I think so.”

  “This city is full of rich men and women. You’re going to learn their habits, their comings and goings, the dirty things they do at night, the crimes they try to cover by day, their shoe sizes, their safe combinations, the toy they loved best as a child. And I’m going to use that information to take away their money.”

  “What happens when you take their money and you become a rich man?”

  Kaz’s mouth had quirked slightly at that. “Then you can steal my secrets, too.”

  “This is why yo
u bought me?”

  The humor vanished from his face. “Per Haskell didn’t buy you. He paid off your indenture. That means you owe him money. A lot of it. But it’s a real contract. Here,” he said, removing Heleen’s document from his coat. “I want you to see something.”

  “I don’t read Kerch.”

  “It doesn’t matter. See these numbers? This is the price Heleen claims you borrowed from her for transport from Ravka. This is the money you’ve earned in her employ. And this is what you still owe her.”

  “But … but that’s not possible. It’s more now than when I got here.”

  “That’s right. She charged you for room, board, grooming.”

  “She bought me,” Inej said, her anger rising despite herself. “I couldn’t even read what I was signing.”

  “Slavery is illegal in Kerch. Indentures are not. I know this contract is a sham and any thinking judge would, too. Unfortunately, Heleen has many thinking judges in her pocket. Per Haskell is offering you a loan—no more, no less. Your contract will be in Ravkan. You’ll pay interest, but it won’t break you. And as long as you pay him a certain percentage every month, you’ll be free to come and go as you please.”

  Inej shook her head. None of this seemed possible.

  “Inej, let me be very clear with you. If you skip out on your contract, Haskell will send people after you, people who make Tante Heleen look like a doting grandmother. And I won’t stop him. I’m putting my neck on the line for this little arrangement. It’s not a position I enjoy.”

  “If this is true,” Inej said slowly, “then I’m free to say no.”

  “Of course. But you’re obviously dangerous,” he said. “I’d prefer you never became dangerous to me.”