Six of Crows

by Leigh Bardugo

  “Help me,” the woman sobbed. Her edges blurred, her body vibrating as she struggled to fade to mist.

  Jesper dropped his hands. He and Wylan scooted away from the writhing bodies of the Tidemakers.

  Were they dying? Had he just killed two of his kind? Jesper had only wanted to survive. He thought again of the banner on the wall, all those strips of red, blue, and purple.

  Wylan tugged at his arm. His face looked slightly transparent, the veins too close to the surface. “Jesper, we have to go.”

  Jesper nodded slowly.

  “Now.”

  Jesper made his feet move, made himself follow Wylan, scale the rope to the roof. He felt woozy and lightheaded. The others were depending on him, he knew that. He had to keep going. But he felt like he’d left some part of himself in the courtyard below, something he hadn’t even known mattered, intangible as mist.

  37

  NINA

  ELEVEN BELLS AND QUARTER CHIME

  When Matthias opened the door to Nina’s cell, she hesitated for the briefest moment. She couldn’t help it. As long as she lived, she would never forget Matthias’ face at that window, how cruel he’d seemed, or the doubt that had sprung up in her heart. She felt it again, looking at him standing in the doorway, but when he held his hand out to her, she knew they were done with fear.

  She ran to him, and he swept her up in his arms.

  He buried his face in her hair. She felt his lips move against her ear when he said, “I never want to see you like this again.”

  “Do you mean the dress or the cell?”

  A laugh shook him. “Definitely the cell.” Then he cupped her face in his hands. “Jer molle pe oonet. Enel mörd je nej afva trohem verret.”

  Nina swallowed hard. She remembered those words and what they truly meant. I have been made to protect you. Only in death will I be kept from this oath. It was the vow of the drüskelle to Fjerda. And now it was Matthias’ promise to her.

  She knew she should say something profound, something beautiful in response. Instead, she spoke the truth. “If we make it out of here alive, I’m going to kiss you unconscious.”

  A grin split his beautiful face. She couldn’t wait to see the real blue of his eyes again.

  “Yul-Bayur is in the vault,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  As Nina raced down the hall after Matthias, the clanging bells of Black Protocol filled her ears. If Brum had known about her, then chances were the other drüskelle did, too. She doubted it would be long before they came looking for their commander.

  “Please tell me Kaz hasn’t gone missing again,” she said as they hurtled down the corridor.

  “I left him in the ballroom. We’re to meet him by the ash.”

  “Last time I looked, it was surrounded by drüskelle.”

  “Maybe Black Protocol will take care of that.”

  “If we survive the drüskelle, we won’t survive Kaz, not if we kill Yul-Bayur—”

  Matthias put up a hand for them to stop before they turned the next corner. They approached slowly. When they rounded it, Nina made quick work of the guard at the vault door. Matthias took his rifle, then Brum’s key was in the lock, and the circular entry to the vault was opening.

  Nina raised her hands, prepared to attack. They waited, hearts pounding, as the door slid open.

  The room was as white as all the others, but hardly bare. Its long tables were full of beakers set over low blue flames, heating and cooling apparatuses, glass vials full of powders in varying shades of orange. One wall was devoted to a massive slate board covered in chalk equations. The other was all glass cases with little metal doors. They contained blooming jurda plants, and Nina guessed the cases must be heated. A cot was pushed up against the other wall, its thin covers rumpled, papers and notebooks strewn around it. A Shu boy was seated cross-legged on it. He stared at them, his dark hair flopping over his forehead, a notebook in his lap. He couldn’t have been more than fifteen.

  “We aren’t here to harm you,” Nina said in Shu. “Where is Bo Yul-Bayur?”

  The boy brushed his hair back from his golden eyes. “He’s dead.”

  Nina frowned. Had Van Eck’s information been wrong? “Then what is all this?”

  “Have you come to kill me?”

  Nina wasn’t quite sure of the answer to that. “Sesh-uyeh?” she ventured.

  The boy’s face crumpled in relief. “You’re Kerch.”

  Nina nodded. “We came to rescue Bo Yul-Bayur.”

  The boy pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. “He’s beyond your rescue. My father died when the Fjerdans tried to stop the Kerch from taking us out of Ahmrat Jen.” His voice faltered. “He was killed in the cross fire.”

  My father. Nina translated for Matthias as she tried to take in what this meant.

  “Dead?” Matthias asked, and his broad shoulders slumped slightly. Nina knew what he was thinking—all they’d endured, all they’d done, and Yul-Bayur had been dead the whole time.

  But the Fjerdans had kept his son alive for a reason. “They’re trying to make you recreate his formula,” she said.

  “I helped him in the lab, but I don’t remember everything.” He bit his lip. “And I’ve been stalling.”

  Whatever parem the Fjerdans had been using on the Grisha must have come from the original stock Bo Yul-Bayur had been bringing to the Kerch.

  “Can you do it?” Nina asked. “Can you recreate the formula?”

  The boy hesitated. “I think so.”

  Nina and Matthias exchanged a glance.

  Nina swallowed. She’d killed before. She’d killed tonight, even, but this was different. This boy wasn’t pointing a gun at her or trying to harm her. Murdering him—and it would be murder—would also mean betraying Inej, Kaz, Jesper, and Wylan. People who were risking their lives even now for a prize they’d never see. But then she thought of Nestor falling lifeless in the snow, of the cells full of Grisha lost in their own misery, all because of this drug.

  She raised her arms. “I’m sorry,” she said. “If you succeed, there will be no end to the suffering you unleash.”

  The boy’s gaze was steady, his chin jutting up stubbornly, as if he’d known this moment might come. The right thing to do was obvious. Kill this boy quickly, painlessly. Destroy the lab and everything in it. Eradicate the secret of jurda parem. If you wanted to kill a vine, you didn’t just keep cutting it back. You tore it from the ground by the roots. And yet her hands were shaking. Wasn’t this the way drüskelle thought? Destroy the threat, wipe it out, no matter that the person in front of you was innocent.

  “Nina,” Matthias said softly, “he’s just a kid. He’s one of us.”

  One of us. A boy not much younger than she was, caught up in a war he hadn’t chosen for himself. A survivor.

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Kuwei.”

  “Kuwei Yul-Bo,” she began. Did she intend to pass sentence? To apologize? To beg forgiveness? She’d never know. When she found her voice, all she said was, “How fast can you destroy this lab?”

  “Fast,” he replied. He sliced a hand through the air, and the flames from beneath one of the beakers shot out in a blue arc.

  Nina stared. “You’re Grisha. You’re an Inferni.”

  Kuwei nodded. “Jurda parem was a mistake. My father was trying to find a way to help me hide my powers. He was a Fabrikator. A Grisha, as I am.”

  Nina’s mind was reeling—Bo Yul-Bayur, a Grisha hiding in plain sight behind the borders of the Shu Han. There was no time to let it sink in.

  “We need to destroy as much of your work as we can,” she said.

  “There are combustibles,” replied Kuwei, already gathering up papers and jurda samples. “I can rig an explosion.”

  “Only the vault. There are Grisha here.” And guards. And Matthias’ mentor. Nina would have gladly let Brum die, but though Matthias had betrayed his commander, she doubted he’d want to see the man who’d become a se
cond father to him blown to bits. Her heart rebelled when she thought of the Grisha she’d be leaving behind, but there was no way to get them to the harbor.

  “Leave the rest,” she said to Matthias and Kuwei. “We need to move.”

  Kuwei arranged a series of vials full of liquid over the burners. “I’m ready.”

  They checked the corridor and hurried toward the treasury entrance. At every turn she expected to see drüskelle or guards storming their way, but they charged through the halls unimpeded. At the main door, they paused.

  “There’s a hedge maze to our left,” Nina said.

  Matthias nodded. “We’ll use it for cover then make a run for the ash.”

  As soon as they opened the door, the clamor of the bells became almost unbearable. Nina could see the Elderclock on the highest silvery spire of the palace, its face glowing like a moon. Bright lights from the guard towers moved across the White Island, and Nina could hear the shouts of soldiers closing in around the palace.

  She clung to the side of the building, following Matthias, trying to keep to the shadows.

  “Hurry,” Kuwei said with a nervous glance back at the lab.

  “This way,” Matthias said. “The maze—”

  “Halt!” someone shouted.

  Too late. Guards were racing toward them from the direction of the maze. There was nothing to do but run. They bolted past the entrance to the colonnade and into the circular courtyard. There were drüskelle everywhere—in front of them, behind them. Any moment they’d be gunned down.

  That was when the explosion hit. Nina felt it before she heard it: A wave of heat lifted her off her feet and tossed her in the air, chased by a deafening boom. She came down hard on the white paving stones.

  Everything was smoke and chaos. Nina struggled to her knees, ears ringing. One side of the treasury had been reduced to rubble, smoke and dust billowing into the night sky.

  Matthias was already striding toward her with Kuwei. She pushed to her feet.

  “Sten!” cried two guards breaking off from another group running in the direction of the treasury. “What’s your business here?”

  “We were just enjoying the party!” Nina exclaimed, letting all of her real exhaustion and terror fill her voice. “And then … then…” It was embarrassingly easy to let the tears flow.

  He held up his gun. “Show me your papers.”

  “No papers, Lars.”

  The witchhunter’s head snapped up as Matthias stepped forward. “Do I know you?”

  “You did once, though I looked a bit different. Hje marden, Lars?”

  “Helvar?” he asked. “They … they said you were dead.”

  “I was.”

  Lars looked from Matthias to Nina. “This is the Heartrender Brum brought to the treasury.” Then he took in Kuwei’s presence, and understanding struck. “Traitor,” he snarled at Matthias.

  Nina raised her hand to drop Lars’ pulse, but as she did, she caught movement in the shadows to her right. She cried out as something struck her. When she looked down, she saw loops of cable closing over her, binding her upper arms tight to her body. She couldn’t raise her hands. She couldn’t use her power. Matthias grunted, and Kuwei screamed as cables lashed from the darkness, snapping around their torsos, binding their arms.

  “This is what we do, bloodletter,” sneered Lars. “We hunt filth like you. We know all of your tricks.” He kicked Matthias’ legs from beneath him. Matthias went to his knees and sucked in a breath. “They told us you were dead. We mourned you, burned boughs of ash for you. But now I see they were protecting us from something worse. Matthias Helvar, a traitor, aiding our enemies, consorting with unnaturals.” He spat in Matthias’ face. “How could you betray your country and your god?”

  “Djel is the god of life, not death.”

  “Are there others here for Yul-Bayur besides you and this creature?”

  “No,” lied Nina.

  “I didn’t ask you, witch,” said Lars. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll get the information from you our own way.” He turned to Kuwei. “And you. Don’t think there won’t be repercussions.”

  He made a signal in the air. From the shadows of the colonnade a row of men and boys emerged: drüskelle, hoods drawn up over long golden hair that glinted at their collars, dressed in black and silver, like creatures born from the dark crevasses that split the northern ice. They fanned out, surrounding Nina, Matthias, and Kuwei.

  Nina thought of the white prison cells, the drains in the floors. Had all of the parem been destroyed with Kuwei’s lab? How long would it take him to make another batch, and what would they subject her to before that? She cast a last desperate look into the darkness, praying for some sign of Kaz. Had someone gotten him, too? Had he just abandoned them there? She was meant to be a warrior. She needed to steel herself against what was to come.

  One of the drüskelle came forward with what looked like a long-handled whip attached to the cables that bound them, and handed it to Lars.

  “Do you recognize this, Helvar?” Lars asked. “You should. You helped with its design. Retractable cables for controlling multiple captives. And the barbs, of course.”

  Lars flicked his finger over one of the cables, and Nina gasped as stinging little barbs jabbed into her arms and torso. The drüskelle laughed.

  “Leave her be,” Matthias growled in Fjerdan, the words bristling with rage. For the briefest second, she saw a flash of panic in his former compatriots. He was bigger than all of them, and he’d been one of their leaders, one of the best of these murderous boys. Then Lars gave another cable a hard flick. The barbs released, and Matthias let out a pained huff of breath, doubling at the waist, human once more.

  The snickering that followed was furtive and cruel.

  Lars gave the whip a sharp snap, and the cables contracted, forcing Nina, Matthias, and Kuwei to totter after him in an awkward parade.

  “Do you still pray to our god, Helvar?” Lars asked as they passed the sacred tree. “Do you think Djel hears the mewling of men who give themselves over to the defilement of Grisha? Do you think—”

  Then a sharp, animal yelp sounded. It took Nina and the others a long moment to realize it had come from Lars. He opened his mouth and blood gushed over his chin and onto the bright silver buttons of his uniform. His hand released the whip, and the hooded drüskelle beside him lunged forward to snatch it up.

  A sharp pop pop pop came from the base of the sacred tree. Nina recognized that sound—she’d heard it on the northern road before they waylaid the prison wagon. When they’d brought the tree down. The ash creaked and moaned. Its ancient roots began to curl.

  “Nej!” cried one of the drüskelle. They stood open-mouthed, gaping at the stricken tree. “Nej!” another voice wailed.

  The ash began to tilt. It was too large to be felled by salt concentrate alone, but as it tipped, a dull roar emerged from the gaping black hole beneath it.

  This was where the drüskelle came to hear the voice of their god. And now he was speaking.

  “This is going to sting a bit,” said the drüskelle holding the whip. His voice was rasping, familiar. His hands were gloved. “But if we live, you’ll thank me later.” His hood slid off, and Kaz Brekker looked back at them. The stunned drüskelle lifted their rifles.

  “Don’t pop the baleen before you hit bottom,” Kaz called. Then he grabbed Kuwei and launched them both into the black mouth beneath the roots of the tree.

  Nina screamed as her body was yanked forward by the cables. She scrabbled over the stones trying to find purchase. The last thing she glimpsed was Matthias toppling into the hole beside her. She heard gunfire—and then she was falling into the black, into the cold, into the throat of Djel, into nothing at all.

  38

  KAZ

  ELEVEN BELLS AND THREE-QUARTERS CHIME

  Kaz had considered trying to eavesdrop on Matthias and Brum in the ballroom, but he didn’t want to lose sight of Nina when there were so many drüskelle around. He�
��d gambled on Matthias’ feelings for Nina, but he’d always liked those odds. The real risk had been in whether or not someone as honest as Matthias could convincingly lie to his mentor’s face. Apparently the Fjerdan had hidden skills.

  Kaz had tracked Nina and Brum across the grounds to the treasury. Then he’d taken cover behind an ice sculpture and focused on the miserable task of regurgitating the packets of Wylan’s root bombs he’d swallowed before they’d ambushed the prison wagon. He’d had to bring them up—along with a pouch of chloropellets and an extra set of lockpicks he’d forced down his gullet in case of emergency—every other hour to keep from digesting them. It hadn’t been pleasant. He’d learned the trick from an East Stave magician with a fire-breathing act that had run for years before the man had accidentally poisoned himself by ingesting kerosene.

  Once Kaz was done, he’d let himself check the treasury perimeter, the roof, the entry, but eventually there was nothing for him to do but keep hidden, stay alert, and worry about all the things that might be going wrong. He remembered Inej standing on the embassy roof, aglow with some new fervor he didn’t understand but could still recognize—purpose. It had suffused her with light. I’m taking my share, and I’m leaving the Dregs. When she’d talked about leaving Ketterdam before, he’d never quite believed her. This time was different.

  He’d been hidden in the shadows of the western colonnade when the bells of Black Protocol had begun to ring, the chimes of the Elderclock booming over the island, shaking the air. Lights from the guard towers came on in a bright flood. The drüskelle around the ash left off their rituals and began shouting orders, and a wave of guards descended from the towers to spread out over the island. He’d waited, counting the minutes, but there was still no sign of Nina or Matthias. They’re in trouble, Kaz had thought. Or you were dead wrong about Matthias, and you’re about to pay for all of those talking tree jokes.