Six of Crows

  “It’s not a mission; it’s a job.”

  “Matthias calls it a mission.”

  “He’s military, you’re not. And I’m already in jail, so don’t tempt me to commit homicide.”

  “You aren’t going to kill me, and I’m not going to pretend everything is okay. We’re stuck in here.”

  “You’re definitely better suited to a gilded cage than to a real one.”

  “I left my father’s house.”

  “Yeah, you gave up a life of luxury so you could slum it with us sobs in the Barrel. That doesn’t make you interesting, Wylan, just stupid.”

  “You don’t know anything about it.”

  “So tell me,” Jesper said, turning to him. “We have time. What makes a good little merch boy leave home to keep company with criminals?”

  “You act like you were born in the Barrel like Kaz, but you’re not even Kerch. You chose this life, too.”

  “I like cities.”

  “They don’t have cities in Novyi Zem?”

  “Not like Ketterdam. Have you ever even been anywhere but home, the Barrel, and fancy embassy dinners?”

  Wylan looked away. “Yes.”

  “Where? The suburbs for peach season?”

  “The races at Caryeva. The Shu oil fields. The jurda farms near Shriftport. Weddle. Elling.”

  “Really?”

  “My father used to take me everywhere with him.”

  “Until?”

  “Until what?”

  “Until. My father took me everywhere until I contracted terrible seasickness, until I vomited at a royal wedding, until I tried to hump the ambassador’s leg.”

  “The leg was asking for it.”

  Jesper released a bark of laughter. “Finally, a little spine.”

  “I have plenty of spine,” Wylan grumbled. “And look where it got—”

  He was interrupted by a guard’s voice shouting in Fjerdan just as the Elderclock began to chime six bells. At least the Fjerdans were punctual.

  The guard spoke again in Shu and then in Kerch. “On your feet.”

  “Shimkopper,” the guard demanded. They all looked at him blankly. “The piss bucket,” he tried in Kerch. “Where is … to empty?” He pantomimed.

  There were shrugs and confused glances.

  The guard’s gloomy sulk made it clear he couldn’t care less. He shoved a bucket of fresh water into the cell and slammed the bars shut.

  Jesper pushed to the front and took a big gulp from the cup tied to its handle. Most of it splashed on his shirt. When he handed the cup to Wylan, he made sure it soaked him as well.

  “What are you doing?” Wylan protested.

  “Patience, Wylan. And do try to follow along.”

  Jesper hiked up his pants and felt around the thin skin over his ankle.

  “Tell me what’s happen—”

  “Be quiet. I need to concentrate.” It was true. He really didn’t want the pellet buried beneath his skin to open up while it was still inside him.

  He felt along the thin stitches Nina had placed there. It hurt like hell when he popped them open and slid the pellet out. It was about the size of a raisin and slick with his blood. Nina would be using her powers to split open her own skin right now. Jesper wondered if it hurt any less than the stitches.

  “Pull your shirt up over your mouth,” he told Wylan.

  “What?”

  “Stop being dense. You’re cuter when you’re smart.”

  Wylan’s cheeks went pink. He scowled and pulled his collar up.

  Jesper reached under the bench where he’d hidden the waste bucket and pulled it out.

  “A storm’s coming,” Jesper said loudly in Kerch. He saw Matthias and Kaz draw their collars up. He turned his face away, pulled his shirt over his mouth, and dropped the pellet into the bucket.

  There was a sizzling whoosh as a cloud of mist bloomed from the water. In seconds it had blanketed the cells, turning the air a milky green.

  Wylan’s eyes were panicked above his hiked-up collar. Jesper was tempted to pretend to faint, but he settled for the effect of men toppling to the ground all around him.

  Jesper waited for a count of sixty, then dropped his collar and took a tentative breath. The air still smelled sickly sweet and would leave them woozy for a bit, but the worst of it had dispersed. When the guards came through for the next head count, the prisoners would have bad headaches but not much to tell. And hopefully by then they’d be long gone.

  “Was that chloro gas?”

  “Definitely cuter when you’re smart. Yes, the pellet’s an enzyme-based casing filled with chloro powder. It’s harmless unless it comes into contact with any amount of ammonia. Which it just did.”

  “The urine in the bucket … but what was the point? We’re still stuck in here.”

  “Jesper,” Kaz said waving him over to the bars. “The clock is ticking.”

  Jesper rolled his shoulders as he approached. This kind of work usually took a lot of time, particularly because he’d never had real training. He placed his hands on either side of a single bar and concentrated on locating the purest particles of ore.

  “What is he doing?” asked Matthias.

  “Performing an ancient Zemeni ritual,” Kaz said.

  “Really?”

  “No.”

  A murky haze was forming between Jesper’s hands.

  Wylan gasped. “Is that iron ore?”

  Jesper nodded as he felt sweat break out on his brow.

  “Can you dissolve the bars?”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” Jesper grunted. “Do you see how thick they are?” In fact, the bar he was working on looked unchanged, but he’d pulled enough iron from it that the cloud between his hands was nearly black. He bent his fingertips, and the particles spun, whirring into a tightening spiral that grew narrower and denser.

  Jesper dropped his hands, and a slender needle fell to the floor with a musical ping.

  Wylan snatched it up, holding it so the light gleamed over its dull surface.

  “You’re a Fabrikator,” Matthias said grimly.

  “Just barely.”

  “You either are or you aren’t,” said Wylan.

  “I am.” He jabbed a finger at Wylan. “And you’re going to keep your mouth shut about it when we get back to Ketterdam.”

  “But why would you lie about—”

  “I like walking the streets free,” said Jesper. “I like not worrying about being snatched up by a slaver or put to death by some skiv like our friend Helvar here. Besides, I have other skills that bring me more pleasure and profit than this. Lots of other skills.”

  Wylan coughed. Flirting with him might actually be more fun than annoying him, but it was a close call.

  “Does Nina know you’re Grisha?”

  “No and she’s not finding out. I don’t need lectures about joining the Second Army and the glorious Ravkan cause.”

  “Do it again,” Kaz interrupted. “And hurry.”

  Jesper repeated his effort on another bar.

  “If this was the plan, what was the point to trying to smuggle in those lockpicks?” Wylan asked.

  Kaz folded his arms. “Ever hear about the dying man whose medik told him he’d been miraculously cured? He danced into the street and was trampled to death by a horse. You have to let the mark feel like he’s won. Were the guards studying Matthias and wondering if he looked familiar? Were they looking for trouble when Jesper went into the showers with paraffin sloughing off his arms? No, they were too busy congratulating themselves on catching me. They thought they’d neutralized the threat.”

  When Jesper finished, Kaz took the two slender lockpicks between his fingers. It was strange to see him work without his gloves, but in moments, the lock clicked open, and they were free. Once they were out, Kaz used his picks to lock the door behind them.

  “You know your assignments,” he whispered. “Wylan and I will get Nina and Inej out. Jesper, you and Matthias—”

  “I know,
nab as much rope as we can find.”

  “Be in the basement by the half chime.”

  They split. The wheels were in motion.

  According to Wylan’s plans, the stables were adjacent to the gatehouse courtyard, so they would have to backtrack through the holding area. In theory, this section of the prison was only supposed to be active when prisoners were being processed in or out, but they still had to be careful. It would only take one wayward guard to ruin their plans. The scariest part was traversing the walkway through the glass enclosure, a long, brightly lit stretch that left them completely exposed. There was nothing to do but cross their fingers and make a run for it. Then they headed down the stairs and to the left of the chamber where that poor old Grisha amplifier had tested him. Jesper suppressed a shudder. Even though paraffin on his arms always worked at the gambling dens, his heart had still been hammering as he faced her. She’d been thin as a husk and as empty. That was what happened to Grisha who got found in the wrong place at the wrong time—a life sentence of slavery or worse.

  When Jesper pushed open the door to the stables, he felt some small thing inside him relax. The smell of the hay, the shift of animals in their stalls, the nickering of the horses brought back memories of Novyi Zem. In Ketterdam, the canals rendered most coaches and wagons unnecessary. Horses were a luxury, an indulgence to show that you had the space to keep them and the wealth to care for them. He hadn’t realized how much he missed simply being around animals.

  But there was no time for nostalgia or to stop and stroke a velvety nose. He strode past the stalls and into the tack room. Matthias hoisted a massive coil of rope over each shoulder. He looked surprised when Jesper managed two as well.

  “Grew up on a farm,” Jesper explained.

  “You don’t look it.”

  “Sure, I’m skinny,” he said as they hurried back through the stables, “but I stay drier in the rain.”

  “How?”

  “Less falls on me.”

  “Are all of Kaz’s associates as strange as this crew?” Matthias asked.

  “Oh, you should meet the rest of the Dregs. They make us look like Fjerdans.”

  They passed through the showers and, instead of continuing to the holding area, turned down a tight flight of stairs and the long dark hall that led to the basement. They were under the main prison now, five stories of cellblock, prisoners, and guards stacked on top of them.

  Jesper had expected the rest of the crew to be collecting demo supplies in the big laundry room already. But all he saw were giant tin tubs, long tables for folding, and clothes left to dry overnight on racks taller than he was.

  They found Wylan and Inej in the refuse room. It was smaller than the laundry and stank of garbage. Two big rolling bins full of discarded clothes were pushed against one wall, waiting to be burnt. Jesper felt the heat emanating from the incinerator as soon as they entered.

  “We have a problem,” Wylan said.

  “How bad?” Jesper asked, dumping his coils of rope on the floor.

  Inej gestured to a pair of big metal doors set into what looked like a giant chimney that jutted out from the wall and stretched all the way up to the ceiling. “I think they ran the incinerator this afternoon.”

  “You said they ran it in the mornings,” he said to Matthias.

  “They used to.”

  When Jesper grabbed the doors’ leather-covered handles and pulled them open, he was hit by a blast of searing air. It carried the black and acrid smell of coal—and something else, a chemical smell, maybe something they added to make the fires burn hotter. It wasn’t unpleasant. This was where all the refuse from the prisons was disposed of—kitchen leavings, buckets of human filth, the clothing stripped from prisoners, but whatever the Fjerdans had added to the fuel burned hot enough to sear any foulness away. He leaned in, already beginning to sweat. Far below, he saw the incinerator coals, banked but still pulsing with an angry red glow.

  “Wylan, give me a shirt from one of the bins,” Jesper said.

  He tore off one of the sleeves and tossed it into the shaft. It fell soundlessly, caught flame midair, and had begun to burn away to nothing before it ever had the chance to reach the coals.

  He shut the doors and tossed the remnants of the shirt back in the bin. “Well, demo is out,” he said. “We can’t take explosives in there. Can you still make the climb?” he asked Inej.

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “What does Kaz say? Where is Kaz? And where’s Nina?”

  “Kaz doesn’t know about the incinerator yet,” said Inej. “He and Nina went to search the upper cells.”

  Matthias’ glower went dark as a rain-heavy sky ready to split. “Jesper and I were supposed to go with Nina.”

  “Kaz didn’t want to wait.”

  “We were on time,” said Matthias angrily. “What is he up to?”

  Jesper wondered the same thing. “He’s going to limp up and down all those flights of stairs, dodging patrols?”

  “I may have tried to point that out to him,” Inej said. “Always surprising, remember?”

  “Like a hive of bees. I really hope we’re not all about to get stung.”

  “Inej,” Wylan called from one of the rolling bins. “These are our clothes.”

  He reached in and, one after the other, pulled out Inej’s little leather slippers.

  Her face broke into a dazzling smile. Finally, a bit of luck. Kaz didn’t have his cane. Jesper didn’t have his guns. And Inej didn’t have her knives. But at least she had those magic slippers.

  “What do you say, Wraith? Can you make the climb?”

  “I can.”

  Jesper took the shoes from Wylan. “If I didn’t think these might be crawling with disease, I would kiss them and then you.”

  24

  NINA

  Nina trailed Kaz up the stairs. Flight upon steep flight of stone and flickering gaslight. She watched him closely. He was setting a good pace, but his gait was stiff. Why had he insisted on being the one to make this climb? It couldn’t be a question of time, so maybe it was what Kaz always intended. Maybe he’d meant to keep some bit of information from Matthias. Or he was just determined to keep them all guessing.

  They paused at every landing, listening for patrols. The prison was full of sounds, and it was hard not to jump at every one of them—voices floating down the stairwell, the metallic clang of doors opening and closing. Nina thought of the violent chaos of Hellgate, bribes changing hands, blood staining the sand, a world away from this sterile place. The Fjerdans could certainly be counted on to keep things orderly.

  On their way up the fourth flight, voices and boot steps suddenly burst into the stairwell. Hurriedly, Nina and Kaz backtracked to the third-floor landing and slipped through the door leading to the cells. The prisoner in the cell nearest to them started to shout. Nina quickly raised a hand and squeezed his airway shut. He stared at her, eyes bulging, clawing at his neck. She dropped his pulse, sending him into unconsciousness as she released the pressure on his larynx, allowing him to breathe. They needed him quiet, not dead.

  The noises grew as the guards clambered down the stairs, loud Fjerdan reverberating off the walls. Nina held her breath, watching the door, hands ready. Kaz had no weapon, but he’d dropped into a fighting stance, waiting to see if the door would crash open. Instead, the guards continued on past the landing, down to the next floor.

  When the sounds had faded, Kaz signaled to her, and they slipped back out the door, closing it as silently as possible behind them, and continued their ascent.

  Seven bells struck as they reached the top floor. One hour had passed since they’d knocked out the prisoners in the holding area. They had forty-five minutes to search the high-security cells, meet back at the landing, and get to the basement. Kaz gestured for her to take the corridor on the left while he took the right.

  The door creaked loudly as Nina stepped inside. The lanterns were spaced far apart here, and the shadows between them looked dee
p enough to fall into. She told herself to be grateful for the cover, but she couldn’t deny it was eerie. The cells were different, too, with doors of solid steel instead of iron bars. A viewing grate was lodged into each of them at eye level. Well, eye level for a Fjerdan. Nina was tall, but she still had to stand on tiptoe to peek into them.

  Most of the prisoners were asleep or resting, curled into corners or flat on their backs with an arm thrown over their eyes to block out the dim lamplight that filtered through the grate. Others sat propped against the walls, staring listlessly at nothing. Occasionally she found someone pacing back and forth and had to step away quickly. None of them were Shu.

  “Ajor?” one called after her in Fjerdan. She ignored him and moved on, heart thudding.

  What if Bo Yul-Bayur really was in these cells? She knew it was unlikely, and yet … she could kill him in his cell, put him in a deep, painless sleep, and simply stop his heart. She’d tell Kaz she hadn’t found him. And what if Kaz located Bo Yul-Bayur? She might have to wait until they were out of the Ice Court to find a solution, but she could at least count on Matthias to help her. What a strange, grim bargain they’d struck.

  But as she worked her way back and forth along the corridors, the tiny hope that the scientist might be there withered away to nothing. One more row of cells, she thought, then back down to the basement with nothing to show for it. Except when she entered the final corridor, she saw it was shorter than the others. Where there should have been more cells there was a steel door, bright light shining beneath it.

  A flutter of unease passed through her as she approached, but she made herself push the door open. She had to squint against the brightness. The light was harsh—as clear as daylight but with none of its warmth—and she couldn’t locate its source. She heard the door whooshing closed behind her. At the last moment she whirled and grabbed it by the edge. Something told her this door would need a key to unlock it from the inside. She looked for anything she might use to prop it open, and had to settle for tearing off a piece from the bottom of her prison trousers and stuffing it in the lock.

  This place felt wrong. The walls, floor, and ceiling were a white so clean it hurt to look at. Half of one wall was made up of panels of smooth, perfect glass. Fabrikator made. Just like the glass enclosure surrounding that vile display of weaponry. No Fjerdan craftsman could make surfaces so pristine. Grisha power had been used to create this glass, she felt sure of it. There were rogue Grisha who served no country and who might consider hiring themselves out to the Fjerdan government. But would they survive such a commission? Slave labor seemed more likely.