Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1)

by Leigh Bardugo

Every morning he complained that she was impossible to wake. “It’s like trying to raise a corpse.” “The dead request five more minutes,” she would say, and bury her head in the furs.

“Oh, I see. I’m the wicked Grisha seductress. I have beguiled you with my Grisha wiles!” She poked him in the chest. “Stop that.” “No. I’m beguiling you.” “Quit it.”

Matthias shrugged. “Then we die as we lived.” Nina looked at Nestor’s emaciated form. “For a cause.”

“Those guns are there to stop invading armadas,” Jesper said confidently. “Good luck hitting a skinny little schooner cutting through the waves bound for fortune and glory.” “I’ll quote you on that when a cannonball lands in my lap,” said Nina.

Jesper opened the book and peered at the last page, puzzled. “So?” “Hold it up so we don’t have to look at your ugly face.” “My face has character. Besides – oh!” “An excellent read, isn’t it?” “Who knew I had a taste for literature?” Jesper passed it to Wylan, who took it tentatively. “What does it say?” “Just look,” said Jesper. Wylan frowned and held it up, then he grinned. “Where did you get this?”

“Hooded, chained, and shackled?” said Jesper. “You’re sure we can’t go in as entertainers? I hear Wylan really kills it on the flute.” “We go in as we are,” said Kaz, “as criminals.”

“Remember our friend Mark?” Wylan winced. “Let’s say the mark is a tourist walking through the Barrel. He’s heard it’s a good place to get rolled, so he keeps patting his wallet, making sure it’s there, congratulating himself on just how alert and cautious he’s being. No fool he. Of course every time he pats his back pocket or the front of his coat, what is he doing? He’s telling every thief on the Stave exactly where he keeps his scrub.”

“Now, a bad thief,” continued Kaz, “one who doesn’t know his way around, just makes the grab and tries to run for it. Good way to get pinched by the stadwatch. But a proper thief – like myself – nabs the wallet and puts something else in its place.”

Jesper stretched out his long legs. “So we have to unlock, unchain, and incapacitate six prisoners, take their places, and somehow get the wagon sealed tight again without the guards or the other prisoners being the wiser?” “That’s right.” “Any other impossible feats you’d like us to accomplish?” The barest smile flickered over Kaz’s lips. “I’ll make you a list.”

Suli were travellers. For them, ‘home’ really just meant family.

“Are you worried about Nina being out there?” Inej asked. “No.” “She’s very good at this, you know. She’s a natural actress.” “I’m aware,” he said grimly. “She can be anything to anyone.” “She’s best when she’s Nina.” “And who is that?” “I suspect you know better than any of us.”

It was because she was listening so closely that she knew the exact moment when Kaz Brekker, Dirtyhands, the bastard of the Barrel and the deadliest boy in Ketterdam, fainted.

Jordie was lying next to him, staring at the sky. “Don’t leave me,” Kaz wanted to say, but he was too tired. So he laid his head on Jordie’s chest. It felt wrong already, cold and hard.

He’d heard there were sharks in these waters, but he knew they wouldn’t touch him. He was a monster now, too.

Laziness wasn’t as reliable as greed, but it still made a fine lever.

Go on and flex, Kaz thought. Doesn’t matter how big the gun is if you don’t know where to point it.

Jesper just grinned and whispered, “Well, we’ve managed to get ourselves locked into the most secure prison in the world. We’re either geniuses or the dumbest sons of bitches to ever breathe air.” “We’ll know soon enough.”

Inej had once offered to teach him how to fall. “The trick is not getting knocked down,” he’d told her with a laugh. “No, Kaz,” she’d said, “the trick is in getting back up.” More Suli platitudes, but somehow even the memory of her voice helped.

He was better than this. He had to be. Not just for Jordie, but for his crew. He’d brought these people here. He’d brought Inej here. It was his job to bring them out again.

“Hey, cripple,” the Kaelish said in Fjerdan. He tried again in Kerch, his lilt heavy. “Hey, crip.” He needn’t have bothered. Kaz knew the word for cripple in plenty of languages.

“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.”

“Pull your shirt up over your mouth,” he told Wylan. “What?” “Stop being dense. You’re cuter when you’re smart.”

“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.”

“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.

“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.”

“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.”

Climb, Inej.

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.

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?

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

“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.” Dangerous. She wanted to clutch the word to her. She was fairly sure this boy was demented or just hopelessly deluded, but she liked that word, and unless she was mistaken, he was offering to let her walk out of this house tonight.

“This isn’t … it isn’t a trick, is it?” Her voice was smaller than she wanted it to be. The shadow of something dark moved across Kaz’s face. “If it were a trick, I’d promise you safety. I’d offer you happiness. I don’t know if that exists in the Barrel, but you’ll find none of it with me.” For some reason, those words had comforted her. Better terrible truths than kind lies.

“All right,” she said. “How do we begin?” “Let’s start by getting out of here and finding you some proper clothes. Oh, and Inej,” he said as he led her out of t...

The truth was she’d tried to sneak up on Kaz plenty of times since then. She’d never managed it. It was as if once Kaz had seen her, he’d understood how to keep seeing her.

Climb, Inej. But where was there to go? What life was waiting for her after all she’d suffered? Her back ached. Her hands were bleeding. The muscles in her legs shook with invisible tremors, and her skin felt ready to peel away from her body.

If she gave up, she’d be giving up for all of them – for Jesper and Wylan, for Nina and her Fjerdan, for Kaz. She couldn’t do that.

It isn’t up to you any longer, little lynx, Tante Heleen’s voice crooned in her head. How long have you been holding on to nothing?

The heat of the incinerator wrapped around Inej like a living thing, a desert dragon in his den, hiding from the ice, waiting for her. She knew her body’s limits, and she knew she had no more to give. She’d made a bad wager. It was as simple as that. The autumn leaf might cling to its...

Let go, Inej. Should she jump now or simply wait for her body to give out? Inej felt wetness on her cheeks. Was she crying? Now? After everything she’d done and had done to her?

I want to call that storm, she thought. And four million kruge might be enough to do it. Enough for her own ship – something small and fierce and laden with firepower. Something like her. She would hunt the slavers and their buyers. They would learn to fear her, and they would know her by her name. The heart is an arrow. It demands aim to land true.

She clung to the wall, but it was purpose she grasped at long last, and that carried her upwards. She was not a lynx or a spider or even the Wraith. She was Inej Ghafa, and her future was waiting above.

He knew he was being reckless, selfish, but wasn’t that why they called him Dirtyhands? No job too risky. No deed too low. Dirtyhands would see the rough work done.

The swim back from the Reaper’s Barge had been Kaz’s rebirth. The child he’d been had died of firepox. The fever had burned away every gentle thing inside him.

The next evening, he returned to the den. “I want a job,” he said. And he had one. From there he’d worked and scraped and saved. He’d trailed the professional thieves of the Barrel and learned how to pick pockets and how to cut the laces on a lady’s purse. He did his first stint in jail, and then a second.

But the cruelest discovery was Kaz’s gift for cards. It might have made him and Jordie rich. Once he learned a game, it took him mere hours to master it, and then he simply couldn’t be beaten. He could remember every hand that had been played, each bet that was made. He could keep track of the deal for up to five decks. And if there was something he couldn’t recall, he made up for it by cheating.

A good magician wasn’t much different from a proper thief. Before long, he was banned from play in every gambling hall on East Stave.

Kaz knew Pekka Rollins’ name. Everyone did. He’d just never seen the man. At that moment, Rollins turned towards the window. Kaz waited for acknowledgement – a smirk, a sneer, some spark of recognition. But Rollins’ eyes passed right over him. One more mark. One more cull. Why would he remember?

Kaz had been courted by any number of gangs who liked his way with his fists and the cards. He’d always said no. He’d come to the Barrel to find Hertzoon and punish him, not to join some makeshift family. But learning that his real target was Pekka Rollins changed everything.

The next day he’d walked into the Slat and asked Per Haskell if he could use another soldier. He’d known even then, though: he’d start as a grunt, but the Dregs would become his army.