Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1)

by Leigh Bardugo

How many times had Kaz seen Pekka since that first glimpse in the gin shop? Never once had there been a flicker of recognition. Kaz wasn’t a boy any longer; there was no reason Pekka should be able to see the child he’d swindled in his features. But it made him furious every time their paths had crossed. It wasn’t right. Pekka’s face – Hertzoon’s face – was indelible in Kaz’s mind, carved there by a jagged blade.

Kaz hung back now, feeling the delicate weight of his lockpicks like an insect cradled in his palm. Wasn’t this what he wanted? To see Pekka brought low, humiliated, miserable and hopeless, the best of his crew dead on pikes. Maybe this could be enough. Maybe all he needed now was for Pekka to know exactly who he was, exactly what he’d done. He could stage a little trial of his own, pass sentence, and mete it out, too.

But he needed this. He’d fought for this. It wasn’t the way he’d imagined, but maybe it made no difference. If Pekka Rollins was put to death by some nameless Fjerdan executioner, then none of this would matter. Kaz would have four million kruge, but Jordie would never have his revenge.

Pekka’s eyes opened, and he smiled. He hadn’t been sleeping at all. “Hello, Brekker,” Rollins said. “Come to gloat?” “Not exactly,” Kaz replied. He let the door slam shut behind him.

He’s Kaz Brekker. Even if they locked him up, Kaz could escape any cell, any pair of shackles.

“Kaz is on the rope.” Matthias and Wylan seized the rope to pull him up. Jesper wasn’t sure how much Wylan was actually helping, but he was certainly working hard.

He made himself refocus on Inej’s feet. “Saints,” he said. Inej grimaced. “That bad?” “No, you just have really ugly feet.” “Ugly feet that got you on this roof.”

“Nina and I can get inside,” she continued. Her back was straight, her tone steady. She looked like someone facing the firing squad and saying damn the blindfolds. “We enter with the Menagerie.”

Kaz gazed out at the White Island, head tilted, eyes slightly unfocused. “Scheming face,” Inej murmured. Jesper nodded. “Definitely.”

A gambler, a convict, a wayward son, a lost Grisha, a Suli girl who had become a killer, a boy from the Barrel who had become something worse.

What bound them together? Greed? Desperation? Was it just the knowledge that if one or all of them disappeared tonight, no one would come looking?

Inej’s mother and father might still shed tears for the daughter they’d lost, but if Inej died tonight, there would be no one to grieve for the girl she was now. She had no family, no parents or siblings, only people to fight beside. Maybe that was something to be grateful for, too.

It was Jesper who spoke first. “No mourners,” he said with a grin. “No funerals,” they replied in unison. Even Ma...

“If any of you survive, make sure I have an open casket,” Jesper said as he hefted two slender coils of rope over his shoulder and signalled for Wylan to follow him across the roof. “The...

“When we get back to Ketterdam, I’m taking my share, and I’m leaving the Dregs.” He looked away. “You should. You were always too good for the Barrel.”

She felt hope rustling its wings inside her, ready to take flight at the right words from Kaz. She willed that hope into stillness. Those words would never come. The heart is an arrow.

She let her hand cup his cheek. His skin was cool and damp from the rain. He stayed still, but she saw a tremor pass through him, as if he were waging a war with himself. “If we don’t survive this night, I will die unafraid, Kaz. Can you say the same?”

She could see it took every last bit of his terrible will for him to remain still beneath her touch. And yet, he did not pull away. She knew it was the best he could offer. It was not enough.

She had her aim now, her heart had direction, and though it hurt to know that path led away from him, she could endure it.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” said Nina. “You don’t have to put those silks on again.” “I’ve done worse.” “I know. You scaled six storeys of hell for us.” “That’s not what I meant.” Nina paused. “I know that, too.”

She’d shoved, and now the boulder was rolling down the hill. Who knew what damage it might do and what might be built on the rubble?

“Go,” said Inej. “I need you to move.” “Why?” “Because I need a clear line of sight, and right now all I can see is your ass.”

Quickly, she wrenched the grate loose and dropped onto the shiny surface of the table. Nina tumbled down after her, landing in a heap. “Sorry,” she moaned as she dragged herself upright. Inej almost laughed. “You’re very graceful in battle, just not when you’re plummeting.” “Missed that day in school.”

“I wonder what Matthias would have to say about that outfit.” “He wouldn’t approve.” “He doesn’t approve of anything about you. But when you laugh, he perks up like a tulip in fresh water.” Nina snorted. “Matthias the tulip.” “The big, brooding, yellow tulip.”

“The wellspring,” mused Kaz, “where all sins are washed clean.” “Or where they drown you and make you confess,” Wylan said. Jesper snorted. “Wylan, your thoughts have taken a very dark turn. I fear the Dregs may be a bad influence.”

“You know what to do,” he said to Jesper and Wylan. “Eleven bells and not before.” “When have I ever been early?” asked Jesper.

“I feel sorry for you, Brekker. There is nothing sacred in your life.” There was a long pause, and then Kaz said, “You’re wrong.”

“Some people see a magic trick and say, ‘Impossible!’ They clap their hands, turn over their money, and forget about it ten minutes later. Other people ask how it worked. They go home, get into bed, toss and turn, wondering how it was done. It takes them a good night’s sleep to forget all about it. And then there are the ones who stay awake, running through the trick again and again, looking for that skip in perception, the crack in the illusion that will explain how their eyes got duped; they’re the kind who won’t rest until they’ve mastered that little bit of mystery for themselves. I’m that kind.”

We’ll see what this night brings, Matthias thought as he bent to the task. Trickery is not my native tongue, but I may learn to speak it yet.

Jesper caught himself nervously wiggling the baleen wedged between his teeth with his tongue and forced himself to stop before he triggered it. He was fairly sure Wylan would never let him forget a blunder like that.

“Saints,” he said, feeling a little sick. “Grisha colours.” Wylan squinted. “The banner?” “Red for Corporalki. Blue for Etherealki. Purple for Materialki. Those are pieces of the kefta that Grisha wear in battle. They’re trophies.” “There are so many.” Hundreds. Thousands. I would have worn purple, Jesper thought, if I’d joined the Second Army.

When Jesper had started to show his power, his father had been heartbroken. He’d encouraged Jesper to keep it hidden. “I’m afraid for you,” he’d said. “The world can be cruel to your kind.” But Jesper had always wondered if maybe his father had been a little afraid of him, too.

Jesper froze. He was dangling over three armed guards, halfway down a wall, completely exposed. This was why Kaz did the planning.

“Wait,” said one of the guards. “Did you hear something?”

The guards moved in a slow circle, rifles raised. One of them craned his head back, scanning the roof. He began to turn. A strange, sweet sound pierced the air. “Skerden Fjerda, kende hjertzeeeeeng, lendten isen en de waaaanden.”

A silhouette appeared in the walkway arch, lurching left and right. “Skerden Fjerda, kende hjertzeeeeeng,” Wylan sang, doing a surprisingly convincing impression of a drunk but very talented Fjerdan. The guards burst out laughing, joining in on the song. “Lendten isen …”

Wylan gestured to the guards. “Is it safe to leave them, you know—” “Alive? I’m not big on killing unconscious men.” “We could wake them up.” “Pretty ruthless, merchling. Have you ever killed anyone?” “I’d never even seen a dead body before I came to the Barrel,” Wylan admitted.

Six people, but a thousand ways this insane plan could go wrong.

No, she thought, her heart stuttering in panic. It can’t be. He drowned. He’s supposed to be at the bottom of the ocean. But if Jarl Brum was dead, he made a very lively corpse.

“If only you could talk to girls in equations.” There was a long silence, and then, eyes trained on the notch they’d created in the link, Wylan said, “Just girls?” Jesper restrained a grin. “No. Not just girls.” It really was a shame they were all probably going to die tonight. Then the Elderclock began to toll eleven bells. His eyes met Wylan’s. They were out of time.

Wylan took his spot at the right handle of the winch, and Jesper grabbed the handle on the left. “Prepared to hear the sound of certain doom?” he asked. “You’ve never heard my father mad.” “That sense of humour is getting progressively more Barrel-appropriate. If we survive, I’ll teach you to swear.

“Let’s let the Ice Court know the Dregs have come to call.”

For a brief second, every horror came back to her, and she truly was a wraith, a ghost taking flight from a body that had given her only pain. No. A body that had given her strength. A body that had carried her over the rooftops of Ketterdam, that had served her in battle, that had brought her up six storeys in the dark of a soot-stained chimney.

He grabbed the silk of her cape and shouted in Kerch, “Who is on your team? What is your target?” “I will not speak,” said Inej. “You’ll sing if we want you to,” spat the guard. Heleen’s laugh was low and rich with pleasure. “I’ll see you hanged. And Brekker, too.”

“I told you you’d wear my silks again, little lynx,” Heleen called from the courtyard. The gate was already lowering, as the guards sealed it in accordance with Black Protocol. “You’ll hang in them now.”

“There is little honour in a fight with such a creature. I’d rather face a thousand honest men with swords than one of those deceitful witches with unnatural powers.” And when you arrive with your repeating rifles and your tanks, when you set upon children and helpless villages, should we not use the weapons we possess? Nina bit down hard on her inner cheek.

But he’d given what was left of his broken heart to the cause. A false cause. A lie. When had he seen it? When he’d helped Nina bury her friend? When he’d fought beside her? Or had it been long before – when she’d slept in his arms that first night on the ice? When she’d saved him from the shipwreck?

Matthias returned his mentor’s embrace. “I don’t know if you’re wrong about the Grisha,” he said gently. “I just know you’re wrong about her.”

Maybe the hard things had never been difficult for Brum the way they’d been for Matthias. They had not been a sacred duty, performed reluctantly for the sake of Fjerda. They had been a joy.

Matthias pressed his forehead once, briefly, against Brum’s. He knew his mentor could not hear him, but he spoke the words anyway. “The life you live, the hate you feel – it’s poison. I can drink it no longer.” Matthias locked the cell door and hurried down the passage towards Nina, towards something more.