Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1)

by Leigh Bardugo

Kaz Brekker didn’t need a reason.

Every act of violence was deliberate, and every favor came with enough strings attached to stage a puppet show. Kaz always had his reasons. Inej could just never be sure they were good ones.

Kaz shook his head, dark hair glinting in the lamplight. He was a collection of hard lines and tailored edges—sharp jaw, lean build, wool coat snug across his shoulders.

rock salt rasp.

Kaz’s eyes found Inej unerringly in the crowd.

The Zemeni sharpshooter was long-limbed, brown-skinned, constantly in motion. He pressed his lips to the pearl handles of his prized revolvers, bestowing each with a mournful kiss.

“Take good care of my babies,” Jesper said as he handed them over to Dirix. “If I see a single scratch or nick on those, I’ll spell forgive me on your chest in bullet holes.” “You wouldn’t waste the ammo.” “And he’d be dead halfway through forgive,” Big Bolliger said as he dropped a hatchet, a switchblade, and his preferred weapon—a thick chain weighted with a heavy padlock—into Rotty’s expectant hands. Jesper rolled his eyes. “It’s about sending a message. What’s the point of a dead guy with forg written on his chest?”

“What about that?” Jesper asked, gesturing to Kaz’s walking stick. Kaz’s laugh was low and humorless. “Who’d deny a poor cripple his cane?” “If the cripple is you, then any man with sense.”

His voice had the rough, abraded texture of stone against stone. Inej always wondered if he’d sounded that way as a little boy. If he’d ever been a little boy.

“No mourners,” Jesper said as he tossed his rifle to Rotty. “No funerals,” the rest of the Dregs murmured in reply. Among them, it passed for “good luck.”

Besides, she was the Wraith—the only law that applied to her was gravity, and some days she defied that, too.

She’d joined up with the Dregs less than two years ago, just days after her fifteenth birthday. It had been a matter of survival, but it gratified her to know that, in such short time, she’d become someone to take precautions against.

His dark coat rippled in the salt breeze, his limp more pronounced tonight, as it always was when the weather turned cold.

Twitchy as Jesper was, with or without his revolvers, he was at his best in a fight, and she knew he’d do anything for Kaz.

Most gang members in the Barrel loved flash: gaudy waistcoats, watch fobs studded with false gems, trousers in every print and pattern imaginable. Kaz was the exception—the picture of restraint, his dark vests and trousers simply cut and tailored along severe lines. At first, she’d thought it was a matter of taste, but she’d come to understand that it was a joke he played on the upstanding merchers. He enjoyed looking like one of them. “I’m a businessman,” he’d told her. “No more, no less.” “You’re a thief, Kaz.” “Isn’t that what I just said?”

Kaz looked … well, seventeen.

Fifth Harbor had been useless and all but abandoned by the city when Kaz had taken it over. He’d had it dredged, and then built out the docks and the quay, and he’d had to mortgage the Crow Club to do it. Per Haskell had railed at him and called him a fool for the expense, but eventually he’d relented. According to Kaz, the old man’s exact words had been, “Take all that rope and hang yourself.” But the endeavor had paid for itself in less than a year. Now Fifth Harbor offered berths to mercher ships, as well as boats from all over the world carrying tourists and soldiers eager to see the sights and sample the pleasures of Ketterdam. The Dregs got first try at all of them, steering them—and their wallets—into brothels, taverns, and gambling dens owned by the gang.

Kaz’s laugh was dry as the rustle of dead leaves. “But I’m the one at your table, Geels, and I’m not here for a taste. You want a war, I’ll make sure you eat your fill.”

“Sure of yourself, aren’t you, Brekker?” “Myself and nothing else.”

head. If Kaz was gone, would I stay? Or would I skip out on my debt? Take my chances with Per Haskell’s enforcers?

“I trade in information, Geels, the things men do when they think no one is looking. Shame holds more value than coin ever can.”

“I like it when men beg,” she said. “But this isn’t the time for it.”

“Always one step ahead, aren’t you?” “Geels, when it comes to you, I’d say I have a running start.”

Kaz Brekker was gone, and Dirtyhands had come to see the rough work done.

“You’ll get what’s coming to you someday, Brekker.” “I will,” said Kaz, “if there’s any justice in the world. And we all know how likely that is.”

five percent for drawing steel on neutral ground and five percent more for being such a spectacular bunch of asses.”

Kaz relied on the fact that the Dregs were all murderers, thieves, and liars. He just had to make sure they didn’t make a habit of lying to him.

Jesper stepped into his path. “You should have let me know about Big Bolliger,” he said in a furious whisper. “Don’t tell me my business, Jes.” “You think I’m dirty, too?” “If I thought you were dirty, you’d be holding your guts in on the floor of the Exchange like Big Bol, so stop running your mouth.”

Whenever he got cranky, he liked to lay hands on a gun, like a child seeking the comfort of a favored doll.

If you couldn’t walk by yourself through Ketterdam after dark, then you might as well just hang a sign that read “soft” around your neck and lie down for a beating.

But he hadn’t needed a great gang, just one he could make great—one that needed him.

Besides, Jesper would smooth it all over. A few drinks in and a few hands up and the sharpshooter’s good nature would return. He held a grudge about as well as he held his liquor, and he had a gift for making Kaz’s victories sound like they belonged to everyone.

“When everyone knows you’re a monster, you needn’t waste time doing every monstrous thing.”

She was somewhere to the right of him, moving without a sound. He’d heard other members of the gang say she moved like a cat, but he suspected cats would sit attentively at her feet to learn her methods.

“Greed is your god, Kaz.” He almost laughed at that. “No, Inej. Greed bows to me. It is my servant and my lever.”

There was always something so satisfying about the little furrow between her black brows.

“Men mock the gods until they need them, Kaz.”

Inej was one of the best investments Kaz had ever made.

But the fact that she could simply erase herself bothered him. She didn’t even have a scent. All people carried scents, and those scents told stories—the hint of carbolic on a woman’s fingers or woodsmoke in her hair, the wet wool of a man’s suit, or the tinge of gunpowder lingering in his shirt cuffs. But not Inej. She’d somehow mastered invisibility.

“You were first arrested at ten,” he said, scanning the page. “Everyone remembers his first time.” “Twice again that year, twice at eleven. You were picked up when the stadwatch rousted a gambling hall when you were fourteen, but you haven’t served any time since.” It was true. No one had managed a pinch on Kaz in three years. “I cleaned up,” Kaz said. “Found honest work, live a life of industry and prayer.”

“You see, every man is a safe, a vault of secrets and longings. Now, there are those who take the brute’s way, but I prefer a gentler approach—the right pressure applied at the right moment, in the right place. It’s a delicate thing.” “Do you always speak in metaphors, Mister Brekker?” Kaz smiled. “It’s not a metaphor.” He was out of his chair before his chains hit the ground. He leapt the desk, snatching a letter opener from its surface in one hand, and catching hold of the front of Van Eck’s shirt with the other. The fine fabric bunched as he pressed the blade to Van Eck’s throat. Kaz was dizzy, and his limbs felt creaky from being trapped in the chair, but everything seemed sunnier with a weapon in his hand.

“I don’t care who you are or how big that ruby is. You don’t take me from my own streets. And you don’t try to make a deal with me while I’m in chains.”

The pistol was more useful, but the cane brought Kaz a relief he didn’t care to quantify.

“How old are you, Mister Brekker?” “Seventeen.” “You haven’t been arrested since you were fourteen, and since I know you are not an honest man any more than you were an honest boy, I can only assume you have the quality I most need in a criminal: You don’t get caught.” Van Eck smiled slightly then. “There’s also the matter of my DeKappel.” “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” “Six months ago, a DeKappel oil worth nearly one hundred thousand kruge disappeared from my home.” “Quite a loss.” “It was, especially since I had been assured that my gallery was impenetrable and that the locks on its doors were foolproof.” “I do seem to remember reading about that.” “Yes,” admitted Van Eck with a small sigh. “Pride is a perilous thing. I was eager to show off my acquisition and the lengths I’d gone to in order to protect it. And yet, despite all my safeguards, despite dogs and alarms and the most loyal staff in all of Ketterdam, my painting is gone.” “My condolences.” “It has yet to surface anywhere on the world market.” “Maybe your thief already had a buyer lined up.” “A possibility, of course. But I’m inclined to believe that the thief took it for a different reason.” “What would that be?” “Just to prove that he could.” “Seems like a stupid risk to me.” “Well, who can guess at the motives of thieves?” “Not me, certainly.” “From what I know of the Ice Court, whoever stole my DeKappel is exactly who I need for this job.” “Then you’d be better off hiring him. Or her.” “Indeed. But ...

Kaz gave himself a shake. I need a mug of the darkest, bitterest coffee I can find, he thought. Or maybe a real punch to the jaw.

Our hopes rest with you, Mister Brekker. If you fail, all the world will suffer for it.” “Oh, it’s worse than that, Van Eck. If I fail, I don’t get paid.”

“Don’t look so disappointed. Just think how miserable you would have been to discover this canal rat had a patriotic streak. You might actually have had to uncurl that lip and treat me with something closer to respect.” “Thank you for sparing me that discomfort,” Van Eck said disdainfully.

“Why do you wear the gloves, Mister Brekker?” Kaz raised a brow. “I’m sure you’ve heard the stories.” “Each more grotesque than the last.” Kaz had heard them, too. Brekker’s hands were stained with blood. Brekker’s hands were covered in scars. Brekker had claws and not fingers because he was part demon. Brekker’s touch burned like brimstone—a single brush of his bare skin caused your flesh to wither and die. “Pick one,” Kaz said as he vanished into the night, thoughts already turning to thirty million kruge and the crew he’d need to help him get it. “They’re all true enough.”

Most of the buildings in this part of the city had been built without foundations, many on swampy land where the canals were haphazardly dug. They leaned against each other like tipsy friends gathered at a bar, tilting at drowsy angles.

Kaz had spent his own money to have the Slat’s drafts shorn up and its walls insulated. It was ugly, crooked, and crowded, but the Slat was gloriously dry.