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the Ketterdam weather was not cooperating. There’d been no breeze off the harbor that day, and a gray milk fog had wreathed the city’s canals and crooked alleys in damp. Even here among the mansions of the Geldstraat, the air hung thick with the smell of fish and bilge water, and smoke from the refineries on the city’s outer islands had smeared the night sky in a briny haze.
The boy they called Dirtyhands didn’t need a reason any more than he needed permission—to break a leg, sever an alliance, or change a man’s fortunes with the turn of a card.
Kaz always had his reasons. Inej could just never be sure they were good ones.
He was a collection of hard lines and tailored edges—sharp jaw, lean build, wool coat snug across his shoulders.
Besides, old women must know something, or they wouldn’t live to gather wrinkles and yell from their front stoops.
Besides, she was the Wraith—the only law that applied to her was gravity, and some days she defied that, too.
“I’m a businessman,” he’d told her. “No more, no less.” “You’re a thief, Kaz.” “Isn’t that what I just said?”
A secret’s not like coin. It doesn’t keep its value in the spending.
“I trade in information, Geels, the things men do when they think no one is looking. Shame holds more value than coin ever can.”
Usually he liked the quiet; in fact, he would have happily sewn most people’s lips shut. But when she wanted to, Inej had a way of making you feel her silence. It tugged at your edges.
“Greed is your god, Kaz.” He almost laughed at that. “No, Inej. Greed bows to me. It is my servant and my lever.”
“Men mock the gods until they need them, Kaz.” He didn’t see her go, only sensed her absence.
“Fate has plans for us all, Kaz.”
It was always about money. But Kaz knew a different kind of pressure was required. Nina loved her country and loved her people. She still believed in the future of Ravka and in the Second Army, the Grisha military elite that had nearly disintegrated during the civil war. Nina’s friends back in Ravka believed she was dead, a victim of Fjerdan witchhunters, and for now, she wanted it to stay that way. But Kaz knew she hoped to return one day.
“That’s what he wants, not what he needs,” said Kaz. “Leverage is all about knowing the difference.”
Matthias was dreaming again. Dreaming of her. In all his dreams he hunted her, sometimes through the new green meadows of spring, but usually through the ice fields, dodging boulders and crevasses with unerring steps. Always he chased, and always he caught her. In the good dreams, he slammed her to the ground and throttled her, watching the life drain from her eyes, heart full of vengeance—finally, finally. In the bad dreams, he kissed her.
The sound of her voice, pleading with him. He’d dreamed of this. Sometimes she pleaded for mercy. Sometimes there were other things she begged for.
“Sleep well.” Her voice was a wolf, dogging his steps. It chased him into the dark.
“A good time needn’t involve wine and … and flesh,” Matthias sputtered. Nina batted her glossy lashes at him. “You wouldn’t know a good time if it sidled up to you and stuck a lollipop in your mouth.”
There was a Suli saying: The heart is an arrow. It demands aim to land true. Her father had liked to recite this when she was training on the wire or the swings. Be decisive, he’d say. You have to know where you want to go before you get there.
Many boys will bring you flowers. But someday you’ll meet a boy who will learn your favorite flower, your favorite song, your favorite sweet. And even if he is too poor to give you any of them, it won’t matter because he will have taken the time to know you as no one else does. Only that boy earns your heart.
I’m not sure I have a heart to give anymore, Papa.
“Why do you think you know everything about me?” “I know plenty, merchling.” “How nice for you. I feel like I’ll never know enough.”
He needed to know she believed in him.
Even the idea of being this near someone should have set his skin crawling. Instead he thought, What happens if I move closer? “I don’t want your prayers,” he said. “What do you want, then?” The old answers came easily to mind. Money. Vengeance. Jordie’s voice in my head silenced forever. But a different reply roared to life inside him, loud, insistent, and unwelcome. You, Inej. You.
“Our luck is changing,” he’d said as they curled their hands around the steaming cups, feet dangling over a little bridge, the lights of the Stave playing over the water. Kaz had looked down at their reflections on the bright surface of the canal and thought, I feel lucky now.
Kaz would always remember that moment, when he’d seen greed take hold of his brother, an invisible hand guiding him onward, the lever at work.
It was a humiliating epiphany, but he knew he could have watched her eat all day. This was one of the things he’d liked best about Nina—she savored everything,
Again she leaned in. Her cheeks were rosy from the cold, her mouth slightly open. Her lips were bare inches from his. If he sat up straighter, they’d be kissing. “You have to look at me,” she instructed. I am. He shifted his gaze to hers. Do you remember this shore, Nina?
“Nina is everything you say. It’s too much.” “Mmm,” Inej murmured, taking a sip from her mug. “Maybe you’re just not enough.”
She wasn’t sorry. 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?
“Is Inej Ghafa your real name?” A strange sound escaped Inej’s throat, part sob, part laugh, a weak, embarrassing sound, but it had been months since she’d heard her own name, her family name. “Yes,” she managed.
I need someone who can be invisible, who can become a ghost. Do you think you could do that?” I’m already a ghost, she thought. I died in the hold of a slaver ship.
“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.
It was as if once Kaz had seen her, he’d understood how to keep seeing her.
I want to call that storm,
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.
Survival wasn’t nearly as hard as he’d thought once he left decency behind.
Then the bells of the Elderclock rang out, loud and panicked, high and demanding, an escalating tide of echoes, climbing one on top of another, booming over the White Island, the ice moat, the wall.
Looking at Brum, she knew she didn’t just blame him for the things he’d done to her people; it was what he’d done to Matthias as well. He’d taken a brave, miserable boy and fed him on hate. He’d silenced Matthias’ conscience with prejudice and the promise of a divine calling that was probably nothing more than the wind moving through the branches of an ancient tree.
Drüskelle colors. Matthias had worn them with such pride. And the things he’d felt for Nina had caused him so much shame. It was still with him, maybe it always would be. He’d spent too many years full of hate for it to vanish overnight. But now the shame was an echo, and all he felt was regret—
Nina had wronged him, but she’d done it to protect her people. She’d hurt him, but she’d attempted everything in her power to make things right. She’d shown him in a thousand ways that she was honorable and strong and generous and very human, maybe more vividly human than anyone he’d ever known. And if she was, then Grisha weren’t inherently evil. They were like anyone else—full of the potential to do great good, and also great harm.
“The life you live, the hate you feel—it’s poison. I can drink it no longer.”
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.
He thought of Inej’s hand on his cheek. His mind had gone jagged at the sensation, a riot of confusion. It had been terror and disgust and—in all of that clamor—desire, a wish that lingered still, the hope that she would touch him again.
The sun was out for once, and Inej had turned her face to it. Her eyes were shut, her oil-black lashes fanned over her cheeks. The harbor wind had lifted her dark hair, and for a moment Kaz was a boy again, sure that there was magic in this world.
She’d laughed, and if he could have bottled the sound and gotten drunk on it every night, he would have. It terrified him.
Greed may do your bidding, but death serves no man.
He needed to tell her … what? That she was lovely and brave and better than anything he deserved. That he was twisted, crooked, wrong, but not so broken that he couldn’t pull himself together into some semblance of a man for her. That without meaning to, he’d begun to lean on her, to look for her, to need her near.
“Stay in Ketterdam. Stay with me.” She looked down at his gloved hand clutching hers. Everything in her wanted to say yes, but she would not settle for so little, not after all she’d been through. “What would be the point?” He took a breath. “I want you to stay. I want you to … I want you.” “You want me.” She turned the words over. Gently, she squeezed his hand. “And how will you have me, Kaz?” He looked at her then, eyes fierce, mouth set. It was the face he wore when he was fighting. “How will you have me?” she repeated. “Fully clothed, gloves on, your head turned away so our lips can never
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