Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1)

by Leigh Bardugo

Joost had two problems: the moon and his mustache.

Anya shifted the boy’s weight in her arms. “Don’t look,” she murmured against his hair. “Now,” she said to Hoede. “Pick up the knife.”

Kaz Brekker didn’t need a reason. Those were the words whispered on the streets of Ketterdam, in the taverns and coffeehouses, in the dark and bleeding alleys of the pleasure district known as the Barrel. 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. Of course they were wrong, Inej considered as she crossed the bridge over the black waters of the Beurscanal to the deserted main square that fronted the Exchange. 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’s eyes found Inej unerringly in the crowd.

Ketterdam had been buzzing about the assassination of the ambassador for weeks. It had nearly destroyed Kerch-Zemeni relations and sent the Merchant Council into an uproar. The Zemeni blamed the Kerch. The Kerch suspected the Shu. Kaz didn’t care who was responsible; the murder fascinated him because he couldn’t figure out how it had been accomplished. In one of the busiest corridors of the Stadhall, in full view of more than a dozen government officials, the Zemeni trade ambassador had stepped into a washroom. No one else had entered or left, but when his aide knocked on the door a few minutes later, there had been no answer. When they’d broken down the door, they’d found the ambassador facedown on the white tiles, a knife in his back, the sink still running.

Kaz hated a puzzle he couldn’t solve,

“Go on, give those guns over,” Dirix said to Jesper. With a great sigh, Jesper removed the gun belts at his hips. She had to admit he looked less himself without them. 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?” “Compromise,” Kaz said. “I’m sorry does the trick and uses fewer bullets.” Dirix laughed, but Inej noted that he cradled Jesper’s revolvers very gently.

“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.”

“This is a mistake,” she said. Big Bolliger startled; he hadn’t known she was standing there. Inej heard the name the Dregs preferred for her whispered among their ranks—the Wraith.

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.

“Care to place a wager?” Jesper asked. “I’m not going to bet on my own death.” Kaz flipped his hat onto his head and ran his gloved fingers along the brim in a quick salute. “Why not, Bolliger? We do it every day.” He was right. Inej’s debt to Per Haskell meant she gambled her life every time she took on a new job or assignment, every time she left her room at the Slat. Tonight was no different.

“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 stood on her toes and tentatively felt along the top of the cornice. It had been covered in ground glass. I am expected, she thought with grim pleasure.

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.

“I’m a businessman,” he’d told her. “No more, no less.” “You’re a thief, Kaz.” “Isn’t that what I just said?”

Everyone knows you’re the spine of Haskell’s operation—snap it and the Dregs collapse.” Jesper snorted. “Stomach, spine. What’s next, spleen?” “Shut it,” Oomen snarled. The rules of parley dictated that only the lieutenants could speak once negotiations had begun. Jesper mouthed “sorry” and elaborately pantomimed locking his lips shut.

But it’ll be worth it for the prize.” “That being me?” “That being you.” “I’m flattered.” “The Dregs won’t last a week without you.” “I’d give them a month on sheer momentum.”

That was when Inej saw Kaz still hadn’t moved. “You don’t look well, Geels.” “I’m just fine,” he said. But he wasn’t. He looked pale and shaky. His eyes were darting right and left as if searching the shadowed walkway of the roof. “Are you?” Kaz asked conversationally. “Things aren’t going quite as planned, are they?” “Kaz,” Jesper said. “Bolliger’s bleeding bad—” “Good,” said Kaz. “Kaz, he needs a medik!” Kaz spared the wounded man the barest glance. “What he needs to do is stop his bellyaching and be glad I didn’t have Holst take him down with a head shot.” Even from above, Inej saw Geels flinch. “That’s the guard’s name, isn’t it?” Kaz asked. “Willem Holst and Bert Van Daal—the two city guards on duty tonight. The ones you emptied the Black Tips’ coffers to bribe?” Geels said nothing. “Willem Holst,” Kaz said loudly, his voice floating up to the roof, “likes to gamble almost as much as Jesper does, so your money held a lot of appeal. But Holst has much bigger problems—let’s call them urges. I won’t go into detail. A secret’s not like coin. It doesn’t keep its value in the spending. You’ll just have to trust me when I say this one would turn even your stomach. Isn’t that right, Holst?” The response was another gunshot. It struck the cobblestones near Geels’ feet. Geels released a shocked bleat and sprang back.

“Just shoot him, Holst!” Geels bellowed, desperation sawing at his voice. “Shoot him in the head!” Kaz snorted in disgust. “Do you really think that secret would die with me? Go on, Holst,” he called. “Put a bullet in my skull. There will be messengers sprinting to your wife and your watch captain’s door before I hit the ground.” No shot came. “How?” Geels said bitterly. “How did you even know who would be on duty tonight? I had to pay through the gills to get that roster. You couldn’t have outbid me.” “Let’s say my currency carries more sway.” “Money is money.” “I trade in information, Geels, the things men do when they think no one is looking. Shame holds more value than coin ever can.”

He was grandstanding, Inej saw that, buying her time as she leapt over the slate shingles. “Are you worrying about the second guard? Good old Bert Van Daal?” Kaz asked. “Maybe he’s up there right now, wondering what he should do. Shoot me? Shoot Holst? Or maybe I got to him, too, and he’s getting ready to blow a hole in your chest, Geels.” He leaned in as if he and Geels were sharing a great secret. “Why not give Van Daal the order and find out?” Geels opened and closed his mouth like a carp, then bellowed, “Van Daal!” Just as Van Daal parted his lips to answer, Inej slipped up behind him and placed a blade to his throat. She’d barely had time to pick out his shadow and slide down the roof tiles. Saints, Kaz liked to cut it close. “Shhhh,” she whispered in Van Daal’s ear. She gave him a tiny jab in the side so that he could feel the point of her second dagger pressed against his kidney. “Please,” he moaned. “I—” “I like it when men beg,” she said. “But this isn’t the time for it.”

There was rage on his face when he turned back to Kaz. “Always one step ahead, aren’t you?” “Geels, when it comes to you, I’d say I have a running start.”

Geels smirked. “Kaz Brekker, the great escape artist. How are you going to wriggle your way out of this one?” “Going out the same way I came in.” Kaz ignored the pistol, turning his attention to the big man lying on the ground.

“All right, I’ll tell you. You’re lazy. I know it. Everyone knows it. So I had to ask myself why my laziest bouncer was getting up early twice a week to walk two extra miles to Cilla’s Fry for breakfast, especially when the eggs are so much better at the Kooperom. Big Bol becomes an early riser, the Black Tips start throwing their weight around Fifth Harbor and then intercept our biggest shipment of jurda. It wasn’t a tough connection to make.” He sighed and said to Geels, “This is what happens when stupid people start making big plans, ja?”

Maybe your guards get me or my guys, but no way you’re going to dodge this bullet.” Kaz stepped into the barrel of the gun so that it was pressed directly against his chest. “No way at all, Geels.” “You think I won’t do it?” “Oh, I think you’d do it gladly, with a song in your black heart. But you won’t. Not tonight.” Geels’ finger twitched on the trigger. “Kaz,” Jesper said. “This whole ‘shoot me’ thing is starting to concern me.”

“She lives at Nineteen Burstraat,” Kaz said in his gravelly rasp. “Three floors up, geraniums in the window boxes. There are two Dregs waiting outside her door right now, and if I don’t walk out of here whole and feeling righteous, they will set that place alight from floor to rooftop. It will go up in seconds, burning from both ends with poor Elise trapped in the middle. Her blonde hair will catch first. Like the wick of a candle.” “You’re bluffing,” said Geels, but his pistol hand was trembling. Kaz lifted his head and inhaled deeply. “Getting late now. You heard the siren. I smell the harbor on the wind, sea and salt, and maybe—is that smoke I smell, too?” There was pleasure in his voice.

“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.”

Then Kaz’s cane swung in a sudden sharp arc. Geels screamed as his wrist bones shattered. The gun clattered to the paving stones. “I stood down!” cried Geels, cradling his hand. “I stood down!” “You draw on me again, I’ll break both your wrists, and you’ll have to hire someone to help you take a piss.” Kaz tipped the brim of his hat up with the head of his cane. “Or maybe you can get the lovely Elise to do it for you.”

Geels shook his head. “There’s something wrong with you, Brekker. I don’t know what you are, but you’re not made right.” Kaz cocked his head to one side. “You’re from the suburbs, aren’t you, Geels? Came to the city to try your luck?” He smoothed his lapel with one gloved hand. “Well, I’m the kind of bastard they only manufacture in the Barrel.”

Inej pitied the boy who might die alone with no one to comfort him in his last hours or who might live and spend his life as an exile. But the night’s work wasn’t yet over, and the Wraith didn’t have time for traitors.

He knew Inej was shadowing him. She’d been with him all the way from the Exchange.

Finally he gave in and said, “Spit it out already, Wraith.” Her voice came from the dark. “You didn’t send anyone to Burstraat.” “Why would I?” “If Geels doesn’t get there in time—” “No one’s setting fires at Nineteen Burstraat.” “I heard the siren…” “A happy accident. I take inspiration where I find it.” “You were bluffing, then. She was never in danger.” Kaz shrugged, unwilling to give her an answer. Inej was always trying to wring little bits of decency from him.

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

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

“How did you know I would get to Van Daal in time?” she asked. “Because you always do.”

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

He didn’t see her go, only sensed her absence.

Damn it, Kaz thought, am I under arrest? If so, this merch was in for a surprise. Thanks to Inej, he had information on every judge, bailiff, and high councilman in Kerch. He’d be out of his cell before sunrise.

“Since you didn’t bring me here to philosophize, what business?” It was the question spoken at the opening of any meeting. A greeting from a peer, not a plea from a prisoner.

“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’re a blackmailer—” “I broker information.” “A con artist—” “I create opportunity.” “A bawd and a murderer—” “I don’t run whores, and I kill for a cause.” “And what cause is that?” “Same as yours, merch. Profit.”

“How do you get your information, Mister Brekker?” “You might say I’m a lockpick.” “You must be a very gifted one.” “I am indeed.” Kaz leaned back slightly. “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.

“Our sources say he is very much alive and that he is awaiting trial.” Van Eck cleared his throat. “At the Ice Court.” Kaz stared at Van Eck for a long minute, then burst out laughing. “Well, it’s been a pleasure being knocked unconscious and taken captive by you, Van Eck. You can be sure your hospitality will be repaid when the time is right. Now have one of your lackeys show me to the door.” “We’re prepared to offer you five million kruge.” Kaz pocketed the pistol. He wasn’t afraid for his life now, just irritated that this fink had wasted his time. “This may come as a surprise to you, Van Eck, but we canal rats value our lives just as much as you do yours.” “Ten million.” “There’s no point to a fortune I won’t be alive to spend. Where’s my hat—did your Tidemaker leave it behind in the alley?” “Twenty.” Kaz paused.

“The Ice Court has never been breached.” “That’s why we need you, Mister Brekker.

“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.”

“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 I’ll have to settle for you.” Van Eck held Kaz’s gaze as if he hoped to find a confession written between his eyes.

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.”

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.

The deal is the deal.” “The deal is the deal,” Kaz said. They shook.

“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.”