Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1)

by Leigh Bardugo

Inej knew the moment Kaz entered the Slat. His presence reverberated through the cramped rooms and crooked hallways as every thug, thief, dealer, con man, and steerer came a little more awake. Per Haskell’s favored lieutenant was home.

“If I want to watch men dig holes to fall into, I’ll find myself a cemetery.”

You couldn’t train a falcon, then expect it not to hunt.

It was his hands that drew her attention as he shucked off his leather gloves and dipped a cloth in the washbasin. He only ever removed them in these chambers, and as far as she knew, only in front of her.

Kaz finished with his buttons, pulled on a charcoal waistcoat, and tossed her something. It flashed in the air, and she caught it with one hand. When she opened her fist, she saw a massive ruby tie pin circled by golden laurel leaves. “Fence it,” Kaz said. “Whose is it?” “Ours now.” “Whose was it?” Kaz stayed quiet. He picked up his coat, using a brush to clean the dried mud from it. “Someone who should have thought better before he had me jumped.” “Jumped?” “You heard me.” “Someone got the drop on you?” He looked at her and nodded once. Unease snaked through her and twisted into an anxious, rustling coil. No one got the better of Kaz. He was the toughest, scariest thing walking the alleys of the Barrel. She relied on it. So did he. “It won’t happen again,” he promised.

Move the DeKappel we lifted from Van Eck’s house to the vault. I think it’s rolled up under my bed.

“Please, my darling Inej, treasure of my heart, won’t you do me the honor of acquiring me a new hat?”

“Brick by brick,” he muttered to himself. They were the only words that kept his rage in check, that prevented him from striding through the Emerald’s garish gold-and-green doors, demanding a private audience with Rollins, and slitting his throat. Brick by brick. It was the promise that let him sleep at night, that drove him every day, that kept Jordie’s ghost at bay. Because a quick death was too good for Pekka Rollins.

Brick by brick, I will destroy you.

“Fate has plans for us all, Kaz.”

Nina just liked to flirt with everything. He’d once seen her make eyes at a pair of shoes she fancied in a shop window.

No one else moved liked that, as if the world were smoke and she was just passing through it.

“What can you tell me about Per Haskell?” Nina had asked that night. “Not much,” Inej had admitted. “He’s no better or worse than most of the bosses in the Barrel.” “And Kaz Brekker?” “A liar, a thief, and utterly without conscience. But he’ll keep to any deal you strike with him.”

“He freed you from the Menagerie?” “There is no freedom in the Barrel, only good terms. Tante Heleen’s girls never earn out of their contracts. She makes sure they don’t. She—” Inej had broken off then, and Nina had sensed the vibrant anger coursing through her. “Kaz convinced Per Haskell to pay off my indenture. I would have died at the Menagerie.” “You may still die in the Dregs.” Inej’s dark eyes had glinted. “I may. But I’ll die on my feet with a knife in my hand.”

“Nina—” Inej murmured. “Don’t you start in on me.” “It will all work out. Let Kaz do what he does best.” “He’s horrible.” “But effective. Being angry at Kaz for being ruthless is like being angry at a stove for being hot. You know what he is.”

Nina crossed her arms. “I’m mad at you, too.” “Me? Why?” “I don’t know yet. I just am.” Inej gave Nina’s hand a brief squeeze, and after a moment, Nina squeezed back.

“How down?” It was a Barrel turn of phrase. How badly do you want him hurt? “Shut eye.” Knock him out, but don’t actually hurt him.

“Need your escort?” the guard asked as they approached. “I had a question,” said Kaz. Beneath her cape, Nina lifted her hands, sensing the flow of blood in the guard’s veins, the tissue of his lungs. “About your mother and whether the rumors are true.” Nina felt the guard’s pulse leap and sighed. “Never can make it easy, can you, Kaz?”

It took Kaz a few quick heartbeats to pick the lock.

“Just trust me, Nina.” “I wouldn’t trust you to tie my shoes without stealing the laces, Kaz.”

Nina looked Muzzen up and down. “This is going to hurt just as much as if you’d been in the fight yourself,” she warned. He scrunched up his face, bracing for the pain. “I can take it.” She rolled her eyes, then lifted her hands, concentrating. With a sharp slice of her right hand over her left, she snapped Muzzen’s ribs. He let out a grunt and doubled over. “That’s a good boy,” said Kaz. “Taking it like a champion.

“Why would you agree to do this?” Nina murmured. The swollen flesh of Muzzen’s face quivered, and Nina thought he might be trying to smile. “Money was good,” he said thickly. She sighed. Why else did anyone do anything in the Barrel? “Good enough to get locked up in Hellgate?” Kaz tapped his cane on the cell floor. “Stop making trouble, Nina. If Helvar cooperates, he and Muzzen will both have their freedom just as soon as the job is done.” “And if he doesn’t?” “Then Helvar gets locked back in his cell, and Muzzen still gets paid. And I’ll take him to breakfast at the Kooperom.” “Can I have waffles?” Muzzen mumbled. “We’ll all have waffles. And whiskey. If this job doesn’t come off, no one’s going to want to be around me sober.

Matthias was dreaming again. Dreaming of her.

In the bad dreams, he kissed her.

Traitor, witch, abomination. All those words came to him, but others crowded in, too: beautiful, charmed one. Röed fetla, he’d called her, little red bird, for the color of her Grisha Order. The color she loved.

“Get hold of yourself, Helvar. We’re here to break you out. I can do to your leg what I did to your arm, and we can drag you out of here, or you can leave like a man, on two feet.” “No one gets out of Hellgate,” Matthias said. “Tonight they do.”

“You opened the cages.” Nina’s voice was shaky with disbelief, though who knew what might be real or performance with her. He refused to look in her direction. If he did, he’d lose all sense of reality. He was barely hanging on as it was. “Jesper was supposed to wait until three bells,” said the pale boy. “It is three bells, Kaz,” replied a small girl in the corner with dark hair and deep bronze Suli skin. A figure covered in welts and bandages was leaning against her. “Since when is Jesper punctual?” the boy complained with a glance at his watch.

He stepped into the throng and was instantly hauled back. “Boys like you weren’t meant to get ideas, Helvar,” said Kaz.

“You were early, Jesper,” Kaz said as he nudged Matthias toward the boat. “I was on time.” “For you, that’s early. Next time you plan to impress me give me some warning.” “The animals are out, and I found you a boat. This is when a thank-you would be in order.” “Thank you, Jesper,” said Nina. “You’re very welcome, gorgeous. See, Kaz? That’s how the civilized folk do.”

In a windowless room draped in black and crimson, Matthias listened silently to the strange words coming out of the pale, freakish boy’s mouth. Matthias knew monsters, and one glance at Kaz Brekker had told him this was a creature who had spent too long in the dark—he’d brought something back with him when he’d crawled into the light.

He’d heard Brekker’s name in prison, and the words associated with him—criminal prodigy, ruthless, amoral. They called him Dirtyhands because there was no sin he would not commit for the right price.

Kaz slipped a hand into his dark coat. “Here,” he said, and gave a piece of paper to the bronze girl. Another demon. This one walked with soft feet like she’d drifted in from the next world and no one had the good sense to send her back.

Now he did laugh, long and hard. His body twitched with it, as if it were poison constricting his muscles. The others watched him with some concern. “Just how crazy is he?” asked Jesper, fingers drumming on the pearl handles of his revolvers. Brekker shrugged. “He’s not what I’d call reliable, but he’s all we’ve got.”

“The lovely girl freeing you is Inej, our thief of secrets and the best in the trade. Jesper Fahey is our sharpshooter, Zemeni-born but try not to let him wax sentimental about it, and this is Wylan, best demolitions expert in the Barrel.”

Jesper stared at Wylan. “Of course you’re a Councilman’s kid.” He burst out laughing. “That explains everything.” He knew he should be angry at Kaz for holding back yet another vital piece of information, but right now, he was just enjoying watching the little revelation of Wylan Van Eck’s identity go careening around the room like an ornery colt kicking up dust. Wylan was red-faced and mortified. Nina looked stunned and irritated. The Fjerdan just seemed confused. Kaz appeared utterly pleased with himself. And, of course, Inej didn’t look remotely surprised. She gathered Kaz’s secrets and kept them as well.

“Take out your pen and proper paper, Wylan. Let’s put Helvar to work.” Wylan reached into the satchel at his feet and pulled out a slender roll of butcher’s paper followed by a metal case that held an expensive-looking pen and ink set. “How nice,” Jesper noted. “A nib for every occasion.” “Start talking,” Kaz said to the Fjerdan. “It’s time to pay the rent.” Matthias directed his furious gaze at Kaz. Definitely a mighty glower. It was almost fun to watch him pit it against Kaz’s sharklike stare.

“Usually people don’t start hating each other until a week into the job, but you two have a head start.” They cast him twin glares, and Jesper beamed back at them,

Kaz cocked his head to one side, his eyes focused on something in the distance. “Scheming face,” Jesper whispered to Inej. She nodded. “Definitely.”

“Always hit where the mark isn’t looking.” “Who’s Mark?” asked Wylan.

Kaz leaned back. “What’s the easiest way to steal a man’s wallet?” “Knife to the throat?” asked Inej. “Gun to the back?” said Jesper. “Poison in his cup?” suggested Nina. “You’re all horrible,” said Matthias. Kaz rolled his eyes.

“The easiest way to steal a man’s wallet is to tell him you’re going to steal his watch. You take his attention and direct it where you want it to go.

“This can be done,” said Kaz, “and we’re the ones to do it.” Jesper felt the mood shift in the room as possibility took hold. It was a subtle thing, but he’d learned to look for it at the tables—the moment a player came awake to the fact that he might have a winning hand.

Inej traced her finger over the rough sketch Wylan had produced, a series of embedded circles. “It really does look like the rings of a tree,” she said. “No,” said Kaz. “It looks like a target.”

“Where is the pardon?” Helvar growled. “I saw you put it in your pocket.” Kaz crouched down beside him and produced the folded document from a pocket that had seemed empty just a moment before. “This?” The Fjerdan flopped his useless arms, then released a low animal growl as Kaz made the pardon vanish in thin air. It reappeared between his fingers. He turned it once, flashing the text, then ran his hand over it, and showed Helvar the seemingly blank page. “Demjin,” muttered Helvar. Kaz didn’t speak Fjerdan, but that word he knew. Demon.

Kaz knocked his cane gently against Helvar’s jaw. “For every trick you’ve seen, I know a thousand more.

“You can’t spend his money if you’re dead.” “I’ll acquire expensive habits in the afterlife.”

The heart is an arrow. It demands aim to land true.

A friend of mine liked to tell me that women love flowers. He had many flirtations, but he never found a wife. Do you know why? Because women may love flowers, but only one woman loves the scent of gardenias in late summer that remind her of her grandmother’s porch. Only one woman loves apple blossoms in a blue cup. Only one woman loves wild geraniums. That’s Mama! Inej had cried. Yes, Mama loves wild geraniums because no other flower has quite the same color, and she claims that when she snaps the stem and puts a sprig behind her ear, the whole world smells like summer. 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.

“Head east to the next dock, board at berth twenty-two,” Kaz said. “What’s at berth twenty-two?” “The real Ferolind.” “But—” “The boat that blew was a decoy.” “You knew?” “No, I took precautions. It’s what I do, Jesper.” “You could have told us we—” “That would defeat the purpose of a decoy. Get moving.”

He didn’t stop to rest. He hooked his bad leg in the rigging, ignoring the pain, checked the sight on his rifle, and began picking off anyone in range. Four million kruge, he told himself as he reloaded and found another enemy in his sights. The mist made visibility poor, but this was the skill that had kept him in the Dregs even after his debts had mounted and it had become clear that Jesper loved the cards more than luck loved him.