Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1)

by Leigh Bardugo

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

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.

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.

“Great. This is just like shooting clay pigeons, but they make a different sound when you hit one.”

Kaz knew death. He could feel its presence on the ship now, looming over them, ready to take his Wraith. He was covered in her blood.

He’d helped her build a legend to wear as armor, something bigger and more frightening than the girl she’d been.

“Okay, okay. When we’re back in Ketterdam, take me out for waffles.” Now Inej did laugh. She dropped her hands and appeared to speculate. “Dessert for a life? I’m not sure that seems equitable.” “I expect really good waffles.”

He’d never liked the ocean, the sense of the unknown beneath his feet, that something hungry and full of teeth might be waiting to drag him under. And that was how he felt every day now, even on land.

Even those few words raised the memories, clamoring for attention.

“No mourners.” “No funerals,”

He’d left his crow’s head cane aboard the Ferolind and substituted a less conspicuous walking stick. Jesper had mournfully left behind his prized pearl-handled revolvers in favor of a pair of unornamented guns, and Inej had done the same with her extraordinary set of knives and daggers, keeping only those she could bear to part with when they entered the prison. Practical choices, but Matthias knew that talismans had their power.

And that was the way they went on, sniping at each other, just like that first night in the water, keeping each other alive, refusing to acknowledge that they were growing weaker, that if they didn’t find a real town soon, they weren’t going to last much longer.

“Oh, I see. I’m the wicked Grisha seductress. I have beguiled you with my Grisha wiles!” She poked him in the chest. “Stop that.” “No. I’m beguiling you.” “Quit it.” She danced around him in the snow, poking his chest, his stomach, his side. “Goodness! You’re very solid. This is strenuous work.” He started to laugh. “It’s working! The beguiling has begun. The Fjerdan has fallen. You are powerless to resist me. You—”

“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.

He still went by Kaz, as he always had, but he stole the name Brekker off a piece of machinery he’d seen on the docks. Rietveld, his family name, was abandoned, cut away like a rotten limb. It was a country name, his last tie to Jordie and his father and the boy he’d been.

“You love trickery.” “I love puzzles. Trickery is just my native tongue.”

“The life you live, the hate you feel—it’s poison. I can drink it no longer.”

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.

She’d laughed, and if he could have bottled the sound and gotten drunk on it every night, he would have. It terrified him.

We are all someone’s monster, Nina.”